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leliel_12[Trigger warning: Described sex, ‘humorous’ sexual assault, mind rape, and groping, general misogyny, biphobia, biphobic misogyny, brainwashing, suicide and mutilation. Basically, this chapter sucks.]
[Image heavy]
[Link to mirror on Das_Sporking]
[Back in the Sporking Chamber, where we have three new guests - who, by expression, now want to be anywhere else.]
Gray-Haired Youth: I…what?
Glowing Redhead: [Bland, frozen smile while screaming for the sweet release of death with her eyes] Well that was…an interesting description.
Short Catgirl: …No. No, nae, never, not doing it, never in a million years- [runs for the exit]
Leliel: [Closes shutter doors] Yep, good reason to install those…oh hey! Welcome back to the spork, where we have read our guest sporkers in on the job and…well, reacted as we expected them to. [Dodges catgirl nails]
Emma: In our defense, there’s no good way to be eased into Thousand Shinji.
Wanderer2691: Yeah, we chose to be honest about it, and how much of a harem focus this chapter is…and what we expect of Tzeentchji in this.
Gray-Haired Youth: And…and this is a ‘hero’ to this prick’s world, huh? Makes you think Malos had the right idea…and for similar reasons, at that. It doesn’t even look fun from the horny perspective to have girls this…obsessive over you.
Glowing Redhead: That’s because you’re a decent person at all, Rex. And…I suppose we need a quick rundown, so we can get this over with quickly. Nia?
Nia: [Hisses in defeated frustration] …Fine. If it gets us out of here faster and leads to this arsehole being sealed far away from our world…I’ll let Rex start off while I take a few breaths to avoid my introduction being one long string of swears.
Leliel: Trust us, you wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos
Timeline GNX-2014-3 (Xothian Classification)
Sol Sector, Earth, Geosynchronous Near-Orbit
The soldiers of the Tsan-Chan, the Shining Orchestra as they liked to term themselves, were a force forged in endless war. Unlike the Last Redoubt, which preferred to establish political growth through alliance and remain peacefully insular, the Cruel Empire was always at war with something, or preparing for it; one could say it was core to their viewpoint, that human survival and prosperity depended on casting away weaker emotions like compassion or selfish desires for liberty in favor of brute but cunning strength and the selfless desire for the prosperity of the all, with fame of and rewards the self naturally following acts of heroism. Even deeper sublimation into the gestalt consciousness the Chani graciously provided as part of their biomantic arts was a given, turning a group of soldiers into a single many-bodied will stronger than any of its components in a matter of days, with all their skills and talents shared in the Unit-Mind so that any one of them was only as ignorant as the most knowledgeable and as untalented as the greatest warrior in the squad. The particular detachment meant to collect the Eva was affiliated with the Legion of House Za-Shan, the personal troops of the noble line of engineers and workers of earth, and the percussion section of the Orchestra, in the extended metaphor - the driving beat of innovation and industry that kept the rest of the Orchestra’s tempo with insight and infrastructure, and beat at the heart of every engagement, meaning that each of their Unit-Minds made themselves brilliant with the addition of the best artificers and engineers in the entire army.
That knowledge meant they were able to recognize what hit them.
Unit-04 never had a soul, or pilot, fully installed. It might have been meant for Kensuke Aida, it might not have, but the cloned body was soulless and unmoving during the ill-advised S2 experiment that banished it into a Dirac sea along with most of NERV’s second branch. When it came back, it had adapted to the strange angles between universes, and could now hop slightly out of phase with local reality and slightly into the atemporal realm of Tindalos, located nowhere but touching everywhere - as it was every when. This gave it unmatched mobility among all Evangelions - and stealth, as it could hold the image of itself in time in its old spot for a good period, making it seem completely unmoving and silent as the actual present Eva slowly shuddered to life, Wakaba fully expanding inside as Futaba gingerly tuned her Persona to do a reasonable amount of synchronization with it.
Once done, however, Futaba had the exact experience needed to open a Dirac sea again - this time right under the airdock for their strange flying ships, before charging out through a wall.
The daemons proved a bit more of a challenge than the off-guard and, for the situation of an enormous war cyborg suddenly being awakened and attacking it from the inside, unprepared garrison; the flaming wyrms quickly turned to the rampaging bio-mecha and screeched in crackling voices that echoed both snapping fires and the leathery impact of jackboots on concrete, as the will-less daemons turned to strike at the Eva in the emotionless frenzy of a truly mindless horde, little more than the disposable extensions of masters who did not feel at risk; less to do with berserk rage and more the stubborn attacks of a player character in a Souls game, where each attack was made in the expectation of defeat to learn the pattern of the enemy and experiment with new tactics. As what were effectively living AT Fields holding Warp energy together, the Eva could strike at them, but it was meant for Angels, not daemons. It was not adapted to a swarm of smaller things.
That was where the others came in.
One wyrm’s head disappeared in a blast of holy fire, as a blessed shell from Nocht detonated napalm mixed with ritually blessed holy oil toxic to what tied daemonic essence to manifested pseudo-flesh. In the brief confusion of the daemonic slaves as they lost all direction, a rain of exorcizing light was unleashed upon them as Shinobu unleashed his strongest Light-aligned Personas on them, mostly correctly assessing that they were all creatures of Curse and darkness. A few of the Tzeentchian daemons turned out to outright absorb it, but that’s where a series of screeching fungal beasts Diego was able to source from his Mi-go contacts were able to pick up the slack, while Mondo flew in to heal the hellfire-induced injuries.
If it had to stand and fight, it might have been a different story, but it didn’t need that - just long enough for Trazyn’s wing of Night Scythes to merge the personal wormholes they normally used to deploy Necron invasion troops and form a passage out, assisted by its own newfound dimensional shifting abilities.
And thus, did Futaba come out in her impromptu plug suit, breathing heavily.
“That…was…so cool. Goddamned terrifying. But cool. Woo!” She slumped against the railing. “Also, about to fall unconscious. I barely got enough synchronization to get it to move, I could tell…”
Corax looked over the great mecha. “...huh. Looking at this Titan…I can see the appeal in small, but deadly. Even with a princeps as unpracticed and unadapted to it as Lady Sakura - a term I do not mean as an insult, the very fact she is not currently a white-haired, barely breathing gnome-like shell attempting to reconnect to the mind impulse unit to feel whole again is proof she has quite a bit of talent, rushed as her training was to fit the ‘literal first time’ window of opportunity - it was quite capable of instantly rendering that blasphemous would-be Tyranid/Mechanicus hybrid of an army completely insensate. I doubt it if would even require much paint were it not for those daemons.”
“Maybe, but at what cost, brother?”, Vulkan asked. “As amoral as we can be, it seems a bit, uh, asshole ta ask every teen to give up their mudda so they can NOT EVEN GET PERMA-BIGGA.”
“That is true, and it is spectacularly galling I feel this would be a minority opinion among the raving pack of fanatical psychoses that is most of the Inquisition,” Corax said, grimly. “But as it is…greetings to you as well, Magos Isshiki.”
The Eva’s eyes pulsed blue in greeting.
Trazyn looked immensely proud of himself and his species, the robotic jaw somehow managing to grin despite being unmoving. “Orikan has outdone himself once again. The sheer mass material that Dr. Munoz gave us in the more biological manipulation of souls - I will treasure how our dear Diviner actually smiled. He didn’t even attempt to snipe at me, that was how cheered he was!”
“It’ll be even more informative to extract Wakaba once we’re done, because let’s face it, being in a giant war-servitor for eternity isn’t a good thing.” Diego shrugged. “Though I imagine, given how Orikan wants to find a way to turn Necrons into energy-based beings, it’s something he won’t be adverse to either.”
“Most certainly not!”, Trazyn said, happily. “It will be fascinating to see what happens when biotransference carries the soul as well - but I digress, how is our pilot doing?”
“Shit. Feeling happy I’m able to see mom one last time…and with a message,” Futaba said, suddenly frowning. “I had enough to know that…mom wants Nocht here. She has something to show him…and the Primarchs.”
Said Primarchs looked at each other in alarm before Corax wordlessly went off to fetch the assassin, as Trazyn registered a request from Unit-04’s computer to connect to a hologram projector. By the time Nocht had finished his “preparation recaf”, there was a slightly greenish play button hanging in the air.
There was no words. Only a grim nod to see what new madness would be revealed.
As the static resolved into an image, it became quite clear it was a visual feed from the Eva’s eyes-
“-and as you can see, the ocular cameras are working well,” what looked to be what would happen if you dressed a formless glob of shifting flesh the color and texture of clay, studded with gems that glittered like stars, in golden, kingly robes and gave an oaken mask as a face - one that shifted between emotions instantly in place of actual changing expressions - said to their guest in a voice that sounded like wind through trees. “One of our best workings, even speaking as a Mighty Child of Za-Shan - the biomancy is remarkably advanced, even for us, and it took some effort to adapt.”
“It is not you who will decide whether it is a fine instance of the fleshsmith’s art,” the other party in the conversation said, a cold, grating, frustrated tone that was utterly incongruous coming out of such a youthful body. “You are refurbishing this weapon for me; you are only permitted to boast if I find it pleasing.”
The breaths of everyone watching caught in their throat at the sight of what appeared to be Shinji Ikari talking with the shapeless smith.
Except this Shinji did not have the white shirt and slacks of his canon self - not even the Egyptian cotton of his corrupted self. Rather, his clothes were now ostentatious armor overlaying his whole body, colored in tarnished gold and dark green.
A very familiar shade of dark green, to Vulkan.
The Za-Shan bristled, mask changing to one of hurt pride and irritation for a second before flashing back to a cheerful, supportive smile. “Rest assured, I have no doubt this is but a mere delay, Great Black Dragon.”
“Hm. It had better be,” the Shinji-who-was-not grumbled back, and Futaba realized something else - he did not have a Japanese accent. He spoke it rather well, but there was something else - the Za-Shan had his own non-native accent, but it was not far from the Mid-Atlantic trill of high class Americans and Europeans to be recognized as a native of the region in the distant future. But there was something…musical about the not-Shinji’s. Something that sounded too…joyus to come out of his mouth and his grim, cold expression.
With that, the Not-Boy turned to the cameras, revealing his eyes were no longer recognizable as human - or not anymore. In its place was something reptilian. Something…draconic.
“I do not know if this machine will remember when I have set it to my Legion - but if so, I will tell the core. You may have many pilots or one, one soul or many - but this Evangelion is my treasure. Not anyone else’s. I will only give claim to it upon my death, and I shall never die.”
And then, the rest stopped looking human too - it was like a great black claw had briefly pulled aside the mask that was the body of Shinji Ikari to give a hint of the face - the true form.
And the form was a great black wyvern the size of a mountain.
And it was the fetus of a god.
And it was a fire that melted all distinction, all treasure, all souls away to be reforged into something useful.
And it was greed and tyranny and the all-too-easy desire to see all around you as mere objects to collect and curate.
And it was a man with glowing red eyes and onyx scales for skin, with a great melted lightning scar on his side, with a cold anger and desire in his eyes.
And it was, to Vulkan and Corax both, all too familiar.
“When you have this beast-body, you belong to Vulkan, the Black Dragon, Victor Over Death, the Primarch of the Eighteenth. And soon, the Fifth God of Chaos. Please me and you shall be as my scepter, and have all the authority I may grant. Betray me…”
The nightmare image of the Lord of Drakes reached out with his hand that was a claw and a truth and a lie and a metaphor for control, and with white-hot tip, drew a stylized roaring dragon. One that, somehow, all knew would devour the mind of all those it was upon.
“Kneel or be knelt, as my sons say,” he finished, in a tone that his remaining Nocturnian accent made come off as tauntingly sing-song, before the mask returned, and Not-Shinji turned to his interlocutor, whose mask had become utterly blank-faced - refusing to show any emotion at all, especially fear.
And the record ended.
Nocht found his voice first. “...That brand. I remember now…”
He lifted a sleeve to reveal where something the same dimensions of the brand was cut away. “They found me…my world’s Salamanders. I was given the brand…but I had will to resist my soul becoming nothing but a machine. Nothing but obedience. Because…I thought a comrade being eaten by a Blood Angel was unfair. And I cut it off. I…I didn’t want to remember my life as a slave of theirs. That’s why I asked that the mind cleanse…”
He trailed off, looking at Vulkan, who just…stared.
As if looking at where the projection was would make that horrid sight of his own face vanish, praying it was a mere nightmare.
“...I…” Corax cleared his throat. “I think my brother may wish to be alone for a while. And after that….we have work to do.”
(A/N: Behold, my thesis statement; that Tzeentchji is such a stereotypically greedy, petty, and outright immature snot that he’s basically a mask for the Vulkan of the Roboutian Heresy…the version of him who became more or less a science fantasy version of Nagash from Warhammer Fantasy.
Nagash, the man who probably singlehandedly proved himself worse than most Chaos worshipers combined, all without being corrupted. Trust me, the parallels only grow from here.)
[Image heavy]
[Link to mirror on Das_Sporking]
[Back in the Sporking Chamber, where we have three new guests - who, by expression, now want to be anywhere else.]
Gray-Haired Youth: I…what?
Glowing Redhead: [Bland, frozen smile while screaming for the sweet release of death with her eyes] Well that was…an interesting description.
Short Catgirl: …No. No, nae, never, not doing it, never in a million years- [runs for the exit]
Leliel: [Closes shutter doors] Yep, good reason to install those…oh hey! Welcome back to the spork, where we have read our guest sporkers in on the job and…well, reacted as we expected them to. [Dodges catgirl nails]
Emma: In our defense, there’s no good way to be eased into Thousand Shinji.
Wanderer2691: Yeah, we chose to be honest about it, and how much of a harem focus this chapter is…and what we expect of Tzeentchji in this.
Gray-Haired Youth: And…and this is a ‘hero’ to this prick’s world, huh? Makes you think Malos had the right idea…and for similar reasons, at that. It doesn’t even look fun from the horny perspective to have girls this…obsessive over you.
Glowing Redhead: That’s because you’re a decent person at all, Rex. And…I suppose we need a quick rundown, so we can get this over with quickly. Nia?
Nia: [Hisses in defeated frustration] …Fine. If it gets us out of here faster and leads to this arsehole being sealed far away from our world…I’ll let Rex start off while I take a few breaths to avoid my introduction being one long string of swears.
Leliel: Trust us, you wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.
Rex: Right then, let’s get this show on the road!
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/XenobladeChronicles2MainProtagonists)
Rex: Rex, Driver of the Aegis and professional salvager, at your service! Well, less so the latter now that Alrest has some actual continents as opposed to just Titans, so there’s less Cloud Sea to delve and less need for salvage, but it’s a living, and I’m probably the best at it. Currently, also the filler for this Taion guy when it comes to giving this Tzeentchji guy a verbal roast. Though by the end of it, I’ll be surprised if Pyra isn’t tempted to make it more literal.
Pyra: …I’m actually kind of glad Mythra isn’t here then, because I’m not sure the building would be standing by the midpoint - oh! I suppose I volunteered to be next then! Ahem:
(https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Pyra)
Pyra: I am the Pnumena Aegis…or at least, one half of her, Pyra! And…well, I’ve been told that you already know of me and my wife’s relationship with my husband, so, that is a lot we can thankfully skip explaining. And seeing as how I guess I’m the most classically domestic of the four of us, I think I’ll be filling in for Shinobu, as assessor of the relationships.
Nia: [Long breath out] Guess I cannot avoid it any more. Pics up!
(https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Nia)
Nia, Driver and the aforementioned wife, and for the love of the Architect do not ask for any salacious details, I’m already considerin’ the benefits of melting this building with a big blast-off laser as it is. But, as Rex likes to say, Salvager’s Code Item 7: Never leave a debt unpaid. I discovered that since some demonic Praetor lady knows about Alrest, and she’s a secondary threat compared to this absolute shitheel, I’ll stay for one chapter as…[Sigh] the commenter on physical affection…
Wanderer2691: [Alarmed] We need one?!
Leliel: [Unscrews 2-liter soda bottle] Yep…
Emma: No changes on my guests *muttering* Couldn’t be trusted around the more thematically-relevant giant muscular snake woman.
Pyra: [Glances at Mortarion] I…I think we have a close-enough substitution, though.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/XenobladeChronicles2MainProtagonists)
Rex: Rex, Driver of the Aegis and professional salvager, at your service! Well, less so the latter now that Alrest has some actual continents as opposed to just Titans, so there’s less Cloud Sea to delve and less need for salvage, but it’s a living, and I’m probably the best at it. Currently, also the filler for this Taion guy when it comes to giving this Tzeentchji guy a verbal roast. Though by the end of it, I’ll be surprised if Pyra isn’t tempted to make it more literal.
Pyra: …I’m actually kind of glad Mythra isn’t here then, because I’m not sure the building would be standing by the midpoint - oh! I suppose I volunteered to be next then! Ahem:
(https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Pyra)
Pyra: I am the Pnumena Aegis…or at least, one half of her, Pyra! And…well, I’ve been told that you already know of me and my wife’s relationship with my husband, so, that is a lot we can thankfully skip explaining. And seeing as how I guess I’m the most classically domestic of the four of us, I think I’ll be filling in for Shinobu, as assessor of the relationships.
Nia: [Long breath out] Guess I cannot avoid it any more. Pics up!
(https://xenoblade.fandom.com/wiki/Nia)
Nia, Driver and the aforementioned wife, and for the love of the Architect do not ask for any salacious details, I’m already considerin’ the benefits of melting this building with a big blast-off laser as it is. But, as Rex likes to say, Salvager’s Code Item 7: Never leave a debt unpaid. I discovered that since some demonic Praetor lady knows about Alrest, and she’s a secondary threat compared to this absolute shitheel, I’ll stay for one chapter as…[Sigh] the commenter on physical affection…
Wanderer2691: [Alarmed] We need one?!
Leliel: [Unscrews 2-liter soda bottle] Yep…
Emma: No changes on my guests *muttering* Couldn’t be trusted around the more thematically-relevant giant muscular snake woman.
Pyra: [Glances at Mortarion] I…I think we have a close-enough substitution, though.
Chapter 13
In the wake of the attack by the Eleventh Angel, things were very quiet for the Children. NERV was still a hornet's nest of activity as repairs were made, clean-ups instigated, and investigations launched. They were all quite glad to be away from all the activity, for as Shinji had said, "Some weird shit just went down and we were the closest to it, so I don't think we want to we anywhere near there when they start asking questions."
Rex: Given how you’ve been acting, I don’t think that’ll be an issue, and in fact the very reason you’re suddenly making yourselves scarce after that thing attacked your teammate would come off as a bit suspicious after the weird way you were acting. Especially how it’s shown Ireul could infect organics with Rei, and the MAGI probably picked up on that tidbit.
Wanderer2691: And cowardly. Don’t forget cowardly; after all, as soon as his abilities might become ones Gendo knows about, suddenly he won’t be allowed to rampage without responsibility.
Nia: …”we anywhere”?
Leliel: If we chewed out every grammar error, we’d be here all month.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 148
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 559
Asuka was later in getting home as it had been her turn to help with classroom clean-up, and she had then stopped off at the store to get a few things. She had been feeling an incredible craving for red meat the past few days, so she had splurged and bought a large quantity of pork and beef.
Emma: Okay, this is justifiable in the sense of she’s got a lot of internal changes to fuel…buuuuut, if this is meant to be specifically Khornate, she probably shouldn’t be getting any fuel from something she didn’t kill herself. Which would be an effective horror scene, of Asuka literally gorging herself and literally being unable to gain sustenance from it, but that would require Academia Nut to be able to think beyond the surface level.
Pyra: And also might be unappealing. We can’t have that in our immature fantasies of the perfect woman…
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 293
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 398
Nia: Skipping ahead over the fluff, Asuka decides to avoid the cravin’ for raw meat and decides to talk with Tzeentchji. Followin’ Pen-Pen’s help (a thing I’m half-convinced is a Blade in canon), she finds him on the roof.
Shinji was indeed on the roof, and while judging from his clothes and his staff lying off to the side he had been practicing, he was not doing so currently. Instead, he was sitting in quiet meditation, surrounded by his own congregation of animals. It was kind of creepy the way normally wild creatures would gather peacefully around Shinji and Rei, although at least in Shinji's case his congregation was much cleaner.
Emma: So, why is Tzeentchji a goddamn Disney Princess all of a sudden? Rei’s garden of doesthedogdie.com is at least kinda thematically coherent with Nurgle. When has Tzeentch ever been associated with animals beyond the symbolic? Like, the lords of change are birds, but we’ve never heard of them having a connection with actual birds.
Wanderer2691: Because Tzeentchji is the Bestest (™) at everything, so if one of his trophies is skilled at animal empathy…
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 294
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 399 (Womanz Must Be Wekarz Dan MAAAAAAN)
"Communing with nature are you?" Asuka asks.
Leliel: If this was at all canon relations between gods, you’d be able to tell it wasn’t by him not flipping off a squirrel to get Tzeentch’s actual opinion on his archrival across.
"Yes," Shinji says, before gesturing for the various creatures to disperse. Unlike Rei, who had attracted the scavengers and the mongrels and the lost creatures, the vermin no one cared about, Shinji's congregation was made up of what he called 'subtle predators'. From the skies birds of prey of both day and night flocked to him and from the ground the snakes slithered forth to see him.
Rex: …so, he gets the cool ones, in other words. You know, I might be imagining things, but I can’t help but feel a slight sense of favoritism from the author, here.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 149
The only creature that did not leave for the night was a proud looking peregrine falcon that had made a nest on the apartment roof.
Wanderer2691: Oh look, you actually remembered Tzeentch is associated with birds, Academia Nut. Now, if only you recalled his animal-related title is the Raven God…
Leliel: In all fairness, Tzeentch is associated with birds of prey in general, so this isn’t a point-worthy element of STUFF (™) but to add a bit of silliness to silliness; in Warhammer Fantasy, Tzeentch is said to be represented by a great bird of constantly changing colors. Given his light Meso- and South American theming, we can only conclude that the most sacred bird of the Architect of Fate is that most fiendish and diabolical of avians that lure humans in through their incredible capacity to learn and deceptive plumage that is oft a living blasphemy against Khorne: Parrots.
(Source: Wikipedia)
“Wark! Just as Polly planned! Wark!”
