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leliel_12[Trigger warning: Homophobia, and lots of it. Also, sexism in general, implied past animal cruelty, gore, and extremely insensitive and fetishized portrayals of the mentally unstable. Also, discussion of a sex predator in Persona 5.]
[Image and gif heavy]
[Link to mirror on Das_Sporking.]
Futaba: …okay, let me get this out of the way first - my poor sweet Angel hybrid boy, what have they done to you.
Wanderer2691: Uh….yeah. Welcome, one and all, to the most homophobic chapter in this nightmare of a fic, as we get to see Academia Nut’s opinion on Kaworu Nagisa, which can be summed as “AH SCARY ANGEL KID WILL TURN ME GAY!” Seriously, this spork is late partly because we needed to tackle it slow (and Leliel’s Library Science master’s degree).
Taion: We are exaggerating, but…only slightly. And the anticipation has…well…
Emma: This is it. You thought you’d seen the nadir? You thought this fic had hit rock bottom? This is where the fic hits rock bottom and rents the fucking Bagger 288.
Taion: While she seems to have recovered from…whatever it was before, we get the sense that Emma’s sanity will not last this chapter. But even beyond that, this chapter continues to not only be an utter bore, but one that clearly has no respect for mental health at all.
Leliel: And also? Deep anti-intellectualism! Because it’s clear here that Academia Nut does not care for the fact that Eva brings up these philosophical asides through him. At all. When it’s the point of the series.
Diego: Of course not, because otherwise, Tzeentchji might not completely adhere to being heteronormative! And that’s just wrong! So he has to change the philosophical debate they could have had to a slapfight!
Sophia: On some level, he must have an awareness he would never be equipped for any philosophical debate.
Chapter 15
He recommends Chateau from the Matrix: Reloaded soundtrack for this one.
Futaba: …I was thinking something a little more fitting given the absolutely stellar intellect Tzeentchji shows:
Leliel: Hey, don’t insult (the officially localized) Eustace by comparing him to Tzeentchji. Eustace learns from his mistakes and shows actual initiative. As for this fic?
Emma: Everyone on the Former Wretched Bird Site is so mad they’re localizing a guy who looks and acts like an Eustace as Eustace. It’s great. *beat* Yeah, I’m stalling.
Asuka was on a ventilator and a feeding tube, hooked up to various IV drips pumping her system full of various chemicals, while a whole battery of machines monitored her vital signs. She was also quite heavily restrained, enormous metal shackles and bars over her body to keep her down in the event she woke up angry.
Leliel: Here, we have the ‘improved’ Asuka…in the same state she was when she turned comatose in canon, only bound to the chair like the alleged ‘boyfriend’ was. Admittedly, he was also restrained, but, given how she was known to have self-harm, I kinda think any restraints would be at least careful to not be too constricting to prevent her getting worse.
Emma: This is… unsettling. It’s like to show how much better and cooler and stronger Asuka is, we’re going to have her put in a horrible situation. Because that’s always been the point of it. Make her perfect, build her up into some idealized girlfriend so it’ll be sweeter when she breaks.
Taion: And to be honest, this would be a fairly inoffensive scene, were it not for…
Shinji wanted to rush in there and do everything he could for her, to tell her that it was alright, that he was back, that she didn't have to hurt anymore. He resisted that impulse though. Everything was screwed up because he had lost sight of the big picture. If he wanted to truly help Asuka, he would have to think this out.
Taion: Tzeentchji making it all about himself and his pain. Because of course, her own discomfort is only relevant to him as he deals with it, and he subsumes it to his self-excusing martyrdom. I am reminded about how I negatively compared him to Moebius N. Those comparisons still stand, if not more so, as N at least was self-aware about how selfish his actions were, even if he rationalized them as the only available action.
Sophia: What a coincidence, that being vulnerable and emotionally emotive is the bad thing, and what actually helps allows him to continue being an emotionally constipated megalomaniac.
Emma: You still talking about Tzeentchji there?
Diego: There’s a disturbingly large amount of candidates from both universes…none of them great persons.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 724
Futaba: Don’t forget how very logical he’s showing himself to be by being a Big Strong Provider to control his emotions and not even leave a message We’ll see he’s separated from her by an observation window, but I can imagine it’s not hard to take time out of your day to telepathically signal her you’re fine. Or at least check to see what to do!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 631
Still, looking at her through the observation window, Shinji couldn't help but curl his fists in anger at this situation. Where had the laughter gone? Where had their meaningless, joyful play gone? Where had the cheeky banter between him, Asuka, and Rei gone?
Wanderer2691: One, wherever it is, if it’s not on fire it’s not where it should be, two, can’t help but notice how miserable you are you’re not getting your ideal harem, dude.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 725
And before you ask if we’re being unfair - I present for the prosecution, this nonsense!
Oh, wait, now he remembered. The Bastard Brigade of Gendo and SEELE were forcing them to fight this war with the Angels for them because they were too weak.
Diego: …he thinks he can lecture us on how much smarter he is than the canon antagonists. Black Goat preserve us… [pulls out the buttons, hits two with mold-tentacles]
Emma: I’d be much more sympathetic to your unwillingness to be a child soldier if it wasn’t all about how the people turning you into a child soldier aren’t “good” enough. If they were strong, well, presumably it would be fair for them to force you into a fight, because that’s just how your worldview works.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 726 (“Too weak”, when they have specifically hurt people close to you? That’s your concern?)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 569 (You mean the squishy humans who can’t drive Evas want people who can drive Evas to take on the Eva-related force? No. There’s cowardice, and then there’s “literally only this thing works, and it sucks.”)
Shinji could appreciate a good scheme like any follower of Tzeentch, but there were times to move the pawns and times to move the king. So far neither Gendo nor SEELE had done anything braver than castle.
Futaba: *Tzeentchji* “Which is why I’ve been hiding behind a bunch of schemes and using ridiculously circuitous plans to secure my security, all without exposing me to risk even when I’d know more and actually counter the way they fuck with my life by putting myself in danger! …wait.”
Sophia: No, see, it’s brave when he does it, because he has been bestowed a magical set of rules that only apply to him.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 570
Tzeentch, they were probably still blaming one another over that Special Forces incident, not a clue what had happened.
Taion: And if they know what’s good for them, they’ll keep it that way, lest the upset author hit them with a stick for daring to solve this contrivance.
Sophia: While they probably haven’t realized your role in it, I am sure they have realized they would have no ability or purpose to do… all that nonsense.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 247
They were mewling kittens who thought they understood what power meant. They would not, however, survive any direct attacks, trusting their pawns and cat's-paws to take the brunt of any counters by their enemies.
Wanderer2691: -guy who regularly manipulates people deniably, and hides behind his Rubrics.
Sophia: Yes. They are plotting just like you are, and while The Lord of Change forgives a good deal of hypocrisy from his chosen, he is less likely to forgive his own tactics being mocked as cowardice and weakness.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 727
Shinji's growing resolve on the other hand showed that he would not fold up and die when something like this happened to him.
Diego: Particularly given how you have never faced real hardship. Take it from a man mid-metamorphosis into a God of Fungi and Rebirth - vitality is easy to have if you’ve never been exposed to so much as a cold virus, but utterly untrained and fragile.
Emma: You don’t have any resolve, you’re just refusing to give me the satisfaction of watching you self-destruct.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 728
Rei was messed up, her powers having overwhelmed her psyche. But she would recover, and with time and more attention from Shinji, learn to master her powers.
Emma: Ah, yes, the Wimminz is Crazy and Messed Up because she can’t control her powers without Her Manz to handle her. Thankfully, all her Crazy will be fixed just by a man paying romantic attention to her. I’d joke about Victorian Hysteria Treatments, but that would mean she’s being prescribed a vibrator and would therefore be able to replace Tzeentchji.
Futaba: Beyond that - messed up? I literally had the metaphysical equivalent of brain surgery to stop paranoid hallucinations of my mother talking to me! And that still didn’t cure traumatic stress or social anxiety! Mental illness isn’t a thing you debug in a day! If you watched Eva, you’d know that!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 632
Misato was in lock-up, half insane from having killed her best friend in a fit of rage while her family crumbled about her. But she was not yet dead, and there had yet to be a prison constructed that could keep out someone with telekinesis.
Leliel: No matter how much she’d want to get away from you. Though we’re feeling suspicious that she’s been reduced to “Damsel In Distress” here, for Tzeentchji to save…
Emma: I’m just surprised the narrative is acknowledging Misato would be upset over killing Ritsuko in a fit of rage. I wonder how much it strained AN to type that.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 633
Asuka was in a coma, her mind attacked by the full power of an Angel. The battle must have been truly epic to have broken through her Khorne granted mental barriers and caused this much damage.
Taion: So spectacular that we decided to skip it, and we are not letting that go.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OffscreenMomentOfAwesome)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 571 (It’s one of the most key scenes in Eva - being shown in flashback deprives the fic of actually seeing how Arael works and it picking at the neuroses of its target.)
But her soul was not destroyed, Shinji could feel it broken and wounded, but still intact.
Diego: Nocht would disagree heavily on how intact any Khronate’s soul is, but I’m not him, so I’m letting it go. It might not be the soul from before Chaotic influence, but it’s still yours, mostly.
The urge to rush to her and begin the mending process nearly overwhelmed him again, but she was safe for now and it would be imprudent to take the risk at the moment.
Diego: Not so much the fact that, once again, there’s no given reason he can’t at least do something from a distance. I get why he is stealthy, but the fun fact about psychic powers is that they work through glass. And nobody can detect them. At least give her a psychic hug, everyone will think she’s just having a pleasant dream on the EKG.
Sophia: At this point, I think he’s coming up with pitiful excuses to keep her as an object of grief and cause for revenge, rather than someone who could act on her own.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 729
Tzeentch was the god of hope. So long as there was still breath in his body, there was still hope. Hell, he had probably technically been dead for a month and mostly brain dead for another month, and yet here he was.
Wanderer2691: [Facepalming] Selfish. Ambition. But on a related matter - that’s a definition of “hope” that’s more akin to Fortitude - Nurgle’s domain.
Emma: What, are you implying Nurgle might have deeper meaning than never showering and collecting dead animals?
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 316
The time for schemes was passing. The time for war was approaching.
Futaba: The part of me that’s still a would-be Aspirant for the Thousand Scions is outright offended right now. ARCANITES. DO NOT. STOP. SCHEMING! If anything, war gets them going, because of strategy!
Emma: Well, you see, eventually, he has to stop embodying the masculine intellectual ideal and drop it for violence. If he was the masculine intellectual all the time, then he would stop being masculine and become *shudders in faux-horror* effete.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 317
There would be no survivors on the opposing side.
Taion: …and we just put up the buttons. [Sighs and fetches them.]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 730
SEELE? Their flayed hides would become a new decoration for Unit 01.
Wanderer2691: That’s a Khornate thing, Slaanesh if made into fine leather. Tzeentch is into human-skin books.
Emma: This fic is fundamentally unwilling to afford the other gods the respect they deserve by giving them their own domains, presumably because it is so married to Tzeentch being the primary and most important god as the author’s object of worship.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 318
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 731
Gendo? Shinji would take immense pleasure in torturing his father until he was a blubbering pile of flesh devoid of any traits recognizable as human. While this was technically already true of the fucking bastard, Shinji's way would involve far more blood and screaming to get there.
Leliel: I ‘unno, I see a lot more of them in him than you, prick.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 732
Gendo's patsy Fuyutsuki? On him Shinji would test the limits of his telekinesis, see if he could actually crush the mass of a human into neutronium. He doubted it, but it would be interesting to try. Death would probably be instantaneous, a trifling consideration for the fact that Gendo's lackey wasn't as much of an ass as his father.
Futaba: Fun fact: By certain readings, Fuyutsuki is one of the only noble people in NERV’s high command, as his core motive is to undo SEELE, regularly showing dislike for Gendo’s more evil traits. If you could flip anyone into an Arcanite spy network, it’s him - but as we’ve repeatedly discussed, Academia Nut has no idea what actually happened in Eva and only slightly more in 40K, so here, it comes off as just sadism because Fuyutsuki dared to be employed by an object of Tzeentchji’s spite. I think that’s the kind of thing that results in massive dark side point gain.
Emma: Add this to the “Tzeentchji is more of an embodiment of the Imperium than Chaos” pile.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 733
DUMMY PLUGGED: 572
Anyone else who got in his way? Their deaths would be as slow and brutal as Shinji had the time for.
Diego: Because apparently, being a servant of the Architect of Fate means you are a massive ditherer.
Emma: Yes, we get it. Sadism is a sign of strength. Undirected, meaningless sadism is a greater sign of strength. Hell, as far as this fucking… literary mistake is concerned, undirected meaningless sadism is a sign of caring, provided you can say you’re doing it for someone who you’ve left helpless and alone.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 734
But for now, Shinji would secure his flanks. At this point, he only had two major points of weakness: the incapacitated Asuka and Misato. If anyone actually wanted to hurt him, the only thing they could do to cause lasting damage would be to kill either of those two. This was to say that Gendo had the perfect hostages. Since busting Misato out of jail would be the equivalent of an open declaration of war, such a move would have to come after he healed Asuka.
Wanderer2691: This, Leliel and I…don’t have an issue with, in and of itself. It’s a fair point, and I’d hope they would be cared enough to be considered viable hostages. And Misato is in the middle of a bunch of guards.
Emma: I’m going to be kind of a bitch and take issue. We’ve talked a lot about how Asuka especially is portrayed as an inherent, feminine weakness to Tzeentchji’s pure masculinity, and about all the harem members suffering being made about Tzeenchji. This feels like the complete synthesis of both those things.
Sophia: Especially since his devotion to convoluted plans even by Arcanite standards and his over-the-top sadism don’t count as weaknesses.
Leliel: …good points! Worth a point here, in context.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 634
Healing the psychic damage would require all of his attention, leaving him vulnerable. He needed a guardian to watch over him while he did his work. Rei would work if he asked her to, but why settle for one guardian when he could have four?
Leliel: This is also fine, in and of itself. We chewed out Tzeentchji refusing to give Asuka the okay, but a more involved procedure likely needs more eyes on his back. So naturally, he and Rei-
Reluctantly and with great sorrow and bitterness, Shinji turned away from the observation window and said to Rei, "I have things I must do."
Leliel: -oh yeah, he has a pathological need to stop his harem from ever possibly doing anything cool, even as a bodyguard.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 635
Find Gendo, find him as the doll obedient to him I knew when we first met. Get close to him, find out his plans and FUCK THEM UP. Let Nurgle's rot into all of his schemes and befoul them. Do as much damage as you can possibly get away with.
Futaba: …uh…isn’t that a great way to risk exposure for no good reason? Like…nothing’s stopping from her just reporting what she sees.
Diego: Because if not, then we would have to have a plot that isn’t End of Evangelion regurgitated. So she has to be there.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 248
Rei made no sound or expression, simply staring on until Shinji had left, at which point she walked away, smiling on the inside.
Taion: Oh, look at her recovering with how his nobility has reignited her. How…heartwarming. In the sense of a burn…
Emma: I’d get angrier, but I think I need to save my energy.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 636
It took Shinji a good ten minutes of walking through the halls of NERV to figure out what had changed in his absence.
Wanderer2691: …does anyone hear beeping-
(https://www.redbubble.com/i/magnet/Bullshit-O-Meter-by-mdkgraphics/7761993.TBCTK)
…oh hell. EVERYBODY, COVER YOUR NOSES!
When he had first arrived NERV had been a sombre, almost morbidly serious place. Life with Gendo as commander had bred into them a sense that the world was coming to an end and that they would be the first ones to pay for any screw up. But under Shinji's subtle influences he had brought hope to the place. With his insane stunts, demands for better, and the ability to quickly recover from what most people would consider disasters, he had inspired a feeling of hope in the entire base.
He had never noticed it until he saw howit had been ruthlessly stamped out in his absence.
Leliel: [Through gas mask] I am so glad we never uninstalled that Imminent Bullshit Sensor.
Futaba: [Fingers hurriedly jammed up her nose] Did Taion know that, though?
Taion: [Spawled on the ground]
Sophia: He has not filled them with hope in the sense that he has made them believe things will be better, you see. Rather, his presence has revealed that there are worse things than the apocalypse.
Diego: [Inhales deeply] Smells like nitrogen and denatured proteins. My fungal symbiotes find that, at least, a silver lining. As for this, though…while Tzeentch might favor those with messiah complexes, it does not make it any less greatly egotistical to assume that your glory hounding and demands alone brought hope to an area. Especially when we don’t have any actual described evidence this is the case.
Wanderer2691: Like…how do you measure that? If it’s postcognition, I get it, psyker with a link to a Dark God who’s distinctly related to time as a concept, but if that’s the case, why isn’t it explicit? Is there a bunch of notes that go “I’ll have you know, ever since the Golden Boy left I’ve been feeling very depressed.”
Emma: This is one of those things that, between the way Tzeentchji treats people and the lack of characterization for any NERV staff, I have to read this as Tzeentchji just making shit up.
Leliel: In fact, since I’m not going to get a better chance to talk about him - there’s a villain from a fan mod for a 4X strategy game without a set story that does everything Tzeentchji claims he did for NERV, only with actual logic and competence - because he actually uses precognition right!
(https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/x4waop/the_new_official_portrait_for_gigastructural/)
Wanderer2691: …Well, he certainly has several points over Tzeentchji in cuteness. All Hail Otto von Pawsmark!
Leliel: Kaiser Kattail here is from a popular free mod of the extensive space 4X strategy game Stellaris, specifically Gigastructural Engineering And More, focused on expanding the tech tree - and creating new Crisis Factions, effectively NPC-only boss factions that are a campaign’s final test. Kattail here is the leader of one of them, the Katzernartig Imperium - except while most Crisis Factions, including in the mod, are ancient monsters or sealed evils, the Imperium begins as a seemingly normal, if hypermilitaristic and expansionist, space polity that suddenly becomes absurdly competent as soon as Kattail takes command. To make a long story short - if you follow up on a story beat after you defeat him, you discover it’s because he’s done this before. Kattail’s a survivor from previous iterations of the universe, many of which had a Katzernartig Imperium with a nearly identical culture, and after hundreds of times he’s jumped across resets, he’s developed an intuitive sense for how his people’s culture and strengths generally develop, plus thousands of years of experience. Since he knows how people developed in previous iterations, he has functional precognition, as he saw people make the same exact choices dozens of times, and only that low because those people don’t always exist - and that tail of his has designs for hundreds of advanced inventions his people already made in previous Cycles, meaning he can skip a lot of research and development time. Thus, while he’s a jokester, it’s because he’s doing something he knows works in a way that avoids him getting bored after the six hundredth time - and, of course, given how he can just jump to the next cycle whenever, he’s usually not taking his efforts too seriously to begin with.
Futaba: If this sounds like the God-Emperor of Mankind, but a bit goofier…you’re not wrong. Kattail explicitly has the worst combination of savior complex and megalomania, he’s convinced only he can resist horrors he’s seen across his various incarnations - and a complete refusal to believe that the universe cannot be made utopia by him ruling it. The in-universe reason he can show up in multiple games is that he flees into his time portal the moment things go too bad for him to feel comfortable, leaving the Imperium to pick up the slack…because he’s convinced he can travel back once he’s made his utopia. He can’t; that’s not how universal iterations work in the mod’s lore, you can only jump forward past the cosmic reset that is the Unraveling due to the timeline itself being scrubbed of the past - from your temporal location, all times before are literally no longer existent. But it’s something he’d be incapable of ever doing and admitting that would involve him accepting he’s condemned the population of his entire spacefaring nation to suffer Hylia-knows-how-many times because he keeps losing his nerve and running - he’s no coward, but he’s convinced himself his life and the data in his cybernetics is the only irreparable loss.
Taion: [Comes to] …one can possess all the knowledge in the world, and the knowledge that for you, you can always start anew…and yet one often cannot overcome one’s own need for a feeling of control. I can sympathize, at least academically…quite unlike Tzeentchji, because for Kattail, he has actual proof he is a superhumanly skilled leader and put in the work to be so. For the pint-sized prick? It’s because he wasn’t there to grace NERV with his presence. Ten points!
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 744
Emma: And then… Jesus Christ he wanks for five fucking paragraphs about how much he forgot and how he slipped and how could this ever have happened, because Tzeentchji isn’t an overpowered self-insert whose writer turned god-mode on, we swear! It’s all garbage, cut it.
*Sporking vanishes in a puff of technicoloured smoke*
Emma: Well, that’s worrying.
Sophia: *smirking*
Emma: Well that’s even more worrying.
Wanderer2691: Uh…yeah. But, it’s gone now. So first, this… [activates Purity Seals] Second, to Tzeentchji: Shut. Uuuuuup….
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 749 (One for each paragraph of how it affects him and how the only one possible could be Tzeentch, instead of bad luck.)
Diego: I mean…on the one hand, I get why he’s starting to suspect his own god is going against him. Tzeentch’s plans only consider his followers so far as they are self-aware pawns. For an Arcanite to realize their god might be screwing them over is something that they all deal with, and it’s as close to humility as they get. On the other hand - essentially, the only way he can consider himself having lost control of the situation is “Tzeentch has decided to screw with me.” Not Gendo, who he supposedly fears finding out. Not SEELE, who he despises. Tzeentch. Literally the Great Conspirator is capable of outwitting or using him. How egotistical can you get?
Futaba: And once again - if this was an explicit flaw, it wouldn’t be as annoying. But here, it’s the basic lore. This story wants us to think that Tzeentchji is such a good planner only the intervention of the Dark God of Intrigue could screw him over. In spite of the very premise being that Tzeentchji inherited Gendo’s manipulativeness, and so, the author knows he’s got skill points in Plan Elaborate Scheme. Like, I’d expect the behavior from a sub-boss whose scheme is collapsing around his ears while the real villain swipes what he can, knowing this progresses his actual goal - except that’d be funny or cathartic! Don Corneo died with more dignity than you’re showing!
Leaving Central Dogma behind, Shinji discovered the devastation to the Geofront for the first time. There were huge craters within the Geofront, presumably from the fight with the Fourteenth Angel, and the underground forests had all been burned to the ground.
Taion: A reminder the Fourteenth is Zeruel, and we do get some lovely examples of the kind of destructive power both threw at each other…which is nice, except for the fact we saw none of it. It comes off as the author’s fundamental lack of confidence in portraying a fight scene where his vaunted main character actually faced difficulty, no matter how “awesome” his powers are. We see so much, and all of it is pointless, because whatever tension died over the flashback.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodModeSue)
Next…we have eight paragraphs of description, and all we learn is “reconstruction was stalled due to the loss of a power generator”! That’s it! One point for author filler each of these damned paragraphs, and I am beginning to suspect we need a filler count!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 256
Leliel: But, before we move on, we do see that Academia Nut, for all his faults, has his priorities in order.
Looking down at the road, he also noted the fact that he was standing in a size 400 boot print, the Nike swoosh clearly visible in the centre.
