Chapter 14, Part 2 (DEEP HURTING, CONT’D)
Jun. 23rd, 2024 07:34 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
leliel_12strong>[Trigger warning: It bares repeating, this entire chapter is about a date rape and the aftermath thereof, and while it has less so than the last half, we will have to reference it. Along with the aforementioned alcohol abuse, general skeeviness, ableism, murder, misogyny, abuse, mind rape, underage sex, incest, body horror, gruesome death, loss of agency, self-harm, suicide…this might well be the most unintentionally gross chapter in this fic. REMAIN ADVISED.]
[Image heavy]
[Link to mirror on Das Sporking.]
Leliel: [Finishes soda] So, we ready for this?
Wanderer2691: Not at all, but there’s no way to extent ten minutes into a decade.
Leliel: Yeah. First of all…
[THIS IS THE HALF OF THE CHAPTER WITHOUT DATE RAPE, JUST BORNING SUMMARIES OF THINGS WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH READING THE PREVIOUS, START HERE.]
Nocht: That doesn’t mean there’s less DEEP HURTING, mind, just less triggering. It remains just as boring when it isn’t painful, and manages to be painful whilst boring. So, without further ado…
"After retrieving a fresh body I used my abilities to quickly decompose my mortal remains, except for the head as something was blocking me there, and then I snuck out.
Futaba: Quick tooltip - canonically, Misato’s apartment is located pretty dang far from the city center, and presumably, NERV headquarters. Where Central Dogma, and the Dummy Plug Plant where her bodies are kept, is located. Which means that besides the needed events for that, there had to be enough time for Rei V to even get back, all while her corpse was moldering in the corner, before Misato got back, avoiding any witnesses the whole way. Thankfully, our author has no sense of travel times or characters beyond the core group at all.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 228
DUMMY PLUGGED: 546
Fortunately for all of you by the time Misato-san returned she was also quite intoxicated and you had time to clean things up before she noticed.
Leliel: MAKES IT EASY!
Nocht: While I doubt Tzeentchji was conscious enough to process the dead Rei replicae, I do also notice how he proceeded to hide his relationship with Asuka. Given the blood, this is reasonable enough to hide for reasons beyond petty greed, but still. (EDIT: And as senselessmusing pointed out, that does absolutely nothing to keep the silence of Toji, Kensuke, or Hikari, so either they were blackmailed offscreen or the carnage escaped their notice somehow, so I applied another point.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 230
In the short term, the consequences were not as bad as they could be, it was the long term where everything went to hell," Rei explained.
Wanderer2691: Thankfully, nobody could tell, as you two were still alive and thus it was more of a lateral move.
"I'm guessing Rei V did not share Rei IV's infatuations," Shinji asks.
Shinobu: …that does not sound like a bad thing. Why are you making it sound like a bad thing?
Emma: Yeah, when Rei was infatuated with him she was raping him and plotting to kill his (apparent) true love with Super Anthrax, but now her whole life doesn’t revolve around him and we can’t have THAT.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 592
"No," Rei stated. "At that point I was quite furious with the both of you, and our teamwork and coordination dropped accordingly. My ability to control Unit 00 also began to take a steep dive.
Futaba: Oh, so that’s why it’s a bad thing! She’s lost The Power of Love! … and unintentionally the kind of woman whose very existence would produce an entire franchise’s worth of sympathetic magical girl villains by wrecking the life of latent Demon Kings while their friends looked helplessly on or something.
Emma: Which does sort of make it feel like if everyone had just settled down and had a drunken threesome they couldn’t consent to, everything would’ve been FINE.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 593
The problem though was that Asuka found her first time rather unsatisfactory, and killing me, or at least thinking that she had dreamed killing me, gave her new drive and vigour."
Shinobu: …are you kidding me. This had better be about being a better fighter-
Frowning, Shinji groaned, "Now I'm really regretting not remembering things."
Shinobu: Of course it isn’t. Because even when things are going wrong, Big Man Needs His Whistle Blown! Futaba, please, if I’m ever like this, even when drunk - kick me. Especially because this comes off as ‘awesome, traumatized chicks are easy’ from this drooling deviant!
Emma: He doesn’t earn the label of deviant. The complete lack of acknowledgement that he’s been sexually abused, the exploitation of trauma for sex, the fact he can only conceptualize women– even his clone-mother-sister– in terms of sexual interest; that’s basically the end state of authoritarian patriarchal normativity around sex.
Wanderer2691: …fair point, though weird hill to take a stand on, with defending the honor of ‘deviant’...
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 668
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 713
"She became quite… demanding," Rei says, pausing to pick her words carefully. "Most scandalously was the time when she had sex with you in the girl's change room in NERV while I was on the other side of a bank of lockers, just to piss me off. Your condom expenses went through the roof I am to understand."
Leliel: [Bland smile] Charming. [Politely switches out Futaba’s newly used barf bag.]
Nocht: And…I was semi-joking about the Circles of Slaanesh, but…this doesn’t exactly sound like a Khornate form of passive-aggression. The Blood God doesn’t do ‘passive’ anything, for one, but once again, his nemesis is the actual Lord of Desire and Lust. So, why is an increasingly corrupted and devout Khornate invoking lust-oh yes, I forgot, the author is an insecure pervert who needs to feel his substitute is swimming in pleasurable company to secure his masculinity. My mistake.
Mortarion: She is a woman, of course. Her existence revolves around sex and competition with other women. Her god and faith are secondary. *raises gas mask to spit derisively and corrosively on the floor*
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 669 (Somehow the last two digits have never seemed more fitting…)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 310
"Fucking brilliant, I screw Asuka's brains out repeatedly and I can't remember a gods-damned thing," Shinji griped.
Wanderer2691: Example A, for Asshat Main Character.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 714
"I do not think you want to remember," Rei says. "Your father had recovered from some of the damage done by your actions.
Futaba: *Rei* “He realized that if he did so offscreen, he’d be able to do anything that made you look bad without running into the issue that Academia Nut’s fingers seize up and he weeps into his personal shrine to you that he’s so sorry, please don’t be mad.”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 231
I do not know what happened when you fought the Twelfth Angel, but it involved you being trapped in a multi-dimensional psychic battle for several hours with Asuka and your Evas.
Leliel: [Grit teeth] While we get the CliffNotes version of that, trust me - it does absolutely nothing interesting with Angel Leliel, not even a meaningless buff for a different fight a la Ramiel or Sandalphon. I am still very much sharpening an interdimensional knife.
During that time, when everyone was distracted, your father had your apartment laced with monitoring equipment.
Emma: Given the competence of NERV, I have to assume that it was like that East German joke that you know the Stasi has bugged your apartment because there’s a new generator running outside and a new wardrobe in the living room.
Leliel: [Thinks about it, and then snickers.] Yeah, that fits.
Shinobu: [Looks at everything so far] And now I feel sorry for Gendo. Admittedly, not nearly as much as whoever else he roped into helping record you, but somehow I suspect the glasses are now hiding burned-out eyes, and he’s added earmuffs to his getup for much the same reason.
(A simulation of NERV Spy Headquarters processing the written transcript. The ones processing the audio are outright undead voices on the airwaves, begging for death that will not come.)
"When you got back, instead of sweeping for bugs like you usually do, you and Asuka had celebratory sex," Rei tells him without blinking.
[Glorious Reign of Silent Pause the 5th, the Venerable]
Wanderer2691: On the one hand, this is the kind of clueless that, unbeknownst to Academia Nut, is very hilariously in-character for the Stupidest Smart Person here, given how his primary motive for most things is his libido when it’s not greed. On the other…’literally having too much sex to notice’ strikes me as the kind of flaw you’d put on a Mary Sue Test as a fake one meant to distract from how Stuish your main character is…
Emma: *Bursts into progressively deranged, cosmic horror protagonist seeing the void-style laughter* The only reason he would ever make a mistake is, of course, because a beautiful woman wanted to have sex with him TOO HARD.
Nocht: [Winces] I feel her pain. And am disturbed. But I feel her pain.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 715
"Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!" Shinji swore, cursing his own stupidity. Rei was right, that party had definitely been the start of a growing disaster.
"That was your problem," Rei says flatly, obviously not having lost her quickened sense of humour in whatever transformation had taken place.
Nocht: [Flat expression] None at all, you mean?
"He used that against me, I just know it.
Leliel: I dunno, I’m kinda on his side here. He needed a win after being subjected to his recordings of you caused him to slump over in a folding chair for several hours in horror of what his life had become.
(https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/501775884/Shinji-Ikari-on-a-chair)
Like father, like son-not-taken-over-by-horny-brain-worm.
That old bastard knew that I was too slippery, too canny to attack directly, so he hit me in my blind spot: Asuka," Shinji growled.
Shinobu: *Tzeenchji* “Also - too smart, too fast, too rich, too skilled, too powerful, too sexy for my shirt…”
Futaba: Holy shit, the humble-bragging here - actually not just that, the excuses for manpain. “I was too good, so they hit my trophy”?! Fuck’s sake, that’d be first on my list as ruthless ideas without needing to hear Weird Chaos Sex between you, because you do your job-skilling together at NERV, where Gendo is, and he has eyes! So, instead, Asuka gets to be a fucking damsel in distress because you were too “manly” to be hit! As someone who literally can’t fight directly as a Navigator, kindly fuck off, Tzeentchji!
Emma: Also, while of course attracting women and having sex with them is a necessity, women also introduce a weakness into the impenetrable bastion that is Man. *eyerolls*
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 594
DUMMY PLUGGED: 547 (Because somehow Gendo needed spy work to figure this out.)
"You are correct. Shortly after the attack of the Twelfth Angel, there was an incident in America. An experimental engine for Unit 04 nearly went critical, and if it weren't for a last second shut down the Eva, the production facility, and a nearby town would have simply ceased to exist.
Wanderer2691: Oh hey, we decided to do something with that. [/shameless spitefic plug]
The media got word of this, and the public panicked. The Americans wanted the Evas out of their country. They had both units shipped over here," Rei tells him.
Leliel: [Catches on] Oh. You’re skipping this Angel too, and everything it caused. Wuss.
Another memory began to surface, of screaming and crying and a deep feeling of guilt and shame. A dark black Evangelion dominated the mental landscape.
Futaba: Mostly the latter, as Tzeentchji isn’t really someone who feels guilt except as feeling sorry someone else felt hurt.
"In transit, another Angel struck, infecting Unit 03. Upon initial activation, it took over and destroyed the testing facility outside Tokyo-3. It disabled the still inactive Unit 04, critically wounding the pilot, before it began to advance on the city.
Shinobu: Yep, we’re skipping this episode, in spite of it being quite possibly one of the most important Angel fights in the series. Can’t possibly threaten to derail canon by having the Children use their spectacular abilities to somehow win cleanly, that might result in Toji being more than comic relief who is forcefully exiled to show how serious things are getting! We already have a writer who panics at the thought of actually showing romantic difficulties and Tzeentchji actually losing ever!
Nocht: …wait. Are you saying Toji was nearly a main focus in canon?
Leliel: …yes, but not for any reason he or anyone else liked. See, in canon, after Unit-03 got shipped, it was secretly possessed by the aforementioned 13th Angel, Bardiel. We don’t know if Bardiel even has a true physical form, so generally, Unit-03 is viewed as Bardiel, as we only see it while it’s been possessed and fused:
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Bardiel)
About the closest we get to Bardiel’s original form is some white slime it tried to use to infect Unit-01 and, more importantly, the cellular webbing, which is here:
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Bardiel)
Mortarion: *leans closer in interest*
Nocht: Well, that is something I would still touch over anything in Tzeentchji’s room, but that’s still behind the average Tyranid Reclamation Pool gene slurry. Though…isn’t that covering an Entry Plug? … Oh. Oh Emperor. Not a pleasant fate, having your own Titan commandeered by a known hostile xeno, with you in it…
Futaba: You got it. Bardiel hacked Unit-03 during Toji’s own first sync test, and while Shinji tried to save the pilot, not even knowing it was Toji at first, Bardiel’s slime got him stuck in there and eventually Gendo decided to intervene, switching on the Dummy Plug and making the Rei AI fight when Shinji wouldn’t - and without anything resembling mercy. Toji survived, but one of his legs didn’t, and Eva doesn’t have the cybernetics you guys would to put him back together - and leaving Shinji with some pretty bad survivor guilt that also leaves him vulnerable to being clobbered by the next Angel.
Emma: Yeah, the Bardiel fight being almost entirely cut is fascinating because Shinji doesn’t do anything wrong. He tries to show mercy and gets his whole body hijacked for it. He still blames himself, but of course he does. I think that’s unforgivable to Academia Nut. Not just Shinji showing mercy, but Shinji being stripped of power and Shinji showing survivor’s guilt. Those are things that are weaknesses, after all. If Shinji has to fail to save the day, then clearly he should go on the warpath against the real bad guy (Gendo) and not “mope” and “whine” about feeling his hands tearing his friend’s mech apart.
Wanderer2691: Let’s see how Academia Nut fucks it up.
We were scrambled, but I was practically useless, unable to concentrate upon the mission because of my jealousy and loathing of Asuka. Upon initial contact I was quickly disabled," Rei tells him.
Shinobu: And right out the gate, everyone’s acting like a moron. Rei only lost because Bardiel is capable of some outright insane acrobatics that would not be apparent looking at the Eva at all and was able to notice Unit-00 without seeing it - and then proceeded to try and infect it with aforementioned white slime, forcing Rei to amputate that arm, which saved her and the Eva but took her out of the fight for obvious reasons. So Rei V not only looks like a dumbass beyond her canon self, but for really misogynistic “but MY man!” reasons.
Emma: How can she possibly be so jealous of Asuka that it’s interfering with her ability to do her encoded purpose? If she’s mad about being decapitated, sure, but she’s still that jealous about Asuka getting screwed by the living embodiment of r/iamverysmart? *stage whisper* Your dick is not that impressive, AcademiaNut
DUMMY PLUGGED: 548
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 595
Fitting together several fragments of memory, Shinji says, "I refused to kill the Angel outright like my father ordered. I knew that the pilot was a psyker and thus useful in the long term, and I wanted to recover him.
Nocht: And also because they, you did not know the princeps’ gender yet, were also a comrade capable of making an Eva move, and also is someone who, at minimum, was drafted into the same war and is a comrade-in-arms being victimized by a hostile, you sociopathic twit.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 716
I also knew that Toji had been selected as a pilot because he confided in me his fears."
Wanderer2691: …okay, this I can believe. I don’t think Toji should trust Tzeentchji as far as he could throw Unit-01, but that’s because of an out-of-universe assessment of his behavior. If someone who was ostensibly Shinji was more open and got Toji to think that it wouldn’t break Shinji to tell him he was the Fourth Child, then I can see Toji being pretty open about it and warning Shinji, and from there, two and two go together when Bardiel steps in. Of course, this also makes Tzeentchji even more of a prick to consider Toji being a psyker first, as ostensibly, Toji is his closest-thing-to-a-friend, or at least favorite piece.
Mortarion: The instant someone opens up to him, he immediately begins rendering them down into something he can use. He can use psykers before he can use confidants, of course that’s where his mind goes.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 717
"Asuka, following your lead, followed suit.
Leliel: …why? Asuka fought back against Bardiel in canon when she knew full well it was Toji being used as Pilot Human Shield, and as a Khornate, she has every reason to rush in even more brutally in an attempt to make the monster that dishonored a fellow warrior so much and pull him out with claws and teeth-
Your father shrugged and deactivated your Eva remotely before activating the Dummy Plug system in Unit 02," Rei says.
Leliel: -oh right I forgot, Tzeentchji can’t be made to look bad or truly outmatched ever and so his shit is foisted off on his harem rather than it ever being his fault. Because Academia Nut thinks the Narcissist’s Prayer is writing advice due to being a poem:
(https://grace-being.com/love-relationships/narcissist-prayer/)
Mortarion: Ah yes, of course. You can’t even be anywhere near this failure. Having your EVA hijacked would be too humiliating, and it wouldn’t do to have you face personal struggles in a way that humiliates you.
Emma: I think the weirdest thing about this scene is the way Asuka’s agency is basically being passed around. Like, she goes completely against everything about her personality and her god to Not rip Touji out of being enslaved and dishonoured because Her Man said so, and now she’s the one who gets Dummy Plugged, presumably because the idea of the self-insert getting his agency violated is too gross, but it’s just natural to happen to Asuka. Especially since this is apparently Gendo’s revenge and instead of getting revenge on Tzeentchji directly he’s using a girl he has no quarrel with because EVERYONE understands Asuka as an extension of her boyfriend! *slumps back, panting angrily*
DUMMY PLUGGED: 549
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 311
Shinji screamed in impotent rage as he tugged at the controls of his deactivated Eva, trying to force it to come back to life, but it lacked motive power and special blocks he had not heard about had been installed to prevent the activation of the Eva in this sort of situation.
Futaba: Exactly how he never found out, ever, is an exercise left to the reader given how he is psychic, and favors telepathy and spy-based powers, you absolute dingus.
EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 312
TALON ON THE SCALES: 232 (Mr. Genius Script Kiddie here wasn’t able to find out about programming blocks and emergency shutoff protocols? Really? Really?)
If he really tried, he could probably force open the blocks and force energy to flow, but he did not know what exactly the consequences of something like that would be. It would probably involve something unpleasant happening to him personally, and certainly a lot of unwanted questions to be asked afterwards.
Shinobu: And also, uh, may allow him to save Toji’s life or another Child who is likely to be grateful and view him as a hero, and everyone is aware of some weird mutations in the Eva - can’t you just say “I guess the Eva mutated to be uncontrollable by outside programs, whoopsy-daisy.” Even from a purely self-interested point of view, the only reason not to go nuts is that you’re a big coward, Tzeentchji.