The sharp eyed bird kept watch over its master all throughout the day, a flight of owls patrolling the skies at night but not claiming the territory the way that one falcon had.
Nia: [Agape] …is he seriously havin’ a pet that’s supposed to have the biggest brass ones in the local sky?! How insecure can you be!?
Emma: Oh, yeah, there is absolutely no reason to pick a peregrine falcon beyond it being the Best Bird. Fastest animal alive, regularly shows up in heraldry and as the falcon of nobility, the whole nine yards. (In the interest of arrant pedantry, I would like to say that owls do prey on other birds of prey, although most of the records I can find of them preying on peregrine falcons involve attacking nestlings).
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 400 (If your need to assert your protagonist’s masculinity is so dire you need a pet to be the boss…)
Not turning to Asuka, Shinji remained seated, brushing the feathers of the bird while still meditating.
"Horus likes you, you know?" Shinji states idly.
Leliel and Wanderer: [Simultaneously] His name is WHAT?!
Rex: [Jumps] Whoa, what is the-
"Horus?" Asuka asks.
"Ancient Egyptian falcon god… and a little in-joke," Shinji states while nudging the bird to move. Flapping its wings, the falcon takes up position at its roost.
Mortarion: You disgust me. You are a pathetic child. Ishtar, or any version of her, doesn’t deserve much, but she deserves better than to be dragged through the mud by the name of your pet.
Wanderer2691: Well said. Of all the self-aggrandizing, arrogant, disrespectful…why aren’t you naming him after, oh, I don’t know, an actual Thousand Son?!
Pyra: Uh, can I reiterate Rex’s-
Leliel: Horus Lupercal is the Primarch who originally lead the first public Chaos-based revolt and civil war against the Imperium of Mankind, leading the majority of the Traitor Primarchs to follow him in revolt, with only Lorgar already plotting against the God-Emperor by that point. All of them, effectively making Horus the antecedent of every single Chaos-aligned human and rebellion from the point of the Horus Heresy onwards.
Pyra: [Flat look] …So. In other words, it’s like calling your screwdriver the Will of the Architect.
Leliel: Pretty much. Except even worse, because a lot of Chaos deeply resents Horus for having failed in his initial push and died, plus he’s a lot less distant than Tzeentchji’s supposed father figure’s own brothers. Like the ones he keeps in canopic jars in his room.
Emma: Yeah, Mortarion seemed a little overly protective of Ishtar’s reputation there–
Mortarion: I’m her sister. I’m allowed.
Emma: Huh. Guess some things are universal
Nia: Okay, yeah, even if I was still part of Torna I think Malos would be giving me a bop across the noggin if I called my blades the ‘Vengeance of Lora’, Jin might actively kick me into the Cloud Sea. Even beyond the distance, that’s just kind of crass, ya egotistical creep.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 561 (One for ignoring your supposed uncles, Tzeentchji, another for the sheer edge of calling your accessory after one of the most influential figures in Chaotic history to make yourself look cooler.)
"Some freaky things are happening to us," Asuka states, sitting down next to Shinji, hugging her knees to her chest.
Nia: [Asuka] “For example, I feel the need for you to constantly define how I feel about my body and also what to think!”
His eyes still closed, Shinji states, "We are, and always have been and will be, special. Embrace that fact or go mad. Would you be frightened to know the reasoning behind your sudden cravings for strange things?"
Mulling this over, Asuka asks in return, "Would I be more frightened about the 'why' or the 'how you know'?"
Rex: Ooh, I know this one, because he has mind-reading and wants you to feel like you can’t think without him overhearing and course-correcting so you ought to do what he says, right?
Emma: Jesus christ he’s putting his girlfriend in the panopticon
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 562
Smiling, Shinji says, "You're learning. Both are frightful."
"Tell me how you know then," Asuka says.
"Very well," Shinji says, still smiling. "In the fight with the Eleventh Angel, I had to guide the evolution of Rei's diseases, which required an extremely fine control over my abilities.
Wanderer2691: [Tzeentchji] “First and foremost, my ability to use authorial powers to break canon across the knee and decide I had the ability to guide diseases, and also, silly billy, did you think Rei was allowed to do something cool?” [Gags]
Mortarion: You did not guide anything with fine control. You are a Tzeentchian. You threw a ton of mutations at the wall to see what stuck and when a few did out of sheer chance, you passed that off as your plan all along.
Emma: To be a little less personally petty about it…Tzeentch does random mutations. Leaving aside the presentation of Tzeentch somehow being able to usurp his greatest rival’s domain, Tzeentch’s treatment of mutation is less “guide evolution to a specific point” and more “winning at blackjack because you’re rolling 500 dice at once”
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 563
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 295
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 401
It forced my body to change to accommodate the new requirements of my mind.
Nia: For example, actual activities within that grey matter.
My remote viewing abilities have been… enhanced, considerably. Aside from microscopic detail, I can now view things in four dimensions."
Leliel: There’s a bit of technobabble dump I’m sure impressed StarDestroyer.net, but basically, he sees not only the exterior of everything he’s looking at, but the inside as well. And all of that is only important because…
"So that means that?" Asuka asks.
Grinning, Shinji says, "Well for one, unless you have clothing that exists in four dimensions they're pretty much useless for the purposes of concealing things."
Pyra: [Pleasantly smiling with suppressed rage] First of all, I can provide the fire for you to go die in, if you need it. Second - I can’t help but feel your libido would promptly die, as that would mean you would be able to see anatomy in its entirety, including food digesting and being reprocessed into reasons to go the bathroom, pus, and other disgusting biological factors that are supposed to remain on the inside, plus the anatomy of every single cell. So unless you have a fetish for gore and things I am pretty sure Tora would promptly develop a drinking problem upon discovering personally to save his sanity, along with various organelles, I believe this would be classified as a turn-off.
Emma: Yeah, we can’t really comprehend what seeing in four spatial dimensions would be like, but not only would Asuka’s clothes not be surrounding her body in four dimensions, her skin wouldn’t be surrounding the rest of her. She’d look like some sort of very esoteric anatomical diagram.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 564
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 321
Whacking him playfully upside the head, Asuka says, "Stupid pervert."
Rubbing the spot where he was hit painfully, Shinji says, "And the other thing is that I can see your insides all at once. Combined with microscopic viewing, it gives me a rather unique way of looking at the changes occurring to us. Makes applying telekinesis rather interesting as well."
Pyra: [Eyes fly open as she pales] …he does have a fetish, doesn’t he.
Asuka shuddered as she felt invisible fingers running all across and inside her body in a pleasantly visceral way.
[Rex, Pyra, Nia, all collectively cringe and try to not look directly at it.]
Wanderer2691: Yep. You gotta get it out…there we go…
"I have already memorized the map of the entire human peripheral nervous system through experimentation upon myself and others; I know what every last nerve, every last dendrite, does and how they connect. It's actually rather frightening the sort of intelligence needed to do this in a few days, but then again most people just see a tangled mess, I can lay out every last connection without having pieces running over and around one another. It makes it much easier to tell them apart," Shinji says, still running telekinetic fingers through Asuka.
Nia: [Gagging] Okay…okay, leavin’ aside literally everything Pyra said about…that bodily function fetish, and that apparently being a thing…this a level of unasked for touch that is several levels above mere ‘grope’, that is a violation beyond I think is physically possible…
Emma: It also wouldn’t work. There is no reason the nerves that are buried in your body and don’t directly experience sensation would have any ability to pick up pleasant sensations like this. Given that hitting your funny bone feels like that because your ulnar nerve literally isn’t meant to pick up sensation at that position and your whole brain just screams “FUCK”, I… cannot imagine trying to directly finger your girlfriend’s spinal cord as feeling good.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 565
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 322
Panting a few times at the alien sensations he is making her feel, Asuka says, "That… that's enough for now." He could effortless combine together sensations, triggering simultaneous warm and cold feelings while mixing them with painless cutting and purple-green bursts of light and the flavour of strawberries bursting in her mouth.
Nia: And here’s where I’m comparing it to a roofie…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 565
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 322
Discontinuing it with a wave, Shinji says, "Very well, I am no deviant Slaaneshi to revel in such things anyway.
Leliel: [Angry sputtering, points at Dark Prince’s AT Field and the preceding paragraph about being able to do multidimensional peeking and then flips both middle fingers.]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 566 (For the sheer hypocrisy of having used psychic peeping and then claiming that.)
My original intent of such mapping was of course to be able to have a new way of taking someone down. A tap in the right place and a person could fall to the ground screaming as they feel as if their entire body is on fire. It would last but a few moments, but the effects could be devastating nonetheless. It is so much simpler than a direct psychic attack too."
Rex: I’m sorry, that was too long, I didn’t read, so for our sakes, ultra-summarized version: BIG MAN. BIG. ETHER STRONG. BIIIIG.
Emma: Oh, now you have an agony beam. Lovely.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 567
Thinking about this, Asuka asks, "Is this why the news was talking about the fit the President of the United States suffered yesterday?"
Chuckling darkly, Shinji says, "His public address was annoying me. It took quite a bit of effort to do a viewing and a telekinetic burst over that kind of distance, but it shut him up quite effectively."
Wanderer2691: I’d be busy chewing you out for causing a diplomatic incident at best, paranoid fear of Angelic interference and cutting budget to NERV at worst, but I got sidetracked by how apparently, Tzeentchji is able to affect people with a psychic taser from the other side of the planet. That’s something most Thousand Sons need a focused ritual to do, and even Greater Daemons need a bit to work up to it, not “the time required for a speech to grate on you.”
Leliel: And…doesn’t human psionics show up on the MAGI as red patterns in this fic? That’s why Ritsuko realized something was up with Rei? …you’d think they’d log something, especially with her anti-dumbass-that-can’t-understand-the-Angels-are-eldritch modifications.
Mortarion: So what he has done, is essentially completely sacrificed all his stealth, and the advantages that come from it… for a petty, childish prank.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 567
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 296
TALON ON THE SCALES: 150
Pyra: Thankfully, we can skip the next bit, it is mostly Tzeentchji noting that Asuka’s natural body temperature has vastly increased, and her only symptom is needing heavier clothing due to the world feeling a bit more chilled.
Smiling crookedly, Shinji says, "Well, I always knew my girlfriend was hot, but this is just taking it a touch further than expected."
Sporkers: …
(https://giphy.com/gifs/boo-thumbs-down-dislike-WrxoaVPiq0cG4 )
"Okay, why am I so hot then?" Asuka asks.
"Should I start with the breasts, thighs, ass or face?" Shinji asks.
Nia: … Insert bad pun about the hotness needing to be Pyra’s fire here, I’m not becoming a worse monster than those I fight.
Wanderer2691: Given how Asuka apparently is suffering from false chills, is there a way we could send Tzeentchji over to the Like A Dragon’s series Hawaii? I think Yutaka Yamai’s crowbar will be very interested to know how he managed to mold Asuka into a bad ripoff of him decades before the game was introduced and why…well, it’d be spoilers, but trust me, it takes some real skeeve to come off as a creepier and more intrusive manipulator than that game’s main villain.
Emma: Normally this wouldn’t raise red flags; there’s nothing wrong with listing the attractive parts of your partners. Here, though…it feels unpleasantly like chopping her up into chunks.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 568
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 323
Whacking him again, Asuka says with a touch of worry in her voice, "Okay, stop kidding around and tell me what's going on."
Wincing, Shinji mutters, "That spot was already tender from the first time." After regaining his composure, he says, "Your body is running hot because its burning lots of extra energy rearranging itself, and your own natural psychic field is protecting you from the ill effects.
Leliel: [Opens mouth, then thinks] …honestly, this kind of “just enough psychic influence to be possible for mutations to augment your flesh” is something Khorne would tolerate. Being made of Warp energy means he’s technically a living psychic field too. So, this barely gets a pass.
The reason you're so hungry lately, especially for red meat, is because your body suddenly has a massive demand for fresh proteins for all the new construction it's doing."
Wanderer2691: This doesn’t! Since when has the Warp cared about what is physically possible or not?
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 297
Rex: There’s actually an entire wall of technobabble on it and biological needs, but even looking at it, all I can think is that Ether can just alter molecules on that level without all the preamble of chemical changes, something about “bones are being reinforced with a biological form of a titanium-steel alloy” to support new muscle and such…but if Khorne’s really all that, it seems a bit daft, especially when it’s been outright shown other mutations happen instantaneously without ill effect. Why’s this different?
Nia: [Reads next bit, pales] …because we wouldn’t have this then…
It also explains why you've been drinking white paint," Shinji tells her.
"I have not been drinking paint!" Asuka cries out indignantly.
"Relax; I said there was an explanation. Almost all modern white paints contain titanium dioxide as the primary pigment, and your body suddenly has a demand for titanium it didn't before. Plus, I found the bottles, and disposed of them more carefully so Misato-san won't ask why there are a dozen empty bottles of white paint lying around," Shinji tells her.
Rex: I…don’t see why that’d…be…an…[Horrified realization of how a white paint would look if it spilled on her mouth] CURSE YOU, BRAIN!
Pyra: [Hiding face in embarrassed mortification] It’s…removed enough I’m not comfortable with hitting it with the pervert point, but this fic is horny enough to the point where I genuinely considered it. But as noted, there is a sudden infatuation with ‘scientific plausibility’ here that wasn’t present before, and it actually did lead to some potential evidence that was only hidden because, out of universe, it’d be inconvenient.
Nia: …this was made on a website known for just how mean-spirited and obsessed with overshadowin’ the knowledge of others is, right? I’m thinking this is the rough equivalent of the author trying to preen his own brain and wave it around for the world to show. Yes, this is meant to sound vaguely obscene.
Emma: Okay, I don’t think if you needed titanium you’d get cravings unless you were fully aware paint has titanium in it. Like, cravings are generally for a) for something your body knows on some level is in there or b) pica, which isn't actually related to mineral deficiencies. This is just… confusing.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 302 (Five points in general for over-complexifying Chaos and making metabolic load and nutrients a concern to it, the softest element in 40K’s soft sci-fi setting when it previously was not.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 155 (Five more, for this only being an issue when convenient to the main characters.)
Leliel: Blah, blah, technobabble, technobabble, Asuka is becoming a superstrong Amazon soldier, she doesn’t see why this would help fighting Angels in an Eva beyond, as Tzeentchji points out, being able to soak vibrations in the middle of a fight, Academia Nut apparently thinks “retinas” are a term for the cells that line the back of your eyes in general and so every human already has multiple (seriously - “Your retinas are detaching one at a time and moving to new positions, along with new ones being grown”, which implies that Asuka’s eyes are growing multiple backs and one is no longer at the back - the retinas are what those cells compose, oh Master of Anatomy), and she’s a little unsettled by the description.
Emma: There’s something really weird about the description of Asuka’s mutations. The bones being enhanced with minerals, the growth of new, better, retinas, the density of muscles, the enhanced digesting system and kidneys. These don’t read like Khornate mutations. This reads like Asuka is turning into a Space Marine. We aren’t seeing any of the really obvious things like the second heart, or completely new organ systems like the belcher’s gland or omophagea, but we’ve hit the denser muscles, the enhanced bones (although space marines use ceramic compounds), the enhanced eyes, the enhanced lungs… she even has an expanded liver and kidneys, which I feel are things that non-Space Marine super soldiers are rarely marked out as having. This would also explain why we’re suddenly worrying about metabolic loads; the Astartes creation process has never been realistic, but it’s presented as something very controlled and medicalized unlike Chaos mutations or ascension to daemon princehood. Like, they can get away with ceramic bones because the neophytes are explicitly fed ceramic compounds or have supplements put in those pill pockets for dogs or something. I’m not sure this is the fic intentionally trying to one-up Space Marines, mostly because I can’t pin Academia Nut down on the “will throw a fit if you mention Female Space Marines” to “is obsessed with Female Space Marines as big titted anime waifus in boob power armor”, but it’s definitely very similar.
Wanderer2691: If anything, though, that makes her being a Legally Distinct Chaos Sphess SEAL even more vapid, because a constant struggle for Chaos Space Marines is trying to balance their mutations to their gene-seed; they are not easily compatible processes.
EXCOMMIUNICAE CANONICUS: 303
Running a telekinetic finger up her spine, making her shiver, Shinji says, "You're moping Asuka. Do you know what that means?"
Nia: [Instinctively covers rear from the telekinetic grope] You get a nice scar pattern on your dumb face?
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 569
"It's time for a sloppy make-out session?" Asuka asks hopefully.
Pyra: …please tell me I was never this embarrassing with Rex…
Wanderer2691: Trust me, if you were, Lels wouldn’t have called you up. And once again, the Healing Power of Dick solves all issues.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 402
"Fuck yeah it's time for a sloppy make-out session," Shinji says, opening his eyes and then springing from his sitting position to tackle her."
Rex: …yeah, the fact I was never this…saccharine is good to know. I won’t apologize for trying to be bright and sunny and all that, but this is…I don’t know what this is, particularly how he suddenly goes from “mastermind” to “sickly playful teenager” when convenient. Frankly, it comes off like an act, given…the everything about him.
Leliel: And also, it comes off as trying very hard to say “see, he’s not evil, the power of LUUUUUV brings out the sweetness in him!” …fuck, how many times do I need to remind myself the characters he’s a worse version of came out after he did, because frankly I’m really missing Fiona Frost right now! At least she’s intentionally written as a manipulative clown!
(For the record, Leliel actually really likes Nightfall, but that’s 75% because the show is fully aware she’s a stalker and is not at all a good person, making her the butt of many a joke and humiliation - which also makes her an infinitely less skeevy character, what with how we aren’t supposed to think her behaviors are valid or respectable, Academia Nut.)
Emma: It also is barely “Even Evil has Loved Ones”. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every attempt to use love to flesh him out is either a) still relentless violence or b) how good he is at sex. I don’t get the impression he’s capable of genuine emotional vulnerability, or of genuinely putting his girlfriend first.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 403
They playfully wrestled for a while, Shinji barely able to counter Asuka's greater strength with his ability to predict her moves and weasel out of thing. Finally though Asuka managed to overpower him and pin his shoulders to the ground while straddling his hips to keep his legs under control.
Emma: If he likes Khornates so much, why not have her beat him instantly and him like it?
Pyra: Well, obviously, it’s because he has that entirely unique and valid form of relationship that can only exist as a power imbalance, which is not at all unhealthy and making me glad for the world that Malos is gone, because I suspect I’d impulsively join him at the end of this!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 404
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 570
Staring down at him, Asuka asks, "Shinji… could we go a little further this time?"
"How much further?" Shinji inquires.
"Well… I really liked what you did earlier with your telekinesis, and I was… um… wondering… if…" Asuka says, chewing her lip in hesitation.
"If I would do that to… shall we say more sensitive areas?" Shinji finishes for her.
Emma: Give up. If there was ever a man who couldn’t find the clitoris even with a full understanding of the nervous system and a complete four dimensional map of all your nerve endings, it’s Tzeentchji.
Nia: And I can’t help but feel it’d be akin to a newbie sawbones pokin’ it uncertainly with a scalpel even if he did find it. Ain’t got anything resembling passion in there.
"Yeah," Asuka says with a nod. "I… I uh… actually had a… uh… a dream and it had you and it… uh… was really, really good and I've been wanting to… uh… ask you if… well… if you wanted to go to third base… for the… well… the uh… past few days."
Wanderer2691: ….ooooh, noooo….
Laughing at the brilliant red blush on her face, Shinji says, "Hey, if my girlfriend wants to go to third base, I don't care if I slide in or levitate in."
Leliel: Oooooh, noooo….
Thinking about his word choice, Asuka glares at him with an amused look on her face and says, "Pervert."
Rex: …is it too late to ask to go to the bathroom?
Nia: [Expression Of Utter Suffering] Rex, I love you, but as part of that, I am going to remind you of what my focus is. If I’m gonna suffer, I don’t want to feel like my spouses are usin’ me as a Gormotti shield.
Rex: …valid. Pass me one of those sodas…
"Guilty as charged. Now do you want me to do a telekinetic massage or a direct neural stimulation?" Shinji asks.
"Surprise me," Asuka replies.
Pyra: [Pained laugh] It’s almost like awakening Core Crystals…except every one is a rejection that, instead of killing you, makes you wish for death…this is going to hurt…
Mortarion: *In a genuinely trying to be sympathetic tone* You will become inured to the pain eventually.
She then promptly collapsed off Shinji as a small artillery shell seemed to hit her right between the eyes.
Nia: Ah, yes, being shot in the brain. Exactly how I want to feel during foreplay. What is this fic!?
Pinning her now, Shinji says, "I'll let you figure out what that was on your own. Could you lower your mental barriers though? I want to know what is pleasant and what is too much so I can be careful."
Emma: And I guess just having a safeword wouldn’t work, because then you wouldn’t be making her open to you absolutely and completely (without reciprocation).
Rex: Of course not. That wouldn’t let him feel like he’s a cruel god, after all.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 571
Gasping for air, Asuka looks up at him with half glazed eyes and a slack jaw.
Can you hear me now?
Loud and clear… and that should be feel quite nice for you, now shouldn't it?
HOLY FUCK! Sweet merciful! Don't… do… don't… holy SHIT! Oh wow… oh wow… oh fuck! Fuck Shinji, you keep this up and sex will be a let down!
Nia: …so, I’ve heard that subtlety is needed in horror, because nothing the author can come up with can be worse than your imagination…I think there needs to be a similar rule for gross…
I doubt that. It will just be one more appendage to work with.
Oh God! Oh God, you're a fucking octopus already! Oh sweet Khorne take me now!
Emma: Was that a tentacle porn joke? Never mind, rhetorical question, fuck off Tzeentchji.
Wanderer2691: Just in case we forgot that beyond being skeevy as fuck, this story is absolutely basic and has no functional sense of humor.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 572
Elsewhere in the city, Rei was watching this all through her mind, her envy growing.
Pyra: ...it’s over? Oh, thank the Architect, that was painful, but…short…um…what is with the pitying looks?
Leliel: That wasn’t the skeeve part.
Mortarion: Hope is a treacherous lie.
Pyra: …okay then. I’ll start with a good ten for the lurid details across several paragraphs combined with the less-than-ideal power dynamic…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 333
She could contain it… for now… but she wanted Shinji, wanted him the way Asuka had him. To a certain degree she hated the bitch… and to another degree she loved her just as intensely.