Leliel: Namely, that sincerity and reflecting on the cost of war is for squares and he’s funny! HE’S FUNNY DAMMIT, LAUGH AT THE CALLBACK! LAAAAAAUGH! And then stop laughing, because it’s not funny, and just reminds us how greedy Tzeentchji is, that he recognizes himself via product placement.
Emma: This is what he remembers? This is what he gives priority in the solemn scene meant to be Tzeentchji realizing he failed? The joke that wasn’t even funny the first time?
Diego: Ah, but we are not materialistic greedy techbros, like what this fic believes is the pinnacle of humanity. Kneel before their…’insight.’
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 750 (A reminder more than a new thing, but he didn’t remove it yet, and it’s how he recognizes himself?!)
Taion: Anyway, Tzeentchji realizes he needs to stay in the shared apartment, when he discovers something.
Climbing the stairs, because the elevator was no longer working, Shinji arrived at the apartment and realized after a few seconds that he no longer had the key on him. Shrugging, he unlocked it telekinetically and walked inside… to see the debris from the emotional wreckage Misato and Asuka had suffered.
Wanderer2691: For the love of- [Buttons out] Should we just leave this on the table?! It’s getting more work getting them out!
Leliel: Given how much this particular button also ties to homophobia, it’s not a bad idea. I can smell the chauvinism, and I’m the most standard cis het man. If I’m cringing at this…
Emma: Leave them out. It’ll save us time.
Leliel: Check. Balance there, and…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 637
The pigsty he had discovered upon his initial arrival was nothing compared to this.
Futaba: …yup, they’re not capable of living without their MAAAAAAAAN. Fuck’s sake, I could keep house even when suffering from paranoid delusions and agoraphobia…
Emma: Lots of people do lose an ability to housekeep in the face of terrible mental health. That’s not false. The problem here is the consistent revolving around Tzeentchji. He’s inconvenienced by the mess, losing him is the worst thing that’s ever happened (in the lives of two of the main characters of NEON GENESIS EVANGELION). I’m not bothered by the event, I’m bothered by its framing.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 638
Even back then, Misato made the occasional effort to bag her garbage, to do some chores on an infrequent basis. It seemed that somewhere along the line, she had simply stopped caring, and Asuka had done nothing to fix the situation.
Diego: While on the one hand, Khorne is not the God of Cleanliness, as shown by how World Eater armor is apparently painted red…on the other hand, I wonder why Asuka isn’t concerned. Especially if she feels it’ll hurt Misato’s efficiency in battle. You know, besides the lack of MAAAAAAN depriving her of agency.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 639
DUMMY PLUGGED: 573
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 319
The piles of garbage were geological in their thickness and significance. At the bottom were the empty beer cans and instant noodle containers, but as he moved up the liquor got harder and the food cheaper and nastier. He felt like an archaeologist, but instead of sifting through the remains of a long vanished civilization, these were the stages of the implosion of a human being.
Futaba: For the record; while in canon, Shinji came out of the plug conscious and…well, not ready, but able to fight after reconstituting, Misato still went through the wringer, and him simply being alive, but comatose, would probably support her through a desperate hope he might recover. Second…given what she eats and how she treats herself, how could you tell? Also, wow, so Slaaneshi, much dedication to work, wow.
Sophia: None of these women have gods. For this writer, the depths of worship are reserved for men alone. Their god is their man, and everything else is filtered through that.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 640
DUMMY PLUGGED: 574
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 320 (Yeah, that was sarcastic - Slaaneshi Hedonites double down and try to out-perfect themselves when discouraged, they don’t give up.)
He began to pick everything up before pausing to consider the point of it all. He shook the feeling off though. He would not descend into apathy and despair; that was Nurgle's shtick. Even if it was futile, even if he never came here again, he would clean up this place, for it was still his home.
Leliel: *Nurgle* “Oh so now you recognize a shrine to my putrescent magnificence, slave of my most respected rival.” More seriously - Academia Nut, read what you just wrote? You’re literally saying that this is Nurglite behavior! Also, Da Man cleaning to show Responsibility (™). As opposed to caring for the actual people…
Emma: I have an answer in addition to “Academia Nut doesn’t understand how the Gods work”, but you all aren’t going to like it. Yeah, this is very un-Slaaneshi behaviour, but maybe that’s because, as far as AN is concerned, Misato’s life revolves so much around Tzeentchji than with him gone, she loses every personality trait.
Sophia: If we’re meant to see her as so eventually devout, any collapse of her support systems and day-to-day life should drive her further to her god. I believe the ah- initiate- has the right of it.
Emma: I’m just a normal amount of annoyed. Nothing suspicious is happening.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 321
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 641
With the main living area sanitized and cleaned a few hours later, Shinji stopped at the doors to the rooms, wondering what he would find on the other side. Ultimately, he left Misato and Asuka's rooms alone. Those places were surely either their own private havens, or own private hells, and it was not his place to intrude upon them, not yet, not without them at his side.
Wanderer2691: Yeah, their clothes and sanctity of minds are way less inviolate than rooms they currently aren’t in and might help you figure out where to start when doing psychic surgery. Prick.
Emma: You made a big deal about how you can always see through Asuka’s clothes! Now you have boundaries?
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 642
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 751
So instead he entered his own room, flashlight in hand now that he no longer had the sun to light his way in this powerless place.
Taion: …so he’s alone…in the dark…[Insane smirk]
Futaba: I’ll open the portal with my mind, you use your Mondo and magic to lure the Metroid…
After blinking a few times to absorb it all, he was suddenly glad he had not intruded upon the sanctity of either of his housemates' rooms. Crudely carved into the walls a la 'The Shining' were endless repetitions of the phrases "Come back!" and "I need you!" in three different languages. The bed was a complete wasteland, Asuka apparently having clung to the last traces of his presence as desperately as possible.
Creepy did not begin to cover it.
Leliel:
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/tZxDazWLjS0AAAAC/dog-awkward.gif)
Not…for the reasons you claim…
Taion: What creepiness? He only claimed that simply not being present and/or comatose caused his comrade and lover to spiral into a pit of general insanity and repetitive ritual that should have been obvious long before her own mind shattered, simply due to her lacking the power of his penis. Seems entirely reasonable to me…you know, before I knew what sex and romance were as concepts…five points, for the sheer hubris of it.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 647
Emma: This might be one of the most obnoxiously generic depictions of “wooo, spooky crazy hysterical woman, woooo” I’ve ever seen. She carved into the walls (and you even namedropped The Shining, just to make sure we all knew you’d never had an original idea in your life) and slept in Tzeentchji’s bed! It’s not just misogynist, it’s lazy.
Sighing, Shinji just shook his head and gathered up his things. Obviously he had not done enough to help Asuka with her problems before being incapacitated and she had slid back into her dependent state. Just one more thing he would have to deal with
Diego: …ah yes, your girlfriend going into possessive and scrawled insanity just without your presence is a problem to deal with and not a sign you should have been more careful and/or appreciation of how fragile she was in this insane spin on her character. Relatedly, fuck off Tzeentchji.
Emma: *with an exaggerated, sarcastic grin* Well, he doesn’t need to be more careful, because as long as he can serve as her complete emotional crutch, it doesn’t matter what her problems are! You don’t need to fix codependency if you can just make sure you’re never apart!
Taion: …er… [Dives back into his Claw-memories, and starts looking for lore of Oh God That Is Not A Smile.]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 752
Settling down on one of the couches in the living room, Shinji relaxes and thinks about what he will have to do tomorrow.
Futaba: [Winces from aggressively trying to NOT read his mind]
First, perform psychic surgery on Asuka, pulling her back together. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
Leliel: For no good reason, you’d just draw attention.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 753
Second, bust Misato out of jail and try to fix her issues. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
Wanderer2691: …second verse, same as the first. And the rest…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 754
Third, kill Gendo and Fuyutsuki. Use Misato's expertise to assume control of NERV. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 755
Fourth, find and hunt down SEELE. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 756
Fifth, wrap up this whole Angel business, playing out the end game. There was only one left anyway.
Shinji's eyes, which had been drooping up to that point, snapped open in shock. How do I know that there is only one Angel left?
Taion: Because Academia Nut does not understand humor, and should have finished with ‘kill anyone who stood in his way, and also take their brains to see what fascinating breakdown in neurons led to siding with the genocidal kaiju incapable of communication’ to even begin to be funny.
Sophia: I don’t think he even realized the repetition was funny. It’s just routine to him to kill all opposition, in a way deeply opposed to servants of the Lord of Change.
Taion: Also, to answer his question:
From the depths of his mind more of that mysterious, unpronounceable language drifted up, telling him things he did not yet understand.
Diego: *Academia Nut* “Oh shit oh shit how do I switch tacks uh oh crap I’ve been too busy polishing trophies oh shit I am completely lost how do I handwave…”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 257
Zf'patz'intchix'krew'v'tzint'chiah'qbuy…
Sophia: Your hovercraft is full of what?
Wanderer2691: Still not Dark Speech, dude, but at least it’s consistently uncanon. Not that it matters…
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 322
And yet… in those alien syllables, there was some glimmer of meaning, of comprehension. He now knew in his bones that this was the endgame. There was but one Angel left, the war almost over. Gendo and SEELE would soon be obsolete…
Futaba: And also, he needed pain medication for all the knowledge he just pulled out of his ass with a hand marked CHAOS: I AIN’T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT.
Emma: Have you ever heard that if you find yourself writing “somehow” or “for some reason” to explain a character’s actions that’s a problem and you need to flesh it out? “In his bones” is filling the same role here. It’s not even “in universe psychic” it’s just “knows how many episodes base-EVA has”.
Wanderer2691: And for the record - this weirdly informative whispering of daemons? Yeah, the only daemon here is a Keeper of Secrets, which is Slaaneshi - while they are knowledgeable lords of the Warp, the thing is, they don’t exactly give out knowledge for free. It’s explicitly used as part of temptation - there are other daemons infinitely more likely to simply tip their hands freely to taunt you about it being too late or to see what happens, like, oh I dunno…a Lord of Change, aka your own Dark God’s Greater Daemon?
(https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Lord_of_Change)
Leliel: Trust me, when we discover the real reason it’s a Keeper of Secrets and not a Lord of Change in spite of our main character being an Arcanite? Everyone’s gonna freak out a bit - and it makes this sudden revelation come off as even more of an asspull.
Sophia: I assume a Lord of Change simply isn’t… appealing enough to his tastes.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 258
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 323
Fuck! Why was I so distracted these past months?
Taion: Because you are an impulsive child who thinks with his penis and wallet?
As soon as I learned of SEELE I should have moved more strongly against them, learned more about their plans and capabilities. They're all greedy bastards; they can't be doing this simply out of enlightened self interest, there has to be something they want once this war is over.
Diego: No. Really? We never would have guessed!
Futaba: Honestly, this comes off as yet more of the author’s inability to process people who don’t think exactly like him, especially when being selfish, might be just as competent. It’s either a plan or bust.
Sophia: It is entirely possible that SEELE is doing this because they genuinely think it is best for not just them, or anyone. That does not make them less dangerous, and probably makes them more dangerous, if it means they cannot be bribed or bought.
What do they want anyway? Power obviously, for that was all people like that ever wanted, but to what end? What could they get out of this? Aside from their own survival, what purpose was there to their actions… damn it, I should have hunted one of the bastards down and ripped the information out of him.
Futaba: Leaving aside the torture-rattle being shaken by this giant baby - fuck off Tzeentchji -
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 757
I find it really telling the story defaults to the idea of “power”, and doesn’t even consider the idea that SEELE are genuinely religious fanatics that see Instrumentality as transcendence. Now, to be entirely fair, supplementary data that shows that SEELE wanted personal Instrumentality while leaving the rest of the species out was already published, but for one we doubt Academia Nut’s scholarship for many reasons, for two…it still involves loss of self. They’d still be joined into one overmind with nobody truly being first among equals. But for Academia Nut, the idea that anyone would willingly give up agency like that…this is something his worldview can’t accept, so we have vague motions at Da Real Plan instead of admitting “they want to be a god-mind, and are just altruistic enough to accept merging with each other, because they’re fanatics.”
Emma: I think this says a lot about the blank, unbelievable pettiness of this fic’s writing. Like, yeah, SEELE has selfish motivations, but they genuinely believe what they’re doing is right. That’s scarier in a lot of ways, it’s more interesting because it means they can’t just be written off, and it makes more sense for a series that refuses to have conventional heroes to refuse to have conventional villains. If the protagonists are tormented by their inability to handle relationships, the antagonists are people who think they’ve found the answer to all that. But, you know, that’s deep and also it would make SEELE a much better option than Tzeentchji, so we can’t have that.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 575
Shinji then considered what he wanted once this war was over, once he had his father's face flayed off and stapled to his personal memoirs.
Wanderer2691: Lemme think - money, chicks, praise, a place to wank out his sadistic impulses? Like, this desire to have a trophy for no good reason beyond hate obsession?
Sophia: Leaving aside the petty moral concerns… why would you want to dignify your father by binding your writings in his flesh? You’re elevating him in a way he doesn’t deserve.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 758
He had power, love, and family, or at least the pieces of such things at the moment. He still easily had another 75 years to live, if not longer with his expanded powers of the Warp. There was so much he could do.
Leliel: Ah, that’s the important thing. How much you are impacted in all this and what you’re going to do to maintain your harem and sense of control. But go on, please explain how you’re better than Gendo.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 759
Eh… he would wipe out everyone who had opposed him so far and then think about conquering the world/galaxy/etc. He would definitely have to see how this world related to the home of his mentor. Maybe if he got back there he could make a play for ascension to daemonhood. Would probably take a couple of centuries, but he was still young, he still had plenty of time to figure things out.
Diego: …and he immediately ignores everything in favor of reaching for power and immortality. Not how his supposed ‘family’ is suffering. Great work there, asshole.
Sophia: Please, try to ascend. We have a whole pit full of the writhing forms of the failed Daemon Princes of the Great Conspirator.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 760
Futaba: And it continues like that, with Tzeentchji deciding the next day is the “Day of Thunder'' and revealing he somehow kept his weapons and some new “monastic robes” that are actually 20 million yen technobabble super armor that can face-tank anything below tank rounds, oooh. For the deep lore, at the time of writing, this amount of yen is 124,667 USD. The average cheap military drone costs about 70,000 USD, at minimum. Tzeentchji built a supertechnology for nearly two of the “glorified security camera” kind of drone, and well in the “disposable” range. Well, either that, or Academia Nut is a moron who doesn’t know a yen is the equivalent of a Japanese cent at most.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 260 (one for new STUFF (™), one for none of this being found.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 576 (I suppose it could be that the yen greatly increased in value post Second Impact…but given how at its height, 80 yen was equivalent to 1 USD in 1995, I doubt if it’s suddenly less numerous.)
He had but one thing he wanted to do before he left. Climbing the stairs, he arrived upon the roof of the apartment and looked around. As he had suspected, Horus was still waiting for him, far more loyal than his namesake.
Taion: [Flatly] I cannot help but see this presentation of his pet as a brag by showing how much more loyal an actual bird is compared to a renegade general. Who was also a person, not a trained and probably psychically brainwashed falcon.
Sophia: Why do you, as a servant of Chaos, care about Ishtar, or Horus’, loyalty?
Emma: Hey, yeah! He has no reason to be judgmental about Horus’ loyalty. Modern 41st millenium’s problem with Horus is that he failed to overthrow the Emperor, but their ideology is built on it being the right thing to do in the first place. Put another one in the “AN is actually an Imperium fanboy” column, I guess.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 761 (Nice dig at the Warmaster there, asshole.)
The bird immediately fluttered over to Shinji's shoulder and alighted there.
Stroking the raptor's head, Shinji looked it in the eye. "Sorry about the absence, I just came up to tell you that today everything changes. You may never see me again, or you may get your choice of hunting grounds and breeding partners in the future. Only time will tell really. You may however, wish to vacate the area as I'm not sure how bad the fireworks will be, and I'm sure you've been distressed by everything that has been happening so far."
Wanderer2691: Wait, so…that was it? Telling the bird to leave?
Somehow the wild animal understood Shinji and flew off, making for some place as far from Tokyo-3 as possible. Mainland China perhaps.
Leliel: …that was it. Phew, Academia Nut nearly had to juggle a subplot there, that’d cause an aneurysm! Also, what was the point of his existence? Like…seriously? Just once time showing off, and then…no falcon. Why.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 261
Just as Shinji was about to turn to leave, an old bulldog slumped over to him. It took him a moment to piece things together, but he realized that this must have been one of the creatures drawn to Asuka.
Diego: …how intriguing. I’d have liked to have seen this, given how only Nurgle is associated with animal life without effort. Also, what is the point of this canine, too?! It was literally just introduced!
Emma: One of the creatures drawn to Asuka, which were of course established well before this, and which we knew SO MUCH about *eyeroll*.
As the saying went always be wary of scarred old men, because the only thing you knew of them was that they were survivors. This dog was clearly a survivor, probably some victim of abuse, perhaps a fighter in illegal gambling operations before fleeing into the streets.
Wanderer2691: …because as might be obvious, Fic Is Author’s Edgy Babby And He Wuvs It. Somehow I get the idea we’re supposed to be impressed with dogfighting scars.
Leliel: Fun fact, fighting breeds are actually the friendliest towards humans, on average. I should know, I own two derivations of bulldogs, Boston Terriers, and they are simultaneously hunting dogs out of a fox hole and cuddle monsters towards anything humanoid. Fuck off, Tzeent-I mean, Academia Nut.
Emma: I think I read somewhere that fighting dogs are bred for high prey drive and dog aggression, but low human aggression, to reduce the risk of them turning on their handlers.
Leliel: …disturbingly plausible. At least Zeus and Juno are more dangers to themselves when walking near large animals, but still - and if anything, offends me more about “ooh, cool fighting dog.”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 262 (WHY. DOES THIS. DOG. EXIST? Beyond “this is totes normal Chaos and Tzeentchji is not that Speshul for a falcon, pinkie promise.”)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 324
Wary of the creature, Shinji still addressed it and said, "Well then, I suppose you should know that today I go to aid your mistress, and when we return, your loyalty shall surely be rewarded as well."
The old dog just 'harrumphed' and went off to lie down again. Apparently the old gladiator was unimpressed with the young sorcerer.
Taion: This canine possesses extremely good taste and a refined sense of perception.
Futaba: Bite! Bite! Bite! You can reach a sensitive area!
Leaving the apartment behind, Shinji began his trek back to NERV in the predawn light. Looking over the schedules at the train station, he found that the nearest reliable line was still further away, and if he wanted to get to NERV before noon he would have to use that line instead of waiting around all day for a train to show up closer.
Wanderer2691: And for once, him actually trying to get to Asuka ASAP is not something we can criticize, even if it is a little dumb to go back to the lion’s den. It’s compelling dumb. Unlike…
Furthering his trek into the dawn, Shinji paused at the edge of the new lake created by the devastation of the fights with the Angels and wondered at the futility of it all. For all they had advanced, for all they had evolved, even with the Evas progressively losing Pilots, the Angels still kept losing this war, and they only had one shot left at this.
Did they even realize how fucked they were?
Wanderer2691: …this dumbassery, which is just long, empty boasting about how Supah a Shinji he is, and generic-ass Humanity Fuck Yeah - there’s a time and place for it, but when it’s clear the only reason humanity has such a win record is the author writing one-handed while The Explsion Channel plays on repeat over butt rock at max volume, it isn’t nearly as impressive as it thinks.
Emma: Also if they’re fucked, why shouldn’t the go out fighting? The Angels have nothing left to lose.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 762 (Even if it is right by author fiat, it’s still overconfidence and snob arrogance after he was put in a hospital for months by an Angel.)
Leliel: And next is…oh Dark Gods. Here we go…
Diego: I call foul. We have too low expectations for disappointment. It’s more of an unending queue line in the summer of a dull continuous ache.
Shinji's reverie of the thought was interrupted by the sound of humming. Looking to the side, Shinji notes a young man sitting casually on a ruined statue of an angel, observing the rising of the sun. With ashen grey hair, red eyes, and a youthful appearance, he appeared as a more upbeat, male version of Rei.
Emma: *Suddenly leans forwards, like a cat who’s seen a bird* It begins.
Futaba: So it does…[Crushes nose]
"Hello," Shinji said.
"Hello Ikari Shinji-san," the boy replied warmly.
"I see my reputation precedes me. I am afraid that you thus have me at a disadvantage, for I know not your name," Shinji said.
Smiling broadly, the young man tells him, "My name is Nagisa Kaworu, Ikari-san. I am the Sixth Child."
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Kaworu_Nagisa)
Emma: Yeah, so, this is Kaworu. He’s the Sixth Child. He’s also a human-form Angel, sent by SEELE to effectively infiltrate NERV. As Tabris, he’s the angel of Free Will and is not… particularly invested in the plots of his creators. *beat* He also has incredibly obvious romantic feelings for Shinji, and while Shinji is unable to reciprocate for a variety of reasons, it’s a misinterpretation of “Fight Club is about how violent masculinity is cool and good” levels to say that Shinji isn’t attracted to Kaworu and doesn’t want to reciprocate. The most uncomplicated, genuine love Shinji is offered in canon is romantic and from another boy, and Shinji losing him is what really pushes him past the point of no return. *suddenly grinning manically* Implying looking beyond heteronormativity is the path to happiness? We can’t have that.
Leliel: He’s also what really throws a lot of how alien the Angels are into relief, and the fundamental tragedy of fighting entities that simply cannot disobey their programming. He’s a genuinely kind and sweet boy…that accepts his purpose is to cause Third Impact as a law of nature, to the point where, in canon, he lets Shinji kill him - encourages him, even! - because he realizes Shinji’s goal is to stop Third Impact, and he values Shinji’s happiness. In addition, while this is often missed - much as how Rei is a human-scale version of Lilith, Kaworu is one of Adam. Thus, he’s a very key look at how even the cause of Second Impact thinks, and it’s clear he holds nothing resembling malice - just a scientific fascination with humans, albeit as a thing that may need to be wiped away for the species he was actually programmed to culture.
Wanderer2691: Academia Nut, naturally, does not process - or want to process - any of this, because otherwise, Xenos Not Bad, and seeing as how his idea of “Good Chaos” is the Imperium with a death metal skin…
"Please, call me Shinji, Nagisa-san," Shinji answered smoothly.
"Only if you will call me Kaworu," Kaworu said.
Futaba: And going by “canon, but worse”, this is taking something that’s in canon and then completely butchering it to start working on how this fic really wants to us hate him. Because this also came with some much-needed appreciation and pep talk, which is what sent Shinji crushing on him hard…and Kaworu was the one who suggested calling him by his first name originally to help seem more approachable. Here, Tzeentchji is working faster to make it seem like Kaworu’s being overly familiar…when canonically, I expect his handler would have probably read “Tzeentchji has been out for a while, but has a good social life” to him, and thus, even at his most amoral IC portrayal, it’d take the form of sympathy that so much of his life self-destructed, and that it’s fine to take a second to breathe. But that’d involve, once again, Xenos Not Bad.