Mortarion: Your EVA grew a secondary nervous system and nobody cared. I believe you could probably pass this off as an accidental mutation. Unless, of course, you want your friend to get maimed in order to comfort him in order to strengthen your bond. Which I would prefer you not, if only because then you’d be a Nurgilite and I’d have to deal with you.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 718
So he could just watch as Unit 02 brought its chain-axe down into the poorly armoured flesh of Unit 03. It had not received the upgrades of the ones in Tokyo-3 yet, and despite the Angel's upgrades, it was insufficient to withstand a berserker Unit 02 in full L-Type Equipment wielding the most advanced weaponry available to man. Asuka screamed in horror and fury at this abuse of her Eva, forced to watch up close as Unit 03 was hacked into bloody pieces.
Wanderer2691: Which makes it even more stupid, as that also means that pulverizing Bardiel until it stops, as was done by the Dummy Plug canonically, is also far easier, and liable to leave the pilot alive if controlled. Which a Khornate is likely skilled enough to do. Hell, the entry plug was crushed, and Toji was still able to live!
Mortarion: Presumably we are meant to believe that punishing Tzeentchji is a higher priority than saving their weapon or soldier, since everything revolves around him, after all.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 313
DUMMY PLUGGED: 550
Gendo did not power the Eva down until all that was left was a steaming corpse, the entry plug hacked to pieces by the chain-axe. The corpse of the pilot was almost too mangled to tell its identity.
Nocht: …I also don’t think “crushed” is the same as “carved up by chainsword”, so I say this passes un-pointed, as I suspect Gendo would wish to make sure even the bit of Bardiel in the entry plug was dead as a general rule. And also punishing insubordination.
Shinji's heart broke in two as Asuka's shrill screaming filled the air.
Hikari's head rolled out of the remains.
[Pause that isn’t quite as long as the last one, and way more skeptical than horrified.]
Futaba: Hikari. Not Toji. Despite Toji being the pilot, and likely his mother’s soul having long been put in Unit 03 long before it got flown over to Japan.
Shinobu: Yeah…okay, no, can you believe this shit? Because I don’t!
(https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1164040-let-me-tell-you-why-thats-bullshit)
Leliel: Let’s skip slightly ahead and point out that, as we’ll see, Tzeentchji thinks this is personal retaliation by Gendo against him rather than Hikari being an actual pilot candidate. Already, we see a problem - why not Toji then? Because, in case you didn’t notice, Toji is Tzeentchji’s alleged friend - not Hikari. It’d be way more of a deep cut that way!
Wanderer2691: Second - what happens if, say, someone found their brain and manages to save Hikari, given how we know Toji was selected as the actual Child first? Congrats, now you have two extra pilots who are both deeply traumatized and if they find out the truth, will be rather upset with Gendo, especially because Toji was blackmailed in the first place. Now every pilot loathes Gendo and is plotting mutiny!
Emma: Third - you can’t get revenge on a boy using another boy! That’s just GAY. The only way to target an Alpha Male like Tzeentchji is through the Weak Parts, eg, women. So who cares that Asuka just beat her best friend to death with what amounts to her own hands? It’ll hurt the feelings of her boyfriend, the one that matters.
Nocht: Finally, these Titans have the souls of the mothers of the pilots as primary cogitators, yes? That is why one Eva can only bind to one pilot, yes? So, how did Unit-03, meant for Toji, suddenly end up with Hikari? …are they siblings?!
Shinobu: No, thankfully, Academia Nut didn’t think that through - because, given his attitude towards Rei and Tzeentchji you know he’d be rolling in how Toji and Hikari still want to fuck after figuring that out! Gross!
Futaba: [Shivers] That pleasant thought out of the way, we officially award this ten points per category, for a completely pointless aside into misogynistic misery porn of the most moronic variety.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 560
TALON ON THE SCALES: 242
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 605
Shinji clutched his fists together until they drew blood, forced to relive the horrors of that day again by this cruel amnesia. The furious tears rolled freely.
Leliel: *Tzeentchji* “I lost! And I didn’t even get richer off someone else’s pain! WAAAAAAAH!”
"Now I remember… I found out from Toji, what was left of him after he was left a quadriplegic by Unit 03 and nearly catatonic by Hikari's death, that the only reason she accepted the position was because they had Toji… and Toji accepted because they were offering better treatment for his little sister," Shinji says bitterly.
(https://giphy.com/gifs/Bounce-TV-hmm-wait-what-tilting-head-nTfdeBvfgzV26zjoFP)
Wanderer2691: Now, we could go on to explain how none of that contradicts what we just said, and in fact, Hikari being driven entirely by protecting her MAAAAN to accept makes fridging her even more sexist…but now I’m wondering how he got injured, given how from the context, it seems like he was nowhere near the sync test when Bardiel seized control.
Nocht: Just a few lines would make it better - one line. “Toji was worried, so he decided to observe the sync test, and he was incidentally injured by awakening Angel.” In fact, if you will let me put on my Hypothetical Heretic skull pauldron for a bit - just killing Hikari for shock value, when Toji is mysteriously just as disabled by Bardiel, is a waste of potential for the Chaos Cult side of things. Imagine, what would happen if Hikari survived, having been treated to being a prisoner in her own Eva, and had to be defeated by her best friend to save everyone - and then falling back on her perfectionism to deal with the trauma. And cursing herself for being too rigid with her morals to deny herself happiness with Toji to maintain her supposed purity…
Leliel: …Slaaneshi Hikari. Somehow I think she’d be even more of a tyrant class president that way, for reasons best left to the imagination. But that interestingly terrifying image aside, she was instead stuffed in a fridge, so we have these points:
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 606
DUMMY PLUGGED: 561 (Sorry Toji, you were in an unavoidable train accident in a station of the canon.)
Now he felt the weight of the guilt he had felt earlier truly come crashing down on him. His fucking bastard of a father had used him, had played him like a fiddle. If he hadn't been so distracted by Asuka, maybe he would have realized that he was being ensnared by his own schemes. Worst of all was the fact that Hikari, Asuka's best friend, would have never been in that damn Eva if not for Shinji's manipulations of Hikari and Toji's emotions.
Shinobu: Exactly how manipulating Hikari and Toji led to that is unknown, but he still felt solipsistic enough to assume.
Emma: Because EVERYTHING has to be about him. On a less sarcastic note, this is a pretty common thing to happen in over-powered author insert defined stories. The author, being vaguely aware characters are supposed to fuck up or having been flamed for writing a Gary Stu, decides to make something bad happens. The problem is, since they can’t see beyond their own fantasy, everything in the bad thing that happens revolves around the self insert (even when, like here, they’re the least affected), and it will apparently all be their own fault, both for endless stu-groupy “oh no, don’t BLAME yourself” shit and because that still feeds back into the over the top “main character” writing.
Leliel: I’m going to interject here and say that, as we noted way back in Chapter 2, every student of Shinji’s high school is a potential pilot, so Academia Nut takes this as a sign that literally anyone can be drawn on for reserves and transformation into a PTSD-ridden mass of magazine subscriptions of issues that is vaguely shaped like a teenager. Thing is, though, the selection process for Toji was done normally, after Leliel inflicted enough mental wounds on Shinji that his sync ratio started to slip, and NERV realized they needed reinforcements. The only reason Shinji wasn’t informed was because Misato didn’t feel like she could broach the topic, and as noted, neither did Toji - so Shinki found out the worst possible way. But, according to Academia Nut’s Improved Reading, apparently Toji was selected to “control Shinji” - please leave aside the fact that in that case, Gendo would be wasting an expensive Eva, after losing a different Eva, on spite, by binding Toji or now, Hikari, as a pilot. Yeah, that makes me feel like Gendo’s the only equal to Tzeentchji as a schemer, that he can’t realize that he can count the amount of Evas on one hand.
Futaba: Not to mention - it’s hard not to notice that once again, Tzeentchji seems more angry that he had one pulled over on him in his in-a-competent-story paranoid delusions, and that’s what he’s feeling guilty about - because someone else did it to him. Don’t believe me? Next line
Snarling, Shinji said, "There had to have been a reckoning after something like that."
Nocht: Lovely priorities there, sorcerer-brat. To not even ask if Toji or his sister are okay now…or even more pertinently, given the other weak spot, Kensuke.
Mortarion: He doesn’t want them to be alright, since as long as they’re harmed, he has an excuse to do whatever he wants.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 562 (For Gendo wasting an Eva on spite, he has far crueler and cheaper ways.)
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 719
Hanging her head in shame, Rei says, "There was a complication… me. In my fury with you two I had fallen back on Commander Ikari as a source of comfort and strength. If you moved against him without me at your side…"
Wanderer2691: Oh hell not this shit again.
Leliel: For the love of - even if Gendo wants Rei to be a substitute for his wife, she’s his clone stepdaughter! Not his lover! Gendo’s certainly fucked enough in the head to consider it, but he has the Akagis to use as sex substitute - and Rei is ultimately a tool to him to get Yui back, so he’d be trying to distance himself from her. Not everything ties back into incest, no matter how big a fetish you have, Erotica Man-Nut.
Emma: Also Rei is 14 and Gendo is her boss in addition to being her surrogate father. Despite that, this is not only framed in a very downplayed softened way, but it’s framed as something Rei did, instead of “an adult with multiple forms of institutional power over Rei takes advantage of her trauma to rape her.” The framing here is that Rei was weak and lost her way, and she should be blamed for, again, being coerced into sex as a replacement for a dead woman.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 670
DUMMY PLUGGED: 561
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 607 (Because she falls back on a MAAAAN after losing her MAAAAAN.)
"It would end with the extinction of the human race. Right… fuck. So I had to convince you first," Shinji said.
Futaba: Why?! Why do you think it’ll end with the extinction of the human race?! You know Gendo’s selfish, but I must’ve missed the lore entry where you discovered, or came to suspect, he wants to destroy humanity! Not that I’m that shocked, given how this story skipped over a good third of the show! At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Tzeentchji’s pure ego talking, only assuming that because he’s on the side of his nutcase idea of humanity, only people who want to destroy it are against him.
Mortarion: Presenting your motivation as being “the salvation of humanity” is very convenient. If your goal is so great, then anything you do in service to that goal must be justified, and anyone who interferes must want to destroy humanity. It’s a very convenient way to get away with things. At least I’m honest. I’ll never lie to you about putting my own life first.
Leliel: Honestly is building on my theory that our author thinks the main issue with Chaos is that it isn’t enough like the Imperium of Man.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 720
DUMMY PLUGGED: 562 (Yes, what Gendo wants is bad, but his issue is not caring what happens to the world if he gets Yui back, not some weird homicidal misanthropy. He doesn’t want to be part of SEELE’s LCL overmind, remember.)
"Yes. You sought proof that Gendo had known that Unit 03 was infected before activation, that he specifically placed Hikari-san with that Eva so that she would be killed by Asuka-san, just to hurt her to hurt you," Rei explained.
"I left town to find out what was going on…" Shinji stated dully, seeing where this was going.
Shinobu: Namely, up his own ass, right next to the stations of the canon. He did leave in canon…because he cared deeply about Toji, and upon seeing that Gendo’s reaction to nearly killing him was “well, sucks to be Toji, at least Bardiel’s down,” Shinji bluntly refused to pilot for Gendo anymore. Which apparently some idiots regard as “whiny” as opposed to “literally the only protest Shinji is capable of and Unit-01 already showed competence with a Dummy Plug, so it wasn’t even that destructive.” And guess what? The moment the next Angel showed up, and it became clear the true stakes of the matter and the other pilots needed him, he went right back. But how dare he be genuinely upset and pissed by Gendo literally forcing him to be part of the gun that he shot one of Shinji’s best friends with? Especially since how the hell are you going to find any evidence where Gendo has likely never been?!
Wanderer2691: Academia Nut being an absolute wuss unable to think of new things to replace the stations of the canon, even if it requires all characters involved including his self insert to not have the brains God granted a land squirrel, continues apace.
Emma: What gets me is that this is being presented as an improvement. Being upset at being used to mutilate his first real friend isn’t good enough, because then he’s just being emotional. That’s not dignified and masculine enough. He has to be Investigating and Goal-driven, even if that investigation makes no fucking sense. Also “Just to hurt her to hurt you”. It’s amazing that Academia Nut has so little self-awareness he just keeps confirming everything we say. Asuka is a prop to hurt Tzeentchji through, and Hikari is a prop to a prop. It’s not even that Gendo only thinks of them that way, Hikari being horribly killed only matters because it means Tzeentchji’s favourite toy might not work as well for a little while.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 563
TALON ON THE SCALES: 243
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 608
"…and an Angel attacked," Rei finished for him.
Nocht: Speak of the daemon…
"It was the worst one yet, extraordinarily powerful. It went through Tokyo-3's defences like butter, blew through eighteen layers of the city's armour with a single shot, and shrugged off concentrated fire from the positron rifle like rain. It then blew up the rifle with a single shot, incidentally disabling Unit 00."
Futaba: Okay, yeah, the positron rifle is new, but that’s after its energy drain was Stu-ified into efficiency. That’s a pretty good descriptor of how the canon fight with Zeruel went - the Angel Set Over Strength lives up to its title.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Zeruel)
Nocht: …the Angel That Needs To Be Set Up With A Chiropractor, going by that stance. Maybe it looks better when it moves, but that is an extremely stiff posture.
Leliel: Fun fact, this is actually its resting form. Zeruel means “Arm of God”, and when it gets ready to attack…
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Zeruel)
Nocht: Ah, my mistake then. Going by how thin they are, those arms are also monofilaments, I imagine.
Shinobu: Exactly - one slice of those things left Unit 02 sans its own arms without giving Asuka a chance to react. Combine that with how the thing is physically durable as hell, its AT Field being even stronger than that, flight, and even more powerful energy blasts than Sachiel, Zeruel may be the outright best frontline combatant out of all the Angels - and the only one to breach NERV conventionally. This thing is widely regarded as one of the best fights in the series, and one of the most popular Angels, for a good reason.
Leliel: If anything, its stiff stance makes it more intimidating, as you get the sense this thing is a stoic engine of destruction - it doesn’t hate you, even as it’s completely demolishing you. You are a threat to its mission, and so you must die to no longer be a risk. The Terminator in kaiju form.
Let’s see how the author fucks it up.
Rei then smiled slightly, "Then it met Asuka-san. She fell, but not before she gave the Angel hell. She shoved a melta up against its core and fired at point blank range. The Angel survived with barely a scratch. But she kept hitting it with everything she had. She actually managed to take off one of its arms before it brought her down. You were quite incredibly pissed when you finally managed to get back to NERV.
Wanderer2691: Okay, good, good, this would be great if we saw it, but yeah - it shows a stronger, more competent Asuka putting up more of a fight than…
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Zeruel)
…that. She still needs her MAAAAN to save her-
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 609
But it still gives Asuka more of a fight, more reason to avoid collapsing into her spiral of depression later in the series and really does show improvement. Now, where is the other shoe?
Her smile broadening, Rei tells him, "In fact, you even gave a little speech over the radio while powering up your Eva. It went, 'Alright motherfucker, you've invaded my city, beaten the fuck out of two of three of the girls I cherish most in this world, and now you're making me play the Big Damn Hero with this last minute entrance. I hate playing the Big Damn Hero.' What happened next I highly doubt you would remember."
Futaba: [Flat look] Oh, here it is. There’s a note inside! It says: BOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Emma: Christ Almighty. Yes, we get it, you are Big Strong Heterosexual Man, here make sure the Women are protected at all times. This isn’t admirable, this isn’t cool, this makes you look like a possessive creep AND an insecure child. Also I hate tropespeak in narratives. I’m a troper, I’m sure I’ve fallen back on tropespeak while sporking at points, but unless you’re writing a very specific kind of internet-poisoned zillenial it’s not in character at all, and it’s fucking jarring. This is not a cool nerdy shoutout, it just makes me think you can’t separate your voice from the characters and you’re incredibly annoying to talk to.
Shinobu: Seriously, what was that? An actual TV Tropes reference? Something TV Tropes got it from? I don’t know, and frankly, it wouldn’t be funny if I did get it. And it’s also kind of disrespectful out of universe to one of the most terrifying Angels there is, and absurdly disrespectful for everyone who died in the attack. You don’t have to make it seem like a resentful favor, dickweasel. Not to mention, a liar - you love saving the day and hoarding the glory.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 721
Thinking about it, Shinji shakes his head and says, "I don't have a clue what happened."
Nodding, Rei says, "You essentially merged with your Eva to squeeze every ounce of power out of it. You forced it to evolve and adapt in new and strange ways. You grew an S2 engine from scratch so that you could keep fighting. Your Eva began to breathe fire, multicoloured fire. You telekinetically threw the Angel back to the surface, through the armour, and not the part it had already shot. You elbowed it in the face and collapsed its skull with a single blow. You snapped its back over your knee. You threw it through a building and then crucified its corpse on the wreckage. You strangled it with its own intestines. Then you ripped out its core and punted it into low earth orbit, where it detonated."
Leliel: Oooh, how awesome, very cool, such manly, almost enough to make me ignore this is a more showy version of what happened in canon - in fact, there, it actually came off like Unit 01 was as dangerous as it seemed, because it ate Zeruel once Shinji made it go berserk and operate under its own mind and power, and so gained its S2 organ…and so, unlimited personal power supply. Here? We get the distinct Tzeentch warpfire and a punch that shows how Manly Tzeentch’s Eva is and - nothing else. He even merges with the Eva, just with different rationale than pushing himself too far and losing his AT Field in the process - about the only thing different is that Gendo regarded Unit-01 getting the S2 organ as an absolute win, since that meant Unit-01 was now effectively a divine entity, prime for his own Instrumentality plans to resurrect Yui in human form - and outside of SEELE’s predictions.