Pyra: [Stare, shying backwards] And another for…whatever this nonsense is…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 334
Emma: This is where this chapter becomes wildly, insanely, misogynistically biphobic and does not let up at all. Look, I’m a yuriologist, I love fucked-up relationship dynamics. I am speaking from the most qualified place possible when I say that this is all based on a worldview that cannot comprehend sexual attraction between women as genuine. It cannot comprehend relationships between women as not being supplanted by those with men. It cannot comprehend the idea that women don’t all see each other as specifically sexual competition. Like, I ship Reisuka and I think it would probably start with apparent loathing on Asuka’s end, because Asuka is genuinely jealous of Rei and is operating on a deeply heteronormative conception of the world. This is just fucking nonsense. I was writing better WLW dynamics at 16 when I thought I was straight.
Nia: And also, ya weren’t writing it so that the self-insert could get his whistle wet because his alleged girlfriends are into each other, and that alone…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 404
"You long to lie with them both," a dry, cracked voice says to her.
Rex: …yeah, this ain’t gonna be fun at all…
"You are a figment of my imagination," Rei replies.
"We are symptoms of a disease, a glorious, beautiful disease," a gurgling, infected voice tells her happily.
"Silence," Rei says, glaring at the two heads of her previous incarnations on the altar. She had already sown their mouths shut with heavy string, but still they spoke with her.
Wanderer2691: …leaving aside just how…grody this scene is, Rei’s soul is singular. There’s even odds this is hallucination, and according to the head of Rei III, “Our soul has been reincarnated so many times, it has begun to fragment”, so I’ll let it slide, but Academia Nut has not impressed me as an Eva scholar. So, just…why.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 335
Leliel: Skipping over some exposition of Rei’s head-voices-of-herself and just some general gross description…
"Three merely wishes to tell you the truth of the matter, just as I do. You cannot deny for instance that you joined with her in dream the other night," Rei II says in her perpetually dry voice, the effects of the strange mummification that had happened to her.
Nia: Joined with her in- [Pales, ears pin back] …oh no. Is this like a succubus? As in, the kind that sneaks into your dreams and…does things…?
Wanderer2691: It is exactly like that. And not in the sexy way Academia Nut clearly thinks.
Pyra: …so, I’m going to wait to score this…and get this puke bucket.
Flopping down angrily, Rei IV cannot deny that bit of information. All the tiny bones of all the thousands of creatures that came here to die rattled between her fingers, the sound drowning out her own thoughts for a time.
Rex: Well, that’s only reasonable. When I’m calming myself, particularly in matters of love, what I want to think of is bones in my fingers. Apparently Nurgle gives you a thing for corpses, but since I, the reader, ain’t in his camp…
Rei had stopped dreaming ever since she had incarnated in this form. Instead, when her body rested, her soul, already only loosely connected to any one body, drifted, lost upon the psychic sea of the hundreds of thousands of others slumbering at night. Every night she visited dozens of others, leaving them how she say fit. She was a young boy's wet dream, an old woman's fond memory, a guilty man's nightmare.
Leliel: For the record, this is a canonical type psyker power in 40K and a spell in Fantasy. Both are also, distinctly, associated with Slaanesh. And astral projection for gathering intelligence is entirely Tzeentch.
Wanderer2691: I take it as the dim awareness of actual lore and place that recognizing Rei is adhering to the wrong Ruinous Power desperately trying to escape from Academia Nut’s thick skull.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 303
And two nights ago, she had found Asuka's soul in her meaningless drifting.
Xenoblade Sporkers: OOOH, NOOOOOO!
Emma: Okay, I have enough to say about this scene I’m going to need to save it all up for the end.
Leliel: Which means…oh shit. Which means we’re on it…
Wanderer2691: [Helmet on, puke bucket out.] Actually, before we start:
THIS NEXT SECTION CONTAINS A SCENE OF METAPHYSICAL DATE RAPE AND SEXUAL BRAINWASHING. PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT LARGE TEXT MESSAGE IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO READ IT.
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Rei had wept in her mind when she first beheld it, for she finally understood why Shinji had chosen Asuka over her. Rei had emotion and passion now, but it had taken her a long time to get it right, and even now she was barely a candle in comparison to the supernova that was Asuka.
Leliel: [Megaphone] REI. HAS. EMOTIONS. YOU. DINGUS.
Rex: Hell, if anything, her trying to act them out for her MAAAAAN would make her come off as unsettling due to insincerity. Congrats on making yourself less appealing! …And that’s not sarcastic, you should consider active murder to protect others from this prick!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 405
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 405
In the dreamscape horned demons wielding crooked axes standing in front of a wall of boiling blood had prevented initial access, but one of the gatekeepers recognized Rei and allowed her within.
Wanderer2691: So they could stab the impudent witch, the end.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 304
Instead of being a free agent within the dreamscape, Rei and Asuka's mind mingled, each sharing the other's thoughts and sensations. Asuka did not understand what was happening, and would probably never know about Rei's involvement unless she told her.
Pyra: [Eyes widen] Uuuum….
At the time Rei joined in, Asuka had been dreaming about just talking with Shinji, a simple memory being processed by the dream. With Rei's involvement though, the dream had moved from simple talking to a full blown make-out session.
Rex: Uuuuhhmmmm….
Rei had revelled in all the memories Asuka had of Shinji's touch to make the experience all the more real.
And then Rei had added her own contribution: Dr. Akagi's adult memories, ripped from the woman's mind over a week before.
Nia: UUUUUUUHHHHHHHMMMMM…
Leliel: [Readies puke buckets.]
The two girls had been one as the dream Shinji did wonderful, incredible things to her/them. When it was all over and Rei's mind drifted back to her body, she had immediately finished off what had been started. She suspected Asuka did the same.
[Long silence]
Rex: …that…
Pyra: That was rape. That was two kinds of rape at once. No, actually three.
Nia: One, coercion, using these ether powers to possess someone, and then experiencing your forced pleasures through them. And two, deception, because her partner didn’t exactly know it was you at the controls. Three, sharing intimate memories from Dr. Akagi all over again without her consent.
Wanderer2691: Yes. Yes it was.
[Long silence]
Since then she had been melancholy in her obsession. She wanted the dream to be real. She wanted to feel Shinji inside her, to feel the warmth of his breath on her bare skin, the dripping of his sweat upon her back, the…
Pyra: NOPE! [Ignites]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8jed0dP4aM)
Rex: Thanks Pyra. On a related note: HUUGRGH! [Pukes into bucket]
Nia: Huh, I was expecting me first on both counts. BLRRGGH! [Follows suit with own]
Leliel: …So, first of all…
END OF SCENE. YOU CAN RESUME HERE.
Leliel: Secondly, while our co-sporkers are losing their lunch and the screen reboots, you wanted this rant, Emma?
Emma: Okay, this seems like a good breaking point for me to go ham on the previous paragraphs. *takes a deep breath* We live in a society where to be a woman attracted to women is to be treated as a predatory interloper. The stereotypes of the Psycho Lesbian and Predatory Bisexual are almost identical when applied to women, and the differences aren’t super relevant here. What matters is that the presentation of queer womanhood as inherently sexually depraved and invasive on “natural” desires. What this makes obvious, is that this is the default worldview which this story is written on. It’s presented so horrifically matter-of-factly that it’s obvious that Academia Nut has never considered any other way. Of COURSE all bi women are sexually predatory. Of COURSE that’s excusable, because it’s not like women can actually sexually violate in any way that matters (and, given how Asuka acts, probably the assumption she wanted it anyways.). Of COURSE the primary element of disgust and deviancy here is the existence of genuine sapphic desire and not the rape.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 385
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 406 (Because of course Academia Nut does not even comprehend that this is a violation of Ritsuko in general.)
Asuka had invaded her fantasies too. She wanted to lie naked with the other girl and play with her.
Nia: [Cleans off sick] THIS ISN’T A COUNTERPOINT TO EMMA’S STATEMENT!
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 386
She wanted to be with her, for their saliva and other fluids to mingle. For Asuka to shudder with joy as Rei went to work and the blessings of Nurgle to do their job.
Rex: …isn’t the end stage of a disease, y’know…death?
Wanderer2691: Ah, but it’s clear that Academia Nut isn’t clear on the difference between Nurgle and Slaanesh, so it’s clear he thinks Nurgle would be sexy, because…
For Asuka to cry out in joy just as her body finished breaking down into a bag of blackened pus that would burst upon Rei. And then Rei would wallow in the toxic remains of the other girl, immune to the disease that had removed the competition.
Wanderer2691: …he has a thing for snuff, I guess. Urk.
Pyra: [Pinching nose] And let’s add that not only is she apparently a bad bisexual, she’s a crazed stalker as well. This is why Malos and his Driver lost their minds…
Emma: Also Rei’s desire for Asuka is literally un-disentangle-able from her hatred for Asuka as getting in the way of Tzeentchji, the true object of desire. Her desire is both inherently predatory and inherently secondary to desire for men. *smiles nastily* I should’ve brought a bingo card.
Mortarion: If she truly loved her, she would be doing everything possible to preserve her. Drag her into an unbreakable bond, do everything you can to graft yourself together. If that doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps you aren’t a Nurgilite or not in love. Or both.
Emma: …I get your point but please don’t give relationship advice.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 387
But never immune to Shinji's glare. He would hate her forever if she did such a thing to the one he loved.
Rex: As with most kids after you take their favorite toy. That’s why grounding works.
Her fantasies of what he did grew worse with each successive version. He had begun by killing her in gruesome ways, ripping her apart with his telekinesis or throwing lightning bolts at her until her organs began to burst out of her flesh with the heat. Then it had moved on to a lifetime of torture, of reducing Rei to a quadruple amputee, her only sensations pain.
Nia: …why do I get the sense that this is not only accurate, but considered to be laudable behavior by our author?
Leliel: Y’know, something along these lines sold me on the idea that Vlad von Carstein from Warhammer’s Fantasy equivalent loves his wife, but that setting points out he’s still the local version of Dracula and thinks the only way to stop Chaos is turning most of the world undead - and said wife is someone he regards as an equal to the point where he was afraid turning her into a vampire would make her miserable (it didn’t, and he was relieved). Oh hey, a character who Tzeentchji comes off as a lesser version of who was written before he was!
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 573 (Her imagining, but I get the sense we are supposed to regard this as accurate.)
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 388
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 407
The worst though, was when Shinji killed himself. He did it just to spite her.
Pyra: …what?
For killing his love, he would give Rei no attention at all.
Pyra: …WHAT?
At first these terrible thoughts had been Rei trying to continue on without him, but then Shinji and Asuka came back to taunt her, spirits eternally together in the afterlife, and she could not join them. No matter what Rei did, there was always another clone to keep her from the afterlife, while Shinji and Asuka just laughed cruelly in the shadows as the bodies piled up in one futile attempt after the other.
Pyra: …everyone has fifteen seconds to retreat to cover.
Everyone: [Quickly does so.]
Pyra: Thanks. Now:
FUCK! YOU! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, YOU SON OF A HORSE-FUCKING SHIT-WEASEL INBRED RATFUCK! AND THE HORSE YOU CAME IN ON! WHICH SHOULD ALSO BE FUCKED! OFF! TZEENTCHJI! AAAAARGGH! [long inhale] …I’m sorry. Is everyone all right?
Rex: [Coughing up soot] More worried about you, really…
Nia: Yeah. That was some…triggerin’ bullshit, especially for you.
Pyra: Mm. I…yeah, you can see I used to be part of Mythra there… But as for me - I don’t think I was acting particularly weirdly given what I just read. Because, while it’s still painful, I’m gonna admit a truth - I did lead Rex to Elysium, but it was partly for my sake. Because…I wanted to ask the Architect for permission to die…
Rex: Pyra, you don’t have to-
Pyra: No, no, it’s okay. I probably will still be grappling with it, but…the reason I said I was part of Mythra was that the initial split between us was caused when she lost control of her powers and killed an entire Titan…which, in more familiar terms, meant we condemned an entire continent to sink. Along with killing a bunch of other people in the process. I emerged because at that point, Mythra hated everything about herself, and realizing what she did pushed her over the edge into not wanting to be Mythra anymore. So, I came out - her mature, kindly, humble, and…mostly controlled sister, someone who wouldn’t hurt anyone if she lost track of her powers…but I still had the memories of what she did, to say nothing of Mythra herself…
Nia: …I’ll, uh, take over. Basically, just because there was two alters now didn’t mean shit to her guilt or feelin’ like she was more of a danger than a help to others. So all that kept the ideation away was the idea of needin’ to ask the Architect for permission to finally die first, because otherwise it came off as cowardly…
Pyra: And in truth, I kept it quiet, because we didn’t want to be a burden…but at the same time, I think we were afraid people would try and talk us out of it. The both of us were…certainly eager to die heroically, on the chance we couldn’t reach Elysium. The pain’s gone a bit, but it’s likely both of us will be dealing with that survivor guilt for the rest of our lives, even if we convince all of us that it really wasn’t anything we could have done better.
So as you can imagine, I am not very happy with this right now.
Wanderer2691: Seriously. Suicide is a serious fucking subject, and to have it dangled like this as some way to “pwnzr” Rei by making them “together in death” like that isn’t a personal hell for Asuka - even beyond the fact it’s treated as petty narcissitic spite to try and hurt someone else as a primary goal, (and it’s really sick I can see Tzeentchji following that thought process), here, it’s being used, essentially, to milk sympathy for Academia Nut’s ‘improved’ Rei. “Oh, woe is her, don’t you feel so sorry for the yandere who wants so badly to be with her MAAAAN but is so CRUELLY denied by her desire to make her MAAAAAN happy?” No, it makes me want to drown her in rubbing alcohol, particularly given how to her, the real tragedy is being unable to join them! Because that’s a legitimate take on caring for her as a character and suicidal ideation, repeatedly failing to kill herself so she can continue to be a fucking trophy!
Emma: Ehhhhh, I read this as more gassing up Shinji and Asuka. The primary focus, even in Rei’s narration, is that Shinji and Asuka’s relationship is perfect and special and inviolable, even in the context of alleged polyamory.
Leliel: And, of course, none of this considers Asuka as a person. In fact, Rei regards her as, at best, a vessel for her. Literally! Next line:
In other fantasies, it was Rei that dissolved, becoming the bacteria that swam in Asuka's blood and guts, to be ever with the other girl, to gaze out through her eyes whenever Shinji smiled, to feel through her skin whenever Shinji touched her, and to know the love he had for the other girl.
Nia: …and the moment your pwecious crush notices your bacteria brains, I fully want him to use Asuka’s Blood-enhanced endurance to scrub her blood with bleach. I expect him to use ya as a masturbation tool for his other trophy, because he’s the kind of creepo that made my adopted dad look like a paragon of sanity and would make Amalthus run off to clean himself after interacting with Tzeentchji. But…fuck, I admit to having had to deal with some dark emotions and jealousy ‘fore I realized I was bi and open to a four-way relationship, but…this?! Where the fuck do you get off - no, wrong question! Where does the author get off here?!
Emma: *Head down, monotone* You will note that ONCE AGAIN, Rei’s alleged attraction to Asuka is presented primarily as a way for her to use Asuka as a bridge to Tzeentchji.
Leliel: Honestly, by this point? I’m about 40% sure that Academia Nut is a pen name for Professor Hojo.
Wanderer2691: …ugh, why does that make so much sense. I haven’t even played FF7, just watched Machinabridged, and I can see the links - but, the good news is, I can accept that this person is a Nurgle follower now, because she certainly ain’t Rei. Rei is not anywhere near this obsessive, develops the ability to morally condemn people and trust them as she breaks out of Gendo’s control, and has sincere compassion for all people. No, this weird melange of Slaanesh hedonism and obsession with Nurgle’s grossness that we are supposed to believe is entirely Nurgle, is as much an In Name Only replacement Sue as Tzeentchji is for Shinji, especially because we are somehow expected to believe that this bint is sympathetic and loving in any meaningful way. But she isn’t exactly either Ruinous Power’s follower, becoming a weird mix that causes both to lose distinction under the sheer force of entitlement, desiring to play off the jealousy of her supposed harem-mate for a more privileged spot. About the only reason we aren’t calling her by our own nickname at this point is that Rei does not have enough of a character that isn’t an extension of Tzeentchji; she’s awful, but ultimately, she’s the awful he wanted from her, and nothing else. Which is a shame, because this kind of entitlement would make an awesome pun on Be’lakor, who showed exactly what happens in actual Warhammer, Fantasy of 40K, when you feel entitled to a Chaos entity’s time.
Mortarion: Would it be so easy for them to do much the same with all of these arrogant wretches…
Emma: Disclaimer that I actually don’t think the basics of this are terrible from a “fucked up psychological horror romance” perspective. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t actually hate the context of “normal intimacy is not enough, so I am going to literally inject myself into your bloodstream”, especially in the context of how society makes sapphic romance seem so extreme and unattainable it might as well be easier to crawl into her bloodstream. But, hey what do I know, I’m only a dyke and also an actual writer.
Leliel: And believe me, we’ll get there on the ‘do the same’ bit. But first, we have some scores to dole out.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 428 (Because this fundamental grossness is key to her character from now on and viewed as romantic.)
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 457 (Same here.)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 465 (Also here, plus ten extra because it’s barely recognizable as Rei anymore.)
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 583 (Because it’s disturbingly plausible and I don’t give our author the benefit of the doubt now that it’s just Rei being Rei - he is that selfish, and ghostly tormenting of Rei is some next-level dickery.)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 305 (As a final insult to injury, this kind of obsession isn’t Nurgle’s thing, it’s Slaanesh all the way. It just has Grampy Contagion’s thematics.)
She would never be able to hop over to Shinji though. Even when he was plunging in and out of Asuka's orifices, Rei could never make the leap between them. In fact, the closest she ever came to such a feat was when she cuddled up next to the child developing in Asuka's womb as a result of their actions, their love.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nO_JQ1_6vw)
Emma: *breaks into hysterical laughter* Of course! Of course! She will always be inferior to the standard reproductive heteronormative dynamics! This is like a PARODY of queerphobia at this point! She can literally crawl into Asuka’s bloodstream, and they will still be less intimate and connected than the “endpoint” of het intimacy (pregnancy).
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 458
Rex: …I think my libido is officially dead now for the next couple weeks.
Nia: Just weeks? You got a better stomach than I…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 428
Sadly, the most realistic fantasy was also the one Rei dreaded the most. In it, she and Asuka lay naked, intertwined, kissing and touching each other so as to arouse Shinji, who sat and watched their antics with amusement.
Pyra: [Eye twitch] …no, I’m keeping calm, I already had my explosion, but I will say…it’s really telling that this is, even in-universe, the reason Rei would have a relationship with Asuka.
Rex: I certainly wouldn’t be aroused - I won’t claim that there’s no appeal to me in my own partners having fun with each other, but seeing Nia and Pyra clearly forcing themselves to try and fake attraction…honestly, I’d feel bad for watching. But then I’m not the grand muckety-muck of Fate, am I?
Emma: Oh, he said it out loud. I appreciate that. Most of the time they try to pretend they don’t see my sisters as a fundamentally empty performance for their benefit. It’s almost relieving, to have someone go mask-off for once.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 429
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 459
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 584 (Because it’s explicit he’d be encouraging this.)
He would then join the two of them, and they would take turns in serving him, in accepting him into their bodies.
Nia: …your feelings and pleasure, of course, mean nothing. Rex, is it okay if I sleep alone tonight? Because…I think my skin’s trying to crawl off my body and hide…
Rex: Didn’t need to ask. Gonna have to warn you, my own skin might be occupying wherever it ends up…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 430
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 460
It was wondrous, it was possible… and it was heart crushing. Because no matter how much Shinji accepted Rei, she would always be second to Asuka, and that hurt.
Emma: Oh, yes, that’s why this is the worst option. Not because you’ve ended up in an abusive relationship with a man who sees bi women as sex toys and porn tropes. No, it’s because you don’t get to be the favorite in the “real” (straight) relationship.
Pyra: …Nia, if you wanted to be touched right now, I’d be hugging you. Because…holy shit this is not healthy. It’s not even an open relationship situation, where there’s a third person often brought in to an established couple, because the third person knows; it’s what they agreed to up front. Here, it’s founded on unspoken jealousy, because…
"Second place is better than not ranking at all," Rei II whispers to her.
Pyra: Because of that. And that is absolutely not true, not being part of this at all is very advised, it’s clear trying to be part of it has warped her into this…thing.
Leliel: From my bringing in characters of tabletop games, long-time readers have probably realized I’m a huge tabletop game fan, especially of the standards of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder (mostly the latter due to an insane ownership of the former, but that’s not a problem with the rules). There’s a common saying among my circles: “no D&D is better than bad D&D”, the sheer amount of social toxicity and fun-draining in a genuinely terrible game is time better spent somewhere else, or even doing nothing, which is more mentally healthy. And that goes quadruple for relationships; in a bad D&D game, everyone has at least ostensible boundaries in the rules of the game, and those end, but in a relationship, it’s constant. This isn’t a symptom of love or tragic romance, it’s a symptom of an abuse victim. And it’s really sick we’re expected to see this as anything other than proof Tzeentchji broke her in the worst ways possible.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 431
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 461
"Indeed. Follow your heart. Ask Asuka if she wants to share. She is the one you must win over. If she asks Shinji if you could join them, then he will gladly accept," Rei III says, her head having returned to its place on the altar while Rei IV was thinking.
Nia: First, as if it wasn’t enough of a haunted house. Moving severed heads, yikes. Second, it’s really telling that it’s just assuming the one who needs to be convinced is Asuka; Tzeentchji’s enough of a possessive wanker to be keen on the idea.
Wanderer2691: Of course, I get the sense our author thinks this is something that is completely normal for a hetero guy, and that nobody who functions “normally” would turn that down…then again, I don’t think Academia Hojo’s idea of ‘normal’ is something anyone wants to be…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 432
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 462
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 585 (Skeeviness, particularly when it turns out to be an accurate assumption, especially in the ending. Hoo boy.)
"Or if you're truly that desperate you could ask his father… but then again he would just use you because you're a part clone of his dead wife," Rei I says, giggling cruelly.
[Pause]
Wanderer2691: Case in point!