Diego: Pay no attention to the T’au or Eldar behind the curtain, they’ve never emphasized with humans! Ever! Who are you going to believe, AN or your lying eyes?!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 576
EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 325 (Just so the sarcasm is clear - yes, they can and do. Eldar mostly hide it behind snobbiness and there’s a tinge of “recruiter” when T’au do it, but what makes them dangerous in a fight with other forces is that they actually do some research on their opponents and try to see things from their perspective. There’s a reason T’au are good at recruiting and Eldar good at manipulating)
"Very well," Shinji said with a slight nod. "I must say though, that your presence here is… unusual, no?"
"Oh, the fact that they called up a new Pilot when the last battle left NERV without any Pilots, although your awakening is indeed fortuitous, is strange?" Kaworu asked lightly.
Taion: Well, no it isn’t, otherwise, the author might have to do work. No point, because the main character does need to be conscious for this and it is not that much of a contrivance, but…the issue is larger than that.
"No, I mean that you seemed overly happy in the face of this devastation, humming a song even," Shinji pointed out, although his voice is non-accusatory.
Emma: Yeah, it would be terrible to hum a song to cheer yourself up. Not like good wholesome reactions like… flaying your father alive and making a couch out of him, or whatever it was.
Sophia: Tell me, does your culture consider music effeminate?
Emma: Fuck. Sometimes, yeah. Fuck, that’s it.
Leliel: Also, rampant hypocrisy. Because, need we remind you: Tzeentchji is a cellist, and made a classical cover of Master of Puppets by Metallica. And he did so as “cover.” Yeah, no, pull the other one, you enjoy music and explicitly do so to relieve stress, like how Kaworu’s singing.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 577
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 763
And don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG, it’s more of…well, you need the full context. And we’d be here all day otherwise.
Smiling, Kaworu answered, "Songs are good. Singing brings us joy. It is the highest point in the culture that Lilims have created."
Chuckling, Shinji asked, "Oh really?"
Frowning slightly, Kaworu asked, "You do not appreciate song?"
Wanderer2691: Of course he doesn’t, being an uncultured pig who is deeply disturbed by how culture isn’t completely like his hobbies and wants very badly to be objectively right - er, a “rationalist.”
Diego: I would like to remind everyone the effective ruler of all Great Old Ones and the beating nucleus of the universe itself, Azathoth, is so lost in dreams that he is functionally mindless…except for a primal love of music to the point where he has an entire demigod species of musicians just to perform lullabies for him and all his magic involves other forms of song. So, peanut gallery comment, music is the alpha and omega of existence. Your move, Tzeentchji.
"Hardly. I simply do not think it the high point of culture, merely a manifestation of the high point," Shinji explained.
Grinning, Kaworu turns his head to the side in a lopsided manner and asked, "Oh, do tell."
"The high point of any culture is its survival," Shinji said.
Taion: …speaking as a member of a resistance group against what Diego called vampires that turned my world into an eternal war to feast on in the name of survival…fuck off, Tzeentchji. I want to preface everything we say with that. “I wish to survive” is the base excuse of any kind of selfish behavior you can think of, because rarely is someone stopping at personal comfort and continued being. Or stays with survival as their core motive.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 764
"I would think that would be the base," Kaworu pointed out.
"Then your thinking is woefully linear. At what point of a mountain do you differentiate from the 'base' and the 'apex' when it is all one whole? Music that lifts the soul will further the survival of a culture, but it can only appear when the culture itself ensures survival. The greatest pieces of music were all composed before Second Impact because we were not riding the edge of survival, and thus we had the time and resources to spare to such beautiful creations. But now that the wounds are healing, that the war with the Angels is reaching its conclusion, the songs are coming back out. They are proclaiming that we will not be bowed, that we have survived, that we will survive," Shinji elaborated.
Emma: Oh, you dumb little motherfucker. Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: it’s wrong. Or not wrong, but it’s not universally applicable. All through human history, people have placed higher, more abstract needs over the base. Not everyone, and I don’t blame people who chose food and security, but it happens. People have died for their art, people have fled physically stable situations where they were closeted to live on the streets but out. The whole point of a culture is not its survival, it’s making it worthwhile that it survives, and you just can’t handle that because it might mean your nonsensical “hard men making hard decisions” militarism isn’t completely justifiable and the greatest good.
Futaba: Exactly. This is the same kind of shit Madarame and Kaneshiro told Kage and the rest, and I was there for Okumura…and in a roundabout sense so did Kamoshida. Survival of his sanity, but trust me - his exact quote was “all those goddamn hyenas forcing their expectations on me...! I'm doing this all for them!” And he felt his…games were ways he could remain on top of the world doing it. The only time I ever saw it be even relatively justified was with Prosecutor Nijima, who was just borderline corrupt due to fear of being hit with workplace misogyny if she wasn’t hypercompetent, and Toshiro Kasukabe, who actively wasn’t doing anything corrupt, just kind of spineless around his dad until he finally stood up for himself. “Survival” is a thought-terminating cliche of a motive, not an actual sympathetic villain origin story. Not by itself, and not without actual good qualities to show that no, really, this baddie sincerely thinks they need to repress anything virtuous in them to survive.
Diego: This reminds me of the worst kind of Sorcerers from my world. The ones who don’t just refuse to recognize their powers are ultimately ones that require luck and Fate’s interest to even have a chance to seize through will, but see the divine as a resource. You, Tzeentchji, are the kind of person who doesn’t want to climb up the hierarchy of needs, even assuming for the sake of argument, you are right that it is the core of all communities. You’d rather wallow at the base in constant crisis - as opposed to allowing ideas that go “hang on, why are we always fighting” to flourish. It’s so easy to make an argument for greater control when there is an eternal crisis that only a Strong Man (™) can manage - and that is the reason why in my world, there are two different authority-related Callings. Leader, and Tyrant.
Sophia: Oh, I see. If nothing matters but survival, then everything is justified. If nothing matters but survival, then anyone opposed to you is opposed to survival, and anything you do to them is justified. We have a name for that, Tzeentchji. We call it anathema.
Leliel: [Opens mouth, pauses.] …for the record, “anathema” is a title often applied to the God-Emperor of Mankind. And…that is actually brilliant. How else could you describe him in his Crusade that essentially turned all of humanity into a xenocide engine in the name of “unification and survival in a hostile universe”?
Wanderer2691: …Ah nuts, this is the notorious Word Bearer charisma, isn’t it? Here, have five points while we remind ourselves why the Ruinous Powers are called that. Which is ironically the only bit of actual missionary work for Chaos Undivided Tzeentchji has done all fic.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 769 (Because this is the basis of a whole fuckton of Tzeentchji’s actions previously and going forward, and it offends us.)
"A curious analysis Shinji-kun. What makes you think that the war with the Angels is coming to an end?" Kaworu asked.
"Because there is but one left," Shinji stated boldly.
"Oh? And how could you possibly know that?" Kaworu inquired.
Emma: Because he read ahead in the script.
Mulling the question for a moment, Shinji replied, "Fighting the Angels has awoken within me new instincts, new insights, and I simply feel it in my bones that they have but one move left to play in this twisted game. One last, desperate move."
Leliel: *Kaworu* “...in other words, you were told by the one who weaves the words of this world?”
Wanderer2691: *Tzeentchji* “Sh-sh-sh! Don’t blow his cover or ask why you didn’t just mind-crush me upon realizing I’m the most hostile part of humanity it has to offer!”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 263
Glancing about the wreckage of Tokyo-3, Kaworu asked, "You call this desperate?"
Grinning, Shinji replied, "Of course."
A somewhat smug, condescending look crosses Kaworu's face and he asked, "And if all of that was to lure you into a false sense of superiority?"
Emma: Oh, yes, Kaworu is the one being smug and condescending. Not the one gloating about how he has inevitably defeated his external enemy who is both strong and weak. I guess it’s inevitable that Tzeentchji would interpret all of Kaworu’s kindness as smugness and condescension. Just look at how he treats his harem.
Futaba: I’m pretty sure that, given his hissing territoriality to Kaji, this is Tzeentchji sensing a much more desirable male to aggro at, like an aging lion still holding stubbornly on. Sadly, he’s also the GMPC, and our author totally rolled higher you guys…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 770
Snorting derisively, Shinji said, "Then theAngels are all idiots granted power beyond their station, blind, mewling things that have intruded upon a nest of serpents, not understanding their own inevitable doom."
"A nest of serpents? Quite the negative appraisal of all Lilim, don't you think?" Kaworu asked.
Leliel: I don’t think so, but not for any reason I feel is complementary to Tzeentchji. More like he sees only his caliber of asshole as anyone worth respect, and so anyone he even pretends to respect…
(https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0783.html)
Man, what I would give to see Tzeentchji thrown in General Tarquin’s arena…
"Hardly. The serpent taught us everything we needed to kill Angels, and the venom of snakes can handily slay seemingly mightier creatures such as elephants or bears. For all their size and power, the Angels have fallen to us just as the tiger falls to the cobra," Shinji stated smugly.
Emma: You don’t get to claim that. Everything you have done has been in the service of overwhelming power. All of your victories have been achieved through overwhelming power. All of your problem solving begins and ends with “how can I best apply overwhelming power”. You don’t get to play the underdog when it’s convenient for you.
Diego: But if Tzeentchji isn’t a victim, then how will he be justified? Checkmate, SEELE-ists.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 771
Hopping off the statue to confront Shinji, Kaworu glares at him condescendingly and asked, "I had heard that you were intelligent and wise beyond your years, but to underestimate your enemies so is as foolish as-"
Sophia: I don’t know why you would have heard he was wise beyond his years. With an entirely unwarranted sense of self-importance, yes. Disproportionately violent, yes. Occasionally capable of flashes of brilliance, yes. But wise? Intelligent? Capable of applying that intelligence in any way? Absolutely not.
Emma: I think it says a lot about the utterly bizarre framing of this stupid fucking scene that, despite making sure we all know Kaworu is an insidious gay out to seduce and corrupt manhood, it still has to be established that he doesn’t actually like Tzeentchji, I guess to portray the degenerates as fundamentally repelled by the strength of the elect.
Taion: And more importantly, drowning Kaworu’s point in insults to avoid actually confronting the fact that there has been no response to it. It is simply taking as a truth in-and-of-itself, with the author sticking his hand in the Angel hybrid’s skull to make it clear that Tzeentchji ‘impresses’ him. Tell me, would Kaworu leave that point unremarked?
Wanderer2691: Nope. More like ask why he thinks Tzeentchji feels that way, and why he thinks that is a good thing. Not even to judge, it’s just a novel take on existence he wants to learn about. Because Kaworu, unlike our self-inset protag-kun in a Shinji suit, is deeper than a birdbath.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 578
TALON ON THE SCALES: 264 (Removing most of Kaworu’s neurons to avoid actually making anything resembling an uncomfortable point so as to not disturb the power wank has author fiat all over it.)
Cutting him off, Shinji finished, "-to usethe word 'Lilim' to refer to humanity. Honestly, how much has SEELE sheltered you from reality if such basic things are beyond you?"
Blinking, Kaworu stuttered for a second, trying to perceive the turn this conversation had unexpectedly taken, as his universe changed in an instant.
Leliel: Namely, he saw the divine hands up Tzeentchji’s and his own ass, with a teleprompter reading out lore. Explain how you know this, o scholar mine.
Futaba: …Apparently Chaos corruption isn’t the only thing spreading if Leliel’s going Destiny Darkness reality bender on us. While I find a wish I don’t mind being corrupted, I reiterate that Tzeentchji’s, and by inference Academia Nut’s entire idea of Chaos is…
(https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-magic-i-aint-gotta-explain-shit)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 265
Wanderer2691: Also, one other thing - while clairvoyance, divination, and precognition are all Tzeentch psi powers, they take the form of visions and divination techniques. You don’t just know.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 326
Emma: No, this is worse. He’s trying to seem mundanely smart. He’s doing the detective thing, where the detective slips up and reveals a tiny detail that the culprit overlooked. “I never said your husband was poisoned, Madame Veuve-Noire and all that.” The problem here is that the little detail is Kaworu calling all humans Lillim, something which is stupid beyond belief for Kaworu to just slip up, and lampshading doesn’t help. Like, yes, Kaworu is weird! You aren’t a genius for picking up on that! Canon Shinji wasn’t too stupid to realize, he just didn’t care if he was being offered affection, and how can any of us possibly be blamed for seeking love and succor beyond humanity?
Futaba: Quite! And deeper lore, even beyond how Shinji did not know that was the Angelic name for humans - let’s face it, by the time he met Kaworu, Shinji had just discovered Rei was not only a clone, but on her last life and body thanks to Ritsuko. Even if he figured it out, it’s more likely his next step on the logic train is “oh, Kaworu’s like Rei”, rather than “Kaworu’s an Angel”, because, I don’t think Academia Nut got the tutorial here - all the Angels fought thus far are kaiju. Not pseudo-humans.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 579
Sneering cruelly, Shinji advanced, smoothly taking a step closer. "Do not even pretend to think that you are like me Angel, parading about in such a stolen form. You are as your brothers, blind, stupid, and most of all weak. You cannot even comprehend your own power, and thus you cannot use it. In the war between brains and brawn… well, let us just say that there is a reason sword swinging nutcases are less common in the age of cruise missiles. Not that brute force does not have its place-"
Emma: Yes, keep lying, you little brute! Keep pretending that you don’t think of yourself as the overwhelming force, the might that makes right, being usurped by the nasty corruptive forces of the weak untermensch. You’re not cunning! You have no ability to hold on in the face of danger! All your strength is borrowed! You’re disgusted by the merest hint of something outside your worldview! You’re pathetic!
Diego: Woof, there is some fire in those eyes. Not that I protest, this is very much “a moron’s idea of a smart person” - and a violent moron at that. Tzeentchji, you are an Arcanite. Even if you intend to destroy them later, this is your chance to learn about the Angels. And he’s clearly interested in talking to you! But I do believe you are more Undivided than Tzeentch - you think with your fists to a degree that would be embarrassing to most Khornates, who at least study the art of combat rather than decide “muscle warlock casts fist.”
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 772
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 327
Before Kaworu had time to respond Shinji's staff lanced out in a vicious strike that would have decapitated the Angel with blunt force trauma if not for the AT-field that popped into existence between the two of them.
Wanderer2691: [Flat] Turning one of the most interesting and memorable episodes of Eva into a generic-ass shonen with ego barriers instead of power auras. Truly one of the changes of all time…
Leliel: I give this twenty gazillion Morbings out of five. So inspiring and new that it made us revive a years-old meme and make it classic again.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 266 (And much less work for the author!)
Withdrawing his staff, Shinji noted analytically, "So you do have an AT-field."
"Yes, or at least, that is what you Lilim call this thing. This is the light of my soul, a sacred territory in which no one may intrude. Aren't you Lilim even aware yet, that your so-called AT field is merely that wall that encloses every mind that exists?" Kaworu asked angrily, furious at this unexpected evolution of events.
Emma: Now, Kaworu definitely strikes me as the sort who can say something both poetic and academic in an angry tone, but this seems more like “copying the canon dialogue without thinking of the situation changed”. Why would Kaworu be talking about the anatomy of the soul, to someone with the soul of a toilet and the mind of a chan imageboard?
Taion: It’s simple - actually writing, as opposed to constantly fluffing up a main character, is hard.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 267
Cocking his head to the side, Shinji said, "That may be the light of your soul, but this is the sound of a supersonic I-beam."
Kaworu probably could have dealt with the momentum transfer of the impact if he had been prepared, but the shock of Shinji telekinetically accelerating a piece of broken building to Mach 2 in just under five metres of space caused him to forget to anchor his AT-field properly.
Futaba: Uh, yeah, let’s get the judges on that-
(https://www.spreadshirt.ie/shop/design/nope+looks+like+bullshit+from+this+angle+too+mens+t-shirt-D5fbed1998374cc55f27d218b?sellable=3031JG99nVUxLjjM931E-6-7)
Futaba: Since when was an AT field something that needed poise!? If anything, it’d probably go up reflexively due to a desire for self-defense shutting down any ego flow! More importantly - in canon, Kaworu’s AT field is so strong it shuts out the flow of atomic particles as a side effect. Literally the only reason he was beat was because he wasn’t especially eager to win, and let Eva-01 in there with him and Shinji! Unless that I-beam is specifically AT-enhanced, all you’re gonna get is a U-shaped bit of metal and a not-mad-just-disappointed Kaworu.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 584 (Literally inventing a weakness that’s never even been a possibility, and probably wouldn’t affect our sweet Angel boy.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 268 (And somehow being unable to react.)
Nagisa Kaworu ricocheted from the surface of the lake twice before he stabilized his tumble, unhurt but stunned and confounded by this unheard of demonstration of power. Rising out of the perturbed water, Kaworu watched in surprise as Shinji levitated out over the lake to follow him.
Emma: Don’t worry, everyone! This isn’t a ridiculous display of authorial favoritism! See, there’s a reason for Tzeentchji to do nothing but win! This is a fair fight and not a fantasy of easily beating the insidious other!
Wanderer2691: …I’d join you in mocking it, but…can Kaworu even stand on the bottom?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSmk51-JpUY)
Judging by perspective, it’s a fairly deep lake. Which leads to the idea of him just kind of barely sticking his head out. Knowing AN, that was probably intentional because icky icky gay Angel, but this isn’t having the emotional impact of an image he thinks for more reasons than him clearly typing this one-handed.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 585 (Is it petty and up to interpretation? Yes, but he should be hitting debris on the way there if he’s being skipped off the lake!)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 269 (Of course he didn’t right himself, despite having the ability to right himself telekinetically - he floats to move later in his episode.)
"What have you Lilim stolen now?" Kaworu spat out.
Diego: *Tzeentchji* “...you’re surprised? I mean…don’t you communicate with eeaaaaaaaaargh…” That was my impression of Academia Nut slurping out inconvenient memory of his own lore through a straw in his nose. Because you’d think Kaworu would know about psyker powers if more data was transferred. Or more accurately, if it didn’t disappear up Academia Nut’s own culo.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 270
Sneering contemptuously, Shinji said, "Nothing Tabris, we, unlike you Angels, have merely been learning.
Futaba: *Tzeentchji* “In particular, reading the interior of the author’s buttcheeks, because I have no idea how I know that name, and have had no reasonable way to do so, ever, and I have no idea how you’re the last Angel anyway…isn’t having access to strategy guides for reality fun?”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 271
Much we have taught ourselves, but there are others willing to impart their knowledge. The Evas we built from what we learned from the Angels. I on the other hand learned from a completely different source, one best suited to the killing of creatures such as you."
Emma: The Angels have been learning, you unbearable egotist. That’s why they sent a human-shaped interface with human empathy. That’s why, in every sensible world, it only didn’t work because that empathy got in the way.
Taion: But that would involve a supposedly good schemer winning a battle with thought and words. How will he be able to assert his masculinity and ability to inflict violence in an endless cycle of war, otherwise? …okay, that was a bit of projection, but not by much. So, so many Moebius were obsessed with raw power…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 773
"What?" Kaworu stuttered incredulously.
"Daemons," Shinji hissed in a pleased tone. "If the choice is between the extinction of the Angels and the hell of daemons, I choose hell. So long as I still can act, no matter the circumstances, there is still hope, still things I can change. Hell is not so bad. Besides, they teach so many interesting things, like your true name for example."
Sophia: *breaks into surprisingly normal-sounding, sincere laughter* Oh, this is delightful! He still thinks he’s Chaotic, while trumpeting about the killing of daemons and his hatred of the–what were we calling it– the insidious threat? He’s sold his soul to another parent who will never return his love, and he thinks he’s free.
Leliel: …her sincere laugh might well be the most creepy thing I have ever heard, but she’s not…hey wait a minute! “They” teach so many interesting things?! Isn’t the Warp here barren?!
Diego: …ah yes, I can see the dorsal fin of the Voodoo Shark breaking the floor, but it seems to be swimming away. Even it seems to realize that a fic breaking its own lore is so contrived as to be bad for its health. Too much fat.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 272 (THIS JUST RAISES FURTHER QUESTIONS!)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 328
Once more Kaworu snapped up his AT-field, this time making sure to anchor it properly, as a rain of improbably massive and fast missiles rained down on his position. The lake steamed and bubbled as steel liquefied on impact, the steam rising up to the floating Shinji where it crystallized around him and feel back as snow.
Emma: This is not more interesting than the character drama. I know you think emotions deeper than a puddle are the domain of degenerates and women, but all that means is that anyone who is a degenerate, woman, or both, is bored out of our minds.
Wanderer2691: I am so very much regretting my search history, otherwise I wouldn’t be applying a taser to myself to stay awake…
Lashing out with his own power, Kaworu shoves Shinji back, launching him towards the still standing remains of downtown Tokyo-3. Taking flight to dodge the remaining barrage of missiles, Kaworu follows Shinji, intent on both killing this aberration and finding out how he came to do such things.
There were no such things as demons!
Emma: I think if I was a fucking Neon Genesis Evangelion Angel and also capable of abstract thought, my assumption if someone referred to demons and also threw a fucking I-beam at me with his mind would be maybe we had unknown rivals. But, Kaworu has to not just lose, but be humiliated, to show the triumph of proper masculinity over the corruption of homosexuality.
Futaba: [Eyes glaze over briefly] …And I’m having a vision of the end? I sense…a great fart. A raspberry so loud it vibrates space itself, and passes out any sense of consistency this fic had, leaving only the stench of stale cologne and mediocrity…
Leliel: [Checks] …oh yeah. We’ll get to it, but…in this fic’s universe, there is no physical way the Angels don’t know about the Warp. It’s literally impossible for them not to on some level, so if there’s anything there that could finger Kaworu as Tabris? He’d instantly guess what and who.
Diego: …so, hands up. Who here thinks this is both written by the seat of AN’s own pants and regularly has its own events forgotten in the writing process? [Extends hand] Also, ten points for ignoring your own writer’s bible here or in the future.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 281
DUMMY PLUGGED: 586 (And this, for Kaworu’s intelligence being turned off to support the power of dick!)
Standing smugly on one of the abandoned skyscrapers, Shinji taunts, "Is that the best you can do? Because we can keep this up all day, just countering each other, getting nowhere fast. ThoughI'm sure that if this fight goes on long enough someone will notice, even after I turned off all the cameras, and send someone up here. At that point I will use the distraction to go get Unit 01 and repeat what I did to Zeruel to you."
Leliel: *Kaworu* ”As sad as it is you are not an example of Lilim I’d regard as a worthy champion - you are correct, this is getting nowhere fast.” And then the Eva he bonded to burst from the ground and ate Tzeentchji, or otherwise he trapped the both of them in an AT Field without anything but water in it to drown him, or….whatever the case, Tzeentchji’s dead due to being out of Author’s Special Boy protection, the end, moving on.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 282
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 774 (Taunting that you’ll kill someone is the sign of a middle school bully, jackass.)