Emma: On one hand I’d complain about this entire action scene happening offscreen…on the other hand, it would be so overwhelmingly masturbatory over how badass Tzeentchji is when the canon context was Unit-01 (aka Yui) being a horrifying kaiju murderbeast all on her own.
(Trigger warning for blood and mild gore in video.)
Eva 01 vs Zeruel from Necro Nomaken on Vimeo.
Nocht: …all of which sounds like a victory over Gendo, up until you realize that, if Unit-01 was breathing warpfire, it’s already well on the way to being a Daemon Engine, a Warp-fused machine of war that is indeed of godlike potential, at minimum. If anything, Gendo should be glad for having been able to see his wife’s servitor form suddenly develop this absurd strength and psychic manifestation, along with her mentioned increase in intellect. The only reason this is not is because Gendo is a scapegoat for the author to clown on for how very intelligent he imagines his self-insert to be. Also, from the sound of it, as opposed to the Eva regressing to a more animal state, Shinji was being the kind of sadist that even most Chaos worshipers don’t deserve the tender mercies of.
Mortarion: Oh, how benevolent of you. We will sing of you for centuries, that maybe you think we earned a quick death.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 564
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 722
Taking this all in, Shinji shrugs and says, "Sounds like something I would do under the circumstances. I take it when you say 'merged' you mean…"
"You were rendered down into LCL and absorbed into your Eva. It took us a month to get you out of there… it was a bad month. Rei V, feeling incredibly guilty at how her actions had lead up to this event, hung herself.
[The Even Longer Reign of Emperor Pause of Horrified, Stunned Silence II, also known as the Echo of the Empty Void.]
Leliel: … [Wordlessly puts in an embed.]
Wanderer2691: Wow. That was…I think I’d be murderously attacking the screen now, before hunting for remaining Genestealer hybrids, but, I’m stunned. That went from Zero to Texas Cakewalk in no seconds flat. Over, among other things, upsetting her MAAAAAN for…things that, explicitly, the unstable and angry previous version of herself did. And just being understandably distant from Tzeentchji and Asuka after being killed by the latter. Because it’s always the woman’s fault, amright my sigma breeeeeeecch! Sorry, even doing that sarcastically causes me to throw up in my mouth.
Emma: Huh- what- huh- That’s not even the thing she did wrong! She didn’t make Tzeentchji torture Zeruel to death so hard he melted! Why is the calculated date rape brushed off with “Not my fault, soul broke” but Tzeentchji going out of his way to be as cruel as possible (in a way that’s framed as cool when it comes to him) “suicide worthy”?
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 619 (Ten, because HOLY SHIT.)
Asuka began to lose her mind. She became more a bitch than usual. She was hurting badly, lashing out at everything and everyone around her. They even put her on a suicide watch when they found out she was cutting herself," Rei explains.
Shinobu: …uuunngghaaaaaahhhh….why. Why is this so matter of fact. Why are we skipping all this important character drama, most of which Tzeentchji was there for. Why are we missing out on the vision quest we had that revealed so much about Yui and Gendo in the actual series when Shinji was dissolved. Why is there so much….
Emma: Yeah, I guess we were missing “self-harm tossed off to be edgy” *holds up a “dogshit writing of trauma” bingo card* What do I get if I fill this out again?
Leliel: Aspirin. Lots of aspirin. And antacids.
"Cutting? That doesn't… oh wait… I know what she was doing. Blood sacrifice to Khorne in an attempt to get me back. If she couldn't get it from her enemies, then she would get it from herself. Khorne cares not from where the blood flows. She probably didn't even feel the blade," Shinji notes.
Futaba: Oh and that makes it better. [Flips bird.]
Nocht: And utterly wrong. By definition, your own blood willingly shed is your own blood - getting it, without any loss of your ability or even pain, is definitionally too easy - at most you might be able to power a Chaos chainsword or similar weapon with it, and even then, it’d be actively trying to fight you to get more and make you work for it.
Mortarion: When they say “Khorne does not care where the blood flows from” they mean friendly fire. Khorne loves when allies turn on themselves in bloody battle. Khorne does not particularly care for blood that is acquired without effort or pain. Fighting recklessly in a way that leads to injury would be rewarded, but not… that. Nurgle is more likely to reward this type of self-harm, because you’re embracing and increasing your despair.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 314
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 671 (This seems awfully fetishized, given how it’s to…save her MAAAAN, along with the sudden suicide.)
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 620 (This too, for the same reason.)
"Quite," Rei said in understanding. "It all looked well once we got you out of Unit 01… unfortunately we soon discovered that you were in fact in a coma. We had retrieved your body, but your mind seemed to be elsewhere. Asuka nearly killed one of the guards to your room she was so grief stricken to see you like that. It took fifteen guards and three tranquilizer darts to bring her down.
Emma: Sorry for the obvious joke but “you were in fact in a coma. We had retrieved your body, but your mind seemed to be elsewhere.” How did they tell the difference?
Leliel: While I’m unclear on the time scale, I think the real, canon Shinji woke up soon after he reconstituted from LCL in canon. So, while I know there’s another reason, I’m going to say this is because Tzeentchji has a significantly weaker will than Shinji. Because I’m spiteful like that.
Shinji winced in pain as the piece of shrapnel twisted again, and he also felt like he was on the edge of some great truth.
Bn'alhaf'zvim'x'qazszlfg'amq'extzin'tchi'a'lkipjuwo'zyrxd'rtpa…
Mortarion: Sorry, you want to mail a parcel of eels to who?
Wanderer2691: Gesundheit. Okay, I’m joking, this is pretty clearly something in Dark Tongue, the language of Daemons, but, fun fact, it’s an actual cypher language in its own right. Not a complex one, but it has its own guide:
(https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Tongue)
But while it doesn’t exactly mean much beyond “sounds scary”, there's definitely logic to it, and while it’s a punctuation shaker language, it’s still generally pronounceable. If you ask Academia Nut though…
Impossible syllables, properly pronounceable only by a seven-dimensional tongue with two different voice boxes, danced in Shinji's mind for a moment before his inability to properly comprehend them caused the entire sequence to collapse.
Leliel: [Deadpan] Tzeeneth, Nurgleth, Slaaneth, and Kharneth. Oooh, look at me, I must be some kind of archdaemon, I just said the name of all four Ruinous Powers in Dark Tongue. There are some real nightmares to say in it, like Q'tlahs'itsu'aksho [gags on the consonants], but it’s usually legible, and to be honest, that comes from a very canonically early take on it - more importantly, there’s a space between works in Dark Tongue. That tongue-spiralizer, so called because the inside of your mouth would probably look like a Junji Ito drawing if you spoke it, is one obscenely long word, as opposed to anything sensible. So once again, our author fails to recognize anything of Warhammer beyond its capacity for big explosions.
Emma: I’m still constantly shocked Academia Nut didn’t go for an Imperial self-insert. He obviously only cares about the weapons and about power-wanking about hard decisions.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 315
Shaking it off, he turns to Rei and asks, "What happened between then and now?"
"There were two more Angel attacks. Asuka-san handled the Fifteenth Angel and I handled the Sixteenth. Both were as messy as the Fourteenth, but in different ways.
Futaba: Frankly, the Fifteenth being “messy” is more than a bit of an understatement. Because in English, Arael is the source of the term “mind rape.”
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Arael)
Shinobu: We’ll cover that when we get to it, because that’s gonna be a whole thing, but suffice to say, psychic powers are a bastard. However, the other reason is…
The Fifteenth was a difficult, unconventional battle, while the Sixteenth was perhaps the synthesis of the most effective tactics so far. Rei VI was immolated in that battle."
Shinobu: Here, it is a footnote. That thing pretty much singlehandedly killed what was left of Asuka’s will to live in canon, and it’s a footnote. We get an image of what the fight was in this canon later, but come the fuck on. It comes off like Rei is actively trying to throw her under the bus! I can’t even tell if this is due to the timeskip or Academia Nut chickening out, but either way, it’s bad. Don’t skimp on the fates of personal nemeses of one of your ostensible protagonists!
Mortarion: Clearly, it is a footnote because she already lost all her will to fight when her pathetic, self-aggrandizing love toy was mercifully rendered catatonic.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 565
"What happened?" Shinji asks.
"The Angel was essentially nothing but a giant energy whip, one of the more successful weapons used against us. Conventional weapons did nothing against it, not even a point blank melta blast. After doing considerable damage, it then attempted to merge with my Eva," Rei says before letting a feral grin escape from her suppressed face.
Futaba: Okay, this is one I can make more affordances for, because Armisael is a weird fight.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Armisael/Gallery)
Futaba: Basically, this…big ring of DNA light was just chilling in the atmosphere for a bit before suddenly striking at Rei in ribbon form, who was using Unit-00 to observe it, and trying to infect it in some weird alien pregnancy with clones of the previous Angels while the free end became a clone of Rei, the “Angel Tower”.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Armisael)
Nocht: …I have so many questions.
Emma:
Replace “Adult life” with “Eva” and you’ve got it.
Wanderer2691: This perfectly encapsulates the latter part of Eva, and that thing in particular is never explained apart from “Armisael starts doing Leliel’s converse-through-the-other-self trick with Rei, and then this happens.” However, in one of the most heroic moments in the series, Rei, realizing she’s being forcefully integrated into the Angel and wanting to protect Shinji, seals herself in an AT Field and self-destructs, taking Armisael with her. And that’s the end of Rei II and the birth of Rei III. However, it also means a more conventional fight is going to need to have the initial fight changed up, we don’t even know if Armisael has any other weapons. But I’m pretty sure you don’t do this:
"Big mistake, for by Rei VI, I had a bit better control over my own mind, but I was also further fragmented. Still, when the Angel invaded, it discovered that it couldn't get back out because I was counter-invading with multiple minds. It sent cancerous feelers all throughout my body causing tiny squealing faces to erupt from my flesh. I sent worse things back at it. We were locked in battle for several minutes until finally it went suicidal and detonated. Unfortunately as it was inside my Eva when it exploded, the entry plug was incinerated, leaving behind only bones," Rei explains.
Nocht: …so in other words, a heroic and interesting battle totally happened, but none of us get to see it. Bravo. Truly spectacular. Why, I almost don’t feel cheated. Also, that sounds immensely disgusting, why did we need to hear about faces? Beyond the author being this Hojo person in spirit?
Emma: To be fair, the faces are canon. The Director’s cut includes a longer fight where Shinji grabs Armisael and Rei faces start sprouting from his hands as it tries to integrate with 01. They played better in a series that wasn’t constantly wallowing in shock-value grossout, but they’re canon.
Nocht: Yes, on Eva-01. I’m petty enough to increase a count anyway, by reading it as “faces growing on Rei”, which is…well.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 672
"Which brings us to Rei VII, you," Shinji states.
"Yes. With Unit 00 now so heavily damaged that it was no longer properly functional,
Leliel: In other words, with no actual overall difference in the plot with a destroyed Unit-00…
TALON ON THE SCALES: 244 (This fic is really good at “the canon, but more AWESMOE!” dance…)
Commander Ikari decided that I would be brought back with my memories from before I met you, to keep me docile and compliant to his will. I still retained everything I learned through my knowledge of soul transference, but I decided to play along.
Wanderer2691: Which doesn’t explain why you’ve gone back to a canon personality, because…full memories. Which means you’re post-Nurgle Rei in a canon Rei suit. Around someone who knows. What is the point of this?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 245 (For lack of a better score…)
I also decided to stop using my powers, as they were causing my condition to become worse, and with Major Katsuragi in lock-up and…" Rei explained before being interrupted.
Futaba: …oh boy, this is not gonna be good… say, Nocht? What was that powder you sniffed?
Nocht: Anti-anxiety chem. Helps stabilize my nerves in a difficult shot, since I’m not as emotionless as other Vindicare. Didn’t seem to help that much.
Futaba: …eh, can’t hurt, but I imagine it’s a prescription. [Sighs, drinks tea instead.]
"Wait! Misato-san is under arrest?" Shinji asks frantically.
"Under suspicion of murder, although that is just a formality since everyone knows she did it. Shortly before the Fifteenth Angel showed up, Ryoji-san was found dead in the depths of NERV, a single gunshot wound to the head. Katsuragi-san, who began dating him again the same night Rei IV died, was distraught. You were in a coma, Asuka-san was exhibiting self-destructive behaviour, and her whole world seemed to be crumbling. Nothing was going right for her.
Emma: Also, she’s in this fanfic.
Shinobu: So far, so canon. But it sounds like she embarked on a one-woman war on SEELE, who killed Kaji, but-
"Her story is that Dr. Akagi…" Rei began.
"Misato killed Ritsuko?" Shinji cried out incredulously.
Shinobu: …what he said, the FUCK?!
Leliel: ‘Scuse me, gonna put this button here…
"That is the leading theory," Rei said. "Katsuragi-san's own confession was that Akagi-san began viciously taunting her about the implosion of her 'family', and how it had parallels to the past.
Futaba: …oh. Oh I get it. This is Bitch, Unfuckable Ritsuko, isn’t it. The one our author hates for being a woman not part of the harem and no interest in being such. Here we go…
DUMMY PLUGGED: 566
Fed up with Akagi-san's words, Katsuragi-san struck her across the jaw. Lieutenant Ibuki moved to defend Katsuragi-san but was also struck in turn.
Wanderer2691: Thus, by the way, is one of the last times we see Maya, if not the last - you know, the mission control who has a huge crush on Ritsuko and pushing her away is a sign Ritsuko has gone off the deep end. This is not the end of Academia Nut’s homophobia.
Emma: *mirthless smile* I think it’s better if she gets out while the getting’s good.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 567 (Somehow, I think even a berserk Misato would just shove Maya away.)
At this point the story becomes a bit more complicated. Katsuragi-san claims that at that point Akagi-san drew a gun on her and acted in self defence, but Ibuki-san claims that it was Katsuragi-san who drew the gun, while the surveillance footage was inconclusive and the sequence of events could have gone either way as the weapon was drawn in the middle of a struggle between the two. Since it was never actually fired we don't know who could have been holding it, and because it was non-standard, non-registered and in the struggle both their prints appeared on it, we don't know who owned it.
Futaba: *Rei* ”Also the ability to look up known black market sellers and potential alibis for a buyer was lost in Second Impact. The author’s idiocy and Dunning-Kruger affects all of us.” No point, because this is just a pointless aside, but…
"What happened next is not debated. Katsuragi-san is a decorated military officer, while Akagi-san was a scientist. Akagi-san was stabbed in the left lung by a letter opener grabbed as an impromptu weapon in the struggle. This wound was, while not instantly fatal, would have resulted in death without immediate medical attention, something impossible to get quickly enough in that situation. At this point Katsuragi-san claims temporary insanity for her following actions.
Nocht: [Blank smile] I inflict cleaner and less gory kills with hollow points.
Emma: Temporary insanity, here meaning “the hand of the author”.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 673
Pausing to clear her throat quietly, Rei says, "Seeing her best friend bleeding out from a fatal wound she inflicted, Katsuragi-san began screaming incoherently, saying that 'she doesn't know pain' while repeatedly punching and stabbing, either to inflict as much suffering as possible before Akagi-san's death or in some sort of insane attempt to speed the process. Either way, when it was all over Katsuragi-san was left in a semi-catatonic state, only answering questions asked of her but not initiating any actions, and Akagi-san had suffered thirty-seven stab wounds and five broken bones, three-quarters of her injuries sustained post-mortem."
Shinobu: First, yikes. Second, what the actual fuck?
Leliel: Believe it or not, this is not worth a DUMMY PLUGGED point. Because there is a reason for it, related to that Dark Tongue Twister up there - and also Misato thought Ritsuko killed Kaji at the time.
The issue is, this is because our author thinks that’s what happened…and it’s been made very clear that Ryoji was killed by a completely anonymous character. In fact, the dominant fan theory was that it was Misato that killed him, to the point where Anno took out the evidence for that in the director’s cut to make damn sure everyone knew it was just SEELE. The only reason, I think, Academia Nut buys this, is because he hates Ritsuko. Or more likely, is highly intimidated by her and thinks it’s her fault as a fictional character.
Emma: This is… look at how this is written. This is a lovingly described sequence of Ritsuko being stabbed to death and then her corpse mutilated. I don’t think much of the surface level reading that stabbing is always a metaphor for penetrative sex or whatever happens when people want to seem smug about slasher movies, but this gloating description of the Bad Unfuckable woman being stabbed to death over and over? This is incredibly, unsettlingly eroticized.
Wanderer2691: Seriously. So for the uncanon, there’s one point…
DUMMY PLUGGED: 568
But ten more to the other relevant counts, because holy suit.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 682
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 630
Somehow, the cold, clinical way that Rei described the events after the fact was far more terrifying than actually seeing it. Everything was already said and done; there was nothing Shinji could do to help his friends because he had been asleep.
Shinobu: *Academia Nut* “So, you see, the fact I did most of plot to the series in a summary form works, and not at all because I’m a lazy moron who wrote himself in a corner and was desperate to avoid writing writing my self-insert into canonically difficult and near-losing fights and so avoid harming by substitute ego! And Gendo totally had victory, they were, uh, just missed by, uh, the time skip! We’re cool, right? I’M COOL, RIGHT?!”
Mortarion: The only thing terrifying here is that you thought this was a worthwhile use of my time.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 246 (This entire chapter, conceptually…)
Wanderer2691: And the next bit…we’re just going to leave as is, because we want you to experience some of the absolute agonizing snoozefest this chapter is sans funny spork people…
He had been asleep because he had been merged with the Eva.