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 433
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 463
Nia: Thanks for the reminder being with you is technically meaning that Tzeentchji is shaggin’ his sister, too. But, I got the sense from the summary that Gendo views her as a daughter, not a replacement lover…especially because it was noted that Rei doesn’t know what doin’ the horizontal tango with an Ikari is like.
Emma: I genuinely get the impression, from the consistent reminders of Gendo sexually grooming or wanting to groom Rei, less that Academia Nut wants to explore the power dynamics that lead to incest and abuse, and more that it’s just… the default. Of COURSE Gendo wants to groom Rei as a replacement for his dead wife. Every relationship between men and women is reducible to sex, after all.
Leliel: And as one final note - Rei becoming sexually aggressive would be Yet Another Thing that would raise alarm bells in Gendo’s mind.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 466
A tear fell from Rei's face and hit the ground. For a moment black fungus and mould began to grow before Rei snuffed out the life before it spread out of control and finished off what Second Impact had started.
Pyra: [Looks at Mortarion with sudden alarm]
Mortarion: If the fungal mass from a tear could become a notable weapon against population centers that easily, then the Death Guard would have ushered most planets in the galaxy into the Grandfather’s embrace already.
Leliel: Seriously. A tear from a Great Unclean One, maybe, but Rei is, at this point, just a mutant; an extremely powerful one, but the kin of cosmic Warp contagions born of the sorrow of Chaos is something that, even symbolically, is only done by powerful daemons. And even then it usually takes a bit to build to that point.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 306
She had always been at best second in the hearts and minds of others: a pitiful doll for a broken old man to lust after in place of his dead wife; the pilot of the prototype, the back-up for the test-type and production model; or just the quiet, creepy girl in glass.
Wanderer2691:
More because, if anything, Gendo values her too much to let her die, even as a clone, but for the love of fuck, piloting the prototype is the exact opposite of being undervalued in comparison to production!
Emma: Again, Rei is “endlessly replaceable” with the clones because she is too vitally important to die permanently.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 469 (One for each of these bold assertions.)
The only one who had ever accepted her, ever truly cared for her, had been Shinji, and he was in love with another.
Sporkers:
(Wikimedia Commons)
Wiping away her tears, Rei nodded and said to her heads, "Tomorrow there is a test at NERV; I shall confront Asuka… and find out if she would be willing to share."
"That's a girl," her predecessors say in unison.
Emma: Aw, she thinks the girls get to make decisions. Cute.
Pyra: …your past selves are horrible friends, in many ways. Clearly, they want you to suffer, since as noted, being the second choice is clearly too painful to enjoy. But what do I know, I’m simply in an actual polygamous marriage, as opposed to existing to get Rex’s penis hard by being a glorified fleshlight.
Rex: …well, we didn’t get Mythra, but thanks for that comment; I now know what to have her imaginary self say when pretending she’s here.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 434
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 464
Wanderer2691: Moving on to the test itself, we…ah, hell…
"Butterfly, a curious creature unique. What does it do, but flap its wings? Unique, but for the millions of others like it. One takes flight, its fellows follow, millions of wings stirring the air. Air, stirred, takes on a life of its own. Eddies and vortices, currents and streams, invisible patterns, unseen by human eyes but felt nonetheless. What is a human? A creation of other the gods, or something more or something less? Can a human perceive the flapping of a butterfly's wings for what it is? Can a man see the whirlwinds created by that which he casually disturbs?
Sporker Cam:
(https://twinfinite.net/anime/best-anya-faces-spy-x-family/)
[Long silence.]
Leliel: …Uh…
Nia: The fuck you say?
"Who is this before me, to whom the butterflies flock? What is this starry eyed man? Why does his smile scare me so? Why do I fall into his eyes, swimming with stars? Galaxies spin, suns explode, and the universe goes on expanding, growing cold and dark. But even in the darkness, the perturbations of the butterflies remain, and at the very end, that man is still there, still smiling. What is this in the palm of his hand?
Rex: …Pyra, am I getting dumber, or are you also not processing…anything of what’s being said.
Pyra: …both. I can feel myself losing brain cells trying to process this.
"What is this? What is this? By the gods what is this?"
Mortarion: Yes, I’ve read Sophia’s first attempts at scripture too.
Wanderer2691: Either our author thought he was being really clever about parodying Eva’s more philosophical asides, or he forgot to clean up some word vomit.
(https://edgewisewordsinn.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/how-to-make-purple-prose-a-little-more-read/)
Leliel: Honestly, I sincerely think it’s an attempt to ape Eva by someone who clearly did not understand why Eva had those philosophical tangents at all; every time the show goes into philosophy mode, it expounds on a character’s difficulty with understanding others and the issues inherent to communication. As opposed to being purply morose about unrequited “love” and belching out some nonsense about butterflies any fool could quote and call themself wise; the “porcupine's dilemma” is something that was explained and cemented within three lines, as opposed to two paragraphs that don’t even cover the person they’re describing, just rambled at the people observing the testing chamber. I suspect Academia Nut can be found by playing Revolutionary Girl Utena on several large screens - the men who run away screaming in a blind panic at all the times the show admits to its own subtext are the set containing him. As we’ll see, this is supposed to be a panic attack, but I don’t think ‘glossolalia’ is a synonym for ‘weird rambly pseudo-poetry.’
Rei's screams ended the test before it had even gone past the absolute borderline. Ritsuko wanted to grab a cigarette to ease her but after her little attack she had been forbidden from smoking and been forced to massively cut back on her caffeine intake. It had left her annoyed and irritable, and considering the disasters that had been happening while she was out, this was a bad thing.
Rex: In particular, she was annoyed that it was pretty obviously a way to humiliate her out of universe, as while this would be recommended for recovering from a stroke, neither was she allowed to examine her own logs, as that’d be inconvenient for the Grand Pooh-Bah Tzeentchji.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 156
Gendo was furious with the results that the Children had been giving for the past month, and it was all coming to a head. Simply put, Shinji did not respond to synchronization "correctly", and instead seemed to have his own methods, methods that NERV science did not understand, for making his Eva move the way he wanted it to.
Wanderer2691: This had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he was furious, as he was far more sanguine about something breaking inexplicably in his favor, but rather, angry about being angry for no conceivable reason that makes sense in Watsonian terms.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 470
Despite only having a 55 synchronization rating, he consistently had the most powerful AT-fields and his Eva always responded in real time.
Leliel: This was a figure of scientific curiosity, as sync rates are literally a pilot’s connection to their Eva, and so a 55% sync rate would be “Eva moves slower than pilot by a notable degree, but accurately follows enough to not be that bad, what with how 41.3% is canonically extremely high for a beginner and is capable of fighting an Angel, as shown in Episode Freaking One, and AT Fields are orthogonal at best.” And also likely low enough to shrug off psychosomatic pain, so Actual Gendo likely isn’t too plussed. Also, yet more Stu-fluffing…
Mortarion: So the problem the Tzeentchian has… is that it seems like he is failing, when really he is performing at even greater efficiency, while failing.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 471 (It’d be TALON ON THE SCALES too, if I (Leliel) thought Academia Nut was aware of the bullshit he’s pulling.)
This behaviour was infecting the other pilots. Rei's synch rating had hit a similar plateau at 55, and Asuka seemed to be dropping towards that level as well even though her reaction times were increasing.
Pyra: [Frowns] Wait, if lag time of Eva movement is a symptom of a lower sync rate, then how would that imply a poor reaction time for the pilot? Seems completely unlinked, it’s just the fact the pilot is reacting so fast that it doesn’t matter, the Eva is still moving faster even with that lag - seems a reason to inspect the obviously mutating Asuka, rather than fret about poor percentages.
Wanderer2691: Congrats, you have given this infinitely more thought and context than Academia Nut wants, let alone actually gives.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 472
TALON ON THE SCALES: 157
Of course, while immensely useful in combat, these results were absolutely useless for the Dummy Plug project.
Nia: [Tosses up her hands] Of bloody course! That’s the real reason - whoever heard of a good story by not giving your protagonist all the luck to avoid any possible inconvenience! I don’t even know wha’ a Dummy Plug is, and I can tell you up front that it’s clearly just been wrecked to fellate the supposed hero!
Leliel: For the record, the Dummy Plugs are computer cores based on Rei’s thought patterns - or at least NERV’s models are, the SEELE ones are based on Kaworu - that serve as autopilots and tactical computers for the Evas, meant for autonomous control just in case. While I can see the point for synchronization being needed, as they need to trick the Eva into thinking it’s the actual Rei piloting them, as noted 55% is pretty dang functional - and he’d have noticed issues already, what with how the models for the Plugs are based on Rei’s tank clones - you know, the mutating clones, which likely would cause issues in the Plugs due to Chaotic thought processes and the forming hive mind she created with them. Great continuity, Academia Nut!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 474 (One for the sync issue, one for the Plugs failing at being early warning systems, both very apropos for the name of this count.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 158
And now Rei, considered the most universally compatible of the Children, and by far the most level person on the planet, was having a panic attack while trying to synchronize with Unit 01.
Wanderer2691: Uh, yeah, it took several months for her to sync with Unit-00. Admittedly, Unit-00 is a prototype and Rei is an Angel hybrid, so that doesn’t conflict with her being universally compatible, and Unit-02 eventually rejects both her and her model of Dummy Plug in general…after a Dummy Plug did something neither Shinji nor Unit-02 liked at all. Still not point-worthy, but a shaky grasp of the lore continues to be the defining trait of our author.
This unfortunately confirmed what Ritsuko had feared: a combat "mature" Eva would only synchronize with its designated Pilot.
Leliel: …and we were going to be merciful - yeah, that rejection was after, mild spoilers, Gendo seized control of Unit-01 through a Dummy Plug and forced it to commit near-murder of an innocent Toji to kill an Angel, while Shinji helplessly watched. He even explicitly admits it’s rejecting him more than Rei, as this is what would, if Yui was fully human still, what we would call a “banishment to the couch” moment. This could be Ritsuko being wrong in-universe, but this fic has negative benefit of the doubt.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 475
The metamorphosis that had been happening was changing everything they knew about the Evas, which already was terrifying small, considering that they were using them for war machines.
Rex: …y’know, because you were kinda strapped for time, and it can be hard to study something that isn’t a hard rule, see how Blades existed for literally all of Alrest’s civilization and finding ability to be a Driver who awoke one was a complete crapshoot for my entire life there. But, I suspect that since it makes the good Doc look bad, we’re supposed to take it at face value, instead of her laser-focusing on it.
Wanderer2691: We sincerely apologize for the fact we need to keep belaboring that point - it’s what happens when Academia Nut’s understanding of Ritsuko is so shallow it makes bird baths look like Olympic swimming pools.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 476
The moment Shinji had been put into Unit 00 for that part of the test he had immediately aborted, claiming that he was getting anomalous sensory input. When pressed further, he had embarrassingly admitted that the problem was that the plug had started to smell like Rei as the power-up sequence had begun. Further pressed, he had finally said in exasperation, "Alright, look, it smells like Rei after she's been in gym class for the past hour and decided to skip the shower and has just cracked open her lunch of natto on sauerkraut with vegemite and blue cheese sauce with diced onions and garlic for flavour and boiled beets for colour. If this smell gets much worse I swear I will throw-up, to say nothing of the distraction this is causing."
Nia: [Flatly] Ha ha ha ha ha. That was so funny I forgot to laugh.
Mortarion: Mundane baseline biological smells and perfectly ordinary human foods. I have walked on the surface of planets where all life has been rotting without dying for millenia.
Pyra: And I’ve smelled third-degree burns before - I’ve caused most of them. This is just being petty, not to mention it also sounds like a warning prelude to another rejection - a threat display to tell Tzeentchji who its pilot is and to warn him off, and the fact that this isn’t noted as such by either him nor NERV is telling.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 477
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 586
Just looking at his rapidly increasing stress levels and comparing them to the normal cool head Shinji had, Ritsuko had allowed the termination of the test. Clearly Unit 00 liked him no better than Unit 01 liked Rei.
Sporkers: Clever girl…
At least he had immediately voiced his discomfort and not nearly driven Unit 00 into a berserker state, unlike Rei who had nearly made it to the absolute borderline before losing it.
Rex: And…you monitor stress levels, so you’d be able to tell something was up long before she said anything. Great management, guys, especially if you realized Unit-00 was rejecting the ponce already.
Emma: Also notice that Tzeentchji fails… and gets to calmly say he’s disgusted and this isn’t working (in a way that still humiliates Rei), whereas Rei fails and basically has a seizure.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 478
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 587
TALON ON THE SCALES: 159 (Because yeah, it’s just to make him look cooler, not any real other reason.)
As it stood right now, Ritsuko guessed that the only Eva that would have a chance of accepting a Dummy Plug was Unit 02. While by raw numbers it had about as many sorties as the other two units and the pilot had been training with it for a much longer period of time, it had not been through the vicious fights with Shamshel or Ramiel, both of which had caused a tremendous amount of damage, and thus regeneration, to the Evas.
Wanderer2691: And in the Stopped Clock corner, we have actual context leading to a legitimate misreading of why the mutation is happening - the two damaged Evas are the ones displaying more uniqueness and will, so naturally, it must be damage. Finally, a mistake an actual smart person would make.
Gendo was going to be pissed, because SEELE would be furious with this news. This was not something they needed right now.
Leliel: …well, not quite accurate. More like they’d pretend to act mad, while internally looking at the Mass-Production Evas they have, then each other, and grinning evilly as they realize they could probably customize them, since they were always meant to sync with Kaworu’s Dummy Plugs alone and so fingerprinting isn’t a problem. You know, in a fic that actually cared about being something other than a pseudo-self-insert wankfest.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 160
At least Rei seemed well behaved.
Nia: Mostly because everyone is apparently blind and has no sense of smell! Ya can’t tell me nobody noticed her living in an apartment with a pet mass grave on top, alone! Actually, lemme correct myself - you can’t show me, this slop’s good at telling over that!
Emma: And here the horror runs into the desire for nothing to actually affect the protagonists. Even at the very lowest degree of “Rei doesn’t even shower anymore”, completely abandoning personal grooming is an incredible mundane red flag for anyone working with teenagers. You cannot have Rei as a plague cultist living in a murder garden and then have nobody notice when it would be inconvenient to rushing through the stations of canon as fast as possible.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 161
Rei had intended to ask Asuka about her proposal to "share" Shinji in the change room, but before the test they had both arrived at very different times and thus that opportunity had been missed. Rei having to be hauled out of Unit 01 having a panic attack over a hallucination she could only half remember had fouled her plans for an attempt after.
Pyra: Hands up, who here thinks that was an entirely deliberate attempt by Eva-01 to limit the damage caused by this supposed polycule warping even more? [Hand up.]
Away from the physical manifestations of the previous fragments of her soul, Rei had also found that she had lost her nerve. Part of it was actual fear of how Asuka would react, while another part was a more well-founded fear of how Commander Ikari would react if he found out.
Leliel: Gee, how would Gendo, noted maestro of emotions and relationships, act when he realizes he has a potential way to manipulate his rebellious son and the other Children? Actually, point, there’s a not small chance that, given how he knows Rei and Tzeenchji are biological siblings, he’d lose his lunch and then dedicate his considerable resources to cutting this red string of strangulation. And he’d have my complete support.
Rei also realized that she had no idea how to really go about this sort of thing.
Emma: Normally I’d be sympathetic; it’s not like the society presented in NGE is one that equips anyone to negotiate healthy relationships even without the complexity of polyamory. Noone knows how to go about that sort of thing; all my poly friends seem to have had it just sort of happen. However, you are engaging in a maladjusted harem fantasy of male domination, so I’ll just say that you have no idea how to go about this sort of thing because your author cannot imagine women having sexual agency.
Nia: Unsurprising she’s a bit unpracticed, given how a lot of this situation was pulled straight from the author’s bum after way too much time reading bad romances, porn, and bad romances in porn. Everyone feels out relationships and makes mistakes, good relationships learn to avoid the really bad malfunctions through the small. [Pointed look at Rex.]
Rex: [Blush] In all fairness, “I love you and all you guys” turned out to be more accurate than I thought…but that doesn’t change that the lesson in this particular relationship is “Tzeentchji can’t have functional relationships that don’t center around him, stay away unless and until he learns empathy.” But our author thinks that treating your spouses like action figures is healthy and expected of a man, so…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 465
Thus she found herself standing in front of Major Katsuragi's office trying to work out the exact wording of how she was going to ask this question. Outright lying seemed like a good idea, but then again Shinji had told her repeatedly that the best lies were, paradoxically, 100 true… from a certain point of view.
Wanderer2691: Oh joy, he thinks he’s a Horny Jedi…
Leliel: Lies and slander! As something made in the bowels of some of the most blind Galactic Empire-worshippers in the interwebs, he’s clearly a Horny Sith! All hail Darth Wankor, Lord of Egotistical Lust! …oh sweet merciful Desna, he’s a worse version of Pathfinder’s Nocticula, firstborn of all Succubi, too; at least Nocticula, even pre-redemption into the demigoddess of exiles, hospitality, and marginalized artists, was self-aware enough to realize that political conquest through shallow lust and deceit was petty and unfulfilling.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 588
By carefully presenting one fact you could have someone believe in the exact opposite. The best benefit of all this was that when the truth, the real truth came out, blame for the obfuscation would fall not on the one doing the concealing, but upon the one from whom the truth was concealed from.
Pyra: Um, I think that’s called ‘being a manipulative coward who is a fan of victim-blaming’ too.
Mortarion: Ah, yes. If you construct a false narrative and integrate the truth into it, then that frees you from any responsibility for your lies. If anyone believes you, it is their fault for being credulous and trusting you in the first place. Never mind how hard you punish any dissent, if people bend to that, it’s their own fault. *spits derisively on the floor, where it starts melting through, xenomorph-style*
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 589
Looking up from the pile of paperwork on her desk, Misato sees Rei and says in a surprised voice, "Ah, Ayanami-san, is there something you needed?"
Nia: Her ability to sense red flags and self-respect, perhaps?
Nodding, Rei steps into the office and asks quietly, "Yes. I have been troubled at school lately, and I felt I should ask you about it."
"Oh? What makes you think I would be the best one to ask about something like that?" Misato asks with a crooked smile on her face.
Wanderer2691: *Misato* “...because I’m really not, I just do this flirty thing for lack of better ideas and I actually had a single fairy-tale romance my whole life, not that the author is capable of looking away from my tits long enough to notice.”
Emma: Wanderer, are you implying a slut might have emotional depth? Everyone knows women can’t have layered personalities, especially the horny or flirty ones!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 479
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 466
"I overheard some girls talking in class. I heard someone saying some unpleasant things about Pilot Soryu." That Rei had been the one saying these things in the privacy of her apartment was left out.
Nia: [Blows raspberry and flips bird.] Chicken with a side of prick. Can’t help but notice the undertones of ‘bitches be schemin’’ from earlier either.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 467
"Or at least I assumed that they were unpleasant by the tone of voice. I did not quite understand the full meaning of some of the terms used, but I have been lead to believe that you would know these things, and as my commanding officer, I felt it best to talk to you."
Pyra: …she has learned the art of blatant and crass manipulation to cement Tzeentchji’s control over her well, I see. And only for that purpose.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 468
Frowning, Misato gets up and closes the door before going around to sit back on her chair and asks intently, "What did you hear Rei?"
Frowning slightly, Rei says, "I heard someone call Pilot Soryu a 'whore whose ears hang on Pilot Ikari's every word while she hangs off him by sucking on to his penis'. Individual these words I understand, but together I do not comprehend the full meaning."
[Long pause]
Rex: You know, I somehow got the sense that she was a bit more…high-class about it, even in the depths of her jealousy. Problem is that this seems to be laudable, according to our author.
Leliel: Kind of rich that the girl who ripped memories of sleeping with Gendo and forcefully implanted them into Asuka for psychic voyeurism is complaining about Asuka being an obsessive yandere, yeah.
Mortarion: Child. You dishonor yourself when you treat this as any sort of manipulation. Nobody will believe this, and frankly, it’s humiliating to watch.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 435
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 469 (It’s using her sexuality as an example of a bad thing, don’t forget that.)
Face planting into her desk, Misato grumbles, "Of all the things I expected to have to do in my life, this was not one of them. Alright, strap in kid, because I'm going to give you the same talk I gave Shinji and Asuka. If you're that clueless, you need to hear what I have to say."
Mortarion: …I briefly forgot everyone in this story is an idiot.
Wanderer2691: *Misato* “Also, can you direct me to those girls? I think they need a complementary lesson in respecting pilots and nasal reconstruction surgery.” [Slaps fist in palm]
Nia: *Rei* “...oops. Shouldn’t have poked the mother bear about her charges.”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 162 (‘Hands-off’ guardianing is not the same as ‘tolerating and refusing to investigating bullying.’)
Three hours later and Misato was running out of things to tell Rei. Unlike the other two, she had not flinched from a word said, merely sitting back quietly and listening, asking questions about things she did not quite understand. Somehow Misato had got going and by the end of it she was somehow explaining what a 'gangbang' meant using examples from her wilder college days.
Pyra: More specifically, relaying the description from wilder students, see ‘had one romance with one partner.’ Also, once again, a flirty woman does not mean a sexpot, author.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 480
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 470
Trailing off at, "…and we were all kind of awkward around one another for the next week…" Misato slumps over, everything she knew about the birds and the bees that could be vocalized to a minor somehow drawn out of her.
"I… see…" Rei says softly. "So you never initiated one of these events?"
"No… I was usually quite drunk at the time," Misato says, blushing with embarrassment at the memories.
Rex: …uh…you…do realize…you just admitted you were raped, right? Repeatedly? By several people? At once?
Leliel: I’m pretty sure Academia Nut does not consider it rape, as he does not care to understand the concept of enthusiastic consent - presumably, he also thinks Misato shouldn’t dress like that if she’s not asking for it. Bleh, even layered with sarcasm saying that’s a bad taste.
Emma: Of course. Because flirtation is, in the eyes of people like the one who wrote this fanfic, a complete negation of any need to ask for consent. This isn’t even “Misato isn’t even that sexual under the flirtation” because even if that was all genuine, it wouldn’t make Misato someone with no meaningful boundaries worth respecting and I know I sound like an after-school special but I have to talk down to this fic because it hasn’t earned anything else.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 472 (One for deciding date rape isn’t actually rape, another for “Misato am too real slut” idiocy continuing.)