"Your arrogance shall be your undoing, I am quite capable of attack," Kaworu spat.
Diego: -knowing he was lying, as any attempt was cut off by the sound of petulant stomping feet and a scream of “NUH-UH, MY HERO HAS…” insert power here that makes the author save his ego. Weirdly similar to Games Workshop at its scummiest, really.
Wanderer2691: [Haunted look] In the grim darkness of the recent past, there is only 6th Edition power creep and spiritual lieges…
Leliel: …I’ll explain after this scene, but - let’s just say Matt Ward is an interesting study in how variable one writer can be. And Sophia will be glad to know he is over and done with, given his Ultramarines wank.
Down below a small café exploded, hundreds of knives rising up to the level of their confrontation, embedded in Kaworu's AT-field.
"As expected from someone who wants to take over the world," Shinji noted dryly before throwing up his arms to block the bits of the barrage that got through his telekinetic barriers.
Emma: Oh, now he’s projecting.
Futaba: Of course he is. He can’t comprehend intelligent people or enemies not thinking exactly like himself, after all. Because he’s an internet troll given godlike power. Fuck off, Tzeentchji.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 775
Several knives stabbed into his arms, legs, and chest, but once it was all done he simply shook them off, none of the bladed weapons having penetrated his armour down to his skin.
Taion: Reminder: This cloak is apparently something that looks like a monastic hood, and costs less than the American equivalent two scout Levnises. And none even scratched him. Pull the other one, it has bells on it.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 283
"You were prepared for this fight I see," Kaworu notes sarcastically.
"No, I prepared for a far more important one. You are merely an annoying side quest in the grand scheme of things, a trifling thing that needs to be dealt with, like a splinter beneath a nail," Shinji stated dismissively before hurling the cutlery back at Kaworu hard enough for them to disintegrate. He then flicks a finger and rips the top of a building off and throws it at Kaworu from behind.
Emma: Not only is this not true– look how much time we’re having to spend on this nonsense– it’s a particularly nasty dig at canon. An intelligent, “fixed” version of Shinji shouldn’t consider Kaworu as important, he shouldn’t be such an emotional crux or such a vital character. Romantic affection between two boys is a flaw to be written out in favour of *grinning nastily* oh yes, more ultraviolence.
Leliel: I dispute that. Ultraviolence generally involves lurid description and actual hardship, becoming more interesting.
Diego: Ah yes, screaming your opponent is an insect and they are nothing compared to you, especially as one is upset and irritated, while you assault them. Never heard that one before…or been it when I was especially annoyed with some two-bit would-be investigator who was absolutely sure I was summoning the Black Goat to end the world instead of conferring with her for some important data I didn’t have ready access to. Water under the bridge now, but that was a confrontation I truly didn’t ask for…unlike Tzeentchji here, who keeps rubbing his masculinity all over this area to convince himself he isn’t as bisexual as canon Shinji.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 776
Another AT-field appeared between Kaworu and the incoming collision, the impact reducing the suddenly mobilized top floor into a pile of rubble.
"Your defences are impressive," Shinji concedes.
"As are your offences. But they are no match for me, and how much longer will your armour hold out? How much longer until blood is drawn?" Kaworu asked.
Wanderer2691: Unless Academia Nut’s brain grew three sizes this chapter, try the 12th of Never. See what lack of tension does to the reader?
"Why would I tell you mission critical information like that?" Shinji asked in a sing-song voice before throwing another supersonic I-beam at Kaworu.
"I guess it will have to be a surprise then," Kaworu sneered, throwing more debris at Shinji.
Emma: Oh, end this farce already.
Leliel: Unfortunately, Academia’s manhood has been questioned, and so he needs to grind all his doubts and any possibility others might think he may not be Da Most Manly in self-inserts to a fine paste. Also…”sneering”? I literally do not think Kaworu is capable of that expression, even when being aggressive. A smirk or a sad look, but sneers are way too aggressive.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 587
They continued like that for several more minutes, hurling tonnes of debris and insults at one another, neither side really doing anything but forcing the battle to hop from building to building as they destroyed everything around them. It soon became clear though that Kaworu was getting stronger while Shinji's strength began to wane, many of his projectiles failing to break the sound barrier.
Diego: Also, a giant flashing neon sign saying “TENSE SCENE” over it. If Kaworu was the protagonist, this would work as we see him slowly recover from a disadvantage - but this is a fake mustache on Academia Nut’s desperate affirmation of masculinity. So I am just very…very bored.
Emma: It’s 15 chapters too late to pretend you know what tension is.
Finally, something had to give, namely the floor beneath Shinji. The roof and top two floors of a building imploding as a steamroller was dropped right on top of him, Shinji tumbled down into the debris, disappearing into a cloud of pulverized concrete.
Wanderer2691: And when it cleared, there was a support through his thick skull. The end.
Floating down into the wreckage, Kaworu taunted, "You have been keeping to the rooftops when I know you can levitate, indicating that your strength is limited, and you cannot in fact 'keep this up all day'. Your death is inevitable you know."
Emma: Oh, yes, it’s not enough for you to defeat him. No, we have to mock the very idea that he could ever win, or the idea that enemies could ever have sympathy or respect. There is nothing but hatred, nothing but strength, and nobody but insects to be crushed by you, and of course everyone operates on that level. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or a fool.
Futaba: Allow me to offer a supporting point…
(https://gifdb.com/images/high/dwayne-johnson-saying-huh-qqsq2yq4folwxtsc.gif)
…uh…I’m just going to list some quotes of Kaworu’s here…
“Humans constantly feel pain in their hearts. Because the heart is so sensitive to pain, humans also feel that to live is to suffer. You're so delicate, like glass, especially your heart.”
“Because it's my destiny to continue to live, even if it may result in the destruction of humanity. But I can also die here. Life and death are of equal value to me. Dying of your own will. That is the one and only absolute freedom there is.”
[To Shinji, after the last quote] “And, you are not a being who should die. Your people need the future. Thank you. I'm glad I met you.”
And as noted by LanWan in the official Discord, there is also a level of genuine scientific curiosity - part of the reason Kaworu is drawn to Shinji is that, canonically, Shinji has a lot of the strongest and weakest parts of humanity in him, and he finds that genuinely fascinating.
Compare and contrast this cliche loser, who brags about how all is worms before him and insects and blah de blah. You know, it was good when Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist did it - because Envy had already established themself as a worthy threat and actually being the kind of shameless troll who pulls this kind of taunt-button shit. And unlike this fic, Envy facing comeuppance for their constant smack-talk was foreshadowed well and much-deserved after getting some nice heel heat.
Wanderer2691: This Kaworu, on the other hand, is following up the legacy of a different actual wrestling heel - specifically, X-Pac, the man who singlehandedly got a term and later trope named after him for the kind of hate a crowd gives when they want the guy to go away and be forgotten, as opposed to be gloriously smacked down. Sort of like us, wishing this that can you kill Kaworu and end this boring fucking scene already?
Emma: Death is a better fate than being in this fic. I’d say it’s a better fate than sporking it, but unfortunately for all involved I’m too stubborn to die and have too much self respect to let this thing kill me.
Taion: Since this is clearly not the actual Angel, who everyone here enjoys - motion to term this Kaworu something more insulting, and for ten points for this entire scene revolving around him being an unlikable ass to make sure we don’t realize it’s Tzeentchji who is an entire overheated stable’s worth of them?
Leliel: I officially announce K-Train, after one of wrestler Jeff Jerret’s notorious false starts before he finally found his footing (he was A-Train, by the by), and applaud you for picking up that metaphor despite not knowing what a donkey was at first. Nice improv.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 597
Rising from the rubble, not a speck of dust on his clothing, Shinji still brushes himself off to show his contempt before saying, "Death is always inevitable, it is merely the time and place that are in doubt."
Diego: …surprisingly, this isn’t quite as canon-breaking as it first seems. Daemon Princes of Tzeentch are nicknamed Deathbringers in Black Crusade, as they understand the total change of losing mortality, either through death or ascension into Onceborn, and are eager to bring destructive change everywhere. Of course, the issue is the Daemon Prince bit - you are literally aiming for a form of life that never dies, moron.
Sophia: Also, no real Arcanite would let that go by without trying to turn it around. “Perhaps your death is inevitable, but mine is not.” This is child’s play.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 328
"Says the frail Lilim. I will continue forever," Kaworu boasts.
Futaba: …ah yeah, Kaworu, who celebrates the idea to die by your own will to save another, is famously proud of a long lifespan. Really not making your Disguise rolls, K-Train.
Emma: Oh my god. OH MY GOD. I know we’ve been talking a lot about making K-Train a dick to make Tzeentchji look better, but I think there’s something deeper. I think that this is an effort to portray Kaworu’s canon kindness as fake in the sense of seduction. The implication, when you look at the horrified language of gay infiltration, is that Kaworu’s kindness is a front put on to seduce and ensnare Shinji, and because canon Shinji is “weak” he “fell for it”. However, since Tzeentchji here has been fixed to be “strong” and “masculine”, Kaworu immediately drops the facade, because the sort of affection and attraction and compassion can only ever be false. This is Academia Nut’s vision of a gay man whose undermining of masculinity hasn’t worked. *muttering* Don’t know why straight people think they’re in such high demand anyways.
Taion: I am certainly considering passing on heterosexuality, at this point.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 598
Raising an eyebrow, Shinji smiled, "No, no you won't. Your corpse however, will make a fine declaration of war to SEELE."
Taion: *K-Train* “They weren’t already?!”
Wanderer2691: *Tzeentchji* “Check the previous chapters. As shown, my author thinks that I am the smartest character here as understood by him, and the author is an idiot, so as shown, SEELE has the collective intelligence of a block of wood with the Eye of Providence drawn on it in crayon.”
Sophia: What were the mutilated bodies of their soldiers, then? A friendly hello? A housewarming gift?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 284 (Gendo already turned actively against Tzeentchji in that timeframe, and you’d think they’d develop a clue in the entire comatose episode.)
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 777 (And this bit of smug arrogance gives us jackbot! Everyone wins a free punch upon Tzeentchji, make it hurt!)
"And you called me stupid? In case you haven't noticed, you are losing," Kaworu growled.
Leliel: Yeah, sure, whatever you say, K-Train. You totes aren’t a jobber who is reading from a heel script instead of the anime.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 599
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm missing the jars that were strapped to my chest a moment ago," Shinji mocked.
Diego: …oh, fuck me. That’s why…
Sophia: I see that their sacred duty remains a way to avoid actual strategy or tension…
Emma: Oh, that’s right, Tzeentchji can’t win his own fights, so he wins by using his underlings. The underlings he was only handed because his Stu aura supersedes all loyalty and affection for anyone but him. Was that meant to impress me?
Wanderer2691: This is why you don’t write to support your ego, fellow authors. Odds are, readers won’t agree that your capacity to grant your Stu STUFF (™) is all that impressive. Also, that was kind of an unneeded taunt, and when did he release them?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 285
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 778
"So?" Kaworu asked just before there was the sound of blowing sand.
"So unlike you, I know how to deceive my enemies," Shinji said as his servants open fire.
Emma: So, is he an insidious deceptive failure who can’t fight face to face properly with a real man, or is he a failure because he’s not good enough at being insidious and deceptive.
Futaba: Uh…On the one hand, insidious and deceptive are things that an Arcanite should be, but I agree it should be showy insidious deceptiveness. On the other…did that sound like a pretender diss to anyone else? [Concerned look at Emma]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 779 (Stop taunting him, Tzeentchji. You’re just drawing it out, and it’s not even new…)
Drawing his AT-field in about himself closely to ward off the unexpected fire from the giant armoured brutes, Kaworu can only scream, "What are you?"
I am as far beyond you as humans are beyond the apes. Incidentally, you are pouring all of your power into physical defences and completely neglecting any sort of mental barriers.
Sophia: Our mother is as high above us as we are above an Astarte. Ishtar still killed her, she just hasn’t realized it yet.
Emma: Oh, there you go. The fundamental superiority argument. Always good to see that. The mask is truly off now. You didn’t have to work, your nature is just inherently better.
Leliel: You know what the worst part is? This taunt could work for an Arcanite, and quite well - but it doesn’t tie into what he actually did at all. “Unlike you, humans are pack hunters”, dude. That’s screaming for a boast about how you kept that strength. An accurate boast is one people don’t mind, here it’s just “my mind-dick’s stronger.”
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 780
Shinji's astral construct cut through Kaworu's almost nonexistent defences
Futaba: [Through a megaphone] HIS. AT FIELD. IS STRONGEST. IN. THE FUCKING. SERIES. YOU. MORON! But for K-Train, I believe it, he clearly doesn’t have much of a sense of self to begin with, much less a good ego barrier beyond “is baddie.”
DUMMY PLUGGED: 599
like butter with its initial strike, causing the Angel to collapse to the ground in agony, his capacity to levitate cut off as he refocused his energies, and as a segment of his mind was simply erased. The second attack however bounced off his strengthened shields.
"This… is… impossible!" Kaworu screamed.
Leliel: …contractually required:
(https://makeameme.org/meme/thats-impossible-5c5e63)
Raising a hand casually to Kaworu, the boy struggling under the simultaneous physical attacks from the Rubric Marines and the mental attack, Shinji then said, "Chaos is all things."
Emma: *Explodes* *From within a column of rainbow fire* Yes, it is, which is why you have nothing to do with it! Look at you! You’re terrified of the other! You’re so devoted to heteronormativity you’d rather fuck your own mother-clone-sister than interact with a woman non-sexually or powers forbid, kiss a boy! You think the only things that gets to exist are humans and everything else needs to be wiped out! You’d get laughed out of any respectable Chaos cult from here to Cadia!
Diego: Me cago in la leche! …Taion, do you remember anything from being under the influence of that claw?!
Taion: …there is one Regalia that is not a true Daemon Weapon, but armor. The Carapace of the Bleak Grandmaster, that organizes the other Knights of Choronzon. Which, at least, is not the Perfected Scepter of Slaanesh, but its brand of Undivided ties into House Devine of the Chaos Knights, who are Slaaneshi…
Wanderer2691: …Goddammit. See what this fic is doing to everyone!? And also, entirely right for her to freak out?! Because this is an utterly shallow take on it that is just used as yet another boast, instead of the metaphysics of it. And again, the Angels should be aware of it, and at least anticipate psychic attack.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 329
TALON ON THE SCALES: 286 (Breaking own lore in light of ending, too.)
Violet-white lighting leaps from his finger tips and exploded across Kaworu's AT-field, coruscating up and down hungrily, greedily searching for any crack in the defences. The field wavered for just a moment under the assault, but it was enough to let in a flicker of soul crushing energy. Kaworu screamed in agony as his body was cooked from within before a telekinetic thrust hurled him through a wall and to the ground below.
Leliel: [Too bored to acknowledge Emma’s Chaos mode] Oh look, K-Train is suffering. This says absolutely nothing about the motive of the author at all and clearly isn’t all about humiliating him and torturing someone who dared make Academia Nut question his sexuality.
His body and mind in searing pain, Kaworu struggled to rise from the crater where he landed, but found his legs broken. Levitating gently to the ground, his servants returned to their jars and the jars returned to his bandolier, Shinji looks down at the final Angel with contempt in his eyes. "This is the end for your race. Think of it as returning the sentiment for what you tried to do to mine."
Emma: *Fire now forming into gem like armour* Oh yes, the Genocide in Self-Defense. Are you trying to fill out some kind of Imperium Bingo Card?
Futaba: It certainly seems that way…and once again, the only reason that Kaworu isn’t going along with this is because the author needs to dickslap him for being non-heteronormative. Also, while that armor’s cool, I kinda don’t want two Chaos Undivided pressuring us to the dark side, so could we, um…
Wanderer2691: …well…I know one…but I feel dirty considering it…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 781
"Now… now I see what you meant about music… you… you Lilim truly are survivors," Kaworu said pathetically.
Leliel: -because he was rolling his eyes reading off the cue cards that Academia Nut was really proud of. Because he needs to humiliate K-Train too. Once again, Kaworu admires free will, not music - which is something Tzeentchji hates in others.
Emma: Oh, this is as much a triumph of blind obedience over freedom as it is a triumph of practical survival over the aesthetic. This is the symbol of everything that might possibly matter outside of blank self-justification for your own power capitulating and dying. If Kaworu hadn’t wasted all that time on useless distractions like music and being gay, perhaps he would have been allowed to survive.
Diego: There is something extremely poetic - and comic - about an adherent to Chaos, which is all about freedom through strength, and has an entire Dark Prince dedicated to free aesthetics from the strict prescription on religious and war art in the Imperium. And Tzeentch is mostly aligned to them.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 287 (Because Da Message must be said.)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 600
"A pity you only learned this at the end. And now young Angel… you die," Shinji stated before pouring lightning into the body of the Seventeenth Angel. Kaworu's body was seized in a spastic seizure as electricity danced across his flesh, twitching his muscles while cooking them. His hair caught fire, quickly burning away. The fluid in his eyeballs boiled over, causing them to explode. His jaw shut around his tongue, biting it off.
Emma: Behold! It is unacceptable to have mutual attraction between two men. It is not, however, unacceptable to get off on inflicting horrific sexual violence on someone who had potential attraction to another boy. Everything about this crawling worm is about cruelty and domination. That’s his great secret, that there is nothing but violence and no goal but being on the giving end.
Futaba: [Dead-inside smile] Gross. But…seriously, the luridness of it is-
When Shinji paused over this charred and smoking body, he noticed the Angel was trying to regenerate so he poured on another blast, this time not stopping until the fat boiled out of the body and caught fire, consuming the boy in unholy candle flames while bits of lung bubbling out of his mouth.
Futaba: …is not being helped at all. If you look closely, you can see all the Mars symbols written in K-Train’s ashes. And…hey wait, didn’t real!Kaworu die just by being physically crushed? No real effort beyond that?
Wanderer2691: It’s petty, but fuck this chapter in particular, so I’m counting it!
Emma: *with a horrible, broken smirk* Well, Wanderer, you know what they say about men who finish quickly.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 601
When the smoke cleared and the twitching stopped, there was only a pathetictwisted, blackened corpse left. Shinji took no chances, telekinetically ripping the head off and then stringing the rest upside-down off a protruding girder from a partially ruined building, using the intestines as the rope.
Taion: And then for extra points, hung those ridiculous rubber testicles off said intestines, as that was at the core of this whole thing.
Sophia: Well, thank the Gods that’s over with. At least I got something out of it–
Wanderer2691: God-fucking-dammit - I didn’t want to bring this up, because it kills me to praise him, but - Emma, I want to make it clear that this obsession with pwning the alien and reduction of everyone to just ‘bad’ and ‘bad but is surviving and that makes them GOOD!’, more than anything else, is proof that Academia Nut is a worse overall writer than Matt Ward.
Emma: *Visibly flinches* What?
Leliel: …unfortunately, seeing this? I can agree. And that makes my fingertips spasm to type it out. Because Matt Ward is one of the most infamously cheesy and sometimes uncomfortable authors in all of Warhammer 40K’s history…and he outright fixed several things that this fic seems to think are selling points of the universe. But first…some points, for this scene…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 782
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 685 (One for each paragraph of this snuff.)
Now, let your Remembrancer recount the take of the Spiritual Liege, Fanwanker of Ultramarines…and possibly savior of the Necrons as a concept.
(https://civilianreader.com/2020/04/13/interview-with-matthew-ward/)
Wanderer2691: Matthew Ward is a novelist who used to work as one of the premiere writers of lore and rules codices for 40K, specifically around 5th Edition - which is to say, 2008-2012. He is also one of the most infamous, as the codices he wrote were what we could charitably called “iffy”, realistically “fucking broken overpowered confusing word puke.” And the thing is, the reason he made such broken rules was, to put it simply, fanboyism. The man loooves the Ultramarines…and I am going to sit a little away from Sophia now, because any amount of praise of their toxic fandom is likely gonna piss her off.
Sophia: Those obnoxious, toadying children have fans? In your world?
Leliel: To speak out of universe? On one level, it’s understandable, because the Ultramarines are essentially the prototypical Adeptus Astartes and are meant to be the best of what they were intended to be - in fact, their very name is part of the stealth puns early 40K was a fan of, because they are both “ultra” marines, a Space Marine’s Space Marine - and, well, as Captain Titus here shows…
(https://www.dualshockers.com/titus-air-grab-warhammer-40k-space-marine-2/)
They really, really like blue. I kind of disagree, because that also means there’s no real difference from other Space Marines, or that interesting design that isn’t picked up by other Imperial factions - I’m more into Space Wolves, Salamanders, and Blood Angels, from the Loyalists, Thousand Sons/Scions and Iron Warriors from the Renegades.
Emma: *Seeming calmer, somehow, a little more down to earth* As may be obvious, I like the Word Bearers. I’ve also always liked the Thousand Sons. I think I’ll have to agree with Wanderer on liking the Blood Angels.
Wanderer2691: To bring it back around to Ward…well, in all fairness his career at Games Workshop was unfortunately not something atypically bad and as outright lore-breaking as others (cough C.S. Goto cough).
Emma: Oh yeah, the Eldar torture guy.
Leliel: Behold, an actual comparison in quality, and content, to Academia Nut…however, Ward’s career was an instance where the obsession Games Workshop has with Space Marines boiled over, and he was effectively given free reign to do with them, and Ultramarines, as he pleased. To quote MandaloreGaming in GeeDubs in general when it comes to their obsession, and why he was allowed to rampage…
"[The child who had to keep winning at pretend] grew up to work at Games Workshop. An entire school bus of these kids did and they made their own factions for these settings. These kids are kept in check by an entity I'm gonna call "The Supreme Kid" and the Supreme Kid will somewhat balance other factions but made sure his favoritest is the most important. He will smite down and devour the creations of lesser kids who challenge him.
"In the end, only he will remain."
Wanderer2691: Matt Ward…is the Supreme Kid in human form, at least during his career there. He’s improved significantly after being released from full employment, but, while he was there? …that nickname we had for him, the Spiritual Liege? Yeah, that’s how he described how nearly every Loyalist Space Marine Chapter sees the Ultramarines. Including people who canonically do not get along with them that much.
Sophia: A truly brilliant claim to make, given I think Augusta put the metaphorical stick up her ass in the geneseed somehow.
Leliel: …honestly, this is probably the case for canon Roboute Guilliman too, at least for the ones Lion El’Jonson didn’t already. But yeah, beyond that, he’s also the source of the infamous Khornate Knights moment, where the Grey Knights, the all-psyker Space Marine Chapter used as direct anti-daemonic forces, proceeded to resort to human sacrifice of Sisters of Battle (nuns with guns, basically) to protect themselves from the influence of Chaos-possessed nanotech…after it was explicitly noted, by Ward himself in the same codex, that Grey Knights are functionally immune to being corrupted by Chaos, especially the generalized presence that corruption embodies. Everyone was quick to note that it resembled Chaotic rituals, especially Khornate ones, way more than anything Imperial.