He had merged with the Eva because he had to fight tooth and nail against the Fourteenth Angel.
He had to fight tooth and nail with the Fourteenth Angel because he arrived late to the fight after it had already incapacitated his friends.
He arrived late to the fight because he left to gather evidence on his father and SEELE to prove to Rei that it was their fault in the Thirteenth Angel fiasco.
He had to prove Gendo's guilt to Rei because Asuka had killed a previous incarnation, causing her to distrust them.
The Thirteenth Angel disaster was so bad because Shinji had been distracted by having sex with Asuka with a frequency that would make light blush, and had not noticed his father's plans for revenge.
Asuka was having sex with him because she had gained enough confidence from her relationship with him and Khorne to get over her own fears. Killing Rei because she wanted to have sex with him had helped too.
The Thirteenth Angel disaster was so bad because Asuka's best friend was in the entry plug when Asuka, forced by the Dummy Plug system, put a chain-axe through Unit 03 repeatedly.
Asuka's best friend was in Unit 03 because her boyfriend was in Unit 04. Shinji had arranged for the two of them to get together so he could control them better.
Rei had wanted to have sex with Shinji because he had taught her how to express herself emotionally, but her allegiance to Nurgle made it hard for him to train her properly, and it drove her insane. And not the good kind of insane either.
The pilot of Unit 04 had been there because his sister had been injured in the battle where Shinji had made his Eva go berserk.
Leliel: You read that right. A good two paragraphs in an already long chapter…summarizing things overseen in the chapter. And nothing else. Just the same semi-logical blather as the rest.
Emma: It’s not just that. EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TZEENTCHJI. It’s not just “bad things happen to someone else? How is this actually about me?”. It’s also that everything is his Fault. Even when Tzeentchji fucks up, he’s still the narrative’s specialest little guy, because him fucking up destroys everyone else’s lives and leads directly back to him. Dipshits and HACKS like Academia Nut are always doing this shit, because they go “oh, people won’t flame me for writing a Stu if he fucks up” and then write a fuck-up where only the Stu has agency and everything in the narrative STILL revolves around him. *Panting* I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m not mad.
Futaba: …honestly, it sounds like you’re “not mad” in the same way I was before I went full Tzeentch crackup. Not that I blame you, because…
…
Everything tied back to Shinji's own scheming. He had been snared in a web of his own making. The phrase 'hoisted by his own petard' didn't even begin to cover this sort of thing.
Shinobu: YES, IT IS. AND SEVERAL OTHER THINGS BESIDES. THANK YOU FOR PAYING ATTENTION.
He violently threw up, not that there was much in his stomach after two months of not eating through his mouth. Rei just watched quietly until it was all over.
Looking at her, Shinji says, "I appear to be in a hell of my own making. Everything is wrong, and it is my fault."
"No, Commander Ikari is also largely to blame," Rei points out.
Shinobu: ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS RIGHT-
Emma: And there we have it! He is both the cause of all his own suffering (and therefore the most important) and also completely blameless (and therefore not besmirched by fucking up).
Considering this fact, Shinji growls and says, "I should have dealt with him sooner instead of waiting for him to make a move first. He will be reckoned with, but all of this is surely my fault.
Futaba: Yeah, bullshit. The author just tried to shift blame on Gendo, with a shitty fan theory about Toji pulled out of his ass, and fridging Hikari for no reason. The author clearly doesn’t think it’s your fault - or rather, thinks if we feel swowwy enough for you, we’ll have our aggro redirected at Gendo, see Hikari. Fuck off, Tzeentchji - we know how you think, we know the only thing you’re upset about is loss of control, and even now, you’re only mad you didn’t kill a rival first.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 723
You are a mess, Misato is under arrest for killing her friend, Kaji is dead, Ritsuko is dead, Gendo is still running free and Asuka…"
Shinji pauses for a moment before looking at Rei and saying coldly and savagely, "Rei… you skipped over the fight with the Fifteenth Angel. What the fuck happened to Asuka?"
Nocht: Oh now you noticed. I honestly don’t blame you, given the footnote for a psychic attack that broke her will.
A blank expression on her face, Rei says softly, "I wanted you to be in the right emotional state first…"
Rei found her throat between Shinji's fingers and he said, "Rei… if you don't want to have to move up to version 8.0, cut the fucking bullshit and tell me what happened."
Looking at him fearfully, Rei nods for him to release her throat and after a small cough, she says, "The Fifteenth Angel used a psychic, mental attack on her. The results were ugly, and she has been in a coma ever since, her mind nearly shattered under the strain of the attack."
Wanderer2691: AND ISN’T IT NICE WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY GET TO SEE HOW SHE’D REACT TO IT BEFORE THE FOREGONE CONCLUSION?! IT’S SUSPENSEFUL! GASP, DAMN YOU! GAAAAAAAAASP! And then stop gasping, because whatever suspense was in there was drained away and replaced with DEEP HURTING and we just want this to be fucking over.
"Take me to her," Shinji hissed.
Shinobu: And that, my friends, was at least a nice aftertaste, because for the first time, it looked like actual…affection…is that an author’s note?
Emma: I’m not giving him any credit. He hears her fight went poorly, doesn’t immediately ask why, and now he’s jumping right back to incredible violence against someone else as “proof” of his love.
Leliel: Fair enough, but I wanna check the…okay, Emma, you won this. Credit withdrawn.
What do you think? May I have actually screwed over the characters worse than what canonically happen? Is that even physically possible?
[Last Emperor of the Long Pause Dynasty, also known as the Pain of Exhaustion.]
Futaba: Not nearly as impossible as the fact you are able to breathe when your head is three feet up your own ass. Kindly download a trojan that turns your computer into an ad server for boner pills, delete your account, and get a job so you can go buy yourself a clue, you arrogant twit.
Emma: No, you haven’t. You’re not going to write actual consequences with any real weight. What you’ve done is loaded down the leads with too many problems to fix so that it will seem less like the author’s thumb on the scales when Tzeentchji pulls five Deus ex Machina’s out of his ass. Loading down the characters with ridiculous amounts of bad events that just sort of vanish is part and parcel of absurd, non-consequences writing.
Leliel: Yeah, that was…awful.
Nocht: Honestly the kind of thing that puts me in the mind of being a Warp-branded slave again. How can something so horrid involve such drudgery? I am so glad for a fight-date with Orks…
Wanderer2691: And the next time…well, saying it gets better is a bit of a strong term, but, at least it ceases to be this drone. But we also see just how deep the homophobia runs, as we show…this fic’s idea of Kowaru. Aieee.
Emma: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate…
Shinobu: …we really need to wonder about that, I think…
[Image heavy]
[Link to mirror on Das Sporking.]
Leliel: [Finishes soda] So, we ready for this?
Wanderer2691: Not at all, but there’s no way to extent ten minutes into a decade.
Leliel: Yeah. First of all…
[THIS IS THE HALF OF THE CHAPTER WITHOUT DATE RAPE, JUST BORNING SUMMARIES OF THINGS WE SHOULD HAVE SEEN. IF YOU ARE UNCOMFORTABLE WITH READING THE PREVIOUS, START HERE.]
Nocht: That doesn’t mean there’s less DEEP HURTING, mind, just less triggering. It remains just as boring when it isn’t painful, and manages to be painful whilst boring. So, without further ado…
"After retrieving a fresh body I used my abilities to quickly decompose my mortal remains, except for the head as something was blocking me there, and then I snuck out.
Futaba: Quick tooltip - canonically, Misato’s apartment is located pretty dang far from the city center, and presumably, NERV headquarters. Where Central Dogma, and the Dummy Plug Plant where her bodies are kept, is located. Which means that besides the needed events for that, there had to be enough time for Rei V to even get back, all while her corpse was moldering in the corner, before Misato got back, avoiding any witnesses the whole way. Thankfully, our author has no sense of travel times or characters beyond the core group at all.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 228
DUMMY PLUGGED: 546
Fortunately for all of you by the time Misato-san returned she was also quite intoxicated and you had time to clean things up before she noticed.
Leliel: MAKES IT EASY!
Nocht: While I doubt Tzeentchji was conscious enough to process the dead Rei replicae, I do also notice how he proceeded to hide his relationship with Asuka. Given the blood, this is reasonable enough to hide for reasons beyond petty greed, but still. (EDIT: And as senselessmusing pointed out, that does absolutely nothing to keep the silence of Toji, Kensuke, or Hikari, so either they were blackmailed offscreen or the carnage escaped their notice somehow, so I applied another point.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 230
In the short term, the consequences were not as bad as they could be, it was the long term where everything went to hell," Rei explained.
Wanderer2691: Thankfully, nobody could tell, as you two were still alive and thus it was more of a lateral move.
"I'm guessing Rei V did not share Rei IV's infatuations," Shinji asks.
Shinobu: …that does not sound like a bad thing. Why are you making it sound like a bad thing?
Emma: Yeah, when Rei was infatuated with him she was raping him and plotting to kill his (apparent) true love with Super Anthrax, but now her whole life doesn’t revolve around him and we can’t have THAT.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 592
"No," Rei stated. "At that point I was quite furious with the both of you, and our teamwork and coordination dropped accordingly. My ability to control Unit 00 also began to take a steep dive.
Futaba: Oh, so that’s why it’s a bad thing! She’s lost The Power of Love! … and unintentionally the kind of woman whose very existence would produce an entire franchise’s worth of sympathetic magical girl villains by wrecking the life of latent Demon Kings while their friends looked helplessly on or something.
Emma: Which does sort of make it feel like if everyone had just settled down and had a drunken threesome they couldn’t consent to, everything would’ve been FINE.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 593
The problem though was that Asuka found her first time rather unsatisfactory, and killing me, or at least thinking that she had dreamed killing me, gave her new drive and vigour."
Shinobu: …are you kidding me. This had better be about being a better fighter-
Frowning, Shinji groaned, "Now I'm really regretting not remembering things."
Shinobu: Of course it isn’t. Because even when things are going wrong, Big Man Needs His Whistle Blown! Futaba, please, if I’m ever like this, even when drunk - kick me. Especially because this comes off as ‘awesome, traumatized chicks are easy’ from this drooling deviant!
Emma: He doesn’t earn the label of deviant. The complete lack of acknowledgement that he’s been sexually abused, the exploitation of trauma for sex, the fact he can only conceptualize women– even his clone-mother-sister– in terms of sexual interest; that’s basically the end state of authoritarian patriarchal normativity around sex.
Wanderer2691: …fair point, though weird hill to take a stand on, with defending the honor of ‘deviant’...
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 668
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 713
"She became quite… demanding," Rei says, pausing to pick her words carefully. "Most scandalously was the time when she had sex with you in the girl's change room in NERV while I was on the other side of a bank of lockers, just to piss me off. Your condom expenses went through the roof I am to understand."
Leliel: [Bland smile] Charming. [Politely switches out Futaba’s newly used barf bag.]
Nocht: And…I was semi-joking about the Circles of Slaanesh, but…this doesn’t exactly sound like a Khornate form of passive-aggression. The Blood God doesn’t do ‘passive’ anything, for one, but once again, his nemesis is the actual Lord of Desire and Lust. So, why is an increasingly corrupted and devout Khornate invoking lust-oh yes, I forgot, the author is an insecure pervert who needs to feel his substitute is swimming in pleasurable company to secure his masculinity. My mistake.
Mortarion: She is a woman, of course. Her existence revolves around sex and competition with other women. Her god and faith are secondary. *raises gas mask to spit derisively and corrosively on the floor*
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 669 (Somehow the last two digits have never seemed more fitting…)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 310
"Fucking brilliant, I screw Asuka's brains out repeatedly and I can't remember a gods-damned thing," Shinji griped.
Wanderer2691: Example A, for Asshat Main Character.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 714
"I do not think you want to remember," Rei says. "Your father had recovered from some of the damage done by your actions.
Futaba: *Rei* “He realized that if he did so offscreen, he’d be able to do anything that made you look bad without running into the issue that Academia Nut’s fingers seize up and he weeps into his personal shrine to you that he’s so sorry, please don’t be mad.”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 231
I do not know what happened when you fought the Twelfth Angel, but it involved you being trapped in a multi-dimensional psychic battle for several hours with Asuka and your Evas.
Leliel: [Grit teeth] While we get the CliffNotes version of that, trust me - it does absolutely nothing interesting with Angel Leliel, not even a meaningless buff for a different fight a la Ramiel or Sandalphon. I am still very much sharpening an interdimensional knife.
During that time, when everyone was distracted, your father had your apartment laced with monitoring equipment.
Emma: Given the competence of NERV, I have to assume that it was like that East German joke that you know the Stasi has bugged your apartment because there’s a new generator running outside and a new wardrobe in the living room.
Leliel: [Thinks about it, and then snickers.] Yeah, that fits.
Shinobu: [Looks at everything so far] And now I feel sorry for Gendo. Admittedly, not nearly as much as whoever else he roped into helping record you, but somehow I suspect the glasses are now hiding burned-out eyes, and he’s added earmuffs to his getup for much the same reason.
(A simulation of NERV Spy Headquarters processing the written transcript. The ones processing the audio are outright undead voices on the airwaves, begging for death that will not come.)
"When you got back, instead of sweeping for bugs like you usually do, you and Asuka had celebratory sex," Rei tells him without blinking.
[Glorious Reign of Silent Pause the 5th, the Venerable]
Wanderer2691: On the one hand, this is the kind of clueless that, unbeknownst to Academia Nut, is very hilariously in-character for the Stupidest Smart Person here, given how his primary motive for most things is his libido when it’s not greed. On the other…’literally having too much sex to notice’ strikes me as the kind of flaw you’d put on a Mary Sue Test as a fake one meant to distract from how Stuish your main character is…
Emma: *Bursts into progressively deranged, cosmic horror protagonist seeing the void-style laughter* The only reason he would ever make a mistake is, of course, because a beautiful woman wanted to have sex with him TOO HARD.
Nocht: [Winces] I feel her pain. And am disturbed. But I feel her pain.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 715
"Fuck. Fuck! Fuck!" Shinji swore, cursing his own stupidity. Rei was right, that party had definitely been the start of a growing disaster.
"That was your problem," Rei says flatly, obviously not having lost her quickened sense of humour in whatever transformation had taken place.
Nocht: [Flat expression] None at all, you mean?
"He used that against me, I just know it.
Leliel: I dunno, I’m kinda on his side here. He needed a win after being subjected to his recordings of you caused him to slump over in a folding chair for several hours in horror of what his life had become.
(https://imgflip.com/memetemplate/501775884/Shinji-Ikari-on-a-chair)
Like father, like son-not-taken-over-by-horny-brain-worm.
That old bastard knew that I was too slippery, too canny to attack directly, so he hit me in my blind spot: Asuka," Shinji growled.
Shinobu: *Tzeenchji* “Also - too smart, too fast, too rich, too skilled, too powerful, too sexy for my shirt…”
Futaba: Holy shit, the humble-bragging here - actually not just that, the excuses for manpain. “I was too good, so they hit my trophy”?! Fuck’s sake, that’d be first on my list as ruthless ideas without needing to hear Weird Chaos Sex between you, because you do your job-skilling together at NERV, where Gendo is, and he has eyes! So, instead, Asuka gets to be a fucking damsel in distress because you were too “manly” to be hit! As someone who literally can’t fight directly as a Navigator, kindly fuck off, Tzeentchji!
Emma: Also, while of course attracting women and having sex with them is a necessity, women also introduce a weakness into the impenetrable bastion that is Man. *eyerolls*
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 594
DUMMY PLUGGED: 547 (Because somehow Gendo needed spy work to figure this out.)
"You are correct. Shortly after the attack of the Twelfth Angel, there was an incident in America. An experimental engine for Unit 04 nearly went critical, and if it weren't for a last second shut down the Eva, the production facility, and a nearby town would have simply ceased to exist.
Wanderer2691: Oh hey, we decided to do something with that. [/shameless spitefic plug]
The media got word of this, and the public panicked. The Americans wanted the Evas out of their country. They had both units shipped over here," Rei tells him.
Leliel: [Catches on] Oh. You’re skipping this Angel too, and everything it caused. Wuss.
Another memory began to surface, of screaming and crying and a deep feeling of guilt and shame. A dark black Evangelion dominated the mental landscape.
Futaba: Mostly the latter, as Tzeentchji isn’t really someone who feels guilt except as feeling sorry someone else felt hurt.
"In transit, another Angel struck, infecting Unit 03. Upon initial activation, it took over and destroyed the testing facility outside Tokyo-3. It disabled the still inactive Unit 04, critically wounding the pilot, before it began to advance on the city.
Shinobu: Yep, we’re skipping this episode, in spite of it being quite possibly one of the most important Angel fights in the series. Can’t possibly threaten to derail canon by having the Children use their spectacular abilities to somehow win cleanly, that might result in Toji being more than comic relief who is forcefully exiled to show how serious things are getting! We already have a writer who panics at the thought of actually showing romantic difficulties and Tzeentchji actually losing ever!
Nocht: …wait. Are you saying Toji was nearly a main focus in canon?