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 436
"Then I will just have to make sure I am never drunk. Thank you Major Katsuragi, that was most educational," Rei says with a nod before getting up to leave.
Wanderer2691: Remember this line. I’d have a meme picture here about remembering this for later, but frankly, given what happens later, that would be…all kinds of tasteless.
"You're welcome Rei. I'm just glad you came to me for that sort of thing rather than trying to figure it out yourself," Misato says, inwardly wincing at how screwed up her own past had been because of the dearth of strong parental figures to reign in her self-destructive impulses.
Pyra: Though not as much as our alleged heroes! Though to be fair, they do have a creepy, creepy god helping insulate them from the consequences of their own actions.
Mortarion: Oh, yes, clearly what would have fixed this woman is to have a domineering parent controlling every aspect of her life. That would have fixed things.
Emma: This feels…uncomfortably Freudian, tbh. Like, yeah, parental is gender-neutral but given the daddy issues are the only piece of depth Misato has, this feels a lot like Misato going “oh, if only I’d had a strict, controlling father to protect me from myself so I stayed pure and didn’t become a wasted, ruined woman”. And then you get to how this fic positions Misato and Shinji and, I know I’ve described this fic’s take on this relationship as “a mom you can fuck” but this feels like it’s taking THAT and adding “Also Misato wants this 14 year old boy to be her daddy figure” to it.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 473 (Because yet another thing is “women want substitute fathers as lovers” in this kind of viewpoint.)
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 437
Fortunately Rei wasn't the wild, party type likely to get involved in something like that.
Snorting, Misato wondered if Rei even knew what sex was before coming down here.
Leliel: Ha ha ha ha ha this fanfic sucks! Sucks, sucks, sucks sucks sucks SUCKS SUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKS! [Starts doing random things to the tune of Combine Harvester by the Wurzels.]
Rex: …he going to be alright?
Wanderer2691: Eh, he does this when sufficiently sanity stressed, he channels Linkara for a few minutes and he comes back mostly fine, just needing to clean up a mess of weird props. Better than being possessed by a chainsword.
Emma: I didn’t even know we had that many rubber chickens in the sporking chamber…
Nia: …gonna take your word for it. Me, I’m just gonna go back home, and claim the right to sob into Mythra’s chest for a bit; Rex can wait his turn while I desperately remind myself what actual affection looks like.
Pyra: This is a really good idea - also, I’m going to ask Tora if there’s some old comics and outfits of his I can burn, especially after I tell him what I just learned. And hopefully convince Poppi not to slug me in the face for the horrors I am going to subject him to knowledge of.
Mortarion: You should be thankful. From what I have heard, it only gets worse from here
Wanderer2691: See you…hopefully not in this fanfic! Lels, you feeling better?
Leliel: [Gingerly removes confused Boston Terrier in a toga from head] A little. But…I admit that this chapter has awoken a certain amount of sadism in me. Because while it was horrible and skeevy and gross and rapey…it’s not the worst chapter in that regard. That would be the next one.
Wanderer2691: …you know, maybe we need a vacation ourselves but - yeah. Next time, we tackle what has, in previous conversations online with other people on this comm, been termed as…the date rape chapter. Pray for us…
Emma: Until then, if you need a palette cleanser, my podcast has begun uploading regularly again, so if you’re at all into Bionicle or just how I talk about things, it’s here or here:
In the wake of the attack by the Eleventh Angel, things were very quiet for the Children. NERV was still a hornet's nest of activity as repairs were made, clean-ups instigated, and investigations launched. They were all quite glad to be away from all the activity, for as Shinji had said, "Some weird shit just went down and we were the closest to it, so I don't think we want to we anywhere near there when they start asking questions."
Rex: Given how you’ve been acting, I don’t think that’ll be an issue, and in fact the very reason you’re suddenly making yourselves scarce after that thing attacked your teammate would come off as a bit suspicious after the weird way you were acting. Especially how it’s shown Ireul could infect organics with Rei, and the MAGI probably picked up on that tidbit.
Wanderer2691: And cowardly. Don’t forget cowardly; after all, as soon as his abilities might become ones Gendo knows about, suddenly he won’t be allowed to rampage without responsibility.
Nia: …”we anywhere”?
Leliel: If we chewed out every grammar error, we’d be here all month.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 148
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 559
Asuka was later in getting home as it had been her turn to help with classroom clean-up, and she had then stopped off at the store to get a few things. She had been feeling an incredible craving for red meat the past few days, so she had splurged and bought a large quantity of pork and beef.
Emma: Okay, this is justifiable in the sense of she’s got a lot of internal changes to fuel…buuuuut, if this is meant to be specifically Khornate, she probably shouldn’t be getting any fuel from something she didn’t kill herself. Which would be an effective horror scene, of Asuka literally gorging herself and literally being unable to gain sustenance from it, but that would require Academia Nut to be able to think beyond the surface level.
Pyra: And also might be unappealing. We can’t have that in our immature fantasies of the perfect woman…
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 293
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 398
Nia: Skipping ahead over the fluff, Asuka decides to avoid the cravin’ for raw meat and decides to talk with Tzeentchji. Followin’ Pen-Pen’s help (a thing I’m half-convinced is a Blade in canon), she finds him on the roof.
Shinji was indeed on the roof, and while judging from his clothes and his staff lying off to the side he had been practicing, he was not doing so currently. Instead, he was sitting in quiet meditation, surrounded by his own congregation of animals. It was kind of creepy the way normally wild creatures would gather peacefully around Shinji and Rei, although at least in Shinji's case his congregation was much cleaner.
Emma: So, why is Tzeentchji a goddamn Disney Princess all of a sudden? Rei’s garden of doesthedogdie.com is at least kinda thematically coherent with Nurgle. When has Tzeentch ever been associated with animals beyond the symbolic? Like, the lords of change are birds, but we’ve never heard of them having a connection with actual birds.
Wanderer2691: Because Tzeentchji is the Bestest (™) at everything, so if one of his trophies is skilled at animal empathy…
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 294
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 399 (Womanz Must Be Wekarz Dan MAAAAAAN)
"Communing with nature are you?" Asuka asks.
Leliel: If this was at all canon relations between gods, you’d be able to tell it wasn’t by him not flipping off a squirrel to get Tzeentch’s actual opinion on his archrival across.
"Yes," Shinji says, before gesturing for the various creatures to disperse. Unlike Rei, who had attracted the scavengers and the mongrels and the lost creatures, the vermin no one cared about, Shinji's congregation was made up of what he called 'subtle predators'. From the skies birds of prey of both day and night flocked to him and from the ground the snakes slithered forth to see him.
Rex: …so, he gets the cool ones, in other words. You know, I might be imagining things, but I can’t help but feel a slight sense of favoritism from the author, here.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 149
The only creature that did not leave for the night was a proud looking peregrine falcon that had made a nest on the apartment roof.
Wanderer2691: Oh look, you actually remembered Tzeentch is associated with birds, Academia Nut. Now, if only you recalled his animal-related title is the Raven God…
Leliel: In all fairness, Tzeentch is associated with birds of prey in general, so this isn’t a point-worthy element of STUFF (™) but to add a bit of silliness to silliness; in Warhammer Fantasy, Tzeentch is said to be represented by a great bird of constantly changing colors. Given his light Meso- and South American theming, we can only conclude that the most sacred bird of the Architect of Fate is that most fiendish and diabolical of avians that lure humans in through their incredible capacity to learn and deceptive plumage that is oft a living blasphemy against Khorne: Parrots.
(Source: Wikipedia)
“Wark! Just as Polly planned! Wark!”
The sharp eyed bird kept watch over its master all throughout the day, a flight of owls patrolling the skies at night but not claiming the territory the way that one falcon had.
Nia: [Agape] …is he seriously havin’ a pet that’s supposed to have the biggest brass ones in the local sky?! How insecure can you be!?
Emma: Oh, yeah, there is absolutely no reason to pick a peregrine falcon beyond it being the Best Bird. Fastest animal alive, regularly shows up in heraldry and as the falcon of nobility, the whole nine yards. (In the interest of arrant pedantry, I would like to say that owls do prey on other birds of prey, although most of the records I can find of them preying on peregrine falcons involve attacking nestlings).
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 400 (If your need to assert your protagonist’s masculinity is so dire you need a pet to be the boss…)
Not turning to Asuka, Shinji remained seated, brushing the feathers of the bird while still meditating.
"Horus likes you, you know?" Shinji states idly.
Leliel and Wanderer: [Simultaneously] His name is WHAT?!
Rex: [Jumps] Whoa, what is the-
"Horus?" Asuka asks.
"Ancient Egyptian falcon god… and a little in-joke," Shinji states while nudging the bird to move. Flapping its wings, the falcon takes up position at its roost.
Mortarion: You disgust me. You are a pathetic child. Ishtar, or any version of her, doesn’t deserve much, but she deserves better than to be dragged through the mud by the name of your pet.
Wanderer2691: Well said. Of all the self-aggrandizing, arrogant, disrespectful…why aren’t you naming him after, oh, I don’t know, an actual Thousand Son?!
Pyra: Uh, can I reiterate Rex’s-
Leliel: Horus Lupercal is the Primarch who originally lead the first public Chaos-based revolt and civil war against the Imperium of Mankind, leading the majority of the Traitor Primarchs to follow him in revolt, with only Lorgar already plotting against the God-Emperor by that point. All of them, effectively making Horus the antecedent of every single Chaos-aligned human and rebellion from the point of the Horus Heresy onwards.
Pyra: [Flat look] …So. In other words, it’s like calling your screwdriver the Will of the Architect.
Leliel: Pretty much. Except even worse, because a lot of Chaos deeply resents Horus for having failed in his initial push and died, plus he’s a lot less distant than Tzeentchji’s supposed father figure’s own brothers. Like the ones he keeps in canopic jars in his room.
Emma: Yeah, Mortarion seemed a little overly protective of Ishtar’s reputation there–
Mortarion: I’m her sister. I’m allowed.
Emma: Huh. Guess some things are universal
Nia: Okay, yeah, even if I was still part of Torna I think Malos would be giving me a bop across the noggin if I called my blades the ‘Vengeance of Lora’, Jin might actively kick me into the Cloud Sea. Even beyond the distance, that’s just kind of crass, ya egotistical creep.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 561 (One for ignoring your supposed uncles, Tzeentchji, another for the sheer edge of calling your accessory after one of the most influential figures in Chaotic history to make yourself look cooler.)
"Some freaky things are happening to us," Asuka states, sitting down next to Shinji, hugging her knees to her chest.
Nia: [Asuka] “For example, I feel the need for you to constantly define how I feel about my body and also what to think!”
His eyes still closed, Shinji states, "We are, and always have been and will be, special. Embrace that fact or go mad. Would you be frightened to know the reasoning behind your sudden cravings for strange things?"
Mulling this over, Asuka asks in return, "Would I be more frightened about the 'why' or the 'how you know'?"
Rex: Ooh, I know this one, because he has mind-reading and wants you to feel like you can’t think without him overhearing and course-correcting so you ought to do what he says, right?
Emma: Jesus christ he’s putting his girlfriend in the panopticon
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 562
Smiling, Shinji says, "You're learning. Both are frightful."
"Tell me how you know then," Asuka says.
"Very well," Shinji says, still smiling. "In the fight with the Eleventh Angel, I had to guide the evolution of Rei's diseases, which required an extremely fine control over my abilities.
Wanderer2691: [Tzeentchji] “First and foremost, my ability to use authorial powers to break canon across the knee and decide I had the ability to guide diseases, and also, silly billy, did you think Rei was allowed to do something cool?” [Gags]
Mortarion: You did not guide anything with fine control. You are a Tzeentchian. You threw a ton of mutations at the wall to see what stuck and when a few did out of sheer chance, you passed that off as your plan all along.
Emma: To be a little less personally petty about it…Tzeentch does random mutations. Leaving aside the presentation of Tzeentch somehow being able to usurp his greatest rival’s domain, Tzeentch’s treatment of mutation is less “guide evolution to a specific point” and more “winning at blackjack because you’re rolling 500 dice at once”
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 563
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 295
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 401
It forced my body to change to accommodate the new requirements of my mind.
Nia: For example, actual activities within that grey matter.
My remote viewing abilities have been… enhanced, considerably. Aside from microscopic detail, I can now view things in four dimensions."
Leliel: There’s a bit of technobabble dump I’m sure impressed StarDestroyer.net, but basically, he sees not only the exterior of everything he’s looking at, but the inside as well. And all of that is only important because…
"So that means that?" Asuka asks.
Grinning, Shinji says, "Well for one, unless you have clothing that exists in four dimensions they're pretty much useless for the purposes of concealing things."
Pyra: [Pleasantly smiling with suppressed rage] First of all, I can provide the fire for you to go die in, if you need it. Second - I can’t help but feel your libido would promptly die, as that would mean you would be able to see anatomy in its entirety, including food digesting and being reprocessed into reasons to go the bathroom, pus, and other disgusting biological factors that are supposed to remain on the inside, plus the anatomy of every single cell. So unless you have a fetish for gore and things I am pretty sure Tora would promptly develop a drinking problem upon discovering personally to save his sanity, along with various organelles, I believe this would be classified as a turn-off.
Emma: Yeah, we can’t really comprehend what seeing in four spatial dimensions would be like, but not only would Asuka’s clothes not be surrounding her body in four dimensions, her skin wouldn’t be surrounding the rest of her. She’d look like some sort of very esoteric anatomical diagram.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 564
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 321
Whacking him playfully upside the head, Asuka says, "Stupid pervert."
Rubbing the spot where he was hit painfully, Shinji says, "And the other thing is that I can see your insides all at once. Combined with microscopic viewing, it gives me a rather unique way of looking at the changes occurring to us. Makes applying telekinesis rather interesting as well."
Pyra: [Eyes fly open as she pales] …he does have a fetish, doesn’t he.
Asuka shuddered as she felt invisible fingers running all across and inside her body in a pleasantly visceral way.
[Rex, Pyra, Nia, all collectively cringe and try to not look directly at it.]
Wanderer2691: Yep. You gotta get it out…there we go…
"I have already memorized the map of the entire human peripheral nervous system through experimentation upon myself and others; I know what every last nerve, every last dendrite, does and how they connect. It's actually rather frightening the sort of intelligence needed to do this in a few days, but then again most people just see a tangled mess, I can lay out every last connection without having pieces running over and around one another. It makes it much easier to tell them apart," Shinji says, still running telekinetic fingers through Asuka.
Nia: [Gagging] Okay…okay, leavin’ aside literally everything Pyra said about…that bodily function fetish, and that apparently being a thing…this a level of unasked for touch that is several levels above mere ‘grope’, that is a violation beyond I think is physically possible…
Emma: It also wouldn’t work. There is no reason the nerves that are buried in your body and don’t directly experience sensation would have any ability to pick up pleasant sensations like this. Given that hitting your funny bone feels like that because your ulnar nerve literally isn’t meant to pick up sensation at that position and your whole brain just screams “FUCK”, I… cannot imagine trying to directly finger your girlfriend’s spinal cord as feeling good.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 565
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 322
Panting a few times at the alien sensations he is making her feel, Asuka says, "That… that's enough for now." He could effortless combine together sensations, triggering simultaneous warm and cold feelings while mixing them with painless cutting and purple-green bursts of light and the flavour of strawberries bursting in her mouth.
Nia: And here’s where I’m comparing it to a roofie…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 565
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 322
Discontinuing it with a wave, Shinji says, "Very well, I am no deviant Slaaneshi to revel in such things anyway.
Leliel: [Angry sputtering, points at Dark Prince’s AT Field and the preceding paragraph about being able to do multidimensional peeking and then flips both middle fingers.]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 566 (For the sheer hypocrisy of having used psychic peeping and then claiming that.)
My original intent of such mapping was of course to be able to have a new way of taking someone down. A tap in the right place and a person could fall to the ground screaming as they feel as if their entire body is on fire. It would last but a few moments, but the effects could be devastating nonetheless. It is so much simpler than a direct psychic attack too."
Rex: I’m sorry, that was too long, I didn’t read, so for our sakes, ultra-summarized version: BIG MAN. BIG. ETHER STRONG. BIIIIG.
Emma: Oh, now you have an agony beam. Lovely.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 567
Thinking about this, Asuka asks, "Is this why the news was talking about the fit the President of the United States suffered yesterday?"
Chuckling darkly, Shinji says, "His public address was annoying me. It took quite a bit of effort to do a viewing and a telekinetic burst over that kind of distance, but it shut him up quite effectively."
Wanderer2691: I’d be busy chewing you out for causing a diplomatic incident at best, paranoid fear of Angelic interference and cutting budget to NERV at worst, but I got sidetracked by how apparently, Tzeentchji is able to affect people with a psychic taser from the other side of the planet. That’s something most Thousand Sons need a focused ritual to do, and even Greater Daemons need a bit to work up to it, not “the time required for a speech to grate on you.”
Leliel: And…doesn’t human psionics show up on the MAGI as red patterns in this fic? That’s why Ritsuko realized something was up with Rei? …you’d think they’d log something, especially with her anti-dumbass-that-can’t-understand-the-Angels-are-eldritch modifications.
Mortarion: So what he has done, is essentially completely sacrificed all his stealth, and the advantages that come from it… for a petty, childish prank.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 567
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 296
TALON ON THE SCALES: 150
Pyra: Thankfully, we can skip the next bit, it is mostly Tzeentchji noting that Asuka’s natural body temperature has vastly increased, and her only symptom is needing heavier clothing due to the world feeling a bit more chilled.
Smiling crookedly, Shinji says, "Well, I always knew my girlfriend was hot, but this is just taking it a touch further than expected."
Sporkers: …
(https://giphy.com/gifs/boo-thumbs-down-dislike-WrxoaVPiq0cG4 )
"Okay, why am I so hot then?" Asuka asks.
"Should I start with the breasts, thighs, ass or face?" Shinji asks.
Nia: … Insert bad pun about the hotness needing to be Pyra’s fire here, I’m not becoming a worse monster than those I fight.
Wanderer2691: Given how Asuka apparently is suffering from false chills, is there a way we could send Tzeentchji over to the Like A Dragon’s series Hawaii? I think Yutaka Yamai’s crowbar will be very interested to know how he managed to mold Asuka into a bad ripoff of him decades before the game was introduced and why…well, it’d be spoilers, but trust me, it takes some real skeeve to come off as a creepier and more intrusive manipulator than that game’s main villain.
Emma: Normally this wouldn’t raise red flags; there’s nothing wrong with listing the attractive parts of your partners. Here, though…it feels unpleasantly like chopping her up into chunks.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 568
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 323
Whacking him again, Asuka says with a touch of worry in her voice, "Okay, stop kidding around and tell me what's going on."
Wincing, Shinji mutters, "That spot was already tender from the first time." After regaining his composure, he says, "Your body is running hot because its burning lots of extra energy rearranging itself, and your own natural psychic field is protecting you from the ill effects.
Leliel: [Opens mouth, then thinks] …honestly, this kind of “just enough psychic influence to be possible for mutations to augment your flesh” is something Khorne would tolerate. Being made of Warp energy means he’s technically a living psychic field too. So, this barely gets a pass.
The reason you're so hungry lately, especially for red meat, is because your body suddenly has a massive demand for fresh proteins for all the new construction it's doing."
Wanderer2691: This doesn’t! Since when has the Warp cared about what is physically possible or not?
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 297
Rex: There’s actually an entire wall of technobabble on it and biological needs, but even looking at it, all I can think is that Ether can just alter molecules on that level without all the preamble of chemical changes, something about “bones are being reinforced with a biological form of a titanium-steel alloy” to support new muscle and such…but if Khorne’s really all that, it seems a bit daft, especially when it’s been outright shown other mutations happen instantaneously without ill effect. Why’s this different?
Nia: [Reads next bit, pales] …because we wouldn’t have this then…
It also explains why you've been drinking white paint," Shinji tells her.
"I have not been drinking paint!" Asuka cries out indignantly.
"Relax; I said there was an explanation. Almost all modern white paints contain titanium dioxide as the primary pigment, and your body suddenly has a demand for titanium it didn't before. Plus, I found the bottles, and disposed of them more carefully so Misato-san won't ask why there are a dozen empty bottles of white paint lying around," Shinji tells her.
Rex: I…don’t see why that’d…be…an…[Horrified realization of how a white paint would look if it spilled on her mouth] CURSE YOU, BRAIN!
Pyra: [Hiding face in embarrassed mortification] It’s…removed enough I’m not comfortable with hitting it with the pervert point, but this fic is horny enough to the point where I genuinely considered it. But as noted, there is a sudden infatuation with ‘scientific plausibility’ here that wasn’t present before, and it actually did lead to some potential evidence that was only hidden because, out of universe, it’d be inconvenient.
Nia: …this was made on a website known for just how mean-spirited and obsessed with overshadowin’ the knowledge of others is, right? I’m thinking this is the rough equivalent of the author trying to preen his own brain and wave it around for the world to show. Yes, this is meant to sound vaguely obscene.
Emma: Okay, I don’t think if you needed titanium you’d get cravings unless you were fully aware paint has titanium in it. Like, cravings are generally for a) for something your body knows on some level is in there or b) pica, which isn't actually related to mineral deficiencies. This is just… confusing.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 302 (Five points in general for over-complexifying Chaos and making metabolic load and nutrients a concern to it, the softest element in 40K’s soft sci-fi setting when it previously was not.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 155 (Five more, for this only being an issue when convenient to the main characters.)
Leliel: Blah, blah, technobabble, technobabble, Asuka is becoming a superstrong Amazon soldier, she doesn’t see why this would help fighting Angels in an Eva beyond, as Tzeentchji points out, being able to soak vibrations in the middle of a fight, Academia Nut apparently thinks “retinas” are a term for the cells that line the back of your eyes in general and so every human already has multiple (seriously - “Your retinas are detaching one at a time and moving to new positions, along with new ones being grown”, which implies that Asuka’s eyes are growing multiple backs and one is no longer at the back - the retinas are what those cells compose, oh Master of Anatomy), and she’s a little unsettled by the description.