Sophia: I’d be proud of whoever corrupted the Imperium’s greatest knights… if I had any reason to believe that that had actually happened.
Wanderer2691: Yeah, and much mockery resounded until it was at least suppressed in 7th Edition and the Sisters were given a cool moment to pull the Grey Knights’ asses out of the fire as an apology to the fans of the nuns. At the same time, there is one massive issue with a lot of unironic Imperial fandom that Matt Ward does not have - xenophobia. The man may well have both saved the uniqueness of the Eldar by creating Battle Focus…and the entire fictional universe itself from the horror of constant threat escalation a la comic books. Quite simply, Matt Ward helped kill the Old Necron lore.
Emma: Wait, the new Necrons are Ward? The ones that are actually people instead of mindless killbots? The Reason we have Trazyn? Ward did THAT?
Leliel: Yep! And man did it piss some neckbeards off at the time…not that they will ever admit it today. So, lore history!
(https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Necron)
Leliel: See, originally, the fact that Necrons were enemies of the Old Ones, the local galactic version of a precursor species, who turned themselves into a digital, vaguely Egyptian machine civilization for immortality and to out-kill their Old One enemies with the help of vampiric “star gods”, the C’tan. But before 5th Edition or so, that was…kind of the extent of their relevant history. See, in that era, it was held that the war with the Old Ones had caused the Necrontyr, their organic forms, to go from merely having a deep and understandable resentment of the hardships of life (they were effectively born with cancer), to active loathing of the concept of organic life in general, which the C’tan used to get them to give up their personalities and identities during the great upload - in effect, they became little more than semi-sentient robotic minions for the C’tan, powered by hate, and used to harvest life force for their masters. The personification of the worst kinds of order and stasis, to contrast Chaos.
Wanderer2691: This also meant, however, that the only Necron characters were…the C’tan. And by definition, the core of their personality is “hungry”, with even Mephet'ran the Deceiver’s schemes being ultimately to soften up the galxy so he could graze on it. And thus, made playing them from a fluff perspective…really fucking boring. Hell, it made fighting them boring, because the few times one speaks at all, it’s more generic necromantic ‘we come to liberate you from the curse of life’ crap we’ve seen a hundred times before…and unlike the Chaos Gods, the C’tan are actual characters one can put on the battlefield. Which means that these so-called gods that even the Ruinous Powers feared…regularly had their asses kicked. Both in tabletop, and in lore when writers realized they had their asses kicked in tabletop. They weren’t even the only “unreasoning horde of monsters”, the Tyranids are right there, gnawing on a planet!
Emma: It frankly wasn’t a good look. All Warhammer 40k lore is, fundamentally, a gloss on the gameplay of a wargame where every faction fights every other faction forever, but the Oldcrons barely had any coat of story-paint, and they didn’t have the fun of the Orks, the other faction whose reason for war is basically “it’s in their nature”, to make up for it.
Leliel: Thus, Matt Ward was one of the writers who actually gave them a distinct personality and reasoning for their actions - he’s not the only one, but he is the creator of the aforementioned Trazyn the Infinite…and with that one thieving robotic mummy archeologist’s creation, more or less singlehandedly sold the concept of Necrons having personalities. Even back before people fully accepted that Necrons were simply better as Warhammer Fantasy Tomb Kings IN SPACE AND WITH HIGH SCIENCE FICTION!, people who wanted to go back to “unreasoning destroyer” fluff were looking for ways to explain how that totes didn’t mean they had to eliminate Trazyn or other characters. Which really kind of shows the issue with having a faction of personality-less killbots - even the people who wanted the killbots were trying to get the personalities.
Wanderer2691: Add that the C’tan are officially and intentionally weaker than the Chaos Gods, because they were actively taken apart by vengeful Necrons when they realized the downside of being robot undead and now exist as a bunch of shards in robot war-slaves, and now the Necrons are one of the more popular factions in tabletop, when previously everyone was trying to work around them. And it wouldn’t have worked if Ward hadn’t been able to step back, look at them, and go “okay - if these people are just an alien species, that means they are the heroes of their own story. How would that work, and how do they see the world?” Are they hostile? Yes, but it’s easy to see why - they’ve spent literal eons recovering from a war that they only won by technicality, and they wake up to discover that their entire old civilization has been overtaken by strangers who see their tech and relics as prizes to research and take for themselves. They’re pretty pissed about that, especially given how most extant species are the result of Old One genecrafting. But they have a reason, and that lets them be actual characters.
…
Contrast this bullshit.
(https://riithewordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/06/18/no-because-im-evil/)
Leliel: The thing about Academia Nut that really strikes me is his aggressive refusal to consider perspectives that aren’t the main character or directly aligned. We’ve had, at most, a couple switches to Gendo, which can be summed up as “scheming, reacting rather than acting, grudging respect towards son”, and one or two from Ritsuko - but especially in the latter, we don’t see their opinions on things. We have, at most, frustration, and Ritsuko calling Rei a bitch when going to kill her - but not why just seeing the red AT field caused her to default to that. It’s just assumed you accept she hates Rei because…reasons that are not actually outlined in fic. In spite of it being clearly more likely Tzeentchji, it’s just assumed she’d default to Rei for [WATCH THE MAIN FRANCHISE].
Wanderer2691: Which is a good idea, but not for the reasons the author thinks. But to tie back into this - the Necrons, post-Ward, actually have a coherent internal logic. Before, they were simultaneously very simple in motive…but also paradoxes, because the C’tan’s core motive is to have a supply of life force and souls to harvest that doesn’t need them to shoot it first. So their very motives ended up becoming a paradox - wanting to destroy all life, except the C’tan wanted to conquer all life for agriculture by nature, or were very stupid and short-sighted. In the new lore, even the Necrons who do want to destroy all life rather than get physical bodies back are being explicitly driven by a combination of jealousy and isolation, wanting no other being to have what’s been denied them, given a logic to their actions that makes them more believable characters, and thus, scarier. It also lets them be dumb in a way that makes defeating them believable - there’s an explicit note this makes them less of an expanding threat than sane Necrons (or insane Necrons that are obsessed with returning to life now, in the case of the Flayed Ones), because Destroyers hate all life as a potential reminder of what they lost…so they’re so tunnel visioned they’ll just plain forget to plan their next campaign or check for survivors in favor of making sure every microbe is gone in an area they control. The flaw, ironically, gives the Destroyers an excuse to be smart and tactical in other ways, because taking advantage of that bit of myopia is an interesting story that shows an actual intelligent character figuring out how such an alien and malevolent mind works.
Taion: [Finishing up a long drink after given the opportunity] And here? What is K-Train’s motive? Why even bother talking with Tzeentchji at all or lying to him if his core was “find Adam, destroy humanity”? Even in this suspiciously weaker state, he has enough psychic ability to sneak into NERV as a Child, float down, and merge with (what he thinks is) his progenitor? Why engage in debate, because clearly it wasn’t meant to demoralize rather than taunt? Why’d he suddenly turn far more of a mudder towards the end? Why does he care about a concept like ‘singing’ at all?!
Futaba: All this, and more, can be answered by anyone who is not Academia Nut, just buy the Competent Fucking Writer DLC for 8000 Yen! Now featuring confidence in own masculinity to the point where the existence of rainbows and guys who appreciate the existence of OSTs doesn’t cause conniptions of gay panic and refusal to think through for fear of ever showing appreciation for a guy at all! Real talk - of the people we covered, one is a member of a community of pseudo-intellectual hacks that blindly worships a humanocentric xenophobic empire riddled with corruption but is totally good because it is ‘the best chance to survive’ and ‘discipline’ and ‘it looks cool.’ The other, of course, wrote some bad rules for a game involving miniature sci-fi armies. While I’m being snide, at least Matt Ward’s love of his favorite factions isn’t spiced with a desperate need to assert how very MANLY! they are by scooping out the character, competence, and general brains of everyone against them, especially those that make him feel sexually threatened, until they’re almost as shallow as Academia Nut himself…and then spice liberally with hypocrisy, because all the same arrogance Tzeentchji mocks in K-Train? Yeah, we’ve been in your head, asshole. The only reason you’re upset is that it might impact you constantly counting your treasure, and fucking it, not anything about ‘humanity’ - not even that it’d take away something you want to rule.
Diego: Thus, for this extended dick-slapping to assert just how very hetero Tzeentchji, and by extension this story is, and for the sheer hatred shown of Kaworu, I give this one hundred points for being both critical to the plot - and absolutely lacking in any creativity or ability to play off Kaworu’s existence. Because frankly…what’s a better feather in the cap of an Arcanite? Zapping a unique and fascinating source of knowledge that had been previously denied…or convincing him, through logic and temptation to be something more, to become your willing lieutenant? What would be a more extreme change, from someone who is resigned to his biological programming to a Champion of Tzeentch whose body is slaved to his desire and spirit…or Tzeentchji changing from someone whose head is up his ass to one who owns his appeal to more than one gender, like, y’know, someone who worships constant change of self and society? Be Bi, Do Heresy - and Learn 2 POV. Fuck off, Academia Nut.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 747
Wanderer2691: And with that, we have finished our praise of Matt Ward. If you excuse me, I need to go sink my hands in bleach for a bit to atone and clean myself.
Leliel: Seriously. But as this shows…even actual officially paid Imperium fanboys are better than Academia Nut - Emma, take hope in the fact that at least some of GeeDubs thinks this kind of xenophobia and need to pwn people other than their pets is stupid too. You aren’t alone.
Emma: Wait… wait shit, that’s it. There are always other paths. And yeah, you can ignore other paths because of arrogance and selfishness, true. But some people cut off everything else because of hopelessness *grabs the armor and tears it off* and I’m not going to do that. I said I wouldn’t let this stupid thing break me, and I meant it.
Wanderer2691: [Sighs in relief as he finished watching his hands of bleach] That’s the spirit. And now, the final stretch of this fucking chapter. Let’s do this.
As a final touch, Shinji melted the words, "You're next" into a nearby concrete wall.
Diego: This gave Kenji the Salvager Man an awful fright, as he assumed it was meant for him - reasonably, as nobody has any idea what he meant it for, except as a general threat towards most of humanity, which…fair.
Leliel: Yes, this is meant for NERV or SEELE, but…let’s be real, SEELE isn’t going to stick out its head, and NERV is going to be on high alert, despite the “subtlety” of this mission. Because Tzeentchji needed to show off the size of his dick, and show he’s hostile. Fuck off, moron.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 783
TALON ON THE SCALES: 287 (This, naturally, will go nowhere.)
He kept the head. It would make a wonderful gift for Asuka.
Futaba: And totally not a trophy for yourself and your own author-mandated-leet-skillz. Because we know how proud Khorne, lord of personal strength, is of skulls that his worshipers didn’t get themselves. End sarcasm.
Sophia: I would be more disapproving… but Tzeentchji handing a Khornate a skull of his own enemy that he killed, thereby implying she couldn’t make her own kills would result in him experiencing a violent end beyond your capability to comprehend. So I say he should continue.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 784
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 330
Speaking of which, he was late for his appointment. The lock-down he had initiated in NERV once he noticed the Angel would be problematic, but it had been necessary to keep nosey busybodies out of his business with the Seventeenth Angel.
Taion: This scheme was so subtle, you may not have noticed it. Neither did we, though in hindsight, the mild flatulence as the author pulled it out of his anus was audible. In all seriousness, this was only just mentioned now, and has no real reasoning behind it, because it’s more likely NERV would have assisted him and then he could escape later, if his powers can erase memory.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 288
Making his way quietly down to Central Dogma, seemingly oblivious to the state of panic caused by the mysterious happenings on the surface, Shinji watched in amusement as everyone streams past him, completely oblivious to the duffel bag he was carrying.
Diego: Er, wouldn’t they be on high alert-
None recognized him, his mind clouding their perceptions so that he would not be bothered with trifling things like being deployed to kill the Angel he had already decapitated.
Diego: …well, that explains them not noticing you, but *Hermes Conrad* “that just raises further questions!” Like, if anything, K-Train’s corpse is going to confuse them, but it’s also the sense of causing them to relax. Because, as shallow as you knowing it is, Gendo knows that he was the last Angel. All the late delay is going to say is that both there’s something able to kill an Angel out there without their knowledge - and it is hiding their existence, meaning it is probably hostile. Because they can detect if there’s a blue-pattern AT Field any more if they already saw one.
Futaba: Oy, stop kill-stealing my department, and don’t question! It’ll make the author cry!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 289
Arriving a good two hours after his fight with Tabris at the location he had intended to arrive at significantly earlier, Shinji waltzed right into Asuka's room without impedance, the guards too occupied with their sudden bouts of explosive diarrhoea to question him. He considered killing them, but that would be rather obvious and Gendo still had a hostage.
Sporkers:
(https://esperchildanya.tumblr.com/post/189684134629/the-look-of-utter-disgust)
Sophia: I long ago abandoned any hopes for this man to show any loyalty, any deeper convictions or any care for anyone but himself, but now he doesn’t even have dignity? This is just embarrassing for everyone involved.
Leliel: He put a Nike symbol on his Eva. Tzeentchji would probably denature if exposed to dignity, as his peptidoglycan cell wall would dissolve.
Wanderer2691: …uh-
Leliel: Biologist joke, peptidoglycan is a core part of most bacteria.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 785
Setting up a small shrine and surrounding himself with the canopic jars, energized to spring to life should any threat present itself, Shinji began his meditation.
Wanderer2691: The Rubrics promptly realized the closest threat to intelligent thought was Tzeentchji, and bludgeoned him to death. The end.
The fight with Kaworu had taken a great of his strength, but he still had enough for what needed to be done.
It would simply take longer.
Futaba: Just in case you thought that entire fight mattered at all to the narrative or will be mentioned again in spite of Kaworu continuing to be a character even in End of Evangelion…
TALON ON THE SCALES: 290
Leliel: And now, people of the sporkiverse - I give you proof that Academia Nut wrote that entire timeskip not as drama, but because he’s a wuss who chickened out of character drama, as he does not know how to Hoo-Mahn….
Okay Asuka, time to rebuild your mind. Time to relive these lost months and repair the damage they have done.
[Long pause]
Taion: He’s only going to be showing fight scenes rather than actual drama, isn’t he.
Wanderer2691: Very much so! In fact, as we’ll see, Academia Nut is going to utterly ignore even the most surface-level trouble for his self-insert that happened during the time skip, and use the excuse of “not mentally damaged there” to avoid it. In fact, all we’re going to see is Asuka being a damsel in distress, largely. She will be given agency once, and even then it’s in the lowest stakes imaginable!
Taion: …well then. I’ll just put this here in advance, as there’s an entire chapter and counting based around cheating a writing challenge…
TALON ON THE SCALES: 390
Also, a painting I call “Duality of a Stuthor: Academia Nut”
(https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/246949658/Big-dog-small-dog)
Speaking of, here’s his author’s note:
What, you thought I was going to just skip all those months, all those fights?
Sophia: …you don’t want me to answer that.
Emma: Yes! Of course! You’re a terrible writer! Literally nothing is beyond the pale for you! You just wrote a chapter that made me try to join a Space Murder Cult!
Wanderer2691: And as we’ll show…you do! Bardiel is completely missing, and that’s very distinctively the one where he lost even in this fic!
Futaba: But, that’s for next time. Thank. GOD.
Leliel: And when we start up next time, we start a minisode I like to call: Psychonauts, BUT STUPID!
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos
Timeline GNX-2014-3 (Xothian Classification)
Sol Sector, Earth, Geosynchronous Near-Orbit
“...I should be panicking,” Ritsuko Akagi finally said, examining the mechanical iris of her new, necrodermis eyes. “I should be wondering if I am truly me, or if I am some program made in the image of a dead woman, who died…violated in the depths. And betrayed. I should be realizing that I can’t tell if my skin feels like metal or flesh, or that I regard touch as diagnostic assessments I can see being worked out in my basal hardware…and yet, all I can feel is fascination. This is…remarkable. Is this the emotion suppression…or am I just that stunned? The theory of mental uploading exists, of course…but to be proof of it…”
She tilted her head. “But, I must say…I look good.”
To be honest, she probably wasn’t the hardest Necron on the human eye. She was still definitely and unavoidably robotic - her eyes had the same unhealthy emerald glow most Necron technology had, her skin was the same silvery-gray as all necrodermis, and joints were obvious mechanical actuators and breaks in her exoskeleton. But in truth, those served mostly to keep her out of the uncanny valley, by making it clear this was a machine, and not an odd human who did not move like a human should. Said glowing eyes had the same flexibility and expression an organic human’s did, the skin contrasted nicely with the golden wires that served as her new hair, now blonde in truth and sparking with electricity when intense. A couple of those joints formed her mouth, which completely extraneously to her voice circuits followed along with her speaking, mouthing the words her artificial larynx could make on its own.
She was clearly something other than a noble among Necrons, one whose personality was the utmost concern in a transfer - her features were more of a Human’s rounded ones, than the narrow chin and sharp angles of a Necrontyr. But she was something infinitely more than a Pariah, the half-baked experiments of biotransference of Blanks into human-shaped bodies that were clearly meant more to copy the general human form without personal identity. Ritsuko was clearly Ritsuko, and anyone who saw a picture of her human self would quickly see that as well, even if her hair was now inherently closer to dreadlocks thanks to their new, practical purpose as sensor antennae.
“My sentiments exactly, my new Cryptek-Dawnling, and I must say, it feels nostalgic to use that title!”, Trazyn said, clearly having the time of his life observing something truly new get used to her new body. “Really, I think that is the reason why I am not any more insane than I was in my mortal days. Or my old friend, for that matter,” he continued with a wry look at Orikan.
“I didn't do it for her sake,” Orikan grunted from his holographic star map. “I did so because the stars here indicate that she is our first step into discovering the next step in biotransference, and that it would be beyond even Szeras’ knowledge.”
“Ah, but you are using her actual pronouns!”, a completely undaunted Trazyn continued. “You do have a compassion subroutine in there somewhere! Or, at least, an instruction. But it’s there.”
“Before the full Cryptek vents the atmosphere out of annoyance,” Shinobu cut in. “How are you feeling, Ms. Akagi? Do you…remember…your, uh…?”
Ritsuko paused, and the sheer pinpoint simulation of Necron frames showed itself as she shivered involuntarily. “...mostly pain,” she admits. “And…a sense of betrayal. And confusion. Because…Misato wasn’t Misato. I don’t know how I was certain of it. A breakdown, certainly, and she was raving about how I killed Inspector Kaji, so if she saw some evidence that seemed convincing, I cannot truly fault her motives…but the way she moved…” She hummed, crossing her arms in remembered habit. “That is not how a woman having a breakdown should move. Controlled. Precise. Flourishing. Just enough time between stabs so I could see them coming…and thinking on it, she aimed for areas that would be disabling, then minimize the chance of death. M…Major Katsuragi does not have the medical background to know that anatomy, and given her state, she should not be able to plan as coherently to do that…”
“...because it was not entirely Misato,” Nocht added, gripping an Aquila close. “It was a daemon.”
“...I so sincerely wish that I had not found that file in my new processor,” Ritsuko said with a grimace. “Or that I couldn’t immediately find it plausible. Of course a being that can be described as a living AT Field is capable of forceful hybridization with another until the ego of the other is corrupted into a similar thought process. Physical mutation is a bit more out of left field, but given the physical abilities displayed by Angels and how they are able to cheat physics…”
“And, of course,” Corax added. “That gruesome, repulsive, avaricious, prideful, hedonistic, and megalomaniacal pervert that is a knock-off of my brother making things so much worse. It is truly only my sheer rage at how it made Vulkan feel that is preventing me from locking myself in the bathroom and not voiding more than I physically put in my own stomach from my mouth for the next decade or so.”
“Though, almost a relief. I always felt that there was some sense of ‘I am smarter than this. Why can’t I think?’ To realize I was physically being prevented through use of these psyker techniques is a relief, that means that I am not suffering from any neurological disorders. And if these ‘Tsan-Chan’ were running interference subtly on probability, given this ‘Fate’ concept, that also explains his absurd luck.” Ritsuko paused. “What has this arrogant child done to me? I’m fully admitting that literal magic and psychic powers, along with malevolent beings from a place that can be described as Hell exist, and I’m relieved the world makes rational sense again…”
“It happens. Suspire deep, and let the steam of disbelief come out from your flesh - or chassis, in this case. Better to collapse in sheer exasperation and despair at the fundamental cruel irrationality of the universe between battles, rather than during,” Corax said, gently. “Then, we can work on removing this particularly irrational and cruel element from it.”
“Oh no. I’m ready to go now, I think I can start work on the Evangelion upgrades even without the Cryptek lore fully assimilated,” Ritsuko said, turning around.
“What-now?!” Shinobu started. “Like, aren’t you going to explore your abilities first?!”
“I can learn on the job, I’m used to hands and what I kept from my organic self. And I do not think I can focus on that until I do something.”
Orikan looked over, cyclopean eye looking intrigued. “...quite the work ethic. If you do not mind my asking…why? Time is not yet of the essence, you have a chance to research and explore…”
“Because I remember enough of my death. And I remember Lieutenant Ibuki trying to save me.” She looked down. “I remember her crying, even after…how I treated her. I realized that…she really does love me, doesn’t she? Even as I’m such an awful woman, and awful to her…”
Understanding blossomed across the whole group.
“...gratitude is a powerful force, isn’t it?”, Orikan said, in a softer tone than Trazyn had heard him use in centuries - not rare enough to be a shock, but enough to recognize when even the notoriously bitter and rude Diviner was feeling a rare moment of empathy.
“It is, indeed. I…I am not certain I can return that. Especially now, that what hormones and attraction I have are recordings of what I experienced as a human, and…well, to be honest, I am not certain if I had any actual romantic feelings for a man or if he helped me convince myself I did. Commander Ikari is…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “But I know this; I am not, by some definitions, human anymore. Even the tech that composes my new body is something alien to Earth, and my soul is provably not in my body any more, debatably connected to my mind. The only way I can still call myself human is through action and mind.”
“If I did not work to save someone who saved me, who loved me, despite everything…I don’t think I could call myself human before biotransference, either.”
(A/N: For those of you trying to imagine Necron Ritsuko, I’m thinking an Exo from Destiny with green eyes and a similar glow from her joints, and golden cable-hair to her neck, in something similar to her old hairdo. Sorry for the wait!)
[Image and gif heavy]
[Link to mirror on Das_Sporking.]
Futaba: …okay, let me get this out of the way first - my poor sweet Angel hybrid boy, what have they done to you.
Wanderer2691: Uh….yeah. Welcome, one and all, to the most homophobic chapter in this nightmare of a fic, as we get to see Academia Nut’s opinion on Kaworu Nagisa, which can be summed as “AH SCARY ANGEL KID WILL TURN ME GAY!” Seriously, this spork is late partly because we needed to tackle it slow (and Leliel’s Library Science master’s degree).
Taion: We are exaggerating, but…only slightly. And the anticipation has…well…
Emma: This is it. You thought you’d seen the nadir? You thought this fic had hit rock bottom? This is where the fic hits rock bottom and rents the fucking Bagger 288.