Leliel: …yes, but not for any reason he or anyone else liked. See, in canon, after Unit-03 got shipped, it was secretly possessed by the aforementioned 13th Angel, Bardiel. We don’t know if Bardiel even has a true physical form, so generally, Unit-03 is viewed as Bardiel, as we only see it while it’s been possessed and fused:
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Bardiel)
About the closest we get to Bardiel’s original form is some white slime it tried to use to infect Unit-01 and, more importantly, the cellular webbing, which is here:
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Bardiel)
Mortarion: *leans closer in interest*
Nocht: Well, that is something I would still touch over anything in Tzeentchji’s room, but that’s still behind the average Tyranid Reclamation Pool gene slurry. Though…isn’t that covering an Entry Plug? … Oh. Oh Emperor. Not a pleasant fate, having your own Titan commandeered by a known hostile xeno, with you in it…
Futaba: You got it. Bardiel hacked Unit-03 during Toji’s own first sync test, and while Shinji tried to save the pilot, not even knowing it was Toji at first, Bardiel’s slime got him stuck in there and eventually Gendo decided to intervene, switching on the Dummy Plug and making the Rei AI fight when Shinji wouldn’t - and without anything resembling mercy. Toji survived, but one of his legs didn’t, and Eva doesn’t have the cybernetics you guys would to put him back together - and leaving Shinji with some pretty bad survivor guilt that also leaves him vulnerable to being clobbered by the next Angel.
Emma: Yeah, the Bardiel fight being almost entirely cut is fascinating because Shinji doesn’t do anything wrong. He tries to show mercy and gets his whole body hijacked for it. He still blames himself, but of course he does. I think that’s unforgivable to Academia Nut. Not just Shinji showing mercy, but Shinji being stripped of power and Shinji showing survivor’s guilt. Those are things that are weaknesses, after all. If Shinji has to fail to save the day, then clearly he should go on the warpath against the real bad guy (Gendo) and not “mope” and “whine” about feeling his hands tearing his friend’s mech apart.
Wanderer2691: Let’s see how Academia Nut fucks it up.
We were scrambled, but I was practically useless, unable to concentrate upon the mission because of my jealousy and loathing of Asuka. Upon initial contact I was quickly disabled," Rei tells him.
Shinobu: And right out the gate, everyone’s acting like a moron. Rei only lost because Bardiel is capable of some outright insane acrobatics that would not be apparent looking at the Eva at all and was able to notice Unit-00 without seeing it - and then proceeded to try and infect it with aforementioned white slime, forcing Rei to amputate that arm, which saved her and the Eva but took her out of the fight for obvious reasons. So Rei V not only looks like a dumbass beyond her canon self, but for really misogynistic “but MY man!” reasons.
Emma: How can she possibly be so jealous of Asuka that it’s interfering with her ability to do her encoded purpose? If she’s mad about being decapitated, sure, but she’s still that jealous about Asuka getting screwed by the living embodiment of r/iamverysmart? *stage whisper* Your dick is not that impressive, AcademiaNut
DUMMY PLUGGED: 548
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 595
Fitting together several fragments of memory, Shinji says, "I refused to kill the Angel outright like my father ordered. I knew that the pilot was a psyker and thus useful in the long term, and I wanted to recover him.
Nocht: And also because they, you did not know the princeps’ gender yet, were also a comrade capable of making an Eva move, and also is someone who, at minimum, was drafted into the same war and is a comrade-in-arms being victimized by a hostile, you sociopathic twit.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 716
I also knew that Toji had been selected as a pilot because he confided in me his fears."
Wanderer2691: …okay, this I can believe. I don’t think Toji should trust Tzeentchji as far as he could throw Unit-01, but that’s because of an out-of-universe assessment of his behavior. If someone who was ostensibly Shinji was more open and got Toji to think that it wouldn’t break Shinji to tell him he was the Fourth Child, then I can see Toji being pretty open about it and warning Shinji, and from there, two and two go together when Bardiel steps in. Of course, this also makes Tzeentchji even more of a prick to consider Toji being a psyker first, as ostensibly, Toji is his closest-thing-to-a-friend, or at least favorite piece.
Mortarion: The instant someone opens up to him, he immediately begins rendering them down into something he can use. He can use psykers before he can use confidants, of course that’s where his mind goes.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 717
"Asuka, following your lead, followed suit.
Leliel: …why? Asuka fought back against Bardiel in canon when she knew full well it was Toji being used as Pilot Human Shield, and as a Khornate, she has every reason to rush in even more brutally in an attempt to make the monster that dishonored a fellow warrior so much and pull him out with claws and teeth-
Your father shrugged and deactivated your Eva remotely before activating the Dummy Plug system in Unit 02," Rei says.
Leliel: -oh right I forgot, Tzeentchji can’t be made to look bad or truly outmatched ever and so his shit is foisted off on his harem rather than it ever being his fault. Because Academia Nut thinks the Narcissist’s Prayer is writing advice due to being a poem:
(https://grace-being.com/love-relationships/narcissist-prayer/)
Mortarion: Ah yes, of course. You can’t even be anywhere near this failure. Having your EVA hijacked would be too humiliating, and it wouldn’t do to have you face personal struggles in a way that humiliates you.
Emma: I think the weirdest thing about this scene is the way Asuka’s agency is basically being passed around. Like, she goes completely against everything about her personality and her god to Not rip Touji out of being enslaved and dishonoured because Her Man said so, and now she’s the one who gets Dummy Plugged, presumably because the idea of the self-insert getting his agency violated is too gross, but it’s just natural to happen to Asuka. Especially since this is apparently Gendo’s revenge and instead of getting revenge on Tzeentchji directly he’s using a girl he has no quarrel with because EVERYONE understands Asuka as an extension of her boyfriend! *slumps back, panting angrily*
DUMMY PLUGGED: 549
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 311
Shinji screamed in impotent rage as he tugged at the controls of his deactivated Eva, trying to force it to come back to life, but it lacked motive power and special blocks he had not heard about had been installed to prevent the activation of the Eva in this sort of situation.
Futaba: Exactly how he never found out, ever, is an exercise left to the reader given how he is psychic, and favors telepathy and spy-based powers, you absolute dingus.
EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 312
TALON ON THE SCALES: 232 (Mr. Genius Script Kiddie here wasn’t able to find out about programming blocks and emergency shutoff protocols? Really? Really?)
If he really tried, he could probably force open the blocks and force energy to flow, but he did not know what exactly the consequences of something like that would be. It would probably involve something unpleasant happening to him personally, and certainly a lot of unwanted questions to be asked afterwards.
Shinobu: And also, uh, may allow him to save Toji’s life or another Child who is likely to be grateful and view him as a hero, and everyone is aware of some weird mutations in the Eva - can’t you just say “I guess the Eva mutated to be uncontrollable by outside programs, whoopsy-daisy.” Even from a purely self-interested point of view, the only reason not to go nuts is that you’re a big coward, Tzeentchji.
Mortarion: Your EVA grew a secondary nervous system and nobody cared. I believe you could probably pass this off as an accidental mutation. Unless, of course, you want your friend to get maimed in order to comfort him in order to strengthen your bond. Which I would prefer you not, if only because then you’d be a Nurgilite and I’d have to deal with you.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 718
So he could just watch as Unit 02 brought its chain-axe down into the poorly armoured flesh of Unit 03. It had not received the upgrades of the ones in Tokyo-3 yet, and despite the Angel's upgrades, it was insufficient to withstand a berserker Unit 02 in full L-Type Equipment wielding the most advanced weaponry available to man. Asuka screamed in horror and fury at this abuse of her Eva, forced to watch up close as Unit 03 was hacked into bloody pieces.
Wanderer2691: Which makes it even more stupid, as that also means that pulverizing Bardiel until it stops, as was done by the Dummy Plug canonically, is also far easier, and liable to leave the pilot alive if controlled. Which a Khornate is likely skilled enough to do. Hell, the entry plug was crushed, and Toji was still able to live!
Mortarion: Presumably we are meant to believe that punishing Tzeentchji is a higher priority than saving their weapon or soldier, since everything revolves around him, after all.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 313
DUMMY PLUGGED: 550
Gendo did not power the Eva down until all that was left was a steaming corpse, the entry plug hacked to pieces by the chain-axe. The corpse of the pilot was almost too mangled to tell its identity.
Nocht: …I also don’t think “crushed” is the same as “carved up by chainsword”, so I say this passes un-pointed, as I suspect Gendo would wish to make sure even the bit of Bardiel in the entry plug was dead as a general rule. And also punishing insubordination.
Shinji's heart broke in two as Asuka's shrill screaming filled the air.
Hikari's head rolled out of the remains.
[Pause that isn’t quite as long as the last one, and way more skeptical than horrified.]
Futaba: Hikari. Not Toji. Despite Toji being the pilot, and likely his mother’s soul having long been put in Unit 03 long before it got flown over to Japan.
Shinobu: Yeah…okay, no, can you believe this shit? Because I don’t!
(https://knowyourmeme.com/photos/1164040-let-me-tell-you-why-thats-bullshit)
Leliel: Let’s skip slightly ahead and point out that, as we’ll see, Tzeentchji thinks this is personal retaliation by Gendo against him rather than Hikari being an actual pilot candidate. Already, we see a problem - why not Toji then? Because, in case you didn’t notice, Toji is Tzeentchji’s alleged friend - not Hikari. It’d be way more of a deep cut that way!
Wanderer2691: Second - what happens if, say, someone found their brain and manages to save Hikari, given how we know Toji was selected as the actual Child first? Congrats, now you have two extra pilots who are both deeply traumatized and if they find out the truth, will be rather upset with Gendo, especially because Toji was blackmailed in the first place. Now every pilot loathes Gendo and is plotting mutiny!
Emma: Third - you can’t get revenge on a boy using another boy! That’s just GAY. The only way to target an Alpha Male like Tzeentchji is through the Weak Parts, eg, women. So who cares that Asuka just beat her best friend to death with what amounts to her own hands? It’ll hurt the feelings of her boyfriend, the one that matters.
Nocht: Finally, these Titans have the souls of the mothers of the pilots as primary cogitators, yes? That is why one Eva can only bind to one pilot, yes? So, how did Unit-03, meant for Toji, suddenly end up with Hikari? …are they siblings?!
Shinobu: No, thankfully, Academia Nut didn’t think that through - because, given his attitude towards Rei and Tzeentchji you know he’d be rolling in how Toji and Hikari still want to fuck after figuring that out! Gross!
Futaba: [Shivers] That pleasant thought out of the way, we officially award this ten points per category, for a completely pointless aside into misogynistic misery porn of the most moronic variety.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 560
TALON ON THE SCALES: 242
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 605
Shinji clutched his fists together until they drew blood, forced to relive the horrors of that day again by this cruel amnesia. The furious tears rolled freely.
Leliel: *Tzeentchji* “I lost! And I didn’t even get richer off someone else’s pain! WAAAAAAAH!”
"Now I remember… I found out from Toji, what was left of him after he was left a quadriplegic by Unit 03 and nearly catatonic by Hikari's death, that the only reason she accepted the position was because they had Toji… and Toji accepted because they were offering better treatment for his little sister," Shinji says bitterly.
(https://giphy.com/gifs/Bounce-TV-hmm-wait-what-tilting-head-nTfdeBvfgzV26zjoFP)
Wanderer2691: Now, we could go on to explain how none of that contradicts what we just said, and in fact, Hikari being driven entirely by protecting her MAAAAN to accept makes fridging her even more sexist…but now I’m wondering how he got injured, given how from the context, it seems like he was nowhere near the sync test when Bardiel seized control.
Nocht: Just a few lines would make it better - one line. “Toji was worried, so he decided to observe the sync test, and he was incidentally injured by awakening Angel.” In fact, if you will let me put on my Hypothetical Heretic skull pauldron for a bit - just killing Hikari for shock value, when Toji is mysteriously just as disabled by Bardiel, is a waste of potential for the Chaos Cult side of things. Imagine, what would happen if Hikari survived, having been treated to being a prisoner in her own Eva, and had to be defeated by her best friend to save everyone - and then falling back on her perfectionism to deal with the trauma. And cursing herself for being too rigid with her morals to deny herself happiness with Toji to maintain her supposed purity…
Leliel: …Slaaneshi Hikari. Somehow I think she’d be even more of a tyrant class president that way, for reasons best left to the imagination. But that interestingly terrifying image aside, she was instead stuffed in a fridge, so we have these points:
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 606
DUMMY PLUGGED: 561 (Sorry Toji, you were in an unavoidable train accident in a station of the canon.)
Now he felt the weight of the guilt he had felt earlier truly come crashing down on him. His fucking bastard of a father had used him, had played him like a fiddle. If he hadn't been so distracted by Asuka, maybe he would have realized that he was being ensnared by his own schemes. Worst of all was the fact that Hikari, Asuka's best friend, would have never been in that damn Eva if not for Shinji's manipulations of Hikari and Toji's emotions.
Shinobu: Exactly how manipulating Hikari and Toji led to that is unknown, but he still felt solipsistic enough to assume.
Emma: Because EVERYTHING has to be about him. On a less sarcastic note, this is a pretty common thing to happen in over-powered author insert defined stories. The author, being vaguely aware characters are supposed to fuck up or having been flamed for writing a Gary Stu, decides to make something bad happens. The problem is, since they can’t see beyond their own fantasy, everything in the bad thing that happens revolves around the self insert (even when, like here, they’re the least affected), and it will apparently all be their own fault, both for endless stu-groupy “oh no, don’t BLAME yourself” shit and because that still feeds back into the over the top “main character” writing.
Leliel: I’m going to interject here and say that, as we noted way back in Chapter 2, every student of Shinji’s high school is a potential pilot, so Academia Nut takes this as a sign that literally anyone can be drawn on for reserves and transformation into a PTSD-ridden mass of magazine subscriptions of issues that is vaguely shaped like a teenager. Thing is, though, the selection process for Toji was done normally, after Leliel inflicted enough mental wounds on Shinji that his sync ratio started to slip, and NERV realized they needed reinforcements. The only reason Shinji wasn’t informed was because Misato didn’t feel like she could broach the topic, and as noted, neither did Toji - so Shinki found out the worst possible way. But, according to Academia Nut’s Improved Reading, apparently Toji was selected to “control Shinji” - please leave aside the fact that in that case, Gendo would be wasting an expensive Eva, after losing a different Eva, on spite, by binding Toji or now, Hikari, as a pilot. Yeah, that makes me feel like Gendo’s the only equal to Tzeentchji as a schemer, that he can’t realize that he can count the amount of Evas on one hand.
Futaba: Not to mention - it’s hard not to notice that once again, Tzeentchji seems more angry that he had one pulled over on him in his in-a-competent-story paranoid delusions, and that’s what he’s feeling guilty about - because someone else did it to him. Don’t believe me? Next line
Snarling, Shinji said, "There had to have been a reckoning after something like that."
Nocht: Lovely priorities there, sorcerer-brat. To not even ask if Toji or his sister are okay now…or even more pertinently, given the other weak spot, Kensuke.
Mortarion: He doesn’t want them to be alright, since as long as they’re harmed, he has an excuse to do whatever he wants.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 562 (For Gendo wasting an Eva on spite, he has far crueler and cheaper ways.)
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 719
Hanging her head in shame, Rei says, "There was a complication… me. In my fury with you two I had fallen back on Commander Ikari as a source of comfort and strength. If you moved against him without me at your side…"
Wanderer2691: Oh hell not this shit again.
Leliel: For the love of - even if Gendo wants Rei to be a substitute for his wife, she’s his clone stepdaughter! Not his lover! Gendo’s certainly fucked enough in the head to consider it, but he has the Akagis to use as sex substitute - and Rei is ultimately a tool to him to get Yui back, so he’d be trying to distance himself from her. Not everything ties back into incest, no matter how big a fetish you have, Erotica Man-Nut.
Emma: Also Rei is 14 and Gendo is her boss in addition to being her surrogate father. Despite that, this is not only framed in a very downplayed softened way, but it’s framed as something Rei did, instead of “an adult with multiple forms of institutional power over Rei takes advantage of her trauma to rape her.” The framing here is that Rei was weak and lost her way, and she should be blamed for, again, being coerced into sex as a replacement for a dead woman.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 670
DUMMY PLUGGED: 561
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 607 (Because she falls back on a MAAAAN after losing her MAAAAAN.)
"It would end with the extinction of the human race. Right… fuck. So I had to convince you first," Shinji said.
Futaba: Why?! Why do you think it’ll end with the extinction of the human race?! You know Gendo’s selfish, but I must’ve missed the lore entry where you discovered, or came to suspect, he wants to destroy humanity! Not that I’m that shocked, given how this story skipped over a good third of the show! At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is Tzeentchji’s pure ego talking, only assuming that because he’s on the side of his nutcase idea of humanity, only people who want to destroy it are against him.
Mortarion: Presenting your motivation as being “the salvation of humanity” is very convenient. If your goal is so great, then anything you do in service to that goal must be justified, and anyone who interferes must want to destroy humanity. It’s a very convenient way to get away with things. At least I’m honest. I’ll never lie to you about putting my own life first.
Leliel: Honestly is building on my theory that our author thinks the main issue with Chaos is that it isn’t enough like the Imperium of Man.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 720
DUMMY PLUGGED: 562 (Yes, what Gendo wants is bad, but his issue is not caring what happens to the world if he gets Yui back, not some weird homicidal misanthropy. He doesn’t want to be part of SEELE’s LCL overmind, remember.)
"Yes. You sought proof that Gendo had known that Unit 03 was infected before activation, that he specifically placed Hikari-san with that Eva so that she would be killed by Asuka-san, just to hurt her to hurt you," Rei explained.
"I left town to find out what was going on…" Shinji stated dully, seeing where this was going.
Shinobu: Namely, up his own ass, right next to the stations of the canon. He did leave in canon…because he cared deeply about Toji, and upon seeing that Gendo’s reaction to nearly killing him was “well, sucks to be Toji, at least Bardiel’s down,” Shinji bluntly refused to pilot for Gendo anymore. Which apparently some idiots regard as “whiny” as opposed to “literally the only protest Shinji is capable of and Unit-01 already showed competence with a Dummy Plug, so it wasn’t even that destructive.” And guess what? The moment the next Angel showed up, and it became clear the true stakes of the matter and the other pilots needed him, he went right back. But how dare he be genuinely upset and pissed by Gendo literally forcing him to be part of the gun that he shot one of Shinji’s best friends with? Especially since how the hell are you going to find any evidence where Gendo has likely never been?!