Emma: There’s something really weird about the description of Asuka’s mutations. The bones being enhanced with minerals, the growth of new, better, retinas, the density of muscles, the enhanced digesting system and kidneys. These don’t read like Khornate mutations. This reads like Asuka is turning into a Space Marine. We aren’t seeing any of the really obvious things like the second heart, or completely new organ systems like the belcher’s gland or omophagea, but we’ve hit the denser muscles, the enhanced bones (although space marines use ceramic compounds), the enhanced eyes, the enhanced lungs… she even has an expanded liver and kidneys, which I feel are things that non-Space Marine super soldiers are rarely marked out as having. This would also explain why we’re suddenly worrying about metabolic loads; the Astartes creation process has never been realistic, but it’s presented as something very controlled and medicalized unlike Chaos mutations or ascension to daemon princehood. Like, they can get away with ceramic bones because the neophytes are explicitly fed ceramic compounds or have supplements put in those pill pockets for dogs or something. I’m not sure this is the fic intentionally trying to one-up Space Marines, mostly because I can’t pin Academia Nut down on the “will throw a fit if you mention Female Space Marines” to “is obsessed with Female Space Marines as big titted anime waifus in boob power armor”, but it’s definitely very similar.
Wanderer2691: If anything, though, that makes her being a Legally Distinct Chaos Sphess SEAL even more vapid, because a constant struggle for Chaos Space Marines is trying to balance their mutations to their gene-seed; they are not easily compatible processes.
EXCOMMIUNICAE CANONICUS: 303
Running a telekinetic finger up her spine, making her shiver, Shinji says, "You're moping Asuka. Do you know what that means?"
Nia: [Instinctively covers rear from the telekinetic grope] You get a nice scar pattern on your dumb face?
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 569
"It's time for a sloppy make-out session?" Asuka asks hopefully.
Pyra: …please tell me I was never this embarrassing with Rex…
Wanderer2691: Trust me, if you were, Lels wouldn’t have called you up. And once again, the Healing Power of Dick solves all issues.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 402
"Fuck yeah it's time for a sloppy make-out session," Shinji says, opening his eyes and then springing from his sitting position to tackle her."
Rex: …yeah, the fact I was never this…saccharine is good to know. I won’t apologize for trying to be bright and sunny and all that, but this is…I don’t know what this is, particularly how he suddenly goes from “mastermind” to “sickly playful teenager” when convenient. Frankly, it comes off like an act, given…the everything about him.
Leliel: And also, it comes off as trying very hard to say “see, he’s not evil, the power of LUUUUUV brings out the sweetness in him!” …fuck, how many times do I need to remind myself the characters he’s a worse version of came out after he did, because frankly I’m really missing Fiona Frost right now! At least she’s intentionally written as a manipulative clown!
(For the record, Leliel actually really likes Nightfall, but that’s 75% because the show is fully aware she’s a stalker and is not at all a good person, making her the butt of many a joke and humiliation - which also makes her an infinitely less skeevy character, what with how we aren’t supposed to think her behaviors are valid or respectable, Academia Nut.)
Emma: It also is barely “Even Evil has Loved Ones”. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that every attempt to use love to flesh him out is either a) still relentless violence or b) how good he is at sex. I don’t get the impression he’s capable of genuine emotional vulnerability, or of genuinely putting his girlfriend first.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 403
They playfully wrestled for a while, Shinji barely able to counter Asuka's greater strength with his ability to predict her moves and weasel out of thing. Finally though Asuka managed to overpower him and pin his shoulders to the ground while straddling his hips to keep his legs under control.
Emma: If he likes Khornates so much, why not have her beat him instantly and him like it?
Pyra: Well, obviously, it’s because he has that entirely unique and valid form of relationship that can only exist as a power imbalance, which is not at all unhealthy and making me glad for the world that Malos is gone, because I suspect I’d impulsively join him at the end of this!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 404
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 570
Staring down at him, Asuka asks, "Shinji… could we go a little further this time?"
"How much further?" Shinji inquires.
"Well… I really liked what you did earlier with your telekinesis, and I was… um… wondering… if…" Asuka says, chewing her lip in hesitation.
"If I would do that to… shall we say more sensitive areas?" Shinji finishes for her.
Emma: Give up. If there was ever a man who couldn’t find the clitoris even with a full understanding of the nervous system and a complete four dimensional map of all your nerve endings, it’s Tzeentchji.
Nia: And I can’t help but feel it’d be akin to a newbie sawbones pokin’ it uncertainly with a scalpel even if he did find it. Ain’t got anything resembling passion in there.
"Yeah," Asuka says with a nod. "I… I uh… actually had a… uh… a dream and it had you and it… uh… was really, really good and I've been wanting to… uh… ask you if… well… if you wanted to go to third base… for the… well… the uh… past few days."
Wanderer2691: ….ooooh, noooo….
Laughing at the brilliant red blush on her face, Shinji says, "Hey, if my girlfriend wants to go to third base, I don't care if I slide in or levitate in."
Leliel: Oooooh, noooo….
Thinking about his word choice, Asuka glares at him with an amused look on her face and says, "Pervert."
Rex: …is it too late to ask to go to the bathroom?
Nia: [Expression Of Utter Suffering] Rex, I love you, but as part of that, I am going to remind you of what my focus is. If I’m gonna suffer, I don’t want to feel like my spouses are usin’ me as a Gormotti shield.
Rex: …valid. Pass me one of those sodas…
"Guilty as charged. Now do you want me to do a telekinetic massage or a direct neural stimulation?" Shinji asks.
"Surprise me," Asuka replies.
Pyra: [Pained laugh] It’s almost like awakening Core Crystals…except every one is a rejection that, instead of killing you, makes you wish for death…this is going to hurt…
Mortarion: *In a genuinely trying to be sympathetic tone* You will become inured to the pain eventually.
She then promptly collapsed off Shinji as a small artillery shell seemed to hit her right between the eyes.
Nia: Ah, yes, being shot in the brain. Exactly how I want to feel during foreplay. What is this fic!?
Pinning her now, Shinji says, "I'll let you figure out what that was on your own. Could you lower your mental barriers though? I want to know what is pleasant and what is too much so I can be careful."
Emma: And I guess just having a safeword wouldn’t work, because then you wouldn’t be making her open to you absolutely and completely (without reciprocation).
Rex: Of course not. That wouldn’t let him feel like he’s a cruel god, after all.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 571
Gasping for air, Asuka looks up at him with half glazed eyes and a slack jaw.
Can you hear me now?
Loud and clear… and that should be feel quite nice for you, now shouldn't it?
HOLY FUCK! Sweet merciful! Don't… do… don't… holy SHIT! Oh wow… oh wow… oh fuck! Fuck Shinji, you keep this up and sex will be a let down!
Nia: …so, I’ve heard that subtlety is needed in horror, because nothing the author can come up with can be worse than your imagination…I think there needs to be a similar rule for gross…
I doubt that. It will just be one more appendage to work with.
Oh God! Oh God, you're a fucking octopus already! Oh sweet Khorne take me now!
Emma: Was that a tentacle porn joke? Never mind, rhetorical question, fuck off Tzeentchji.
Wanderer2691: Just in case we forgot that beyond being skeevy as fuck, this story is absolutely basic and has no functional sense of humor.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 572
Elsewhere in the city, Rei was watching this all through her mind, her envy growing.
Pyra: ...it’s over? Oh, thank the Architect, that was painful, but…short…um…what is with the pitying looks?
Leliel: That wasn’t the skeeve part.
Mortarion: Hope is a treacherous lie.
Pyra: …okay then. I’ll start with a good ten for the lurid details across several paragraphs combined with the less-than-ideal power dynamic…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 333
She could contain it… for now… but she wanted Shinji, wanted him the way Asuka had him. To a certain degree she hated the bitch… and to another degree she loved her just as intensely.
Pyra: [Stare, shying backwards] And another for…whatever this nonsense is…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 334
Emma: This is where this chapter becomes wildly, insanely, misogynistically biphobic and does not let up at all. Look, I’m a yuriologist, I love fucked-up relationship dynamics. I am speaking from the most qualified place possible when I say that this is all based on a worldview that cannot comprehend sexual attraction between women as genuine. It cannot comprehend relationships between women as not being supplanted by those with men. It cannot comprehend the idea that women don’t all see each other as specifically sexual competition. Like, I ship Reisuka and I think it would probably start with apparent loathing on Asuka’s end, because Asuka is genuinely jealous of Rei and is operating on a deeply heteronormative conception of the world. This is just fucking nonsense. I was writing better WLW dynamics at 16 when I thought I was straight.
Nia: And also, ya weren’t writing it so that the self-insert could get his whistle wet because his alleged girlfriends are into each other, and that alone…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 404
"You long to lie with them both," a dry, cracked voice says to her.
Rex: …yeah, this ain’t gonna be fun at all…
"You are a figment of my imagination," Rei replies.
"We are symptoms of a disease, a glorious, beautiful disease," a gurgling, infected voice tells her happily.
"Silence," Rei says, glaring at the two heads of her previous incarnations on the altar. She had already sown their mouths shut with heavy string, but still they spoke with her.
Wanderer2691: …leaving aside just how…grody this scene is, Rei’s soul is singular. There’s even odds this is hallucination, and according to the head of Rei III, “Our soul has been reincarnated so many times, it has begun to fragment”, so I’ll let it slide, but Academia Nut has not impressed me as an Eva scholar. So, just…why.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 335
Leliel: Skipping over some exposition of Rei’s head-voices-of-herself and just some general gross description…
"Three merely wishes to tell you the truth of the matter, just as I do. You cannot deny for instance that you joined with her in dream the other night," Rei II says in her perpetually dry voice, the effects of the strange mummification that had happened to her.
Nia: Joined with her in- [Pales, ears pin back] …oh no. Is this like a succubus? As in, the kind that sneaks into your dreams and…does things…?
Wanderer2691: It is exactly like that. And not in the sexy way Academia Nut clearly thinks.
Pyra: …so, I’m going to wait to score this…and get this puke bucket.
Flopping down angrily, Rei IV cannot deny that bit of information. All the tiny bones of all the thousands of creatures that came here to die rattled between her fingers, the sound drowning out her own thoughts for a time.
Rex: Well, that’s only reasonable. When I’m calming myself, particularly in matters of love, what I want to think of is bones in my fingers. Apparently Nurgle gives you a thing for corpses, but since I, the reader, ain’t in his camp…
Rei had stopped dreaming ever since she had incarnated in this form. Instead, when her body rested, her soul, already only loosely connected to any one body, drifted, lost upon the psychic sea of the hundreds of thousands of others slumbering at night. Every night she visited dozens of others, leaving them how she say fit. She was a young boy's wet dream, an old woman's fond memory, a guilty man's nightmare.
Leliel: For the record, this is a canonical type psyker power in 40K and a spell in Fantasy. Both are also, distinctly, associated with Slaanesh. And astral projection for gathering intelligence is entirely Tzeentch.
Wanderer2691: I take it as the dim awareness of actual lore and place that recognizing Rei is adhering to the wrong Ruinous Power desperately trying to escape from Academia Nut’s thick skull.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 303
And two nights ago, she had found Asuka's soul in her meaningless drifting.
Xenoblade Sporkers: OOOH, NOOOOOO!
Emma: Okay, I have enough to say about this scene I’m going to need to save it all up for the end.
Leliel: Which means…oh shit. Which means we’re on it…
Wanderer2691: [Helmet on, puke bucket out.] Actually, before we start:
THIS NEXT SECTION CONTAINS A SCENE OF METAPHYSICAL DATE RAPE AND SEXUAL BRAINWASHING. PLEASE SKIP TO THE NEXT LARGE TEXT MESSAGE IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO READ IT.
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Rei had wept in her mind when she first beheld it, for she finally understood why Shinji had chosen Asuka over her. Rei had emotion and passion now, but it had taken her a long time to get it right, and even now she was barely a candle in comparison to the supernova that was Asuka.
Leliel: [Megaphone] REI. HAS. EMOTIONS. YOU. DINGUS.
Rex: Hell, if anything, her trying to act them out for her MAAAAAN would make her come off as unsettling due to insincerity. Congrats on making yourself less appealing! …And that’s not sarcastic, you should consider active murder to protect others from this prick!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 405
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 405
In the dreamscape horned demons wielding crooked axes standing in front of a wall of boiling blood had prevented initial access, but one of the gatekeepers recognized Rei and allowed her within.
Wanderer2691: So they could stab the impudent witch, the end.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 304
Instead of being a free agent within the dreamscape, Rei and Asuka's mind mingled, each sharing the other's thoughts and sensations. Asuka did not understand what was happening, and would probably never know about Rei's involvement unless she told her.
Pyra: [Eyes widen] Uuuum….
At the time Rei joined in, Asuka had been dreaming about just talking with Shinji, a simple memory being processed by the dream. With Rei's involvement though, the dream had moved from simple talking to a full blown make-out session.
Rex: Uuuuhhmmmm….
Rei had revelled in all the memories Asuka had of Shinji's touch to make the experience all the more real.
And then Rei had added her own contribution: Dr. Akagi's adult memories, ripped from the woman's mind over a week before.
Nia: UUUUUUUHHHHHHHMMMMM…
Leliel: [Readies puke buckets.]
The two girls had been one as the dream Shinji did wonderful, incredible things to her/them. When it was all over and Rei's mind drifted back to her body, she had immediately finished off what had been started. She suspected Asuka did the same.
[Long silence]
Rex: …that…
Pyra: That was rape. That was two kinds of rape at once. No, actually three.
Nia: One, coercion, using these ether powers to possess someone, and then experiencing your forced pleasures through them. And two, deception, because her partner didn’t exactly know it was you at the controls. Three, sharing intimate memories from Dr. Akagi all over again without her consent.
Wanderer2691: Yes. Yes it was.
[Long silence]
Since then she had been melancholy in her obsession. She wanted the dream to be real. She wanted to feel Shinji inside her, to feel the warmth of his breath on her bare skin, the dripping of his sweat upon her back, the…
Pyra: NOPE! [Ignites]
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8jed0dP4aM)
Rex: Thanks Pyra. On a related note: HUUGRGH! [Pukes into bucket]
Nia: Huh, I was expecting me first on both counts. BLRRGGH! [Follows suit with own]
Leliel: …So, first of all…
END OF SCENE. YOU CAN RESUME HERE.
Leliel: Secondly, while our co-sporkers are losing their lunch and the screen reboots, you wanted this rant, Emma?
Emma: Okay, this seems like a good breaking point for me to go ham on the previous paragraphs. *takes a deep breath* We live in a society where to be a woman attracted to women is to be treated as a predatory interloper. The stereotypes of the Psycho Lesbian and Predatory Bisexual are almost identical when applied to women, and the differences aren’t super relevant here. What matters is that the presentation of queer womanhood as inherently sexually depraved and invasive on “natural” desires. What this makes obvious, is that this is the default worldview which this story is written on. It’s presented so horrifically matter-of-factly that it’s obvious that Academia Nut has never considered any other way. Of COURSE all bi women are sexually predatory. Of COURSE that’s excusable, because it’s not like women can actually sexually violate in any way that matters (and, given how Asuka acts, probably the assumption she wanted it anyways.). Of COURSE the primary element of disgust and deviancy here is the existence of genuine sapphic desire and not the rape.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 385
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 406 (Because of course Academia Nut does not even comprehend that this is a violation of Ritsuko in general.)
Asuka had invaded her fantasies too. She wanted to lie naked with the other girl and play with her.
Nia: [Cleans off sick] THIS ISN’T A COUNTERPOINT TO EMMA’S STATEMENT!
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 386
She wanted to be with her, for their saliva and other fluids to mingle. For Asuka to shudder with joy as Rei went to work and the blessings of Nurgle to do their job.
Rex: …isn’t the end stage of a disease, y’know…death?
Wanderer2691: Ah, but it’s clear that Academia Nut isn’t clear on the difference between Nurgle and Slaanesh, so it’s clear he thinks Nurgle would be sexy, because…
For Asuka to cry out in joy just as her body finished breaking down into a bag of blackened pus that would burst upon Rei. And then Rei would wallow in the toxic remains of the other girl, immune to the disease that had removed the competition.
Wanderer2691: …he has a thing for snuff, I guess. Urk.
Pyra: [Pinching nose] And let’s add that not only is she apparently a bad bisexual, she’s a crazed stalker as well. This is why Malos and his Driver lost their minds…
Emma: Also Rei’s desire for Asuka is literally un-disentangle-able from her hatred for Asuka as getting in the way of Tzeentchji, the true object of desire. Her desire is both inherently predatory and inherently secondary to desire for men. *smiles nastily* I should’ve brought a bingo card.
Mortarion: If she truly loved her, she would be doing everything possible to preserve her. Drag her into an unbreakable bond, do everything you can to graft yourself together. If that doesn’t appeal to you, perhaps you aren’t a Nurgilite or not in love. Or both.
Emma: …I get your point but please don’t give relationship advice.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 387
But never immune to Shinji's glare. He would hate her forever if she did such a thing to the one he loved.
Rex: As with most kids after you take their favorite toy. That’s why grounding works.
Her fantasies of what he did grew worse with each successive version. He had begun by killing her in gruesome ways, ripping her apart with his telekinesis or throwing lightning bolts at her until her organs began to burst out of her flesh with the heat. Then it had moved on to a lifetime of torture, of reducing Rei to a quadruple amputee, her only sensations pain.
Nia: …why do I get the sense that this is not only accurate, but considered to be laudable behavior by our author?
Leliel: Y’know, something along these lines sold me on the idea that Vlad von Carstein from Warhammer’s Fantasy equivalent loves his wife, but that setting points out he’s still the local version of Dracula and thinks the only way to stop Chaos is turning most of the world undead - and said wife is someone he regards as an equal to the point where he was afraid turning her into a vampire would make her miserable (it didn’t, and he was relieved). Oh hey, a character who Tzeentchji comes off as a lesser version of who was written before he was!
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 573 (Her imagining, but I get the sense we are supposed to regard this as accurate.)
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 388
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 407
The worst though, was when Shinji killed himself. He did it just to spite her.
Pyra: …what?
For killing his love, he would give Rei no attention at all.
Pyra: …WHAT?
At first these terrible thoughts had been Rei trying to continue on without him, but then Shinji and Asuka came back to taunt her, spirits eternally together in the afterlife, and she could not join them. No matter what Rei did, there was always another clone to keep her from the afterlife, while Shinji and Asuka just laughed cruelly in the shadows as the bodies piled up in one futile attempt after the other.
Pyra: …everyone has fifteen seconds to retreat to cover.
Everyone: [Quickly does so.]
Pyra: Thanks. Now:
FUCK! YOU! FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU, YOU SON OF A HORSE-FUCKING SHIT-WEASEL INBRED RATFUCK! AND THE HORSE YOU CAME IN ON! WHICH SHOULD ALSO BE FUCKED! OFF! TZEENTCHJI! AAAAARGGH! [long inhale] …I’m sorry. Is everyone all right?
Rex: [Coughing up soot] More worried about you, really…
Nia: Yeah. That was some…triggerin’ bullshit, especially for you.
Pyra: Mm. I…yeah, you can see I used to be part of Mythra there… But as for me - I don’t think I was acting particularly weirdly given what I just read. Because, while it’s still painful, I’m gonna admit a truth - I did lead Rex to Elysium, but it was partly for my sake. Because…I wanted to ask the Architect for permission to die…
Rex: Pyra, you don’t have to-
Pyra: No, no, it’s okay. I probably will still be grappling with it, but…the reason I said I was part of Mythra was that the initial split between us was caused when she lost control of her powers and killed an entire Titan…which, in more familiar terms, meant we condemned an entire continent to sink. Along with killing a bunch of other people in the process. I emerged because at that point, Mythra hated everything about herself, and realizing what she did pushed her over the edge into not wanting to be Mythra anymore. So, I came out - her mature, kindly, humble, and…mostly controlled sister, someone who wouldn’t hurt anyone if she lost track of her powers…but I still had the memories of what she did, to say nothing of Mythra herself…
Nia: …I’ll, uh, take over. Basically, just because there was two alters now didn’t mean shit to her guilt or feelin’ like she was more of a danger than a help to others. So all that kept the ideation away was the idea of needin’ to ask the Architect for permission to finally die first, because otherwise it came off as cowardly…
Pyra: And in truth, I kept it quiet, because we didn’t want to be a burden…but at the same time, I think we were afraid people would try and talk us out of it. The both of us were…certainly eager to die heroically, on the chance we couldn’t reach Elysium. The pain’s gone a bit, but it’s likely both of us will be dealing with that survivor guilt for the rest of our lives, even if we convince all of us that it really wasn’t anything we could have done better.
So as you can imagine, I am not very happy with this right now.
Wanderer2691: Seriously. Suicide is a serious fucking subject, and to have it dangled like this as some way to “pwnzr” Rei by making them “together in death” like that isn’t a personal hell for Asuka - even beyond the fact it’s treated as petty narcissitic spite to try and hurt someone else as a primary goal, (and it’s really sick I can see Tzeentchji following that thought process), here, it’s being used, essentially, to milk sympathy for Academia Nut’s ‘improved’ Rei. “Oh, woe is her, don’t you feel so sorry for the yandere who wants so badly to be with her MAAAAN but is so CRUELLY denied by her desire to make her MAAAAAN happy?” No, it makes me want to drown her in rubbing alcohol, particularly given how to her, the real tragedy is being unable to join them! Because that’s a legitimate take on caring for her as a character and suicidal ideation, repeatedly failing to kill herself so she can continue to be a fucking trophy!
Emma: Ehhhhh, I read this as more gassing up Shinji and Asuka. The primary focus, even in Rei’s narration, is that Shinji and Asuka’s relationship is perfect and special and inviolable, even in the context of alleged polyamory.
Leliel: And, of course, none of this considers Asuka as a person. In fact, Rei regards her as, at best, a vessel for her. Literally! Next line:
In other fantasies, it was Rei that dissolved, becoming the bacteria that swam in Asuka's blood and guts, to be ever with the other girl, to gaze out through her eyes whenever Shinji smiled, to feel through her skin whenever Shinji touched her, and to know the love he had for the other girl.