Taion: While she seems to have recovered from…whatever it was before, we get the sense that Emma’s sanity will not last this chapter. But even beyond that, this chapter continues to not only be an utter bore, but one that clearly has no respect for mental health at all.
Leliel: And also? Deep anti-intellectualism! Because it’s clear here that Academia Nut does not care for the fact that Eva brings up these philosophical asides through him. At all. When it’s the point of the series.
Diego: Of course not, because otherwise, Tzeentchji might not completely adhere to being heteronormative! And that’s just wrong! So he has to change the philosophical debate they could have had to a slapfight!
Sophia: On some level, he must have an awareness he would never be equipped for any philosophical debate.
Chapter 15
Once again I thank Chris for his betaing services, I think it really helped out with a few parts this time.
Diego: This is Crazy-88’s name according to StarDestroyer.net, and we must continue considering him an enemy combatant with that particular assessment.
Diego: This is Crazy-88’s name according to StarDestroyer.net, and we must continue considering him an enemy combatant with that particular assessment.
He recommends Chateau from the Matrix: Reloaded soundtrack for this one.
Futaba: …I was thinking something a little more fitting given the absolutely stellar intellect Tzeentchji shows:
Leliel: Hey, don’t insult (the officially localized) Eustace by comparing him to Tzeentchji. Eustace learns from his mistakes and shows actual initiative. As for this fic?
Emma: Everyone on the Former Wretched Bird Site is so mad they’re localizing a guy who looks and acts like an Eustace as Eustace. It’s great. *beat* Yeah, I’m stalling.
Asuka was on a ventilator and a feeding tube, hooked up to various IV drips pumping her system full of various chemicals, while a whole battery of machines monitored her vital signs. She was also quite heavily restrained, enormous metal shackles and bars over her body to keep her down in the event she woke up angry.
Leliel: Here, we have the ‘improved’ Asuka…in the same state she was when she turned comatose in canon, only bound to the chair like the alleged ‘boyfriend’ was. Admittedly, he was also restrained, but, given how she was known to have self-harm, I kinda think any restraints would be at least careful to not be too constricting to prevent her getting worse.
Emma: This is… unsettling. It’s like to show how much better and cooler and stronger Asuka is, we’re going to have her put in a horrible situation. Because that’s always been the point of it. Make her perfect, build her up into some idealized girlfriend so it’ll be sweeter when she breaks.
Taion: And to be honest, this would be a fairly inoffensive scene, were it not for…
Shinji wanted to rush in there and do everything he could for her, to tell her that it was alright, that he was back, that she didn't have to hurt anymore. He resisted that impulse though. Everything was screwed up because he had lost sight of the big picture. If he wanted to truly help Asuka, he would have to think this out.
Taion: Tzeentchji making it all about himself and his pain. Because of course, her own discomfort is only relevant to him as he deals with it, and he subsumes it to his self-excusing martyrdom. I am reminded about how I negatively compared him to Moebius N. Those comparisons still stand, if not more so, as N at least was self-aware about how selfish his actions were, even if he rationalized them as the only available action.
Sophia: What a coincidence, that being vulnerable and emotionally emotive is the bad thing, and what actually helps allows him to continue being an emotionally constipated megalomaniac.
Emma: You still talking about Tzeentchji there?
Diego: There’s a disturbingly large amount of candidates from both universes…none of them great persons.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 724
Futaba: Don’t forget how very logical he’s showing himself to be by being a Big Strong Provider to control his emotions and not even leave a message We’ll see he’s separated from her by an observation window, but I can imagine it’s not hard to take time out of your day to telepathically signal her you’re fine. Or at least check to see what to do!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 631
Still, looking at her through the observation window, Shinji couldn't help but curl his fists in anger at this situation. Where had the laughter gone? Where had their meaningless, joyful play gone? Where had the cheeky banter between him, Asuka, and Rei gone?
Wanderer2691: One, wherever it is, if it’s not on fire it’s not where it should be, two, can’t help but notice how miserable you are you’re not getting your ideal harem, dude.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 725
And before you ask if we’re being unfair - I present for the prosecution, this nonsense!
Oh, wait, now he remembered. The Bastard Brigade of Gendo and SEELE were forcing them to fight this war with the Angels for them because they were too weak.
Diego: …he thinks he can lecture us on how much smarter he is than the canon antagonists. Black Goat preserve us… [pulls out the buttons, hits two with mold-tentacles]
Emma: I’d be much more sympathetic to your unwillingness to be a child soldier if it wasn’t all about how the people turning you into a child soldier aren’t “good” enough. If they were strong, well, presumably it would be fair for them to force you into a fight, because that’s just how your worldview works.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 726 (“Too weak”, when they have specifically hurt people close to you? That’s your concern?)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 569 (You mean the squishy humans who can’t drive Evas want people who can drive Evas to take on the Eva-related force? No. There’s cowardice, and then there’s “literally only this thing works, and it sucks.”)
Shinji could appreciate a good scheme like any follower of Tzeentch, but there were times to move the pawns and times to move the king. So far neither Gendo nor SEELE had done anything braver than castle.
Futaba: *Tzeentchji* “Which is why I’ve been hiding behind a bunch of schemes and using ridiculously circuitous plans to secure my security, all without exposing me to risk even when I’d know more and actually counter the way they fuck with my life by putting myself in danger! …wait.”
Sophia: No, see, it’s brave when he does it, because he has been bestowed a magical set of rules that only apply to him.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 570
Tzeentch, they were probably still blaming one another over that Special Forces incident, not a clue what had happened.
Taion: And if they know what’s good for them, they’ll keep it that way, lest the upset author hit them with a stick for daring to solve this contrivance.
Sophia: While they probably haven’t realized your role in it, I am sure they have realized they would have no ability or purpose to do… all that nonsense.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 247
They were mewling kittens who thought they understood what power meant. They would not, however, survive any direct attacks, trusting their pawns and cat's-paws to take the brunt of any counters by their enemies.
Wanderer2691: -guy who regularly manipulates people deniably, and hides behind his Rubrics.
Sophia: Yes. They are plotting just like you are, and while The Lord of Change forgives a good deal of hypocrisy from his chosen, he is less likely to forgive his own tactics being mocked as cowardice and weakness.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 727
Shinji's growing resolve on the other hand showed that he would not fold up and die when something like this happened to him.
Diego: Particularly given how you have never faced real hardship. Take it from a man mid-metamorphosis into a God of Fungi and Rebirth - vitality is easy to have if you’ve never been exposed to so much as a cold virus, but utterly untrained and fragile.
Emma: You don’t have any resolve, you’re just refusing to give me the satisfaction of watching you self-destruct.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 728
Rei was messed up, her powers having overwhelmed her psyche. But she would recover, and with time and more attention from Shinji, learn to master her powers.
Emma: Ah, yes, the Wimminz is Crazy and Messed Up because she can’t control her powers without Her Manz to handle her. Thankfully, all her Crazy will be fixed just by a man paying romantic attention to her. I’d joke about Victorian Hysteria Treatments, but that would mean she’s being prescribed a vibrator and would therefore be able to replace Tzeentchji.
Futaba: Beyond that - messed up? I literally had the metaphysical equivalent of brain surgery to stop paranoid hallucinations of my mother talking to me! And that still didn’t cure traumatic stress or social anxiety! Mental illness isn’t a thing you debug in a day! If you watched Eva, you’d know that!
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 632
Misato was in lock-up, half insane from having killed her best friend in a fit of rage while her family crumbled about her. But she was not yet dead, and there had yet to be a prison constructed that could keep out someone with telekinesis.
Leliel: No matter how much she’d want to get away from you. Though we’re feeling suspicious that she’s been reduced to “Damsel In Distress” here, for Tzeentchji to save…
Emma: I’m just surprised the narrative is acknowledging Misato would be upset over killing Ritsuko in a fit of rage. I wonder how much it strained AN to type that.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 633
Asuka was in a coma, her mind attacked by the full power of an Angel. The battle must have been truly epic to have broken through her Khorne granted mental barriers and caused this much damage.
Taion: So spectacular that we decided to skip it, and we are not letting that go.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/OffscreenMomentOfAwesome)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 571 (It’s one of the most key scenes in Eva - being shown in flashback deprives the fic of actually seeing how Arael works and it picking at the neuroses of its target.)
But her soul was not destroyed, Shinji could feel it broken and wounded, but still intact.
Diego: Nocht would disagree heavily on how intact any Khronate’s soul is, but I’m not him, so I’m letting it go. It might not be the soul from before Chaotic influence, but it’s still yours, mostly.
The urge to rush to her and begin the mending process nearly overwhelmed him again, but she was safe for now and it would be imprudent to take the risk at the moment.
Diego: Not so much the fact that, once again, there’s no given reason he can’t at least do something from a distance. I get why he is stealthy, but the fun fact about psychic powers is that they work through glass. And nobody can detect them. At least give her a psychic hug, everyone will think she’s just having a pleasant dream on the EKG.
Sophia: At this point, I think he’s coming up with pitiful excuses to keep her as an object of grief and cause for revenge, rather than someone who could act on her own.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 729
Tzeentch was the god of hope. So long as there was still breath in his body, there was still hope. Hell, he had probably technically been dead for a month and mostly brain dead for another month, and yet here he was.
Wanderer2691: [Facepalming] Selfish. Ambition. But on a related matter - that’s a definition of “hope” that’s more akin to Fortitude - Nurgle’s domain.
Emma: What, are you implying Nurgle might have deeper meaning than never showering and collecting dead animals?
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 316
The time for schemes was passing. The time for war was approaching.
Futaba: The part of me that’s still a would-be Aspirant for the Thousand Scions is outright offended right now. ARCANITES. DO NOT. STOP. SCHEMING! If anything, war gets them going, because of strategy!
Emma: Well, you see, eventually, he has to stop embodying the masculine intellectual ideal and drop it for violence. If he was the masculine intellectual all the time, then he would stop being masculine and become *shudders in faux-horror* effete.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 317
There would be no survivors on the opposing side.
Taion: …and we just put up the buttons. [Sighs and fetches them.]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 730
SEELE? Their flayed hides would become a new decoration for Unit 01.
Wanderer2691: That’s a Khornate thing, Slaanesh if made into fine leather. Tzeentch is into human-skin books.
Emma: This fic is fundamentally unwilling to afford the other gods the respect they deserve by giving them their own domains, presumably because it is so married to Tzeentch being the primary and most important god as the author’s object of worship.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 318
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 731
Gendo? Shinji would take immense pleasure in torturing his father until he was a blubbering pile of flesh devoid of any traits recognizable as human. While this was technically already true of the fucking bastard, Shinji's way would involve far more blood and screaming to get there.
Leliel: I ‘unno, I see a lot more of them in him than you, prick.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 732
Gendo's patsy Fuyutsuki? On him Shinji would test the limits of his telekinesis, see if he could actually crush the mass of a human into neutronium. He doubted it, but it would be interesting to try. Death would probably be instantaneous, a trifling consideration for the fact that Gendo's lackey wasn't as much of an ass as his father.
Futaba: Fun fact: By certain readings, Fuyutsuki is one of the only noble people in NERV’s high command, as his core motive is to undo SEELE, regularly showing dislike for Gendo’s more evil traits. If you could flip anyone into an Arcanite spy network, it’s him - but as we’ve repeatedly discussed, Academia Nut has no idea what actually happened in Eva and only slightly more in 40K, so here, it comes off as just sadism because Fuyutsuki dared to be employed by an object of Tzeentchji’s spite. I think that’s the kind of thing that results in massive dark side point gain.
Emma: Add this to the “Tzeentchji is more of an embodiment of the Imperium than Chaos” pile.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 733
DUMMY PLUGGED: 572
Anyone else who got in his way? Their deaths would be as slow and brutal as Shinji had the time for.
Diego: Because apparently, being a servant of the Architect of Fate means you are a massive ditherer.
Emma: Yes, we get it. Sadism is a sign of strength. Undirected, meaningless sadism is a greater sign of strength. Hell, as far as this fucking… literary mistake is concerned, undirected meaningless sadism is a sign of caring, provided you can say you’re doing it for someone who you’ve left helpless and alone.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 734
But for now, Shinji would secure his flanks. At this point, he only had two major points of weakness: the incapacitated Asuka and Misato. If anyone actually wanted to hurt him, the only thing they could do to cause lasting damage would be to kill either of those two. This was to say that Gendo had the perfect hostages. Since busting Misato out of jail would be the equivalent of an open declaration of war, such a move would have to come after he healed Asuka.
Wanderer2691: This, Leliel and I…don’t have an issue with, in and of itself. It’s a fair point, and I’d hope they would be cared enough to be considered viable hostages. And Misato is in the middle of a bunch of guards.
Emma: I’m going to be kind of a bitch and take issue. We’ve talked a lot about how Asuka especially is portrayed as an inherent, feminine weakness to Tzeentchji’s pure masculinity, and about all the harem members suffering being made about Tzeenchji. This feels like the complete synthesis of both those things.
Sophia: Especially since his devotion to convoluted plans even by Arcanite standards and his over-the-top sadism don’t count as weaknesses.
Leliel: …good points! Worth a point here, in context.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 634
Healing the psychic damage would require all of his attention, leaving him vulnerable. He needed a guardian to watch over him while he did his work. Rei would work if he asked her to, but why settle for one guardian when he could have four?
Leliel: This is also fine, in and of itself. We chewed out Tzeentchji refusing to give Asuka the okay, but a more involved procedure likely needs more eyes on his back. So naturally, he and Rei-
Reluctantly and with great sorrow and bitterness, Shinji turned away from the observation window and said to Rei, "I have things I must do."
Leliel: -oh yeah, he has a pathological need to stop his harem from ever possibly doing anything cool, even as a bodyguard.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 635
Find Gendo, find him as the doll obedient to him I knew when we first met. Get close to him, find out his plans and FUCK THEM UP. Let Nurgle's rot into all of his schemes and befoul them. Do as much damage as you can possibly get away with.
Futaba: …uh…isn’t that a great way to risk exposure for no good reason? Like…nothing’s stopping from her just reporting what she sees.
Diego: Because if not, then we would have to have a plot that isn’t End of Evangelion regurgitated. So she has to be there.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 248
Rei made no sound or expression, simply staring on until Shinji had left, at which point she walked away, smiling on the inside.
Taion: Oh, look at her recovering with how his nobility has reignited her. How…heartwarming. In the sense of a burn…
Emma: I’d get angrier, but I think I need to save my energy.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 636
It took Shinji a good ten minutes of walking through the halls of NERV to figure out what had changed in his absence.
Wanderer2691: …does anyone hear beeping-
(https://www.redbubble.com/i/magnet/Bullshit-O-Meter-by-mdkgraphics/7761993.TBCTK)
…oh hell. EVERYBODY, COVER YOUR NOSES!
When he had first arrived NERV had been a sombre, almost morbidly serious place. Life with Gendo as commander had bred into them a sense that the world was coming to an end and that they would be the first ones to pay for any screw up. But under Shinji's subtle influences he had brought hope to the place. With his insane stunts, demands for better, and the ability to quickly recover from what most people would consider disasters, he had inspired a feeling of hope in the entire base.
He had never noticed it until he saw howit had been ruthlessly stamped out in his absence.
Leliel: [Through gas mask] I am so glad we never uninstalled that Imminent Bullshit Sensor.
Futaba: [Fingers hurriedly jammed up her nose] Did Taion know that, though?
Taion: [Spawled on the ground]
Sophia: He has not filled them with hope in the sense that he has made them believe things will be better, you see. Rather, his presence has revealed that there are worse things than the apocalypse.
Diego: [Inhales deeply] Smells like nitrogen and denatured proteins. My fungal symbiotes find that, at least, a silver lining. As for this, though…while Tzeentch might favor those with messiah complexes, it does not make it any less greatly egotistical to assume that your glory hounding and demands alone brought hope to an area. Especially when we don’t have any actual described evidence this is the case.
Wanderer2691: Like…how do you measure that? If it’s postcognition, I get it, psyker with a link to a Dark God who’s distinctly related to time as a concept, but if that’s the case, why isn’t it explicit? Is there a bunch of notes that go “I’ll have you know, ever since the Golden Boy left I’ve been feeling very depressed.”
Emma: This is one of those things that, between the way Tzeentchji treats people and the lack of characterization for any NERV staff, I have to read this as Tzeentchji just making shit up.
Leliel: In fact, since I’m not going to get a better chance to talk about him - there’s a villain from a fan mod for a 4X strategy game without a set story that does everything Tzeentchji claims he did for NERV, only with actual logic and competence - because he actually uses precognition right!
(https://www.reddit.com/r/Stellaris/comments/x4waop/the_new_official_portrait_for_gigastructural/)
Wanderer2691: …Well, he certainly has several points over Tzeentchji in cuteness. All Hail Otto von Pawsmark!
Leliel: Kaiser Kattail here is from a popular free mod of the extensive space 4X strategy game Stellaris, specifically Gigastructural Engineering And More, focused on expanding the tech tree - and creating new Crisis Factions, effectively NPC-only boss factions that are a campaign’s final test. Kattail here is the leader of one of them, the Katzernartig Imperium - except while most Crisis Factions, including in the mod, are ancient monsters or sealed evils, the Imperium begins as a seemingly normal, if hypermilitaristic and expansionist, space polity that suddenly becomes absurdly competent as soon as Kattail takes command. To make a long story short - if you follow up on a story beat after you defeat him, you discover it’s because he’s done this before. Kattail’s a survivor from previous iterations of the universe, many of which had a Katzernartig Imperium with a nearly identical culture, and after hundreds of times he’s jumped across resets, he’s developed an intuitive sense for how his people’s culture and strengths generally develop, plus thousands of years of experience. Since he knows how people developed in previous iterations, he has functional precognition, as he saw people make the same exact choices dozens of times, and only that low because those people don’t always exist - and that tail of his has designs for hundreds of advanced inventions his people already made in previous Cycles, meaning he can skip a lot of research and development time. Thus, while he’s a jokester, it’s because he’s doing something he knows works in a way that avoids him getting bored after the six hundredth time - and, of course, given how he can just jump to the next cycle whenever, he’s usually not taking his efforts too seriously to begin with.
Futaba: If this sounds like the God-Emperor of Mankind, but a bit goofier…you’re not wrong. Kattail explicitly has the worst combination of savior complex and megalomania, he’s convinced only he can resist horrors he’s seen across his various incarnations - and a complete refusal to believe that the universe cannot be made utopia by him ruling it. The in-universe reason he can show up in multiple games is that he flees into his time portal the moment things go too bad for him to feel comfortable, leaving the Imperium to pick up the slack…because he’s convinced he can travel back once he’s made his utopia. He can’t; that’s not how universal iterations work in the mod’s lore, you can only jump forward past the cosmic reset that is the Unraveling due to the timeline itself being scrubbed of the past - from your temporal location, all times before are literally no longer existent. But it’s something he’d be incapable of ever doing and admitting that would involve him accepting he’s condemned the population of his entire spacefaring nation to suffer Hylia-knows-how-many times because he keeps losing his nerve and running - he’s no coward, but he’s convinced himself his life and the data in his cybernetics is the only irreparable loss.
Taion: [Comes to] …one can possess all the knowledge in the world, and the knowledge that for you, you can always start anew…and yet one often cannot overcome one’s own need for a feeling of control. I can sympathize, at least academically…quite unlike Tzeentchji, because for Kattail, he has actual proof he is a superhumanly skilled leader and put in the work to be so. For the pint-sized prick? It’s because he wasn’t there to grace NERV with his presence. Ten points!
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 744
Emma: And then… Jesus Christ he wanks for five fucking paragraphs about how much he forgot and how he slipped and how could this ever have happened, because Tzeentchji isn’t an overpowered self-insert whose writer turned god-mode on, we swear! It’s all garbage, cut it.
*Sporking vanishes in a puff of technicoloured smoke*
Emma: Well, that’s worrying.
Sophia: *smirking*
Emma: Well that’s even more worrying.
Wanderer2691: Uh…yeah. But, it’s gone now. So first, this… [activates Purity Seals] Second, to Tzeentchji: Shut. Uuuuuup….
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 749 (One for each paragraph of how it affects him and how the only one possible could be Tzeentch, instead of bad luck.)
Diego: I mean…on the one hand, I get why he’s starting to suspect his own god is going against him. Tzeentch’s plans only consider his followers so far as they are self-aware pawns. For an Arcanite to realize their god might be screwing them over is something that they all deal with, and it’s as close to humility as they get. On the other hand - essentially, the only way he can consider himself having lost control of the situation is “Tzeentch has decided to screw with me.” Not Gendo, who he supposedly fears finding out. Not SEELE, who he despises. Tzeentch. Literally the Great Conspirator is capable of outwitting or using him. How egotistical can you get?
Futaba: And once again - if this was an explicit flaw, it wouldn’t be as annoying. But here, it’s the basic lore. This story wants us to think that Tzeentchji is such a good planner only the intervention of the Dark God of Intrigue could screw him over. In spite of the very premise being that Tzeentchji inherited Gendo’s manipulativeness, and so, the author knows he’s got skill points in Plan Elaborate Scheme. Like, I’d expect the behavior from a sub-boss whose scheme is collapsing around his ears while the real villain swipes what he can, knowing this progresses his actual goal - except that’d be funny or cathartic! Don Corneo died with more dignity than you’re showing!
Leaving Central Dogma behind, Shinji discovered the devastation to the Geofront for the first time. There were huge craters within the Geofront, presumably from the fight with the Fourteenth Angel, and the underground forests had all been burned to the ground.
Taion: A reminder the Fourteenth is Zeruel, and we do get some lovely examples of the kind of destructive power both threw at each other…which is nice, except for the fact we saw none of it. It comes off as the author’s fundamental lack of confidence in portraying a fight scene where his vaunted main character actually faced difficulty, no matter how “awesome” his powers are. We see so much, and all of it is pointless, because whatever tension died over the flashback.
(https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodModeSue)
Next…we have eight paragraphs of description, and all we learn is “reconstruction was stalled due to the loss of a power generator”! That’s it! One point for author filler each of these damned paragraphs, and I am beginning to suspect we need a filler count!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 256
Leliel: But, before we move on, we do see that Academia Nut, for all his faults, has his priorities in order.
Looking down at the road, he also noted the fact that he was standing in a size 400 boot print, the Nike swoosh clearly visible in the centre.
Leliel: Namely, that sincerity and reflecting on the cost of war is for squares and he’s funny! HE’S FUNNY DAMMIT, LAUGH AT THE CALLBACK! LAAAAAAUGH! And then stop laughing, because it’s not funny, and just reminds us how greedy Tzeentchji is, that he recognizes himself via product placement.
Emma: This is what he remembers? This is what he gives priority in the solemn scene meant to be Tzeentchji realizing he failed? The joke that wasn’t even funny the first time?
Diego: Ah, but we are not materialistic greedy techbros, like what this fic believes is the pinnacle of humanity. Kneel before their…’insight.’