Wanderer2691: Academia Nut being an absolute wuss unable to think of new things to replace the stations of the canon, even if it requires all characters involved including his self insert to not have the brains God granted a land squirrel, continues apace.
Emma: What gets me is that this is being presented as an improvement. Being upset at being used to mutilate his first real friend isn’t good enough, because then he’s just being emotional. That’s not dignified and masculine enough. He has to be Investigating and Goal-driven, even if that investigation makes no fucking sense. Also “Just to hurt her to hurt you”. It’s amazing that Academia Nut has so little self-awareness he just keeps confirming everything we say. Asuka is a prop to hurt Tzeentchji through, and Hikari is a prop to a prop. It’s not even that Gendo only thinks of them that way, Hikari being horribly killed only matters because it means Tzeentchji’s favourite toy might not work as well for a little while.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 563
TALON ON THE SCALES: 243
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 608
"…and an Angel attacked," Rei finished for him.
Nocht: Speak of the daemon…
"It was the worst one yet, extraordinarily powerful. It went through Tokyo-3's defences like butter, blew through eighteen layers of the city's armour with a single shot, and shrugged off concentrated fire from the positron rifle like rain. It then blew up the rifle with a single shot, incidentally disabling Unit 00."
Futaba: Okay, yeah, the positron rifle is new, but that’s after its energy drain was Stu-ified into efficiency. That’s a pretty good descriptor of how the canon fight with Zeruel went - the Angel Set Over Strength lives up to its title.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Zeruel)
Nocht: …the Angel That Needs To Be Set Up With A Chiropractor, going by that stance. Maybe it looks better when it moves, but that is an extremely stiff posture.
Leliel: Fun fact, this is actually its resting form. Zeruel means “Arm of God”, and when it gets ready to attack…
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Zeruel)
Nocht: Ah, my mistake then. Going by how thin they are, those arms are also monofilaments, I imagine.
Shinobu: Exactly - one slice of those things left Unit 02 sans its own arms without giving Asuka a chance to react. Combine that with how the thing is physically durable as hell, its AT Field being even stronger than that, flight, and even more powerful energy blasts than Sachiel, Zeruel may be the outright best frontline combatant out of all the Angels - and the only one to breach NERV conventionally. This thing is widely regarded as one of the best fights in the series, and one of the most popular Angels, for a good reason.
Leliel: If anything, its stiff stance makes it more intimidating, as you get the sense this thing is a stoic engine of destruction - it doesn’t hate you, even as it’s completely demolishing you. You are a threat to its mission, and so you must die to no longer be a risk. The Terminator in kaiju form.
Let’s see how the author fucks it up.
Rei then smiled slightly, "Then it met Asuka-san. She fell, but not before she gave the Angel hell. She shoved a melta up against its core and fired at point blank range. The Angel survived with barely a scratch. But she kept hitting it with everything she had. She actually managed to take off one of its arms before it brought her down. You were quite incredibly pissed when you finally managed to get back to NERV.
Wanderer2691: Okay, good, good, this would be great if we saw it, but yeah - it shows a stronger, more competent Asuka putting up more of a fight than…
(https://wiki.evageeks.org/Zeruel)
…that. She still needs her MAAAAN to save her-
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 609
But it still gives Asuka more of a fight, more reason to avoid collapsing into her spiral of depression later in the series and really does show improvement. Now, where is the other shoe?
Her smile broadening, Rei tells him, "In fact, you even gave a little speech over the radio while powering up your Eva. It went, 'Alright motherfucker, you've invaded my city, beaten the fuck out of two of three of the girls I cherish most in this world, and now you're making me play the Big Damn Hero with this last minute entrance. I hate playing the Big Damn Hero.' What happened next I highly doubt you would remember."
Futaba: [Flat look] Oh, here it is. There’s a note inside! It says: BOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Emma: Christ Almighty. Yes, we get it, you are Big Strong Heterosexual Man, here make sure the Women are protected at all times. This isn’t admirable, this isn’t cool, this makes you look like a possessive creep AND an insecure child. Also I hate tropespeak in narratives. I’m a troper, I’m sure I’ve fallen back on tropespeak while sporking at points, but unless you’re writing a very specific kind of internet-poisoned zillenial it’s not in character at all, and it’s fucking jarring. This is not a cool nerdy shoutout, it just makes me think you can’t separate your voice from the characters and you’re incredibly annoying to talk to.
Shinobu: Seriously, what was that? An actual TV Tropes reference? Something TV Tropes got it from? I don’t know, and frankly, it wouldn’t be funny if I did get it. And it’s also kind of disrespectful out of universe to one of the most terrifying Angels there is, and absurdly disrespectful for everyone who died in the attack. You don’t have to make it seem like a resentful favor, dickweasel. Not to mention, a liar - you love saving the day and hoarding the glory.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 721
Thinking about it, Shinji shakes his head and says, "I don't have a clue what happened."
Nodding, Rei says, "You essentially merged with your Eva to squeeze every ounce of power out of it. You forced it to evolve and adapt in new and strange ways. You grew an S2 engine from scratch so that you could keep fighting. Your Eva began to breathe fire, multicoloured fire. You telekinetically threw the Angel back to the surface, through the armour, and not the part it had already shot. You elbowed it in the face and collapsed its skull with a single blow. You snapped its back over your knee. You threw it through a building and then crucified its corpse on the wreckage. You strangled it with its own intestines. Then you ripped out its core and punted it into low earth orbit, where it detonated."
Leliel: Oooh, how awesome, very cool, such manly, almost enough to make me ignore this is a more showy version of what happened in canon - in fact, there, it actually came off like Unit 01 was as dangerous as it seemed, because it ate Zeruel once Shinji made it go berserk and operate under its own mind and power, and so gained its S2 organ…and so, unlimited personal power supply. Here? We get the distinct Tzeentch warpfire and a punch that shows how Manly Tzeentch’s Eva is and - nothing else. He even merges with the Eva, just with different rationale than pushing himself too far and losing his AT Field in the process - about the only thing different is that Gendo regarded Unit-01 getting the S2 organ as an absolute win, since that meant Unit-01 was now effectively a divine entity, prime for his own Instrumentality plans to resurrect Yui in human form - and outside of SEELE’s predictions.
Emma: On one hand I’d complain about this entire action scene happening offscreen…on the other hand, it would be so overwhelmingly masturbatory over how badass Tzeentchji is when the canon context was Unit-01 (aka Yui) being a horrifying kaiju murderbeast all on her own.
(Trigger warning for blood and mild gore in video.)
Eva 01 vs Zeruel from Necro Nomaken on Vimeo.
Nocht: …all of which sounds like a victory over Gendo, up until you realize that, if Unit-01 was breathing warpfire, it’s already well on the way to being a Daemon Engine, a Warp-fused machine of war that is indeed of godlike potential, at minimum. If anything, Gendo should be glad for having been able to see his wife’s servitor form suddenly develop this absurd strength and psychic manifestation, along with her mentioned increase in intellect. The only reason this is not is because Gendo is a scapegoat for the author to clown on for how very intelligent he imagines his self-insert to be. Also, from the sound of it, as opposed to the Eva regressing to a more animal state, Shinji was being the kind of sadist that even most Chaos worshipers don’t deserve the tender mercies of.
Mortarion: Oh, how benevolent of you. We will sing of you for centuries, that maybe you think we earned a quick death.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 564
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 722
Taking this all in, Shinji shrugs and says, "Sounds like something I would do under the circumstances. I take it when you say 'merged' you mean…"
"You were rendered down into LCL and absorbed into your Eva. It took us a month to get you out of there… it was a bad month. Rei V, feeling incredibly guilty at how her actions had lead up to this event, hung herself.
[The Even Longer Reign of Emperor Pause of Horrified, Stunned Silence II, also known as the Echo of the Empty Void.]
Leliel: … [Wordlessly puts in an embed.]
Wanderer2691: Wow. That was…I think I’d be murderously attacking the screen now, before hunting for remaining Genestealer hybrids, but, I’m stunned. That went from Zero to Texas Cakewalk in no seconds flat. Over, among other things, upsetting her MAAAAAN for…things that, explicitly, the unstable and angry previous version of herself did. And just being understandably distant from Tzeentchji and Asuka after being killed by the latter. Because it’s always the woman’s fault, amright my sigma breeeeeeecch! Sorry, even doing that sarcastically causes me to throw up in my mouth.
Emma: Huh- what- huh- That’s not even the thing she did wrong! She didn’t make Tzeentchji torture Zeruel to death so hard he melted! Why is the calculated date rape brushed off with “Not my fault, soul broke” but Tzeentchji going out of his way to be as cruel as possible (in a way that’s framed as cool when it comes to him) “suicide worthy”?
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 619 (Ten, because HOLY SHIT.)
Asuka began to lose her mind. She became more a bitch than usual. She was hurting badly, lashing out at everything and everyone around her. They even put her on a suicide watch when they found out she was cutting herself," Rei explains.
Shinobu: …uuunngghaaaaaahhhh….why. Why is this so matter of fact. Why are we skipping all this important character drama, most of which Tzeentchji was there for. Why are we missing out on the vision quest we had that revealed so much about Yui and Gendo in the actual series when Shinji was dissolved. Why is there so much….
Emma: Yeah, I guess we were missing “self-harm tossed off to be edgy” *holds up a “dogshit writing of trauma” bingo card* What do I get if I fill this out again?
Leliel: Aspirin. Lots of aspirin. And antacids.
"Cutting? That doesn't… oh wait… I know what she was doing. Blood sacrifice to Khorne in an attempt to get me back. If she couldn't get it from her enemies, then she would get it from herself. Khorne cares not from where the blood flows. She probably didn't even feel the blade," Shinji notes.
Futaba: Oh and that makes it better. [Flips bird.]
Nocht: And utterly wrong. By definition, your own blood willingly shed is your own blood - getting it, without any loss of your ability or even pain, is definitionally too easy - at most you might be able to power a Chaos chainsword or similar weapon with it, and even then, it’d be actively trying to fight you to get more and make you work for it.
Mortarion: When they say “Khorne does not care where the blood flows from” they mean friendly fire. Khorne loves when allies turn on themselves in bloody battle. Khorne does not particularly care for blood that is acquired without effort or pain. Fighting recklessly in a way that leads to injury would be rewarded, but not… that. Nurgle is more likely to reward this type of self-harm, because you’re embracing and increasing your despair.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 314
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 671 (This seems awfully fetishized, given how it’s to…save her MAAAAN, along with the sudden suicide.)
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 620 (This too, for the same reason.)
"Quite," Rei said in understanding. "It all looked well once we got you out of Unit 01… unfortunately we soon discovered that you were in fact in a coma. We had retrieved your body, but your mind seemed to be elsewhere. Asuka nearly killed one of the guards to your room she was so grief stricken to see you like that. It took fifteen guards and three tranquilizer darts to bring her down.
Emma: Sorry for the obvious joke but “you were in fact in a coma. We had retrieved your body, but your mind seemed to be elsewhere.” How did they tell the difference?
Leliel: While I’m unclear on the time scale, I think the real, canon Shinji woke up soon after he reconstituted from LCL in canon. So, while I know there’s another reason, I’m going to say this is because Tzeentchji has a significantly weaker will than Shinji. Because I’m spiteful like that.
Shinji winced in pain as the piece of shrapnel twisted again, and he also felt like he was on the edge of some great truth.
Bn'alhaf'zvim'x'qazszlfg'amq'extzin'tchi'a'lkipjuwo'zyrxd'rtpa…
Mortarion: Sorry, you want to mail a parcel of eels to who?
Wanderer2691: Gesundheit. Okay, I’m joking, this is pretty clearly something in Dark Tongue, the language of Daemons, but, fun fact, it’s an actual cypher language in its own right. Not a complex one, but it has its own guide:
(https://warhammerfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Dark_Tongue)
But while it doesn’t exactly mean much beyond “sounds scary”, there's definitely logic to it, and while it’s a punctuation shaker language, it’s still generally pronounceable. If you ask Academia Nut though…
Impossible syllables, properly pronounceable only by a seven-dimensional tongue with two different voice boxes, danced in Shinji's mind for a moment before his inability to properly comprehend them caused the entire sequence to collapse.
Leliel: [Deadpan] Tzeeneth, Nurgleth, Slaaneth, and Kharneth. Oooh, look at me, I must be some kind of archdaemon, I just said the name of all four Ruinous Powers in Dark Tongue. There are some real nightmares to say in it, like Q'tlahs'itsu'aksho [gags on the consonants], but it’s usually legible, and to be honest, that comes from a very canonically early take on it - more importantly, there’s a space between works in Dark Tongue. That tongue-spiralizer, so called because the inside of your mouth would probably look like a Junji Ito drawing if you spoke it, is one obscenely long word, as opposed to anything sensible. So once again, our author fails to recognize anything of Warhammer beyond its capacity for big explosions.
Emma: I’m still constantly shocked Academia Nut didn’t go for an Imperial self-insert. He obviously only cares about the weapons and about power-wanking about hard decisions.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 315
Shaking it off, he turns to Rei and asks, "What happened between then and now?"
"There were two more Angel attacks. Asuka-san handled the Fifteenth Angel and I handled the Sixteenth. Both were as messy as the Fourteenth, but in different ways.
Futaba: Frankly, the Fifteenth being “messy” is more than a bit of an understatement. Because in English, Arael is the source of the term “mind rape.”
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Arael)
Shinobu: We’ll cover that when we get to it, because that’s gonna be a whole thing, but suffice to say, psychic powers are a bastard. However, the other reason is…
The Fifteenth was a difficult, unconventional battle, while the Sixteenth was perhaps the synthesis of the most effective tactics so far. Rei VI was immolated in that battle."
Shinobu: Here, it is a footnote. That thing pretty much singlehandedly killed what was left of Asuka’s will to live in canon, and it’s a footnote. We get an image of what the fight was in this canon later, but come the fuck on. It comes off like Rei is actively trying to throw her under the bus! I can’t even tell if this is due to the timeskip or Academia Nut chickening out, but either way, it’s bad. Don’t skimp on the fates of personal nemeses of one of your ostensible protagonists!
Mortarion: Clearly, it is a footnote because she already lost all her will to fight when her pathetic, self-aggrandizing love toy was mercifully rendered catatonic.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 565
"What happened?" Shinji asks.
"The Angel was essentially nothing but a giant energy whip, one of the more successful weapons used against us. Conventional weapons did nothing against it, not even a point blank melta blast. After doing considerable damage, it then attempted to merge with my Eva," Rei says before letting a feral grin escape from her suppressed face.
Futaba: Okay, this is one I can make more affordances for, because Armisael is a weird fight.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Armisael/Gallery)
Futaba: Basically, this…big ring of DNA light was just chilling in the atmosphere for a bit before suddenly striking at Rei in ribbon form, who was using Unit-00 to observe it, and trying to infect it in some weird alien pregnancy with clones of the previous Angels while the free end became a clone of Rei, the “Angel Tower”.
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Armisael)
Nocht: …I have so many questions.
Emma:
Replace “Adult life” with “Eva” and you’ve got it.
Wanderer2691: This perfectly encapsulates the latter part of Eva, and that thing in particular is never explained apart from “Armisael starts doing Leliel’s converse-through-the-other-self trick with Rei, and then this happens.” However, in one of the most heroic moments in the series, Rei, realizing she’s being forcefully integrated into the Angel and wanting to protect Shinji, seals herself in an AT Field and self-destructs, taking Armisael with her. And that’s the end of Rei II and the birth of Rei III. However, it also means a more conventional fight is going to need to have the initial fight changed up, we don’t even know if Armisael has any other weapons. But I’m pretty sure you don’t do this:
"Big mistake, for by Rei VI, I had a bit better control over my own mind, but I was also further fragmented. Still, when the Angel invaded, it discovered that it couldn't get back out because I was counter-invading with multiple minds. It sent cancerous feelers all throughout my body causing tiny squealing faces to erupt from my flesh. I sent worse things back at it. We were locked in battle for several minutes until finally it went suicidal and detonated. Unfortunately as it was inside my Eva when it exploded, the entry plug was incinerated, leaving behind only bones," Rei explains.
Nocht: …so in other words, a heroic and interesting battle totally happened, but none of us get to see it. Bravo. Truly spectacular. Why, I almost don’t feel cheated. Also, that sounds immensely disgusting, why did we need to hear about faces? Beyond the author being this Hojo person in spirit?
Emma: To be fair, the faces are canon. The Director’s cut includes a longer fight where Shinji grabs Armisael and Rei faces start sprouting from his hands as it tries to integrate with 01. They played better in a series that wasn’t constantly wallowing in shock-value grossout, but they’re canon.
Nocht: Yes, on Eva-01. I’m petty enough to increase a count anyway, by reading it as “faces growing on Rei”, which is…well.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 672
"Which brings us to Rei VII, you," Shinji states.
"Yes. With Unit 00 now so heavily damaged that it was no longer properly functional,
Leliel: In other words, with no actual overall difference in the plot with a destroyed Unit-00…
TALON ON THE SCALES: 244 (This fic is really good at “the canon, but more AWESMOE!” dance…)
Commander Ikari decided that I would be brought back with my memories from before I met you, to keep me docile and compliant to his will. I still retained everything I learned through my knowledge of soul transference, but I decided to play along.
Wanderer2691: Which doesn’t explain why you’ve gone back to a canon personality, because…full memories. Which means you’re post-Nurgle Rei in a canon Rei suit. Around someone who knows. What is the point of this?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 245 (For lack of a better score…)
I also decided to stop using my powers, as they were causing my condition to become worse, and with Major Katsuragi in lock-up and…" Rei explained before being interrupted.