Nia: …and the moment your pwecious crush notices your bacteria brains, I fully want him to use Asuka’s Blood-enhanced endurance to scrub her blood with bleach. I expect him to use ya as a masturbation tool for his other trophy, because he’s the kind of creepo that made my adopted dad look like a paragon of sanity and would make Amalthus run off to clean himself after interacting with Tzeentchji. But…fuck, I admit to having had to deal with some dark emotions and jealousy ‘fore I realized I was bi and open to a four-way relationship, but…this?! Where the fuck do you get off - no, wrong question! Where does the author get off here?!
Emma: *Head down, monotone* You will note that ONCE AGAIN, Rei’s alleged attraction to Asuka is presented primarily as a way for her to use Asuka as a bridge to Tzeentchji.
Leliel: Honestly, by this point? I’m about 40% sure that Academia Nut is a pen name for Professor Hojo.
Wanderer2691: …ugh, why does that make so much sense. I haven’t even played FF7, just watched Machinabridged, and I can see the links - but, the good news is, I can accept that this person is a Nurgle follower now, because she certainly ain’t Rei. Rei is not anywhere near this obsessive, develops the ability to morally condemn people and trust them as she breaks out of Gendo’s control, and has sincere compassion for all people. No, this weird melange of Slaanesh hedonism and obsession with Nurgle’s grossness that we are supposed to believe is entirely Nurgle, is as much an In Name Only replacement Sue as Tzeentchji is for Shinji, especially because we are somehow expected to believe that this bint is sympathetic and loving in any meaningful way. But she isn’t exactly either Ruinous Power’s follower, becoming a weird mix that causes both to lose distinction under the sheer force of entitlement, desiring to play off the jealousy of her supposed harem-mate for a more privileged spot. About the only reason we aren’t calling her by our own nickname at this point is that Rei does not have enough of a character that isn’t an extension of Tzeentchji; she’s awful, but ultimately, she’s the awful he wanted from her, and nothing else. Which is a shame, because this kind of entitlement would make an awesome pun on Be’lakor, who showed exactly what happens in actual Warhammer, Fantasy of 40K, when you feel entitled to a Chaos entity’s time.
Mortarion: Would it be so easy for them to do much the same with all of these arrogant wretches…
Emma: Disclaimer that I actually don’t think the basics of this are terrible from a “fucked up psychological horror romance” perspective. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t actually hate the context of “normal intimacy is not enough, so I am going to literally inject myself into your bloodstream”, especially in the context of how society makes sapphic romance seem so extreme and unattainable it might as well be easier to crawl into her bloodstream. But, hey what do I know, I’m only a dyke and also an actual writer.
Leliel: And believe me, we’ll get there on the ‘do the same’ bit. But first, we have some scores to dole out.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 428 (Because this fundamental grossness is key to her character from now on and viewed as romantic.)
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 457 (Same here.)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 465 (Also here, plus ten extra because it’s barely recognizable as Rei anymore.)
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 583 (Because it’s disturbingly plausible and I don’t give our author the benefit of the doubt now that it’s just Rei being Rei - he is that selfish, and ghostly tormenting of Rei is some next-level dickery.)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 305 (As a final insult to injury, this kind of obsession isn’t Nurgle’s thing, it’s Slaanesh all the way. It just has Grampy Contagion’s thematics.)
She would never be able to hop over to Shinji though. Even when he was plunging in and out of Asuka's orifices, Rei could never make the leap between them. In fact, the closest she ever came to such a feat was when she cuddled up next to the child developing in Asuka's womb as a result of their actions, their love.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nO_JQ1_6vw)
Emma: *breaks into hysterical laughter* Of course! Of course! She will always be inferior to the standard reproductive heteronormative dynamics! This is like a PARODY of queerphobia at this point! She can literally crawl into Asuka’s bloodstream, and they will still be less intimate and connected than the “endpoint” of het intimacy (pregnancy).
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 458
Rex: …I think my libido is officially dead now for the next couple weeks.
Nia: Just weeks? You got a better stomach than I…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 428
Sadly, the most realistic fantasy was also the one Rei dreaded the most. In it, she and Asuka lay naked, intertwined, kissing and touching each other so as to arouse Shinji, who sat and watched their antics with amusement.
Pyra: [Eye twitch] …no, I’m keeping calm, I already had my explosion, but I will say…it’s really telling that this is, even in-universe, the reason Rei would have a relationship with Asuka.
Rex: I certainly wouldn’t be aroused - I won’t claim that there’s no appeal to me in my own partners having fun with each other, but seeing Nia and Pyra clearly forcing themselves to try and fake attraction…honestly, I’d feel bad for watching. But then I’m not the grand muckety-muck of Fate, am I?
Emma: Oh, he said it out loud. I appreciate that. Most of the time they try to pretend they don’t see my sisters as a fundamentally empty performance for their benefit. It’s almost relieving, to have someone go mask-off for once.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 429
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 459
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 584 (Because it’s explicit he’d be encouraging this.)
He would then join the two of them, and they would take turns in serving him, in accepting him into their bodies.
Nia: …your feelings and pleasure, of course, mean nothing. Rex, is it okay if I sleep alone tonight? Because…I think my skin’s trying to crawl off my body and hide…
Rex: Didn’t need to ask. Gonna have to warn you, my own skin might be occupying wherever it ends up…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 430
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 460
It was wondrous, it was possible… and it was heart crushing. Because no matter how much Shinji accepted Rei, she would always be second to Asuka, and that hurt.
Emma: Oh, yes, that’s why this is the worst option. Not because you’ve ended up in an abusive relationship with a man who sees bi women as sex toys and porn tropes. No, it’s because you don’t get to be the favorite in the “real” (straight) relationship.
Pyra: …Nia, if you wanted to be touched right now, I’d be hugging you. Because…holy shit this is not healthy. It’s not even an open relationship situation, where there’s a third person often brought in to an established couple, because the third person knows; it’s what they agreed to up front. Here, it’s founded on unspoken jealousy, because…
"Second place is better than not ranking at all," Rei II whispers to her.
Pyra: Because of that. And that is absolutely not true, not being part of this at all is very advised, it’s clear trying to be part of it has warped her into this…thing.
Leliel: From my bringing in characters of tabletop games, long-time readers have probably realized I’m a huge tabletop game fan, especially of the standards of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder (mostly the latter due to an insane ownership of the former, but that’s not a problem with the rules). There’s a common saying among my circles: “no D&D is better than bad D&D”, the sheer amount of social toxicity and fun-draining in a genuinely terrible game is time better spent somewhere else, or even doing nothing, which is more mentally healthy. And that goes quadruple for relationships; in a bad D&D game, everyone has at least ostensible boundaries in the rules of the game, and those end, but in a relationship, it’s constant. This isn’t a symptom of love or tragic romance, it’s a symptom of an abuse victim. And it’s really sick we’re expected to see this as anything other than proof Tzeentchji broke her in the worst ways possible.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 431
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 461
"Indeed. Follow your heart. Ask Asuka if she wants to share. She is the one you must win over. If she asks Shinji if you could join them, then he will gladly accept," Rei III says, her head having returned to its place on the altar while Rei IV was thinking.
Nia: First, as if it wasn’t enough of a haunted house. Moving severed heads, yikes. Second, it’s really telling that it’s just assuming the one who needs to be convinced is Asuka; Tzeentchji’s enough of a possessive wanker to be keen on the idea.
Wanderer2691: Of course, I get the sense our author thinks this is something that is completely normal for a hetero guy, and that nobody who functions “normally” would turn that down…then again, I don’t think Academia Hojo’s idea of ‘normal’ is something anyone wants to be…
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 432
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 462
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 585 (Skeeviness, particularly when it turns out to be an accurate assumption, especially in the ending. Hoo boy.)
"Or if you're truly that desperate you could ask his father… but then again he would just use you because you're a part clone of his dead wife," Rei I says, giggling cruelly.
[Pause]
Wanderer2691: Case in point!
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 433
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 463
Nia: Thanks for the reminder being with you is technically meaning that Tzeentchji is shaggin’ his sister, too. But, I got the sense from the summary that Gendo views her as a daughter, not a replacement lover…especially because it was noted that Rei doesn’t know what doin’ the horizontal tango with an Ikari is like.
Emma: I genuinely get the impression, from the consistent reminders of Gendo sexually grooming or wanting to groom Rei, less that Academia Nut wants to explore the power dynamics that lead to incest and abuse, and more that it’s just… the default. Of COURSE Gendo wants to groom Rei as a replacement for his dead wife. Every relationship between men and women is reducible to sex, after all.
Leliel: And as one final note - Rei becoming sexually aggressive would be Yet Another Thing that would raise alarm bells in Gendo’s mind.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 466
A tear fell from Rei's face and hit the ground. For a moment black fungus and mould began to grow before Rei snuffed out the life before it spread out of control and finished off what Second Impact had started.
Pyra: [Looks at Mortarion with sudden alarm]
Mortarion: If the fungal mass from a tear could become a notable weapon against population centers that easily, then the Death Guard would have ushered most planets in the galaxy into the Grandfather’s embrace already.
Leliel: Seriously. A tear from a Great Unclean One, maybe, but Rei is, at this point, just a mutant; an extremely powerful one, but the kin of cosmic Warp contagions born of the sorrow of Chaos is something that, even symbolically, is only done by powerful daemons. And even then it usually takes a bit to build to that point.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 306
She had always been at best second in the hearts and minds of others: a pitiful doll for a broken old man to lust after in place of his dead wife; the pilot of the prototype, the back-up for the test-type and production model; or just the quiet, creepy girl in glass.
Wanderer2691:
More because, if anything, Gendo values her too much to let her die, even as a clone, but for the love of fuck, piloting the prototype is the exact opposite of being undervalued in comparison to production!
Emma: Again, Rei is “endlessly replaceable” with the clones because she is too vitally important to die permanently.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 469 (One for each of these bold assertions.)
The only one who had ever accepted her, ever truly cared for her, had been Shinji, and he was in love with another.
Sporkers:
(Wikimedia Commons)
Wiping away her tears, Rei nodded and said to her heads, "Tomorrow there is a test at NERV; I shall confront Asuka… and find out if she would be willing to share."
"That's a girl," her predecessors say in unison.
Emma: Aw, she thinks the girls get to make decisions. Cute.
Pyra: …your past selves are horrible friends, in many ways. Clearly, they want you to suffer, since as noted, being the second choice is clearly too painful to enjoy. But what do I know, I’m simply in an actual polygamous marriage, as opposed to existing to get Rex’s penis hard by being a glorified fleshlight.
Rex: …well, we didn’t get Mythra, but thanks for that comment; I now know what to have her imaginary self say when pretending she’s here.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 434
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 464
Wanderer2691: Moving on to the test itself, we…ah, hell…
"Butterfly, a curious creature unique. What does it do, but flap its wings? Unique, but for the millions of others like it. One takes flight, its fellows follow, millions of wings stirring the air. Air, stirred, takes on a life of its own. Eddies and vortices, currents and streams, invisible patterns, unseen by human eyes but felt nonetheless. What is a human? A creation of other the gods, or something more or something less? Can a human perceive the flapping of a butterfly's wings for what it is? Can a man see the whirlwinds created by that which he casually disturbs?
Sporker Cam:
(https://twinfinite.net/anime/best-anya-faces-spy-x-family/)
[Long silence.]
Leliel: …Uh…
Nia: The fuck you say?
"Who is this before me, to whom the butterflies flock? What is this starry eyed man? Why does his smile scare me so? Why do I fall into his eyes, swimming with stars? Galaxies spin, suns explode, and the universe goes on expanding, growing cold and dark. But even in the darkness, the perturbations of the butterflies remain, and at the very end, that man is still there, still smiling. What is this in the palm of his hand?
Rex: …Pyra, am I getting dumber, or are you also not processing…anything of what’s being said.
Pyra: …both. I can feel myself losing brain cells trying to process this.
"What is this? What is this? By the gods what is this?"
Mortarion: Yes, I’ve read Sophia’s first attempts at scripture too.
Wanderer2691: Either our author thought he was being really clever about parodying Eva’s more philosophical asides, or he forgot to clean up some word vomit.
(https://edgewisewordsinn.wordpress.com/2016/04/19/how-to-make-purple-prose-a-little-more-read/)
Leliel: Honestly, I sincerely think it’s an attempt to ape Eva by someone who clearly did not understand why Eva had those philosophical tangents at all; every time the show goes into philosophy mode, it expounds on a character’s difficulty with understanding others and the issues inherent to communication. As opposed to being purply morose about unrequited “love” and belching out some nonsense about butterflies any fool could quote and call themself wise; the “porcupine's dilemma” is something that was explained and cemented within three lines, as opposed to two paragraphs that don’t even cover the person they’re describing, just rambled at the people observing the testing chamber. I suspect Academia Nut can be found by playing Revolutionary Girl Utena on several large screens - the men who run away screaming in a blind panic at all the times the show admits to its own subtext are the set containing him. As we’ll see, this is supposed to be a panic attack, but I don’t think ‘glossolalia’ is a synonym for ‘weird rambly pseudo-poetry.’
Rei's screams ended the test before it had even gone past the absolute borderline. Ritsuko wanted to grab a cigarette to ease her but after her little attack she had been forbidden from smoking and been forced to massively cut back on her caffeine intake. It had left her annoyed and irritable, and considering the disasters that had been happening while she was out, this was a bad thing.
Rex: In particular, she was annoyed that it was pretty obviously a way to humiliate her out of universe, as while this would be recommended for recovering from a stroke, neither was she allowed to examine her own logs, as that’d be inconvenient for the Grand Pooh-Bah Tzeentchji.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 156
Gendo was furious with the results that the Children had been giving for the past month, and it was all coming to a head. Simply put, Shinji did not respond to synchronization "correctly", and instead seemed to have his own methods, methods that NERV science did not understand, for making his Eva move the way he wanted it to.
Wanderer2691: This had absolutely nothing to do with the fact he was furious, as he was far more sanguine about something breaking inexplicably in his favor, but rather, angry about being angry for no conceivable reason that makes sense in Watsonian terms.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 470
Despite only having a 55 synchronization rating, he consistently had the most powerful AT-fields and his Eva always responded in real time.
Leliel: This was a figure of scientific curiosity, as sync rates are literally a pilot’s connection to their Eva, and so a 55% sync rate would be “Eva moves slower than pilot by a notable degree, but accurately follows enough to not be that bad, what with how 41.3% is canonically extremely high for a beginner and is capable of fighting an Angel, as shown in Episode Freaking One, and AT Fields are orthogonal at best.” And also likely low enough to shrug off psychosomatic pain, so Actual Gendo likely isn’t too plussed. Also, yet more Stu-fluffing…
Mortarion: So the problem the Tzeentchian has… is that it seems like he is failing, when really he is performing at even greater efficiency, while failing.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 471 (It’d be TALON ON THE SCALES too, if I (Leliel) thought Academia Nut was aware of the bullshit he’s pulling.)
This behaviour was infecting the other pilots. Rei's synch rating had hit a similar plateau at 55, and Asuka seemed to be dropping towards that level as well even though her reaction times were increasing.
Pyra: [Frowns] Wait, if lag time of Eva movement is a symptom of a lower sync rate, then how would that imply a poor reaction time for the pilot? Seems completely unlinked, it’s just the fact the pilot is reacting so fast that it doesn’t matter, the Eva is still moving faster even with that lag - seems a reason to inspect the obviously mutating Asuka, rather than fret about poor percentages.
Wanderer2691: Congrats, you have given this infinitely more thought and context than Academia Nut wants, let alone actually gives.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 472
TALON ON THE SCALES: 157
Of course, while immensely useful in combat, these results were absolutely useless for the Dummy Plug project.
Nia: [Tosses up her hands] Of bloody course! That’s the real reason - whoever heard of a good story by not giving your protagonist all the luck to avoid any possible inconvenience! I don’t even know wha’ a Dummy Plug is, and I can tell you up front that it’s clearly just been wrecked to fellate the supposed hero!
Leliel: For the record, the Dummy Plugs are computer cores based on Rei’s thought patterns - or at least NERV’s models are, the SEELE ones are based on Kaworu - that serve as autopilots and tactical computers for the Evas, meant for autonomous control just in case. While I can see the point for synchronization being needed, as they need to trick the Eva into thinking it’s the actual Rei piloting them, as noted 55% is pretty dang functional - and he’d have noticed issues already, what with how the models for the Plugs are based on Rei’s tank clones - you know, the mutating clones, which likely would cause issues in the Plugs due to Chaotic thought processes and the forming hive mind she created with them. Great continuity, Academia Nut!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 474 (One for the sync issue, one for the Plugs failing at being early warning systems, both very apropos for the name of this count.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 158
And now Rei, considered the most universally compatible of the Children, and by far the most level person on the planet, was having a panic attack while trying to synchronize with Unit 01.
Wanderer2691: Uh, yeah, it took several months for her to sync with Unit-00. Admittedly, Unit-00 is a prototype and Rei is an Angel hybrid, so that doesn’t conflict with her being universally compatible, and Unit-02 eventually rejects both her and her model of Dummy Plug in general…after a Dummy Plug did something neither Shinji nor Unit-02 liked at all. Still not point-worthy, but a shaky grasp of the lore continues to be the defining trait of our author.
This unfortunately confirmed what Ritsuko had feared: a combat "mature" Eva would only synchronize with its designated Pilot.
Leliel: …and we were going to be merciful - yeah, that rejection was after, mild spoilers, Gendo seized control of Unit-01 through a Dummy Plug and forced it to commit near-murder of an innocent Toji to kill an Angel, while Shinji helplessly watched. He even explicitly admits it’s rejecting him more than Rei, as this is what would, if Yui was fully human still, what we would call a “banishment to the couch” moment. This could be Ritsuko being wrong in-universe, but this fic has negative benefit of the doubt.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 475
The metamorphosis that had been happening was changing everything they knew about the Evas, which already was terrifying small, considering that they were using them for war machines.
Rex: …y’know, because you were kinda strapped for time, and it can be hard to study something that isn’t a hard rule, see how Blades existed for literally all of Alrest’s civilization and finding ability to be a Driver who awoke one was a complete crapshoot for my entire life there. But, I suspect that since it makes the good Doc look bad, we’re supposed to take it at face value, instead of her laser-focusing on it.
Wanderer2691: We sincerely apologize for the fact we need to keep belaboring that point - it’s what happens when Academia Nut’s understanding of Ritsuko is so shallow it makes bird baths look like Olympic swimming pools.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 476
The moment Shinji had been put into Unit 00 for that part of the test he had immediately aborted, claiming that he was getting anomalous sensory input. When pressed further, he had embarrassingly admitted that the problem was that the plug had started to smell like Rei as the power-up sequence had begun. Further pressed, he had finally said in exasperation, "Alright, look, it smells like Rei after she's been in gym class for the past hour and decided to skip the shower and has just cracked open her lunch of natto on sauerkraut with vegemite and blue cheese sauce with diced onions and garlic for flavour and boiled beets for colour. If this smell gets much worse I swear I will throw-up, to say nothing of the distraction this is causing."
Nia: [Flatly] Ha ha ha ha ha. That was so funny I forgot to laugh.
Mortarion: Mundane baseline biological smells and perfectly ordinary human foods. I have walked on the surface of planets where all life has been rotting without dying for millenia.
Pyra: And I’ve smelled third-degree burns before - I’ve caused most of them. This is just being petty, not to mention it also sounds like a warning prelude to another rejection - a threat display to tell Tzeentchji who its pilot is and to warn him off, and the fact that this isn’t noted as such by either him nor NERV is telling.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 477
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 586
Just looking at his rapidly increasing stress levels and comparing them to the normal cool head Shinji had, Ritsuko had allowed the termination of the test. Clearly Unit 00 liked him no better than Unit 01 liked Rei.
Sporkers: Clever girl…
At least he had immediately voiced his discomfort and not nearly driven Unit 00 into a berserker state, unlike Rei who had nearly made it to the absolute borderline before losing it.
Rex: And…you monitor stress levels, so you’d be able to tell something was up long before she said anything. Great management, guys, especially if you realized Unit-00 was rejecting the ponce already.
Emma: Also notice that Tzeentchji fails… and gets to calmly say he’s disgusted and this isn’t working (in a way that still humiliates Rei), whereas Rei fails and basically has a seizure.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 478
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 587
TALON ON THE SCALES: 159 (Because yeah, it’s just to make him look cooler, not any real other reason.)
As it stood right now, Ritsuko guessed that the only Eva that would have a chance of accepting a Dummy Plug was Unit 02. While by raw numbers it had about as many sorties as the other two units and the pilot had been training with it for a much longer period of time, it had not been through the vicious fights with Shamshel or Ramiel, both of which had caused a tremendous amount of damage, and thus regeneration, to the Evas.
Wanderer2691: And in the Stopped Clock corner, we have actual context leading to a legitimate misreading of why the mutation is happening - the two damaged Evas are the ones displaying more uniqueness and will, so naturally, it must be damage. Finally, a mistake an actual smart person would make.
Gendo was going to be pissed, because SEELE would be furious with this news. This was not something they needed right now.
Leliel: …well, not quite accurate. More like they’d pretend to act mad, while internally looking at the Mass-Production Evas they have, then each other, and grinning evilly as they realize they could probably customize them, since they were always meant to sync with Kaworu’s Dummy Plugs alone and so fingerprinting isn’t a problem. You know, in a fic that actually cared about being something other than a pseudo-self-insert wankfest.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 160
At least Rei seemed well behaved.
Nia: Mostly because everyone is apparently blind and has no sense of smell! Ya can’t tell me nobody noticed her living in an apartment with a pet mass grave on top, alone! Actually, lemme correct myself - you can’t show me, this slop’s good at telling over that!
Emma: And here the horror runs into the desire for nothing to actually affect the protagonists. Even at the very lowest degree of “Rei doesn’t even shower anymore”, completely abandoning personal grooming is an incredible mundane red flag for anyone working with teenagers. You cannot have Rei as a plague cultist living in a murder garden and then have nobody notice when it would be inconvenient to rushing through the stations of canon as fast as possible.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 161
Rei had intended to ask Asuka about her proposal to "share" Shinji in the change room, but before the test they had both arrived at very different times and thus that opportunity had been missed. Rei having to be hauled out of Unit 01 having a panic attack over a hallucination she could only half remember had fouled her plans for an attempt after.
Pyra: Hands up, who here thinks that was an entirely deliberate attempt by Eva-01 to limit the damage caused by this supposed polycule warping even more? [Hand up.]