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 750 (A reminder more than a new thing, but he didn’t remove it yet, and it’s how he recognizes himself?!)
Taion: Anyway, Tzeentchji realizes he needs to stay in the shared apartment, when he discovers something.
Climbing the stairs, because the elevator was no longer working, Shinji arrived at the apartment and realized after a few seconds that he no longer had the key on him. Shrugging, he unlocked it telekinetically and walked inside… to see the debris from the emotional wreckage Misato and Asuka had suffered.
Wanderer2691: For the love of- [Buttons out] Should we just leave this on the table?! It’s getting more work getting them out!
Leliel: Given how much this particular button also ties to homophobia, it’s not a bad idea. I can smell the chauvinism, and I’m the most standard cis het man. If I’m cringing at this…
Emma: Leave them out. It’ll save us time.
Leliel: Check. Balance there, and…
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 637
The pigsty he had discovered upon his initial arrival was nothing compared to this.
Futaba: …yup, they’re not capable of living without their MAAAAAAAAN. Fuck’s sake, I could keep house even when suffering from paranoid delusions and agoraphobia…
Emma: Lots of people do lose an ability to housekeep in the face of terrible mental health. That’s not false. The problem here is the consistent revolving around Tzeentchji. He’s inconvenienced by the mess, losing him is the worst thing that’s ever happened (in the lives of two of the main characters of NEON GENESIS EVANGELION). I’m not bothered by the event, I’m bothered by its framing.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 638
Even back then, Misato made the occasional effort to bag her garbage, to do some chores on an infrequent basis. It seemed that somewhere along the line, she had simply stopped caring, and Asuka had done nothing to fix the situation.
Diego: While on the one hand, Khorne is not the God of Cleanliness, as shown by how World Eater armor is apparently painted red…on the other hand, I wonder why Asuka isn’t concerned. Especially if she feels it’ll hurt Misato’s efficiency in battle. You know, besides the lack of MAAAAAAN depriving her of agency.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 639
DUMMY PLUGGED: 573
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 319
The piles of garbage were geological in their thickness and significance. At the bottom were the empty beer cans and instant noodle containers, but as he moved up the liquor got harder and the food cheaper and nastier. He felt like an archaeologist, but instead of sifting through the remains of a long vanished civilization, these were the stages of the implosion of a human being.
Futaba: For the record; while in canon, Shinji came out of the plug conscious and…well, not ready, but able to fight after reconstituting, Misato still went through the wringer, and him simply being alive, but comatose, would probably support her through a desperate hope he might recover. Second…given what she eats and how she treats herself, how could you tell? Also, wow, so Slaaneshi, much dedication to work, wow.
Sophia: None of these women have gods. For this writer, the depths of worship are reserved for men alone. Their god is their man, and everything else is filtered through that.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 640
DUMMY PLUGGED: 574
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 320 (Yeah, that was sarcastic - Slaaneshi Hedonites double down and try to out-perfect themselves when discouraged, they don’t give up.)
He began to pick everything up before pausing to consider the point of it all. He shook the feeling off though. He would not descend into apathy and despair; that was Nurgle's shtick. Even if it was futile, even if he never came here again, he would clean up this place, for it was still his home.
Leliel: *Nurgle* “Oh so now you recognize a shrine to my putrescent magnificence, slave of my most respected rival.” More seriously - Academia Nut, read what you just wrote? You’re literally saying that this is Nurglite behavior! Also, Da Man cleaning to show Responsibility (™). As opposed to caring for the actual people…
Emma: I have an answer in addition to “Academia Nut doesn’t understand how the Gods work”, but you all aren’t going to like it. Yeah, this is very un-Slaaneshi behaviour, but maybe that’s because, as far as AN is concerned, Misato’s life revolves so much around Tzeentchji than with him gone, she loses every personality trait.
Sophia: If we’re meant to see her as so eventually devout, any collapse of her support systems and day-to-day life should drive her further to her god. I believe the ah- initiate- has the right of it.
Emma: I’m just a normal amount of annoyed. Nothing suspicious is happening.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 321
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 641
With the main living area sanitized and cleaned a few hours later, Shinji stopped at the doors to the rooms, wondering what he would find on the other side. Ultimately, he left Misato and Asuka's rooms alone. Those places were surely either their own private havens, or own private hells, and it was not his place to intrude upon them, not yet, not without them at his side.
Wanderer2691: Yeah, their clothes and sanctity of minds are way less inviolate than rooms they currently aren’t in and might help you figure out where to start when doing psychic surgery. Prick.
Emma: You made a big deal about how you can always see through Asuka’s clothes! Now you have boundaries?
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 642
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 751
So instead he entered his own room, flashlight in hand now that he no longer had the sun to light his way in this powerless place.
Taion: …so he’s alone…in the dark…[Insane smirk]
Futaba: I’ll open the portal with my mind, you use your Mondo and magic to lure the Metroid…
After blinking a few times to absorb it all, he was suddenly glad he had not intruded upon the sanctity of either of his housemates' rooms. Crudely carved into the walls a la 'The Shining' were endless repetitions of the phrases "Come back!" and "I need you!" in three different languages. The bed was a complete wasteland, Asuka apparently having clung to the last traces of his presence as desperately as possible.
Creepy did not begin to cover it.
Leliel:
(https://media1.tenor.com/m/tZxDazWLjS0AAAAC/dog-awkward.gif)
Not…for the reasons you claim…
Taion: What creepiness? He only claimed that simply not being present and/or comatose caused his comrade and lover to spiral into a pit of general insanity and repetitive ritual that should have been obvious long before her own mind shattered, simply due to her lacking the power of his penis. Seems entirely reasonable to me…you know, before I knew what sex and romance were as concepts…five points, for the sheer hubris of it.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 647
Emma: This might be one of the most obnoxiously generic depictions of “wooo, spooky crazy hysterical woman, woooo” I’ve ever seen. She carved into the walls (and you even namedropped The Shining, just to make sure we all knew you’d never had an original idea in your life) and slept in Tzeentchji’s bed! It’s not just misogynist, it’s lazy.
Sighing, Shinji just shook his head and gathered up his things. Obviously he had not done enough to help Asuka with her problems before being incapacitated and she had slid back into her dependent state. Just one more thing he would have to deal with
Diego: …ah yes, your girlfriend going into possessive and scrawled insanity just without your presence is a problem to deal with and not a sign you should have been more careful and/or appreciation of how fragile she was in this insane spin on her character. Relatedly, fuck off Tzeentchji.
Emma: *with an exaggerated, sarcastic grin* Well, he doesn’t need to be more careful, because as long as he can serve as her complete emotional crutch, it doesn’t matter what her problems are! You don’t need to fix codependency if you can just make sure you’re never apart!
Taion: …er… [Dives back into his Claw-memories, and starts looking for lore of Oh God That Is Not A Smile.]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 752
Settling down on one of the couches in the living room, Shinji relaxes and thinks about what he will have to do tomorrow.
Futaba: [Winces from aggressively trying to NOT read his mind]
First, perform psychic surgery on Asuka, pulling her back together. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
Leliel: For no good reason, you’d just draw attention.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 753
Second, bust Misato out of jail and try to fix her issues. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
Wanderer2691: …second verse, same as the first. And the rest…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 754
Third, kill Gendo and Fuyutsuki. Use Misato's expertise to assume control of NERV. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 755
Fourth, find and hunt down SEELE. Kill anyone who stood in his way.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 756
Fifth, wrap up this whole Angel business, playing out the end game. There was only one left anyway.
Shinji's eyes, which had been drooping up to that point, snapped open in shock. How do I know that there is only one Angel left?
Taion: Because Academia Nut does not understand humor, and should have finished with ‘kill anyone who stood in his way, and also take their brains to see what fascinating breakdown in neurons led to siding with the genocidal kaiju incapable of communication’ to even begin to be funny.
Sophia: I don’t think he even realized the repetition was funny. It’s just routine to him to kill all opposition, in a way deeply opposed to servants of the Lord of Change.
Taion: Also, to answer his question:
From the depths of his mind more of that mysterious, unpronounceable language drifted up, telling him things he did not yet understand.
Diego: *Academia Nut* “Oh shit oh shit how do I switch tacks uh oh crap I’ve been too busy polishing trophies oh shit I am completely lost how do I handwave…”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 257
Zf'patz'intchix'krew'v'tzint'chiah'qbuy…
Sophia: Your hovercraft is full of what?
Wanderer2691: Still not Dark Speech, dude, but at least it’s consistently uncanon. Not that it matters…
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 322
And yet… in those alien syllables, there was some glimmer of meaning, of comprehension. He now knew in his bones that this was the endgame. There was but one Angel left, the war almost over. Gendo and SEELE would soon be obsolete…
Futaba: And also, he needed pain medication for all the knowledge he just pulled out of his ass with a hand marked CHAOS: I AIN’T GOTTA EXPLAIN SHIT.
Emma: Have you ever heard that if you find yourself writing “somehow” or “for some reason” to explain a character’s actions that’s a problem and you need to flesh it out? “In his bones” is filling the same role here. It’s not even “in universe psychic” it’s just “knows how many episodes base-EVA has”.
Wanderer2691: And for the record - this weirdly informative whispering of daemons? Yeah, the only daemon here is a Keeper of Secrets, which is Slaaneshi - while they are knowledgeable lords of the Warp, the thing is, they don’t exactly give out knowledge for free. It’s explicitly used as part of temptation - there are other daemons infinitely more likely to simply tip their hands freely to taunt you about it being too late or to see what happens, like, oh I dunno…a Lord of Change, aka your own Dark God’s Greater Daemon?
(https://warhammer40k.fandom.com/wiki/Lord_of_Change)
Leliel: Trust me, when we discover the real reason it’s a Keeper of Secrets and not a Lord of Change in spite of our main character being an Arcanite? Everyone’s gonna freak out a bit - and it makes this sudden revelation come off as even more of an asspull.
Sophia: I assume a Lord of Change simply isn’t… appealing enough to his tastes.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 258
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 323
Fuck! Why was I so distracted these past months?
Taion: Because you are an impulsive child who thinks with his penis and wallet?
As soon as I learned of SEELE I should have moved more strongly against them, learned more about their plans and capabilities. They're all greedy bastards; they can't be doing this simply out of enlightened self interest, there has to be something they want once this war is over.
Diego: No. Really? We never would have guessed!
Futaba: Honestly, this comes off as yet more of the author’s inability to process people who don’t think exactly like him, especially when being selfish, might be just as competent. It’s either a plan or bust.
Sophia: It is entirely possible that SEELE is doing this because they genuinely think it is best for not just them, or anyone. That does not make them less dangerous, and probably makes them more dangerous, if it means they cannot be bribed or bought.
What do they want anyway? Power obviously, for that was all people like that ever wanted, but to what end? What could they get out of this? Aside from their own survival, what purpose was there to their actions… damn it, I should have hunted one of the bastards down and ripped the information out of him.
Futaba: Leaving aside the torture-rattle being shaken by this giant baby - fuck off Tzeentchji -
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 757
I find it really telling the story defaults to the idea of “power”, and doesn’t even consider the idea that SEELE are genuinely religious fanatics that see Instrumentality as transcendence. Now, to be entirely fair, supplementary data that shows that SEELE wanted personal Instrumentality while leaving the rest of the species out was already published, but for one we doubt Academia Nut’s scholarship for many reasons, for two…it still involves loss of self. They’d still be joined into one overmind with nobody truly being first among equals. But for Academia Nut, the idea that anyone would willingly give up agency like that…this is something his worldview can’t accept, so we have vague motions at Da Real Plan instead of admitting “they want to be a god-mind, and are just altruistic enough to accept merging with each other, because they’re fanatics.”
Emma: I think this says a lot about the blank, unbelievable pettiness of this fic’s writing. Like, yeah, SEELE has selfish motivations, but they genuinely believe what they’re doing is right. That’s scarier in a lot of ways, it’s more interesting because it means they can’t just be written off, and it makes more sense for a series that refuses to have conventional heroes to refuse to have conventional villains. If the protagonists are tormented by their inability to handle relationships, the antagonists are people who think they’ve found the answer to all that. But, you know, that’s deep and also it would make SEELE a much better option than Tzeentchji, so we can’t have that.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 575
Shinji then considered what he wanted once this war was over, once he had his father's face flayed off and stapled to his personal memoirs.
Wanderer2691: Lemme think - money, chicks, praise, a place to wank out his sadistic impulses? Like, this desire to have a trophy for no good reason beyond hate obsession?
Sophia: Leaving aside the petty moral concerns… why would you want to dignify your father by binding your writings in his flesh? You’re elevating him in a way he doesn’t deserve.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 758
He had power, love, and family, or at least the pieces of such things at the moment. He still easily had another 75 years to live, if not longer with his expanded powers of the Warp. There was so much he could do.
Leliel: Ah, that’s the important thing. How much you are impacted in all this and what you’re going to do to maintain your harem and sense of control. But go on, please explain how you’re better than Gendo.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 759
Eh… he would wipe out everyone who had opposed him so far and then think about conquering the world/galaxy/etc. He would definitely have to see how this world related to the home of his mentor. Maybe if he got back there he could make a play for ascension to daemonhood. Would probably take a couple of centuries, but he was still young, he still had plenty of time to figure things out.
Diego: …and he immediately ignores everything in favor of reaching for power and immortality. Not how his supposed ‘family’ is suffering. Great work there, asshole.
Sophia: Please, try to ascend. We have a whole pit full of the writhing forms of the failed Daemon Princes of the Great Conspirator.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 760
Futaba: And it continues like that, with Tzeentchji deciding the next day is the “Day of Thunder'' and revealing he somehow kept his weapons and some new “monastic robes” that are actually 20 million yen technobabble super armor that can face-tank anything below tank rounds, oooh. For the deep lore, at the time of writing, this amount of yen is 124,667 USD. The average cheap military drone costs about 70,000 USD, at minimum. Tzeentchji built a supertechnology for nearly two of the “glorified security camera” kind of drone, and well in the “disposable” range. Well, either that, or Academia Nut is a moron who doesn’t know a yen is the equivalent of a Japanese cent at most.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 260 (one for new STUFF (™), one for none of this being found.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 576 (I suppose it could be that the yen greatly increased in value post Second Impact…but given how at its height, 80 yen was equivalent to 1 USD in 1995, I doubt if it’s suddenly less numerous.)
He had but one thing he wanted to do before he left. Climbing the stairs, he arrived upon the roof of the apartment and looked around. As he had suspected, Horus was still waiting for him, far more loyal than his namesake.
Taion: [Flatly] I cannot help but see this presentation of his pet as a brag by showing how much more loyal an actual bird is compared to a renegade general. Who was also a person, not a trained and probably psychically brainwashed falcon.
Sophia: Why do you, as a servant of Chaos, care about Ishtar, or Horus’, loyalty?
Emma: Hey, yeah! He has no reason to be judgmental about Horus’ loyalty. Modern 41st millenium’s problem with Horus is that he failed to overthrow the Emperor, but their ideology is built on it being the right thing to do in the first place. Put another one in the “AN is actually an Imperium fanboy” column, I guess.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 761 (Nice dig at the Warmaster there, asshole.)
The bird immediately fluttered over to Shinji's shoulder and alighted there.
Stroking the raptor's head, Shinji looked it in the eye. "Sorry about the absence, I just came up to tell you that today everything changes. You may never see me again, or you may get your choice of hunting grounds and breeding partners in the future. Only time will tell really. You may however, wish to vacate the area as I'm not sure how bad the fireworks will be, and I'm sure you've been distressed by everything that has been happening so far."
Wanderer2691: Wait, so…that was it? Telling the bird to leave?
Somehow the wild animal understood Shinji and flew off, making for some place as far from Tokyo-3 as possible. Mainland China perhaps.
Leliel: …that was it. Phew, Academia Nut nearly had to juggle a subplot there, that’d cause an aneurysm! Also, what was the point of his existence? Like…seriously? Just once time showing off, and then…no falcon. Why.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 261
Just as Shinji was about to turn to leave, an old bulldog slumped over to him. It took him a moment to piece things together, but he realized that this must have been one of the creatures drawn to Asuka.
Diego: …how intriguing. I’d have liked to have seen this, given how only Nurgle is associated with animal life without effort. Also, what is the point of this canine, too?! It was literally just introduced!
Emma: One of the creatures drawn to Asuka, which were of course established well before this, and which we knew SO MUCH about *eyeroll*.
As the saying went always be wary of scarred old men, because the only thing you knew of them was that they were survivors. This dog was clearly a survivor, probably some victim of abuse, perhaps a fighter in illegal gambling operations before fleeing into the streets.
Wanderer2691: …because as might be obvious, Fic Is Author’s Edgy Babby And He Wuvs It. Somehow I get the idea we’re supposed to be impressed with dogfighting scars.
Leliel: Fun fact, fighting breeds are actually the friendliest towards humans, on average. I should know, I own two derivations of bulldogs, Boston Terriers, and they are simultaneously hunting dogs out of a fox hole and cuddle monsters towards anything humanoid. Fuck off, Tzeent-I mean, Academia Nut.
Emma: I think I read somewhere that fighting dogs are bred for high prey drive and dog aggression, but low human aggression, to reduce the risk of them turning on their handlers.
Leliel: …disturbingly plausible. At least Zeus and Juno are more dangers to themselves when walking near large animals, but still - and if anything, offends me more about “ooh, cool fighting dog.”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 262 (WHY. DOES THIS. DOG. EXIST? Beyond “this is totes normal Chaos and Tzeentchji is not that Speshul for a falcon, pinkie promise.”)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 324
Wary of the creature, Shinji still addressed it and said, "Well then, I suppose you should know that today I go to aid your mistress, and when we return, your loyalty shall surely be rewarded as well."
The old dog just 'harrumphed' and went off to lie down again. Apparently the old gladiator was unimpressed with the young sorcerer.
Taion: This canine possesses extremely good taste and a refined sense of perception.
Futaba: Bite! Bite! Bite! You can reach a sensitive area!
Leaving the apartment behind, Shinji began his trek back to NERV in the predawn light. Looking over the schedules at the train station, he found that the nearest reliable line was still further away, and if he wanted to get to NERV before noon he would have to use that line instead of waiting around all day for a train to show up closer.
Wanderer2691: And for once, him actually trying to get to Asuka ASAP is not something we can criticize, even if it is a little dumb to go back to the lion’s den. It’s compelling dumb. Unlike…
Furthering his trek into the dawn, Shinji paused at the edge of the new lake created by the devastation of the fights with the Angels and wondered at the futility of it all. For all they had advanced, for all they had evolved, even with the Evas progressively losing Pilots, the Angels still kept losing this war, and they only had one shot left at this.
Did they even realize how fucked they were?
Wanderer2691: …this dumbassery, which is just long, empty boasting about how Supah a Shinji he is, and generic-ass Humanity Fuck Yeah - there’s a time and place for it, but when it’s clear the only reason humanity has such a win record is the author writing one-handed while The Explsion Channel plays on repeat over butt rock at max volume, it isn’t nearly as impressive as it thinks.
Emma: Also if they’re fucked, why shouldn’t the go out fighting? The Angels have nothing left to lose.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 762 (Even if it is right by author fiat, it’s still overconfidence and snob arrogance after he was put in a hospital for months by an Angel.)
Leliel: And next is…oh Dark Gods. Here we go…
Diego: I call foul. We have too low expectations for disappointment. It’s more of an unending queue line in the summer of a dull continuous ache.
Shinji's reverie of the thought was interrupted by the sound of humming. Looking to the side, Shinji notes a young man sitting casually on a ruined statue of an angel, observing the rising of the sun. With ashen grey hair, red eyes, and a youthful appearance, he appeared as a more upbeat, male version of Rei.
Emma: *Suddenly leans forwards, like a cat who’s seen a bird* It begins.
Futaba: So it does…[Crushes nose]
"Hello," Shinji said.
"Hello Ikari Shinji-san," the boy replied warmly.
"I see my reputation precedes me. I am afraid that you thus have me at a disadvantage, for I know not your name," Shinji said.
Smiling broadly, the young man tells him, "My name is Nagisa Kaworu, Ikari-san. I am the Sixth Child."
(https://evangelion.fandom.com/wiki/Kaworu_Nagisa)
Emma: Yeah, so, this is Kaworu. He’s the Sixth Child. He’s also a human-form Angel, sent by SEELE to effectively infiltrate NERV. As Tabris, he’s the angel of Free Will and is not… particularly invested in the plots of his creators. *beat* He also has incredibly obvious romantic feelings for Shinji, and while Shinji is unable to reciprocate for a variety of reasons, it’s a misinterpretation of “Fight Club is about how violent masculinity is cool and good” levels to say that Shinji isn’t attracted to Kaworu and doesn’t want to reciprocate. The most uncomplicated, genuine love Shinji is offered in canon is romantic and from another boy, and Shinji losing him is what really pushes him past the point of no return. *suddenly grinning manically* Implying looking beyond heteronormativity is the path to happiness? We can’t have that.
Leliel: He’s also what really throws a lot of how alien the Angels are into relief, and the fundamental tragedy of fighting entities that simply cannot disobey their programming. He’s a genuinely kind and sweet boy…that accepts his purpose is to cause Third Impact as a law of nature, to the point where, in canon, he lets Shinji kill him - encourages him, even! - because he realizes Shinji’s goal is to stop Third Impact, and he values Shinji’s happiness. In addition, while this is often missed - much as how Rei is a human-scale version of Lilith, Kaworu is one of Adam. Thus, he’s a very key look at how even the cause of Second Impact thinks, and it’s clear he holds nothing resembling malice - just a scientific fascination with humans, albeit as a thing that may need to be wiped away for the species he was actually programmed to culture.
Wanderer2691: Academia Nut, naturally, does not process - or want to process - any of this, because otherwise, Xenos Not Bad, and seeing as how his idea of “Good Chaos” is the Imperium with a death metal skin…
"Please, call me Shinji, Nagisa-san," Shinji answered smoothly.
"Only if you will call me Kaworu," Kaworu said.
Futaba: And going by “canon, but worse”, this is taking something that’s in canon and then completely butchering it to start working on how this fic really wants to us hate him. Because this also came with some much-needed appreciation and pep talk, which is what sent Shinji crushing on him hard…and Kaworu was the one who suggested calling him by his first name originally to help seem more approachable. Here, Tzeentchji is working faster to make it seem like Kaworu’s being overly familiar…when canonically, I expect his handler would have probably read “Tzeentchji has been out for a while, but has a good social life” to him, and thus, even at his most amoral IC portrayal, it’d take the form of sympathy that so much of his life self-destructed, and that it’s fine to take a second to breathe. But that’d involve, once again, Xenos Not Bad.
Diego: Pay no attention to the T’au or Eldar behind the curtain, they’ve never emphasized with humans! Ever! Who are you going to believe, AN or your lying eyes?!