Futaba: …oh boy, this is not gonna be good… say, Nocht? What was that powder you sniffed?
Nocht: Anti-anxiety chem. Helps stabilize my nerves in a difficult shot, since I’m not as emotionless as other Vindicare. Didn’t seem to help that much.
Futaba: …eh, can’t hurt, but I imagine it’s a prescription. [Sighs, drinks tea instead.]
"Wait! Misato-san is under arrest?" Shinji asks frantically.
"Under suspicion of murder, although that is just a formality since everyone knows she did it. Shortly before the Fifteenth Angel showed up, Ryoji-san was found dead in the depths of NERV, a single gunshot wound to the head. Katsuragi-san, who began dating him again the same night Rei IV died, was distraught. You were in a coma, Asuka-san was exhibiting self-destructive behaviour, and her whole world seemed to be crumbling. Nothing was going right for her.
Emma: Also, she’s in this fanfic.
Shinobu: So far, so canon. But it sounds like she embarked on a one-woman war on SEELE, who killed Kaji, but-
"Her story is that Dr. Akagi…" Rei began.
"Misato killed Ritsuko?" Shinji cried out incredulously.
Shinobu: …what he said, the FUCK?!
Leliel: ‘Scuse me, gonna put this button here…
"That is the leading theory," Rei said. "Katsuragi-san's own confession was that Akagi-san began viciously taunting her about the implosion of her 'family', and how it had parallels to the past.
Futaba: …oh. Oh I get it. This is Bitch, Unfuckable Ritsuko, isn’t it. The one our author hates for being a woman not part of the harem and no interest in being such. Here we go…
DUMMY PLUGGED: 566
Fed up with Akagi-san's words, Katsuragi-san struck her across the jaw. Lieutenant Ibuki moved to defend Katsuragi-san but was also struck in turn.
Wanderer2691: Thus, by the way, is one of the last times we see Maya, if not the last - you know, the mission control who has a huge crush on Ritsuko and pushing her away is a sign Ritsuko has gone off the deep end. This is not the end of Academia Nut’s homophobia.
Emma: *mirthless smile* I think it’s better if she gets out while the getting’s good.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 567 (Somehow, I think even a berserk Misato would just shove Maya away.)
At this point the story becomes a bit more complicated. Katsuragi-san claims that at that point Akagi-san drew a gun on her and acted in self defence, but Ibuki-san claims that it was Katsuragi-san who drew the gun, while the surveillance footage was inconclusive and the sequence of events could have gone either way as the weapon was drawn in the middle of a struggle between the two. Since it was never actually fired we don't know who could have been holding it, and because it was non-standard, non-registered and in the struggle both their prints appeared on it, we don't know who owned it.
Futaba: *Rei* ”Also the ability to look up known black market sellers and potential alibis for a buyer was lost in Second Impact. The author’s idiocy and Dunning-Kruger affects all of us.” No point, because this is just a pointless aside, but…
"What happened next is not debated. Katsuragi-san is a decorated military officer, while Akagi-san was a scientist. Akagi-san was stabbed in the left lung by a letter opener grabbed as an impromptu weapon in the struggle. This wound was, while not instantly fatal, would have resulted in death without immediate medical attention, something impossible to get quickly enough in that situation. At this point Katsuragi-san claims temporary insanity for her following actions.
Nocht: [Blank smile] I inflict cleaner and less gory kills with hollow points.
Emma: Temporary insanity, here meaning “the hand of the author”.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 673
Pausing to clear her throat quietly, Rei says, "Seeing her best friend bleeding out from a fatal wound she inflicted, Katsuragi-san began screaming incoherently, saying that 'she doesn't know pain' while repeatedly punching and stabbing, either to inflict as much suffering as possible before Akagi-san's death or in some sort of insane attempt to speed the process. Either way, when it was all over Katsuragi-san was left in a semi-catatonic state, only answering questions asked of her but not initiating any actions, and Akagi-san had suffered thirty-seven stab wounds and five broken bones, three-quarters of her injuries sustained post-mortem."
Shinobu: First, yikes. Second, what the actual fuck?
Leliel: Believe it or not, this is not worth a DUMMY PLUGGED point. Because there is a reason for it, related to that Dark Tongue Twister up there - and also Misato thought Ritsuko killed Kaji at the time.
The issue is, this is because our author thinks that’s what happened…and it’s been made very clear that Ryoji was killed by a completely anonymous character. In fact, the dominant fan theory was that it was Misato that killed him, to the point where Anno took out the evidence for that in the director’s cut to make damn sure everyone knew it was just SEELE. The only reason, I think, Academia Nut buys this, is because he hates Ritsuko. Or more likely, is highly intimidated by her and thinks it’s her fault as a fictional character.
Emma: This is… look at how this is written. This is a lovingly described sequence of Ritsuko being stabbed to death and then her corpse mutilated. I don’t think much of the surface level reading that stabbing is always a metaphor for penetrative sex or whatever happens when people want to seem smug about slasher movies, but this gloating description of the Bad Unfuckable woman being stabbed to death over and over? This is incredibly, unsettlingly eroticized.
Wanderer2691: Seriously. So for the uncanon, there’s one point…
DUMMY PLUGGED: 568
But ten more to the other relevant counts, because holy suit.
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 682
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 630
Somehow, the cold, clinical way that Rei described the events after the fact was far more terrifying than actually seeing it. Everything was already said and done; there was nothing Shinji could do to help his friends because he had been asleep.
Shinobu: *Academia Nut* “So, you see, the fact I did most of plot to the series in a summary form works, and not at all because I’m a lazy moron who wrote himself in a corner and was desperate to avoid writing writing my self-insert into canonically difficult and near-losing fights and so avoid harming by substitute ego! And Gendo totally had victory, they were, uh, just missed by, uh, the time skip! We’re cool, right? I’M COOL, RIGHT?!”
Mortarion: The only thing terrifying here is that you thought this was a worthwhile use of my time.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 246 (This entire chapter, conceptually…)
Wanderer2691: And the next bit…we’re just going to leave as is, because we want you to experience some of the absolute agonizing snoozefest this chapter is sans funny spork people…
He had been asleep because he had been merged with the Eva.
He had merged with the Eva because he had to fight tooth and nail against the Fourteenth Angel.
He had to fight tooth and nail with the Fourteenth Angel because he arrived late to the fight after it had already incapacitated his friends.
He arrived late to the fight because he left to gather evidence on his father and SEELE to prove to Rei that it was their fault in the Thirteenth Angel fiasco.
He had to prove Gendo's guilt to Rei because Asuka had killed a previous incarnation, causing her to distrust them.
The Thirteenth Angel disaster was so bad because Shinji had been distracted by having sex with Asuka with a frequency that would make light blush, and had not noticed his father's plans for revenge.
Asuka was having sex with him because she had gained enough confidence from her relationship with him and Khorne to get over her own fears. Killing Rei because she wanted to have sex with him had helped too.
The Thirteenth Angel disaster was so bad because Asuka's best friend was in the entry plug when Asuka, forced by the Dummy Plug system, put a chain-axe through Unit 03 repeatedly.
Asuka's best friend was in Unit 03 because her boyfriend was in Unit 04. Shinji had arranged for the two of them to get together so he could control them better.
Rei had wanted to have sex with Shinji because he had taught her how to express herself emotionally, but her allegiance to Nurgle made it hard for him to train her properly, and it drove her insane. And not the good kind of insane either.
The pilot of Unit 04 had been there because his sister had been injured in the battle where Shinji had made his Eva go berserk.
Leliel: You read that right. A good two paragraphs in an already long chapter…summarizing things overseen in the chapter. And nothing else. Just the same semi-logical blather as the rest.
Emma: It’s not just that. EVERYTHING IS ABOUT TZEENTCHJI. It’s not just “bad things happen to someone else? How is this actually about me?”. It’s also that everything is his Fault. Even when Tzeentchji fucks up, he’s still the narrative’s specialest little guy, because him fucking up destroys everyone else’s lives and leads directly back to him. Dipshits and HACKS like Academia Nut are always doing this shit, because they go “oh, people won’t flame me for writing a Stu if he fucks up” and then write a fuck-up where only the Stu has agency and everything in the narrative STILL revolves around him. *Panting* I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m not mad.
Futaba: …honestly, it sounds like you’re “not mad” in the same way I was before I went full Tzeentch crackup. Not that I blame you, because…
…
Everything tied back to Shinji's own scheming. He had been snared in a web of his own making. The phrase 'hoisted by his own petard' didn't even begin to cover this sort of thing.
Shinobu: YES, IT IS. AND SEVERAL OTHER THINGS BESIDES. THANK YOU FOR PAYING ATTENTION.
He violently threw up, not that there was much in his stomach after two months of not eating through his mouth. Rei just watched quietly until it was all over.
Looking at her, Shinji says, "I appear to be in a hell of my own making. Everything is wrong, and it is my fault."
"No, Commander Ikari is also largely to blame," Rei points out.
Shinobu: ARE YOU BEING SERIOUS RIGHT-
Emma: And there we have it! He is both the cause of all his own suffering (and therefore the most important) and also completely blameless (and therefore not besmirched by fucking up).
Considering this fact, Shinji growls and says, "I should have dealt with him sooner instead of waiting for him to make a move first. He will be reckoned with, but all of this is surely my fault.
Futaba: Yeah, bullshit. The author just tried to shift blame on Gendo, with a shitty fan theory about Toji pulled out of his ass, and fridging Hikari for no reason. The author clearly doesn’t think it’s your fault - or rather, thinks if we feel swowwy enough for you, we’ll have our aggro redirected at Gendo, see Hikari. Fuck off, Tzeentchji - we know how you think, we know the only thing you’re upset about is loss of control, and even now, you’re only mad you didn’t kill a rival first.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 723
You are a mess, Misato is under arrest for killing her friend, Kaji is dead, Ritsuko is dead, Gendo is still running free and Asuka…"
Shinji pauses for a moment before looking at Rei and saying coldly and savagely, "Rei… you skipped over the fight with the Fifteenth Angel. What the fuck happened to Asuka?"
Nocht: Oh now you noticed. I honestly don’t blame you, given the footnote for a psychic attack that broke her will.
A blank expression on her face, Rei says softly, "I wanted you to be in the right emotional state first…"
Rei found her throat between Shinji's fingers and he said, "Rei… if you don't want to have to move up to version 8.0, cut the fucking bullshit and tell me what happened."
Looking at him fearfully, Rei nods for him to release her throat and after a small cough, she says, "The Fifteenth Angel used a psychic, mental attack on her. The results were ugly, and she has been in a coma ever since, her mind nearly shattered under the strain of the attack."
Wanderer2691: AND ISN’T IT NICE WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY GET TO SEE HOW SHE’D REACT TO IT BEFORE THE FOREGONE CONCLUSION?! IT’S SUSPENSEFUL! GASP, DAMN YOU! GAAAAAAAAASP! And then stop gasping, because whatever suspense was in there was drained away and replaced with DEEP HURTING and we just want this to be fucking over.
"Take me to her," Shinji hissed.
Shinobu: And that, my friends, was at least a nice aftertaste, because for the first time, it looked like actual…affection…is that an author’s note?
Emma: I’m not giving him any credit. He hears her fight went poorly, doesn’t immediately ask why, and now he’s jumping right back to incredible violence against someone else as “proof” of his love.
Leliel: Fair enough, but I wanna check the…okay, Emma, you won this. Credit withdrawn.
What do you think? May I have actually screwed over the characters worse than what canonically happen? Is that even physically possible?
[Last Emperor of the Long Pause Dynasty, also known as the Pain of Exhaustion.]
Futaba: Not nearly as impossible as the fact you are able to breathe when your head is three feet up your own ass. Kindly download a trojan that turns your computer into an ad server for boner pills, delete your account, and get a job so you can go buy yourself a clue, you arrogant twit.
Emma: No, you haven’t. You’re not going to write actual consequences with any real weight. What you’ve done is loaded down the leads with too many problems to fix so that it will seem less like the author’s thumb on the scales when Tzeentchji pulls five Deus ex Machina’s out of his ass. Loading down the characters with ridiculous amounts of bad events that just sort of vanish is part and parcel of absurd, non-consequences writing.
Leliel: Yeah, that was…awful.
Nocht: Honestly the kind of thing that puts me in the mind of being a Warp-branded slave again. How can something so horrid involve such drudgery? I am so glad for a fight-date with Orks…
Wanderer2691: And the next time…well, saying it gets better is a bit of a strong term, but, at least it ceases to be this drone. But we also see just how deep the homophobia runs, as we show…this fic’s idea of Kowaru. Aieee.
Emma: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate…
Shinobu: …we really need to wonder about that, I think…
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos
Timeline GNX-2014-3 (Xothian Classification)
Sol Sector, Earth, Geosynchronous Near-Orbit
“How is…” Diego trailed off. “...wait. That’s just…patronizing. Has there been any improvement?”
“Well, my brother has relocated to an area where his Perpetual nature isn’t constantly reviving him to curl up into a foetal position, so that is…a change,” Corax said. “Still in a borderline vacuum in the airlock…”
“...should I…go talk to him?”, Trazyn said, his normal aristocratic tone forgotten. “I admit that I have no idea of what he is going through…nor would I ever, I would be comforted by encountering my evil twin as a truly unique discovery worth preservation, and that would assist in the existential angst…”
“In all honesty, I do not think a non-human-appearing entity could,” Taion interjected. “He may be one of the nobler Primarchs, but he was deeply indoctrinated to despise xenos - Drukhari are the only thing he truly hates, but I imagine his core reflex towards non-human life is liable to prevent him from actually conversing honestly about his problems.”
“I suspected as much,” the Necron said, dismay apparent. “I have seen this kind of misery in others of my species. It never leads anywhere well…and even beyond that, I believe he needs to see the project, to know for a fact that we are not being deceptive…”
There was a long pause, before Diego sighed. “I’ll do it,” he muttered, symbiotes crawling out of his skin to form a rebreather mask. “I am not human, not entirely anymore, but I remember it enough for him to think of me as one with a few additions.”
“I will also assist,” Taion said, putting on more mundane void gear. “I think I will be needed as someone with as close to personal experience as I can get…”
Diego rose an eyebrow, as did Corax, but neither objected as both strode into the airlock.
Vulkan was…well, he did not look well. The normal jovial and occasionally Orky glow in his eyes had gone out, his normal openness and free body language restricted and balled up - despite being more than twice the height of any man entering, he looked rather…small.
As the airlock sealed them in, and the rebreathers began processing oxygen, Diego smiled through his fungus. “Hello, Lord Vulkan…”
Vulkan gave a small grunt of acknowledgement. “If you wanna be friends here…I don’ mind, but…not sure if friends can help me outta this one. Sorry. Don’ wanna waste your time…”
Taion sighed. “I will cut to the chase - you are not that Vulkan. That Vulkan is a completely different person with a much different past, but even given that, he chose to wallow in his own self-pity rather than accept that while Kesare cared for him, she was a beast, and misunderstood why he was staying in her territory. Even after she tried to kill him, though, he chose to learn that he should oppress others, than ensure others never felt the same panic and confusion he did…you are a better person.”
“I know dat,” Vulkan said, clearly trying to keep slight irritation at hearing this again out off his voice. “But…I cannot ‘elp but think, you see where I’m comin’ from? I did not know I was a Perpetual boy ‘til I left Nocturne. Dusk Wraiths didn’t know what ‘ta expect, and it be a real good thing dat they don’t when dey had a chance to get me alive. So, I wonder…if I did know, and I din’ know how ta value all me mortal friends…could I be just as cruel? Been jus’ as greedy? Just as…lonely?”
Diego looked surprised. “Lonely?”
“It be what I read about him. You saw it too - he din’ just visit targets to spook people, he was lookin’ for other Perpetuals. Or at least, long-lived friends - people who realized dey din’ have to worry ‘bout being returned to da Circle of Fire. Peers, who knew what it be like to see da whole world ‘round you and realize…you was gonna outlive it.” He shook his head. “I wonder dat too, sometimes. Dat’s why I make things. Because things - they harder to kill. Don’t age as fast. Dat way, when I look at ‘em, I remember friends I had, and the good times…den I can move on to make new friends. But he? He never had dat. He always thought it was the treasure he was comforted by, not da memories in that treasure. And now I’m feelin’ sorry for him, and dat…scares me. ‘Cause I look at da future, and…I wonder if one day, I’ll forget de real reason I like treasure, too…”
There was a long pause.
And then Diego broke into a slightly disbelieving cackle.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” he immediately said as he regained control of his mirth. “I just…I just realized how similar we are.”
Vulkan wasn’t offended, just nodding at the fungal lich to continue.
“See…I never wanted immortality. Not really,” Diego continued, letting out a couple hyphae from his arm. “I wanted to cure my cancer, and it was caught at a point where chemo was…unadvised. I knew I’d be fighting it my whole life even if I survived, and it likely wouldn’t be for too much longer. I knew my grandfather’s method of life beyond cell death had an expiration date, and replacing my autonomous functions with xenofungus would likely have its own mortality - I didn’t care. I wanted to have a full life - at least past middle age. Nothing more or less - it’s just that the Black Goat saw me make a bargain with her outer processes, and her core minds felt that someone who was so dedicated to the concept of life while accepting mortality deserved some form of immortality, as she already needed a tool - an observational unit to observe the cycle of life on a tiny little world directly, perhaps one that could incubate something…more.”