Away from the physical manifestations of the previous fragments of her soul, Rei had also found that she had lost her nerve. Part of it was actual fear of how Asuka would react, while another part was a more well-founded fear of how Commander Ikari would react if he found out.
Leliel: Gee, how would Gendo, noted maestro of emotions and relationships, act when he realizes he has a potential way to manipulate his rebellious son and the other Children? Actually, point, there’s a not small chance that, given how he knows Rei and Tzeenchji are biological siblings, he’d lose his lunch and then dedicate his considerable resources to cutting this red string of strangulation. And he’d have my complete support.
Rei also realized that she had no idea how to really go about this sort of thing.
Emma: Normally I’d be sympathetic; it’s not like the society presented in NGE is one that equips anyone to negotiate healthy relationships even without the complexity of polyamory. Noone knows how to go about that sort of thing; all my poly friends seem to have had it just sort of happen. However, you are engaging in a maladjusted harem fantasy of male domination, so I’ll just say that you have no idea how to go about this sort of thing because your author cannot imagine women having sexual agency.
Nia: Unsurprising she’s a bit unpracticed, given how a lot of this situation was pulled straight from the author’s bum after way too much time reading bad romances, porn, and bad romances in porn. Everyone feels out relationships and makes mistakes, good relationships learn to avoid the really bad malfunctions through the small. [Pointed look at Rex.]
Rex: [Blush] In all fairness, “I love you and all you guys” turned out to be more accurate than I thought…but that doesn’t change that the lesson in this particular relationship is “Tzeentchji can’t have functional relationships that don’t center around him, stay away unless and until he learns empathy.” But our author thinks that treating your spouses like action figures is healthy and expected of a man, so…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 465
Thus she found herself standing in front of Major Katsuragi's office trying to work out the exact wording of how she was going to ask this question. Outright lying seemed like a good idea, but then again Shinji had told her repeatedly that the best lies were, paradoxically, 100 true… from a certain point of view.
Wanderer2691: Oh joy, he thinks he’s a Horny Jedi…
Leliel: Lies and slander! As something made in the bowels of some of the most blind Galactic Empire-worshippers in the interwebs, he’s clearly a Horny Sith! All hail Darth Wankor, Lord of Egotistical Lust! …oh sweet merciful Desna, he’s a worse version of Pathfinder’s Nocticula, firstborn of all Succubi, too; at least Nocticula, even pre-redemption into the demigoddess of exiles, hospitality, and marginalized artists, was self-aware enough to realize that political conquest through shallow lust and deceit was petty and unfulfilling.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 588
By carefully presenting one fact you could have someone believe in the exact opposite. The best benefit of all this was that when the truth, the real truth came out, blame for the obfuscation would fall not on the one doing the concealing, but upon the one from whom the truth was concealed from.
Pyra: Um, I think that’s called ‘being a manipulative coward who is a fan of victim-blaming’ too.
Mortarion: Ah, yes. If you construct a false narrative and integrate the truth into it, then that frees you from any responsibility for your lies. If anyone believes you, it is their fault for being credulous and trusting you in the first place. Never mind how hard you punish any dissent, if people bend to that, it’s their own fault. *spits derisively on the floor, where it starts melting through, xenomorph-style*
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 589
Looking up from the pile of paperwork on her desk, Misato sees Rei and says in a surprised voice, "Ah, Ayanami-san, is there something you needed?"
Nia: Her ability to sense red flags and self-respect, perhaps?
Nodding, Rei steps into the office and asks quietly, "Yes. I have been troubled at school lately, and I felt I should ask you about it."
"Oh? What makes you think I would be the best one to ask about something like that?" Misato asks with a crooked smile on her face.
Wanderer2691: *Misato* “...because I’m really not, I just do this flirty thing for lack of better ideas and I actually had a single fairy-tale romance my whole life, not that the author is capable of looking away from my tits long enough to notice.”
Emma: Wanderer, are you implying a slut might have emotional depth? Everyone knows women can’t have layered personalities, especially the horny or flirty ones!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 479
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 466
"I overheard some girls talking in class. I heard someone saying some unpleasant things about Pilot Soryu." That Rei had been the one saying these things in the privacy of her apartment was left out.
Nia: [Blows raspberry and flips bird.] Chicken with a side of prick. Can’t help but notice the undertones of ‘bitches be schemin’’ from earlier either.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 467
"Or at least I assumed that they were unpleasant by the tone of voice. I did not quite understand the full meaning of some of the terms used, but I have been lead to believe that you would know these things, and as my commanding officer, I felt it best to talk to you."
Pyra: …she has learned the art of blatant and crass manipulation to cement Tzeentchji’s control over her well, I see. And only for that purpose.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 468
Frowning, Misato gets up and closes the door before going around to sit back on her chair and asks intently, "What did you hear Rei?"
Frowning slightly, Rei says, "I heard someone call Pilot Soryu a 'whore whose ears hang on Pilot Ikari's every word while she hangs off him by sucking on to his penis'. Individual these words I understand, but together I do not comprehend the full meaning."
[Long pause]
Rex: You know, I somehow got the sense that she was a bit more…high-class about it, even in the depths of her jealousy. Problem is that this seems to be laudable, according to our author.
Leliel: Kind of rich that the girl who ripped memories of sleeping with Gendo and forcefully implanted them into Asuka for psychic voyeurism is complaining about Asuka being an obsessive yandere, yeah.
Mortarion: Child. You dishonor yourself when you treat this as any sort of manipulation. Nobody will believe this, and frankly, it’s humiliating to watch.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 435
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 469 (It’s using her sexuality as an example of a bad thing, don’t forget that.)
Face planting into her desk, Misato grumbles, "Of all the things I expected to have to do in my life, this was not one of them. Alright, strap in kid, because I'm going to give you the same talk I gave Shinji and Asuka. If you're that clueless, you need to hear what I have to say."
Mortarion: …I briefly forgot everyone in this story is an idiot.
Wanderer2691: *Misato* “Also, can you direct me to those girls? I think they need a complementary lesson in respecting pilots and nasal reconstruction surgery.” [Slaps fist in palm]
Nia: *Rei* “...oops. Shouldn’t have poked the mother bear about her charges.”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 162 (‘Hands-off’ guardianing is not the same as ‘tolerating and refusing to investigating bullying.’)
Three hours later and Misato was running out of things to tell Rei. Unlike the other two, she had not flinched from a word said, merely sitting back quietly and listening, asking questions about things she did not quite understand. Somehow Misato had got going and by the end of it she was somehow explaining what a 'gangbang' meant using examples from her wilder college days.
Pyra: More specifically, relaying the description from wilder students, see ‘had one romance with one partner.’ Also, once again, a flirty woman does not mean a sexpot, author.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 480
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 470
Trailing off at, "…and we were all kind of awkward around one another for the next week…" Misato slumps over, everything she knew about the birds and the bees that could be vocalized to a minor somehow drawn out of her.
"I… see…" Rei says softly. "So you never initiated one of these events?"
"No… I was usually quite drunk at the time," Misato says, blushing with embarrassment at the memories.
Rex: …uh…you…do realize…you just admitted you were raped, right? Repeatedly? By several people? At once?
Leliel: I’m pretty sure Academia Nut does not consider it rape, as he does not care to understand the concept of enthusiastic consent - presumably, he also thinks Misato shouldn’t dress like that if she’s not asking for it. Bleh, even layered with sarcasm saying that’s a bad taste.
Emma: Of course. Because flirtation is, in the eyes of people like the one who wrote this fanfic, a complete negation of any need to ask for consent. This isn’t even “Misato isn’t even that sexual under the flirtation” because even if that was all genuine, it wouldn’t make Misato someone with no meaningful boundaries worth respecting and I know I sound like an after-school special but I have to talk down to this fic because it hasn’t earned anything else.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 472 (One for deciding date rape isn’t actually rape, another for “Misato am too real slut” idiocy continuing.)
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 436
"Then I will just have to make sure I am never drunk. Thank you Major Katsuragi, that was most educational," Rei says with a nod before getting up to leave.
Wanderer2691: Remember this line. I’d have a meme picture here about remembering this for later, but frankly, given what happens later, that would be…all kinds of tasteless.
"You're welcome Rei. I'm just glad you came to me for that sort of thing rather than trying to figure it out yourself," Misato says, inwardly wincing at how screwed up her own past had been because of the dearth of strong parental figures to reign in her self-destructive impulses.
Pyra: Though not as much as our alleged heroes! Though to be fair, they do have a creepy, creepy god helping insulate them from the consequences of their own actions.
Mortarion: Oh, yes, clearly what would have fixed this woman is to have a domineering parent controlling every aspect of her life. That would have fixed things.
Emma: This feels…uncomfortably Freudian, tbh. Like, yeah, parental is gender-neutral but given the daddy issues are the only piece of depth Misato has, this feels a lot like Misato going “oh, if only I’d had a strict, controlling father to protect me from myself so I stayed pure and didn’t become a wasted, ruined woman”. And then you get to how this fic positions Misato and Shinji and, I know I’ve described this fic’s take on this relationship as “a mom you can fuck” but this feels like it’s taking THAT and adding “Also Misato wants this 14 year old boy to be her daddy figure” to it.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 473 (Because yet another thing is “women want substitute fathers as lovers” in this kind of viewpoint.)
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 437
Fortunately Rei wasn't the wild, party type likely to get involved in something like that.
Snorting, Misato wondered if Rei even knew what sex was before coming down here.
Leliel: Ha ha ha ha ha this fanfic sucks! Sucks, sucks, sucks sucks sucks SUCKS SUUUUUUUUUUCCCCKS! [Starts doing random things to the tune of Combine Harvester by the Wurzels.]
Rex: …he going to be alright?
Wanderer2691: Eh, he does this when sufficiently sanity stressed, he channels Linkara for a few minutes and he comes back mostly fine, just needing to clean up a mess of weird props. Better than being possessed by a chainsword.
Emma: I didn’t even know we had that many rubber chickens in the sporking chamber…
Nia: …gonna take your word for it. Me, I’m just gonna go back home, and claim the right to sob into Mythra’s chest for a bit; Rex can wait his turn while I desperately remind myself what actual affection looks like.
Pyra: This is a really good idea - also, I’m going to ask Tora if there’s some old comics and outfits of his I can burn, especially after I tell him what I just learned. And hopefully convince Poppi not to slug me in the face for the horrors I am going to subject him to knowledge of.
Mortarion: You should be thankful. From what I have heard, it only gets worse from here
Wanderer2691: See you…hopefully not in this fanfic! Lels, you feeling better?
Leliel: [Gingerly removes confused Boston Terrier in a toga from head] A little. But…I admit that this chapter has awoken a certain amount of sadism in me. Because while it was horrible and skeevy and gross and rapey…it’s not the worst chapter in that regard. That would be the next one.
Wanderer2691: …you know, maybe we need a vacation ourselves but - yeah. Next time, we tackle what has, in previous conversations online with other people on this comm, been termed as…the date rape chapter. Pray for us…
Emma: Until then, if you need a palette cleanser, my podcast has begun uploading regularly again, so if you’re at all into Bionicle or just how I talk about things, it’s here or here:
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos
Timeline GNX-2014-3 (Xothian Classification)
Sol Sector, Earth, Geosynchronous Near-Orbit
The soldiers of the Tsan-Chan, the Shining Orchestra as they liked to term themselves, were a force forged in endless war. Unlike the Last Redoubt, which preferred to establish political growth through alliance and remain peacefully insular, the Cruel Empire was always at war with something, or preparing for it; one could say it was core to their viewpoint, that human survival and prosperity depended on casting away weaker emotions like compassion or selfish desires for liberty in favor of brute but cunning strength and the selfless desire for the prosperity of the all, with fame of and rewards the self naturally following acts of heroism. Even deeper sublimation into the gestalt consciousness the Chani graciously provided as part of their biomantic arts was a given, turning a group of soldiers into a single many-bodied will stronger than any of its components in a matter of days, with all their skills and talents shared in the Unit-Mind so that any one of them was only as ignorant as the most knowledgeable and as untalented as the greatest warrior in the squad. The particular detachment meant to collect the Eva was affiliated with the Legion of House Za-Shan, the personal troops of the noble line of engineers and workers of earth, and the percussion section of the Orchestra, in the extended metaphor - the driving beat of innovation and industry that kept the rest of the Orchestra’s tempo with insight and infrastructure, and beat at the heart of every engagement, meaning that each of their Unit-Minds made themselves brilliant with the addition of the best artificers and engineers in the entire army.
That knowledge meant they were able to recognize what hit them.
Unit-04 never had a soul, or pilot, fully installed. It might have been meant for Kensuke Aida, it might not have, but the cloned body was soulless and unmoving during the ill-advised S2 experiment that banished it into a Dirac sea along with most of NERV’s second branch. When it came back, it had adapted to the strange angles between universes, and could now hop slightly out of phase with local reality and slightly into the atemporal realm of Tindalos, located nowhere but touching everywhere - as it was every when. This gave it unmatched mobility among all Evangelions - and stealth, as it could hold the image of itself in time in its old spot for a good period, making it seem completely unmoving and silent as the actual present Eva slowly shuddered to life, Wakaba fully expanding inside as Futaba gingerly tuned her Persona to do a reasonable amount of synchronization with it.
Once done, however, Futaba had the exact experience needed to open a Dirac sea again - this time right under the airdock for their strange flying ships, before charging out through a wall.
The daemons proved a bit more of a challenge than the off-guard and, for the situation of an enormous war cyborg suddenly being awakened and attacking it from the inside, unprepared garrison; the flaming wyrms quickly turned to the rampaging bio-mecha and screeched in crackling voices that echoed both snapping fires and the leathery impact of jackboots on concrete, as the will-less daemons turned to strike at the Eva in the emotionless frenzy of a truly mindless horde, little more than the disposable extensions of masters who did not feel at risk; less to do with berserk rage and more the stubborn attacks of a player character in a Souls game, where each attack was made in the expectation of defeat to learn the pattern of the enemy and experiment with new tactics. As what were effectively living AT Fields holding Warp energy together, the Eva could strike at them, but it was meant for Angels, not daemons. It was not adapted to a swarm of smaller things.
That was where the others came in.
One wyrm’s head disappeared in a blast of holy fire, as a blessed shell from Nocht detonated napalm mixed with ritually blessed holy oil toxic to what tied daemonic essence to manifested pseudo-flesh. In the brief confusion of the daemonic slaves as they lost all direction, a rain of exorcizing light was unleashed upon them as Shinobu unleashed his strongest Light-aligned Personas on them, mostly correctly assessing that they were all creatures of Curse and darkness. A few of the Tzeentchian daemons turned out to outright absorb it, but that’s where a series of screeching fungal beasts Diego was able to source from his Mi-go contacts were able to pick up the slack, while Mondo flew in to heal the hellfire-induced injuries.
If it had to stand and fight, it might have been a different story, but it didn’t need that - just long enough for Trazyn’s wing of Night Scythes to merge the personal wormholes they normally used to deploy Necron invasion troops and form a passage out, assisted by its own newfound dimensional shifting abilities.
And thus, did Futaba come out in her impromptu plug suit, breathing heavily.
“That…was…so cool. Goddamned terrifying. But cool. Woo!” She slumped against the railing. “Also, about to fall unconscious. I barely got enough synchronization to get it to move, I could tell…”
Corax looked over the great mecha. “...huh. Looking at this Titan…I can see the appeal in small, but deadly. Even with a princeps as unpracticed and unadapted to it as Lady Sakura - a term I do not mean as an insult, the very fact she is not currently a white-haired, barely breathing gnome-like shell attempting to reconnect to the mind impulse unit to feel whole again is proof she has quite a bit of talent, rushed as her training was to fit the ‘literal first time’ window of opportunity - it was quite capable of instantly rendering that blasphemous would-be Tyranid/Mechanicus hybrid of an army completely insensate. I doubt it if would even require much paint were it not for those daemons.”
“Maybe, but at what cost, brother?”, Vulkan asked. “As amoral as we can be, it seems a bit, uh, asshole ta ask every teen to give up their mudda so they can NOT EVEN GET PERMA-BIGGA.”
“That is true, and it is spectacularly galling I feel this would be a minority opinion among the raving pack of fanatical psychoses that is most of the Inquisition,” Corax said, grimly. “But as it is…greetings to you as well, Magos Isshiki.”
The Eva’s eyes pulsed blue in greeting.
Trazyn looked immensely proud of himself and his species, the robotic jaw somehow managing to grin despite being unmoving. “Orikan has outdone himself once again. The sheer mass material that Dr. Munoz gave us in the more biological manipulation of souls - I will treasure how our dear Diviner actually smiled. He didn’t even attempt to snipe at me, that was how cheered he was!”
“It’ll be even more informative to extract Wakaba once we’re done, because let’s face it, being in a giant war-servitor for eternity isn’t a good thing.” Diego shrugged. “Though I imagine, given how Orikan wants to find a way to turn Necrons into energy-based beings, it’s something he won’t be adverse to either.”
“Most certainly not!”, Trazyn said, happily. “It will be fascinating to see what happens when biotransference carries the soul as well - but I digress, how is our pilot doing?”
“Shit. Feeling happy I’m able to see mom one last time…and with a message,” Futaba said, suddenly frowning. “I had enough to know that…mom wants Nocht here. She has something to show him…and the Primarchs.”
Said Primarchs looked at each other in alarm before Corax wordlessly went off to fetch the assassin, as Trazyn registered a request from Unit-04’s computer to connect to a hologram projector. By the time Nocht had finished his “preparation recaf”, there was a slightly greenish play button hanging in the air.
There was no words. Only a grim nod to see what new madness would be revealed.
As the static resolved into an image, it became quite clear it was a visual feed from the Eva’s eyes-
“-and as you can see, the ocular cameras are working well,” what looked to be what would happen if you dressed a formless glob of shifting flesh the color and texture of clay, studded with gems that glittered like stars, in golden, kingly robes and gave an oaken mask as a face - one that shifted between emotions instantly in place of actual changing expressions - said to their guest in a voice that sounded like wind through trees. “One of our best workings, even speaking as a Mighty Child of Za-Shan - the biomancy is remarkably advanced, even for us, and it took some effort to adapt.”
“It is not you who will decide whether it is a fine instance of the fleshsmith’s art,” the other party in the conversation said, a cold, grating, frustrated tone that was utterly incongruous coming out of such a youthful body. “You are refurbishing this weapon for me; you are only permitted to boast if I find it pleasing.”
The breaths of everyone watching caught in their throat at the sight of what appeared to be Shinji Ikari talking with the shapeless smith.
Except this Shinji did not have the white shirt and slacks of his canon self - not even the Egyptian cotton of his corrupted self. Rather, his clothes were now ostentatious armor overlaying his whole body, colored in tarnished gold and dark green.
A very familiar shade of dark green, to Vulkan.
The Za-Shan bristled, mask changing to one of hurt pride and irritation for a second before flashing back to a cheerful, supportive smile. “Rest assured, I have no doubt this is but a mere delay, Great Black Dragon.”
“Hm. It had better be,” the Shinji-who-was-not grumbled back, and Futaba realized something else - he did not have a Japanese accent. He spoke it rather well, but there was something else - the Za-Shan had his own non-native accent, but it was not far from the Mid-Atlantic trill of high class Americans and Europeans to be recognized as a native of the region in the distant future. But there was something…musical about the not-Shinji’s. Something that sounded too…joyus to come out of his mouth and his grim, cold expression.
With that, the Not-Boy turned to the cameras, revealing his eyes were no longer recognizable as human - or not anymore. In its place was something reptilian. Something…draconic.
“I do not know if this machine will remember when I have set it to my Legion - but if so, I will tell the core. You may have many pilots or one, one soul or many - but this Evangelion is my treasure. Not anyone else’s. I will only give claim to it upon my death, and I shall never die.”
And then, the rest stopped looking human too - it was like a great black claw had briefly pulled aside the mask that was the body of Shinji Ikari to give a hint of the face - the true form.
And the form was a great black wyvern the size of a mountain.
And it was the fetus of a god.
And it was a fire that melted all distinction, all treasure, all souls away to be reforged into something useful.
And it was greed and tyranny and the all-too-easy desire to see all around you as mere objects to collect and curate.
And it was a man with glowing red eyes and onyx scales for skin, with a great melted lightning scar on his side, with a cold anger and desire in his eyes.
And it was, to Vulkan and Corax both, all too familiar.
“When you have this beast-body, you belong to Vulkan, the Black Dragon, Victor Over Death, the Primarch of the Eighteenth. And soon, the Fifth God of Chaos. Please me and you shall be as my scepter, and have all the authority I may grant. Betray me…”
The nightmare image of the Lord of Drakes reached out with his hand that was a claw and a truth and a lie and a metaphor for control, and with white-hot tip, drew a stylized roaring dragon. One that, somehow, all knew would devour the mind of all those it was upon.
“Kneel or be knelt, as my sons say,” he finished, in a tone that his remaining Nocturnian accent made come off as tauntingly sing-song, before the mask returned, and Not-Shinji turned to his interlocutor, whose mask had become utterly blank-faced - refusing to show any emotion at all, especially fear.
And the record ended.
Nocht found his voice first. “...That brand. I remember now…”
He lifted a sleeve to reveal where something the same dimensions of the brand was cut away. “They found me…my world’s Salamanders. I was given the brand…but I had will to resist my soul becoming nothing but a machine. Nothing but obedience. Because…I thought a comrade being eaten by a Blood Angel was unfair. And I cut it off. I…I didn’t want to remember my life as a slave of theirs. That’s why I asked that the mind cleanse…”
He trailed off, looking at Vulkan, who just…stared.
As if looking at where the projection was would make that horrid sight of his own face vanish, praying it was a mere nightmare.
“...I…” Corax cleared his throat. “I think my brother may wish to be alone for a while. And after that….we have work to do.”
(A/N: Behold, my thesis statement; that Tzeentchji is such a stereotypically greedy, petty, and outright immature snot that he’s basically a mask for the Vulkan of the Roboutian Heresy…the version of him who became more or less a science fantasy version of Nagash from Warhammer Fantasy.
Nagash, the man who probably singlehandedly proved himself worse than most Chaos worshipers combined, all without being corrupted. Trust me, the parallels only grow from here.)