He leaned against a bulkhead. “I feel myself becoming that ‘more’, every day. A craving for dark, warm places. A sense of discomfort in areas I haven’t colonized. Daydreaming about genetic codes and how they may be altered for efficiency. Seeing decaying matter and thinking to myself ‘that looks delectable.’ Running through what look like ideal hosts for symbiotes when thinking about appearances as an afterthought. Every day, a bit more of my brain is replaced by symbiotes, and while they absorb my memories, and as far as anyone can tell, my soul in my human cells is my soul in my fungal…I’m not going to have a human body, soon. And the instincts I have won’t be human. Either I’m going to lose form and become some strange kind of Mi-go, or I am going to transcend it and take my place as one of the Black Goat’s true children as an Elder God. Neither is especially human, and neither has experiences that will lend itself to remembering human touch, human instinct, human concerns…”
“But at the same time,” he finished, watching the gap in his flesh where the symbiotes were already mending where they came out. “Those same instincts…they also come with an urge to heal. An urge to improve, to grow, to recycle and restore. I will become inhuman, but is ‘inhuman’ truly bad? And even if I forget a man called Diego Munoz once existed…even Shub-Niggurath, an Outer God who is more cosmic impulse than person, a Goddess of Cancer whose primary commandments are Grow, Consume, Multiply, Conquer, and shows just enough recognizable consciousness to help others find new ways to do those things and to make even the inanimate world do the same at the bequest of her followers - she turned her eye at me, and proclaimed that she understood me. Emphasized with me, in her alien, monstrous way - and decided I deserved more than what I humbly asked for. In her way, kindness - who is to say that, in some strange aeon I cannot relearn kindness? That I can’t forget malice as well? Corruption is not a one-way street - redemption is, too, a form of perfect evil degrading into regret, and self-knowledge…”
“And I know for a fact that it can happen,” Taion began. “That even the most warped and corrupt can relearn shame and hope, and that shame and hope can develop a life of their own. Let me tell you the story of Noah - and Moebius N…”
And one long and very spoilerific story that your spitefic author wishes to avoid later, Vulkan heard the story of how a hero might fall only to rise again - for much the same reasons he feared falling to begin with, a bit of his old cheer returned.
At the end, Vulkan inhaled. “...first, thanks, friends. I…needed that. Second - YOU GITZ WANTED TA SHOW ME HOW WE GONNA CRUMP THEM GROTZ?!”
---
“I want to let you know,” Corax said, holding a phial that looked decorated with skulls and nine-pointed stars, “That I do not enjoy holding, or even acknowledging the existence of, this thing. I have spent the past ever since acquiring it looking for traps, and the ones I found come off as obvious for Arcanites, more of a contractual obligation of their faith - which, given Tzeentch, is only making me more paranoid.”
“Needs must,” Taion said with a shrug. “But I am glad the Thousand Scions of Sophia’s universe were willing to accept that there was a Come the Apocalypse moment given the corruption of both humanity and the Warp that this ‘Evangelion Chaos’ embodies, and a twisting into the worst aspects of both the Imperium and Chaos.”
“That doesn’t mean some Sorcerers didn’t get bright ideas, but the fun fact about being a nascent protector-deity of a city of mystic science is having an entire civilization to draw on when looking for suspicious and subtle tricks,” Diego agreed. “And to their credit, the other Scions scolded the inevitable schemers harshly for poor planning ability. Is the receptacle and the Furnace of Renewal ready?”
“Correct, to both. And even Orikan is excited to get one over on Szeras with his own discovery,” Trazyn said with a friendly clap on the shoulder of the cyclopean Cryptek in question, who glowered at him before returning to the culture of Evangelion tissue, and the chassis of what appeared to be a Necron noble…but not proportioned like any of the common models. In fact, it resembled something more akin to the brief flirtation with conversion of other species, a Pariah, but while Pariah models of Necron resembled almost identity-less mannequins of humanity, this one was…lithe. Decorated. And so acutely crafted that it would resemble nothing so much as a sleeping living human except for the cracks in its polished exoskeleton exposing the internal mechanisms and its skin being the green-grey of necrodermis.
“Excellent,” Corax said, nearly rushing through to put the phial in its slot, shaking his hand of its Chaotic dust, as the Furnace clicked it into its lock. “On the count of three?”
“One…” Diego began, eyes glowing as he focused the divine ichor within him to tips of extruded symbiotes.
“Two…”, Taion said, his Mondo swarming around the empty chassis and already priming themselves to heal the living metal of any damage it sustained.
“Three,” Orikan finished, one of the only words he had said in the past week as he flicked the switch.
The phial broke as the soul within it was absorbed into the Necron device, the Furnace’s eldritch and ancient technology accomplishing through physics and subatomic energies the Thousand Scions used dark magic for, the capture and control of a soul before it was reabsorbed into the Warp. Emerald flames shot forth from the Furnace as excess life force was vented as its computer core, a fungal mesh adapter for a different species than the necrontyr it was originally meant for incorporated into its mechanisms, began to scan and dissect the soul within. Every trait, every skill, every aspect of personality was converted from human spirit-stuff to Necron superquantum code and programs that arced in complex pulses of green lightning into the chassis, which thrashed and pulsed even as the necrodermis turned active, previously generic features developing detail and definition. But, rather than into the maw of a C’tan, the flames were absorbed into the Eva tissue, which did not promptly digest it but stored it - but served to prevent a build-up of spiritual waste heat just as well, allowing the Furnace to do its work in the critical timeframe needed for a full biotransference. It wasn’t perfect - but that was why Diego was there, catching bits of stray soul and putting them back in the Furnace before the separating became a shattering of the self.
Over the next five minutes, the chassis changed - proportions lengthened, arms turned skinny and fingers dextrous, the scalp extruded golden wire filaments in long waves that abruptly terminated at the neck. In what took less than eight minutes but what felt like eighteen hours, the chassis had changed from a perfect but identity-less mannequin of a human into a female figure, something that was definitely not a true Necron, but not a human either - but something that was also both of those things.
The flames stopped, anticlimactically - no bang, no final flare, just a happy beep from the Furnace as it signified the biotransference had completed without major error.
Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, the first non-Blank Human Necron, opened her eyes.
(A/N: There’s a lot here about Roboutian Vulkan, but basically, he was found by a true dragon of Nocturne instead of humans, but as solitary animals, his adoptive drake-mother did not realize he planned to live near her for non-violent purposes upon his adulthood and attacked him only saved by his immortality. This instilled in him a deep fear of being weak and a sense of invulnerability which later became outright megalomania and a compulsive need to control others. Also, was building toward Robo Rits for a while.)
Timeline GNX-2014-3 (Xothian Classification)
Sol Sector, Earth, Geosynchronous Near-Orbit
“How is…” Diego trailed off. “...wait. That’s just…patronizing. Has there been any improvement?”
“Well, my brother has relocated to an area where his Perpetual nature isn’t constantly reviving him to curl up into a foetal position, so that is…a change,” Corax said. “Still in a borderline vacuum in the airlock…”
“...should I…go talk to him?”, Trazyn said, his normal aristocratic tone forgotten. “I admit that I have no idea of what he is going through…nor would I ever, I would be comforted by encountering my evil twin as a truly unique discovery worth preservation, and that would assist in the existential angst…”
“In all honesty, I do not think a non-human-appearing entity could,” Taion interjected. “He may be one of the nobler Primarchs, but he was deeply indoctrinated to despise xenos - Drukhari are the only thing he truly hates, but I imagine his core reflex towards non-human life is liable to prevent him from actually conversing honestly about his problems.”
“I suspected as much,” the Necron said, dismay apparent. “I have seen this kind of misery in others of my species. It never leads anywhere well…and even beyond that, I believe he needs to see the project, to know for a fact that we are not being deceptive…”
There was a long pause, before Diego sighed. “I’ll do it,” he muttered, symbiotes crawling out of his skin to form a rebreather mask. “I am not human, not entirely anymore, but I remember it enough for him to think of me as one with a few additions.”
“I will also assist,” Taion said, putting on more mundane void gear. “I think I will be needed as someone with as close to personal experience as I can get…”
Diego rose an eyebrow, as did Corax, but neither objected as both strode into the airlock.
Vulkan was…well, he did not look well. The normal jovial and occasionally Orky glow in his eyes had gone out, his normal openness and free body language restricted and balled up - despite being more than twice the height of any man entering, he looked rather…small.
As the airlock sealed them in, and the rebreathers began processing oxygen, Diego smiled through his fungus. “Hello, Lord Vulkan…”
Vulkan gave a small grunt of acknowledgement. “If you wanna be friends here…I don’ mind, but…not sure if friends can help me outta this one. Sorry. Don’ wanna waste your time…”
Taion sighed. “I will cut to the chase - you are not that Vulkan. That Vulkan is a completely different person with a much different past, but even given that, he chose to wallow in his own self-pity rather than accept that while Kesare cared for him, she was a beast, and misunderstood why he was staying in her territory. Even after she tried to kill him, though, he chose to learn that he should oppress others, than ensure others never felt the same panic and confusion he did…you are a better person.”
“I know dat,” Vulkan said, clearly trying to keep slight irritation at hearing this again out off his voice. “But…I cannot ‘elp but think, you see where I’m comin’ from? I did not know I was a Perpetual boy ‘til I left Nocturne. Dusk Wraiths didn’t know what ‘ta expect, and it be a real good thing dat they don’t when dey had a chance to get me alive. So, I wonder…if I did know, and I din’ know how ta value all me mortal friends…could I be just as cruel? Been jus’ as greedy? Just as…lonely?”
Diego looked surprised. “Lonely?”
“It be what I read about him. You saw it too - he din’ just visit targets to spook people, he was lookin’ for other Perpetuals. Or at least, long-lived friends - people who realized dey din’ have to worry ‘bout being returned to da Circle of Fire. Peers, who knew what it be like to see da whole world ‘round you and realize…you was gonna outlive it.” He shook his head. “I wonder dat too, sometimes. Dat’s why I make things. Because things - they harder to kill. Don’t age as fast. Dat way, when I look at ‘em, I remember friends I had, and the good times…den I can move on to make new friends. But he? He never had dat. He always thought it was the treasure he was comforted by, not da memories in that treasure. And now I’m feelin’ sorry for him, and dat…scares me. ‘Cause I look at da future, and…I wonder if one day, I’ll forget de real reason I like treasure, too…”
There was a long pause.
And then Diego broke into a slightly disbelieving cackle.
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry,” he immediately said as he regained control of his mirth. “I just…I just realized how similar we are.”
Vulkan wasn’t offended, just nodding at the fungal lich to continue.
“See…I never wanted immortality. Not really,” Diego continued, letting out a couple hyphae from his arm. “I wanted to cure my cancer, and it was caught at a point where chemo was…unadvised. I knew I’d be fighting it my whole life even if I survived, and it likely wouldn’t be for too much longer. I knew my grandfather’s method of life beyond cell death had an expiration date, and replacing my autonomous functions with xenofungus would likely have its own mortality - I didn’t care. I wanted to have a full life - at least past middle age. Nothing more or less - it’s just that the Black Goat saw me make a bargain with her outer processes, and her core minds felt that someone who was so dedicated to the concept of life while accepting mortality deserved some form of immortality, as she already needed a tool - an observational unit to observe the cycle of life on a tiny little world directly, perhaps one that could incubate something…more.”
He leaned against a bulkhead. “I feel myself becoming that ‘more’, every day. A craving for dark, warm places. A sense of discomfort in areas I haven’t colonized. Daydreaming about genetic codes and how they may be altered for efficiency. Seeing decaying matter and thinking to myself ‘that looks delectable.’ Running through what look like ideal hosts for symbiotes when thinking about appearances as an afterthought. Every day, a bit more of my brain is replaced by symbiotes, and while they absorb my memories, and as far as anyone can tell, my soul in my human cells is my soul in my fungal…I’m not going to have a human body, soon. And the instincts I have won’t be human. Either I’m going to lose form and become some strange kind of Mi-go, or I am going to transcend it and take my place as one of the Black Goat’s true children as an Elder God. Neither is especially human, and neither has experiences that will lend itself to remembering human touch, human instinct, human concerns…”
“But at the same time,” he finished, watching the gap in his flesh where the symbiotes were already mending where they came out. “Those same instincts…they also come with an urge to heal. An urge to improve, to grow, to recycle and restore. I will become inhuman, but is ‘inhuman’ truly bad? And even if I forget a man called Diego Munoz once existed…even Shub-Niggurath, an Outer God who is more cosmic impulse than person, a Goddess of Cancer whose primary commandments are Grow, Consume, Multiply, Conquer, and shows just enough recognizable consciousness to help others find new ways to do those things and to make even the inanimate world do the same at the bequest of her followers - she turned her eye at me, and proclaimed that she understood me. Emphasized with me, in her alien, monstrous way - and decided I deserved more than what I humbly asked for. In her way, kindness - who is to say that, in some strange aeon I cannot relearn kindness? That I can’t forget malice as well? Corruption is not a one-way street - redemption is, too, a form of perfect evil degrading into regret, and self-knowledge…”
“And I know for a fact that it can happen,” Taion began. “That even the most warped and corrupt can relearn shame and hope, and that shame and hope can develop a life of their own. Let me tell you the story of Noah - and Moebius N…”
And one long and very spoilerific story that your spitefic author wishes to avoid later, Vulkan heard the story of how a hero might fall only to rise again - for much the same reasons he feared falling to begin with, a bit of his old cheer returned.
At the end, Vulkan inhaled. “...first, thanks, friends. I…needed that. Second - YOU GITZ WANTED TA SHOW ME HOW WE GONNA CRUMP THEM GROTZ?!”
---
“I want to let you know,” Corax said, holding a phial that looked decorated with skulls and nine-pointed stars, “That I do not enjoy holding, or even acknowledging the existence of, this thing. I have spent the past ever since acquiring it looking for traps, and the ones I found come off as obvious for Arcanites, more of a contractual obligation of their faith - which, given Tzeentch, is only making me more paranoid.”
“Needs must,” Taion said with a shrug. “But I am glad the Thousand Scions of Sophia’s universe were willing to accept that there was a Come the Apocalypse moment given the corruption of both humanity and the Warp that this ‘Evangelion Chaos’ embodies, and a twisting into the worst aspects of both the Imperium and Chaos.”
“That doesn’t mean some Sorcerers didn’t get bright ideas, but the fun fact about being a nascent protector-deity of a city of mystic science is having an entire civilization to draw on when looking for suspicious and subtle tricks,” Diego agreed. “And to their credit, the other Scions scolded the inevitable schemers harshly for poor planning ability. Is the receptacle and the Furnace of Renewal ready?”
“Correct, to both. And even Orikan is excited to get one over on Szeras with his own discovery,” Trazyn said with a friendly clap on the shoulder of the cyclopean Cryptek in question, who glowered at him before returning to the culture of Evangelion tissue, and the chassis of what appeared to be a Necron noble…but not proportioned like any of the common models. In fact, it resembled something more akin to the brief flirtation with conversion of other species, a Pariah, but while Pariah models of Necron resembled almost identity-less mannequins of humanity, this one was…lithe. Decorated. And so acutely crafted that it would resemble nothing so much as a sleeping living human except for the cracks in its polished exoskeleton exposing the internal mechanisms and its skin being the green-grey of necrodermis.
“Excellent,” Corax said, nearly rushing through to put the phial in its slot, shaking his hand of its Chaotic dust, as the Furnace clicked it into its lock. “On the count of three?”
“One…” Diego began, eyes glowing as he focused the divine ichor within him to tips of extruded symbiotes.
“Two…”, Taion said, his Mondo swarming around the empty chassis and already priming themselves to heal the living metal of any damage it sustained.
“Three,” Orikan finished, one of the only words he had said in the past week as he flicked the switch.
The phial broke as the soul within it was absorbed into the Necron device, the Furnace’s eldritch and ancient technology accomplishing through physics and subatomic energies the Thousand Scions used dark magic for, the capture and control of a soul before it was reabsorbed into the Warp. Emerald flames shot forth from the Furnace as excess life force was vented as its computer core, a fungal mesh adapter for a different species than the necrontyr it was originally meant for incorporated into its mechanisms, began to scan and dissect the soul within. Every trait, every skill, every aspect of personality was converted from human spirit-stuff to Necron superquantum code and programs that arced in complex pulses of green lightning into the chassis, which thrashed and pulsed even as the necrodermis turned active, previously generic features developing detail and definition. But, rather than into the maw of a C’tan, the flames were absorbed into the Eva tissue, which did not promptly digest it but stored it - but served to prevent a build-up of spiritual waste heat just as well, allowing the Furnace to do its work in the critical timeframe needed for a full biotransference. It wasn’t perfect - but that was why Diego was there, catching bits of stray soul and putting them back in the Furnace before the separating became a shattering of the self.
Over the next five minutes, the chassis changed - proportions lengthened, arms turned skinny and fingers dextrous, the scalp extruded golden wire filaments in long waves that abruptly terminated at the neck. In what took less than eight minutes but what felt like eighteen hours, the chassis had changed from a perfect but identity-less mannequin of a human into a female figure, something that was definitely not a true Necron, but not a human either - but something that was also both of those things.
The flames stopped, anticlimactically - no bang, no final flare, just a happy beep from the Furnace as it signified the biotransference had completed without major error.
Dr. Ritsuko Akagi, the first non-Blank Human Necron, opened her eyes.
(A/N: There’s a lot here about Roboutian Vulkan, but basically, he was found by a true dragon of Nocturne instead of humans, but as solitary animals, his adoptive drake-mother did not realize he planned to live near her for non-violent purposes upon his adulthood and attacked him only saved by his immortality. This instilled in him a deep fear of being weak and a sense of invulnerability which later became outright megalomania and a compulsive need to control others. Also, was building toward Robo Rits for a while.)