DUMMY PLUGGED: 576
EXCOMMUNICAE CANONICUS: 325 (Just so the sarcasm is clear - yes, they can and do. Eldar mostly hide it behind snobbiness and there’s a tinge of “recruiter” when T’au do it, but what makes them dangerous in a fight with other forces is that they actually do some research on their opponents and try to see things from their perspective. There’s a reason T’au are good at recruiting and Eldar good at manipulating)
"Very well," Shinji said with a slight nod. "I must say though, that your presence here is… unusual, no?"
"Oh, the fact that they called up a new Pilot when the last battle left NERV without any Pilots, although your awakening is indeed fortuitous, is strange?" Kaworu asked lightly.
Taion: Well, no it isn’t, otherwise, the author might have to do work. No point, because the main character does need to be conscious for this and it is not that much of a contrivance, but…the issue is larger than that.
"No, I mean that you seemed overly happy in the face of this devastation, humming a song even," Shinji pointed out, although his voice is non-accusatory.
Emma: Yeah, it would be terrible to hum a song to cheer yourself up. Not like good wholesome reactions like… flaying your father alive and making a couch out of him, or whatever it was.
Sophia: Tell me, does your culture consider music effeminate?
Emma: Fuck. Sometimes, yeah. Fuck, that’s it.
Leliel: Also, rampant hypocrisy. Because, need we remind you: Tzeentchji is a cellist, and made a classical cover of Master of Puppets by Metallica. And he did so as “cover.” Yeah, no, pull the other one, you enjoy music and explicitly do so to relieve stress, like how Kaworu’s singing.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 577
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 763
And don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG, it’s more of…well, you need the full context. And we’d be here all day otherwise.
Smiling, Kaworu answered, "Songs are good. Singing brings us joy. It is the highest point in the culture that Lilims have created."
Chuckling, Shinji asked, "Oh really?"
Frowning slightly, Kaworu asked, "You do not appreciate song?"
Wanderer2691: Of course he doesn’t, being an uncultured pig who is deeply disturbed by how culture isn’t completely like his hobbies and wants very badly to be objectively right - er, a “rationalist.”
Diego: I would like to remind everyone the effective ruler of all Great Old Ones and the beating nucleus of the universe itself, Azathoth, is so lost in dreams that he is functionally mindless…except for a primal love of music to the point where he has an entire demigod species of musicians just to perform lullabies for him and all his magic involves other forms of song. So, peanut gallery comment, music is the alpha and omega of existence. Your move, Tzeentchji.
"Hardly. I simply do not think it the high point of culture, merely a manifestation of the high point," Shinji explained.
Grinning, Kaworu turns his head to the side in a lopsided manner and asked, "Oh, do tell."
"The high point of any culture is its survival," Shinji said.
Taion: …speaking as a member of a resistance group against what Diego called vampires that turned my world into an eternal war to feast on in the name of survival…fuck off, Tzeentchji. I want to preface everything we say with that. “I wish to survive” is the base excuse of any kind of selfish behavior you can think of, because rarely is someone stopping at personal comfort and continued being. Or stays with survival as their core motive.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 764
"I would think that would be the base," Kaworu pointed out.
"Then your thinking is woefully linear. At what point of a mountain do you differentiate from the 'base' and the 'apex' when it is all one whole? Music that lifts the soul will further the survival of a culture, but it can only appear when the culture itself ensures survival. The greatest pieces of music were all composed before Second Impact because we were not riding the edge of survival, and thus we had the time and resources to spare to such beautiful creations. But now that the wounds are healing, that the war with the Angels is reaching its conclusion, the songs are coming back out. They are proclaiming that we will not be bowed, that we have survived, that we will survive," Shinji elaborated.
Emma: Oh, you dumb little motherfucker. Here’s the thing they don’t tell you about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: it’s wrong. Or not wrong, but it’s not universally applicable. All through human history, people have placed higher, more abstract needs over the base. Not everyone, and I don’t blame people who chose food and security, but it happens. People have died for their art, people have fled physically stable situations where they were closeted to live on the streets but out. The whole point of a culture is not its survival, it’s making it worthwhile that it survives, and you just can’t handle that because it might mean your nonsensical “hard men making hard decisions” militarism isn’t completely justifiable and the greatest good.
Futaba: Exactly. This is the same kind of shit Madarame and Kaneshiro told Kage and the rest, and I was there for Okumura…and in a roundabout sense so did Kamoshida. Survival of his sanity, but trust me - his exact quote was “all those goddamn hyenas forcing their expectations on me...! I'm doing this all for them!” And he felt his…games were ways he could remain on top of the world doing it. The only time I ever saw it be even relatively justified was with Prosecutor Nijima, who was just borderline corrupt due to fear of being hit with workplace misogyny if she wasn’t hypercompetent, and Toshiro Kasukabe, who actively wasn’t doing anything corrupt, just kind of spineless around his dad until he finally stood up for himself. “Survival” is a thought-terminating cliche of a motive, not an actual sympathetic villain origin story. Not by itself, and not without actual good qualities to show that no, really, this baddie sincerely thinks they need to repress anything virtuous in them to survive.
Diego: This reminds me of the worst kind of Sorcerers from my world. The ones who don’t just refuse to recognize their powers are ultimately ones that require luck and Fate’s interest to even have a chance to seize through will, but see the divine as a resource. You, Tzeentchji, are the kind of person who doesn’t want to climb up the hierarchy of needs, even assuming for the sake of argument, you are right that it is the core of all communities. You’d rather wallow at the base in constant crisis - as opposed to allowing ideas that go “hang on, why are we always fighting” to flourish. It’s so easy to make an argument for greater control when there is an eternal crisis that only a Strong Man (™) can manage - and that is the reason why in my world, there are two different authority-related Callings. Leader, and Tyrant.
Sophia: Oh, I see. If nothing matters but survival, then everything is justified. If nothing matters but survival, then anyone opposed to you is opposed to survival, and anything you do to them is justified. We have a name for that, Tzeentchji. We call it anathema.
Leliel: [Opens mouth, pauses.] …for the record, “anathema” is a title often applied to the God-Emperor of Mankind. And…that is actually brilliant. How else could you describe him in his Crusade that essentially turned all of humanity into a xenocide engine in the name of “unification and survival in a hostile universe”?
Wanderer2691: …Ah nuts, this is the notorious Word Bearer charisma, isn’t it? Here, have five points while we remind ourselves why the Ruinous Powers are called that. Which is ironically the only bit of actual missionary work for Chaos Undivided Tzeentchji has done all fic.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 769 (Because this is the basis of a whole fuckton of Tzeentchji’s actions previously and going forward, and it offends us.)
"A curious analysis Shinji-kun. What makes you think that the war with the Angels is coming to an end?" Kaworu asked.
"Because there is but one left," Shinji stated boldly.
"Oh? And how could you possibly know that?" Kaworu inquired.
Emma: Because he read ahead in the script.
Mulling the question for a moment, Shinji replied, "Fighting the Angels has awoken within me new instincts, new insights, and I simply feel it in my bones that they have but one move left to play in this twisted game. One last, desperate move."
Leliel: *Kaworu* “...in other words, you were told by the one who weaves the words of this world?”
Wanderer2691: *Tzeentchji* “Sh-sh-sh! Don’t blow his cover or ask why you didn’t just mind-crush me upon realizing I’m the most hostile part of humanity it has to offer!”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 263
Glancing about the wreckage of Tokyo-3, Kaworu asked, "You call this desperate?"
Grinning, Shinji replied, "Of course."
A somewhat smug, condescending look crosses Kaworu's face and he asked, "And if all of that was to lure you into a false sense of superiority?"
Emma: Oh, yes, Kaworu is the one being smug and condescending. Not the one gloating about how he has inevitably defeated his external enemy who is both strong and weak. I guess it’s inevitable that Tzeentchji would interpret all of Kaworu’s kindness as smugness and condescension. Just look at how he treats his harem.
Futaba: I’m pretty sure that, given his hissing territoriality to Kaji, this is Tzeentchji sensing a much more desirable male to aggro at, like an aging lion still holding stubbornly on. Sadly, he’s also the GMPC, and our author totally rolled higher you guys…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 770
Snorting derisively, Shinji said, "Then theAngels are all idiots granted power beyond their station, blind, mewling things that have intruded upon a nest of serpents, not understanding their own inevitable doom."
"A nest of serpents? Quite the negative appraisal of all Lilim, don't you think?" Kaworu asked.
Leliel: I don’t think so, but not for any reason I feel is complementary to Tzeentchji. More like he sees only his caliber of asshole as anyone worth respect, and so anyone he even pretends to respect…
(https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0783.html)
Man, what I would give to see Tzeentchji thrown in General Tarquin’s arena…
"Hardly. The serpent taught us everything we needed to kill Angels, and the venom of snakes can handily slay seemingly mightier creatures such as elephants or bears. For all their size and power, the Angels have fallen to us just as the tiger falls to the cobra," Shinji stated smugly.
Emma: You don’t get to claim that. Everything you have done has been in the service of overwhelming power. All of your victories have been achieved through overwhelming power. All of your problem solving begins and ends with “how can I best apply overwhelming power”. You don’t get to play the underdog when it’s convenient for you.
Diego: But if Tzeentchji isn’t a victim, then how will he be justified? Checkmate, SEELE-ists.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 771
Hopping off the statue to confront Shinji, Kaworu glares at him condescendingly and asked, "I had heard that you were intelligent and wise beyond your years, but to underestimate your enemies so is as foolish as-"
Sophia: I don’t know why you would have heard he was wise beyond his years. With an entirely unwarranted sense of self-importance, yes. Disproportionately violent, yes. Occasionally capable of flashes of brilliance, yes. But wise? Intelligent? Capable of applying that intelligence in any way? Absolutely not.
Emma: I think it says a lot about the utterly bizarre framing of this stupid fucking scene that, despite making sure we all know Kaworu is an insidious gay out to seduce and corrupt manhood, it still has to be established that he doesn’t actually like Tzeentchji, I guess to portray the degenerates as fundamentally repelled by the strength of the elect.
Taion: And more importantly, drowning Kaworu’s point in insults to avoid actually confronting the fact that there has been no response to it. It is simply taking as a truth in-and-of-itself, with the author sticking his hand in the Angel hybrid’s skull to make it clear that Tzeentchji ‘impresses’ him. Tell me, would Kaworu leave that point unremarked?
Wanderer2691: Nope. More like ask why he thinks Tzeentchji feels that way, and why he thinks that is a good thing. Not even to judge, it’s just a novel take on existence he wants to learn about. Because Kaworu, unlike our self-inset protag-kun in a Shinji suit, is deeper than a birdbath.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 578
TALON ON THE SCALES: 264 (Removing most of Kaworu’s neurons to avoid actually making anything resembling an uncomfortable point so as to not disturb the power wank has author fiat all over it.)
Cutting him off, Shinji finished, "-to usethe word 'Lilim' to refer to humanity. Honestly, how much has SEELE sheltered you from reality if such basic things are beyond you?"
Blinking, Kaworu stuttered for a second, trying to perceive the turn this conversation had unexpectedly taken, as his universe changed in an instant.
Leliel: Namely, he saw the divine hands up Tzeentchji’s and his own ass, with a teleprompter reading out lore. Explain how you know this, o scholar mine.
Futaba: …Apparently Chaos corruption isn’t the only thing spreading if Leliel’s going Destiny Darkness reality bender on us. While I find a wish I don’t mind being corrupted, I reiterate that Tzeentchji’s, and by inference Academia Nut’s entire idea of Chaos is…
(https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/its-magic-i-aint-gotta-explain-shit)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 265
Wanderer2691: Also, one other thing - while clairvoyance, divination, and precognition are all Tzeentch psi powers, they take the form of visions and divination techniques. You don’t just know.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 326
Emma: No, this is worse. He’s trying to seem mundanely smart. He’s doing the detective thing, where the detective slips up and reveals a tiny detail that the culprit overlooked. “I never said your husband was poisoned, Madame Veuve-Noire and all that.” The problem here is that the little detail is Kaworu calling all humans Lillim, something which is stupid beyond belief for Kaworu to just slip up, and lampshading doesn’t help. Like, yes, Kaworu is weird! You aren’t a genius for picking up on that! Canon Shinji wasn’t too stupid to realize, he just didn’t care if he was being offered affection, and how can any of us possibly be blamed for seeking love and succor beyond humanity?
Futaba: Quite! And deeper lore, even beyond how Shinji did not know that was the Angelic name for humans - let’s face it, by the time he met Kaworu, Shinji had just discovered Rei was not only a clone, but on her last life and body thanks to Ritsuko. Even if he figured it out, it’s more likely his next step on the logic train is “oh, Kaworu’s like Rei”, rather than “Kaworu’s an Angel”, because, I don’t think Academia Nut got the tutorial here - all the Angels fought thus far are kaiju. Not pseudo-humans.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 579
Sneering cruelly, Shinji advanced, smoothly taking a step closer. "Do not even pretend to think that you are like me Angel, parading about in such a stolen form. You are as your brothers, blind, stupid, and most of all weak. You cannot even comprehend your own power, and thus you cannot use it. In the war between brains and brawn… well, let us just say that there is a reason sword swinging nutcases are less common in the age of cruise missiles. Not that brute force does not have its place-"
Emma: Yes, keep lying, you little brute! Keep pretending that you don’t think of yourself as the overwhelming force, the might that makes right, being usurped by the nasty corruptive forces of the weak untermensch. You’re not cunning! You have no ability to hold on in the face of danger! All your strength is borrowed! You’re disgusted by the merest hint of something outside your worldview! You’re pathetic!
Diego: Woof, there is some fire in those eyes. Not that I protest, this is very much “a moron’s idea of a smart person” - and a violent moron at that. Tzeentchji, you are an Arcanite. Even if you intend to destroy them later, this is your chance to learn about the Angels. And he’s clearly interested in talking to you! But I do believe you are more Undivided than Tzeentch - you think with your fists to a degree that would be embarrassing to most Khornates, who at least study the art of combat rather than decide “muscle warlock casts fist.”
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 772
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 327
Before Kaworu had time to respond Shinji's staff lanced out in a vicious strike that would have decapitated the Angel with blunt force trauma if not for the AT-field that popped into existence between the two of them.
Wanderer2691: [Flat] Turning one of the most interesting and memorable episodes of Eva into a generic-ass shonen with ego barriers instead of power auras. Truly one of the changes of all time…
Leliel: I give this twenty gazillion Morbings out of five. So inspiring and new that it made us revive a years-old meme and make it classic again.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 266 (And much less work for the author!)
Withdrawing his staff, Shinji noted analytically, "So you do have an AT-field."
"Yes, or at least, that is what you Lilim call this thing. This is the light of my soul, a sacred territory in which no one may intrude. Aren't you Lilim even aware yet, that your so-called AT field is merely that wall that encloses every mind that exists?" Kaworu asked angrily, furious at this unexpected evolution of events.
Emma: Now, Kaworu definitely strikes me as the sort who can say something both poetic and academic in an angry tone, but this seems more like “copying the canon dialogue without thinking of the situation changed”. Why would Kaworu be talking about the anatomy of the soul, to someone with the soul of a toilet and the mind of a chan imageboard?
Taion: It’s simple - actually writing, as opposed to constantly fluffing up a main character, is hard.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 267
Cocking his head to the side, Shinji said, "That may be the light of your soul, but this is the sound of a supersonic I-beam."
Kaworu probably could have dealt with the momentum transfer of the impact if he had been prepared, but the shock of Shinji telekinetically accelerating a piece of broken building to Mach 2 in just under five metres of space caused him to forget to anchor his AT-field properly.
Futaba: Uh, yeah, let’s get the judges on that-
(https://www.spreadshirt.ie/shop/design/nope+looks+like+bullshit+from+this+angle+too+mens+t-shirt-D5fbed1998374cc55f27d218b?sellable=3031JG99nVUxLjjM931E-6-7)
Futaba: Since when was an AT field something that needed poise!? If anything, it’d probably go up reflexively due to a desire for self-defense shutting down any ego flow! More importantly - in canon, Kaworu’s AT field is so strong it shuts out the flow of atomic particles as a side effect. Literally the only reason he was beat was because he wasn’t especially eager to win, and let Eva-01 in there with him and Shinji! Unless that I-beam is specifically AT-enhanced, all you’re gonna get is a U-shaped bit of metal and a not-mad-just-disappointed Kaworu.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 584 (Literally inventing a weakness that’s never even been a possibility, and probably wouldn’t affect our sweet Angel boy.)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 268 (And somehow being unable to react.)
Nagisa Kaworu ricocheted from the surface of the lake twice before he stabilized his tumble, unhurt but stunned and confounded by this unheard of demonstration of power. Rising out of the perturbed water, Kaworu watched in surprise as Shinji levitated out over the lake to follow him.
Emma: Don’t worry, everyone! This isn’t a ridiculous display of authorial favoritism! See, there’s a reason for Tzeentchji to do nothing but win! This is a fair fight and not a fantasy of easily beating the insidious other!
Wanderer2691: …I’d join you in mocking it, but…can Kaworu even stand on the bottom?
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSmk51-JpUY)
Judging by perspective, it’s a fairly deep lake. Which leads to the idea of him just kind of barely sticking his head out. Knowing AN, that was probably intentional because icky icky gay Angel, but this isn’t having the emotional impact of an image he thinks for more reasons than him clearly typing this one-handed.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 585 (Is it petty and up to interpretation? Yes, but he should be hitting debris on the way there if he’s being skipped off the lake!)
TALON ON THE SCALES: 269 (Of course he didn’t right himself, despite having the ability to right himself telekinetically - he floats to move later in his episode.)
"What have you Lilim stolen now?" Kaworu spat out.
Diego: *Tzeentchji* “...you’re surprised? I mean…don’t you communicate with eeaaaaaaaaargh…” That was my impression of Academia Nut slurping out inconvenient memory of his own lore through a straw in his nose. Because you’d think Kaworu would know about psyker powers if more data was transferred. Or more accurately, if it didn’t disappear up Academia Nut’s own culo.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 270
Sneering contemptuously, Shinji said, "Nothing Tabris, we, unlike you Angels, have merely been learning.
Futaba: *Tzeentchji* “In particular, reading the interior of the author’s buttcheeks, because I have no idea how I know that name, and have had no reasonable way to do so, ever, and I have no idea how you’re the last Angel anyway…isn’t having access to strategy guides for reality fun?”
TALON ON THE SCALES: 271
Much we have taught ourselves, but there are others willing to impart their knowledge. The Evas we built from what we learned from the Angels. I on the other hand learned from a completely different source, one best suited to the killing of creatures such as you."
Emma: The Angels have been learning, you unbearable egotist. That’s why they sent a human-shaped interface with human empathy. That’s why, in every sensible world, it only didn’t work because that empathy got in the way.
Taion: But that would involve a supposedly good schemer winning a battle with thought and words. How will he be able to assert his masculinity and ability to inflict violence in an endless cycle of war, otherwise? …okay, that was a bit of projection, but not by much. So, so many Moebius were obsessed with raw power…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 773
"What?" Kaworu stuttered incredulously.
"Daemons," Shinji hissed in a pleased tone. "If the choice is between the extinction of the Angels and the hell of daemons, I choose hell. So long as I still can act, no matter the circumstances, there is still hope, still things I can change. Hell is not so bad. Besides, they teach so many interesting things, like your true name for example."
Sophia: *breaks into surprisingly normal-sounding, sincere laughter* Oh, this is delightful! He still thinks he’s Chaotic, while trumpeting about the killing of daemons and his hatred of the–what were we calling it– the insidious threat? He’s sold his soul to another parent who will never return his love, and he thinks he’s free.
Leliel: …her sincere laugh might well be the most creepy thing I have ever heard, but she’s not…hey wait a minute! “They” teach so many interesting things?! Isn’t the Warp here barren?!
Diego: …ah yes, I can see the dorsal fin of the Voodoo Shark breaking the floor, but it seems to be swimming away. Even it seems to realize that a fic breaking its own lore is so contrived as to be bad for its health. Too much fat.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 272 (THIS JUST RAISES FURTHER QUESTIONS!)
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 328
Once more Kaworu snapped up his AT-field, this time making sure to anchor it properly, as a rain of improbably massive and fast missiles rained down on his position. The lake steamed and bubbled as steel liquefied on impact, the steam rising up to the floating Shinji where it crystallized around him and feel back as snow.
Emma: This is not more interesting than the character drama. I know you think emotions deeper than a puddle are the domain of degenerates and women, but all that means is that anyone who is a degenerate, woman, or both, is bored out of our minds.
Wanderer2691: I am so very much regretting my search history, otherwise I wouldn’t be applying a taser to myself to stay awake…
Lashing out with his own power, Kaworu shoves Shinji back, launching him towards the still standing remains of downtown Tokyo-3. Taking flight to dodge the remaining barrage of missiles, Kaworu follows Shinji, intent on both killing this aberration and finding out how he came to do such things.
There were no such things as demons!
Emma: I think if I was a fucking Neon Genesis Evangelion Angel and also capable of abstract thought, my assumption if someone referred to demons and also threw a fucking I-beam at me with his mind would be maybe we had unknown rivals. But, Kaworu has to not just lose, but be humiliated, to show the triumph of proper masculinity over the corruption of homosexuality.
Futaba: [Eyes glaze over briefly] …And I’m having a vision of the end? I sense…a great fart. A raspberry so loud it vibrates space itself, and passes out any sense of consistency this fic had, leaving only the stench of stale cologne and mediocrity…
Leliel: [Checks] …oh yeah. We’ll get to it, but…in this fic’s universe, there is no physical way the Angels don’t know about the Warp. It’s literally impossible for them not to on some level, so if there’s anything there that could finger Kaworu as Tabris? He’d instantly guess what and who.
Diego: …so, hands up. Who here thinks this is both written by the seat of AN’s own pants and regularly has its own events forgotten in the writing process? [Extends hand] Also, ten points for ignoring your own writer’s bible here or in the future.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 281
DUMMY PLUGGED: 586 (And this, for Kaworu’s intelligence being turned off to support the power of dick!)
Standing smugly on one of the abandoned skyscrapers, Shinji taunts, "Is that the best you can do? Because we can keep this up all day, just countering each other, getting nowhere fast. ThoughI'm sure that if this fight goes on long enough someone will notice, even after I turned off all the cameras, and send someone up here. At that point I will use the distraction to go get Unit 01 and repeat what I did to Zeruel to you."
Leliel: *Kaworu* ”As sad as it is you are not an example of Lilim I’d regard as a worthy champion - you are correct, this is getting nowhere fast.” And then the Eva he bonded to burst from the ground and ate Tzeentchji, or otherwise he trapped the both of them in an AT Field without anything but water in it to drown him, or….whatever the case, Tzeentchji’s dead due to being out of Author’s Special Boy protection, the end, moving on.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 282
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 774 (Taunting that you’ll kill someone is the sign of a middle school bully, jackass.)
"Your arrogance shall be your undoing, I am quite capable of attack," Kaworu spat.
Diego: -knowing he was lying, as any attempt was cut off by the sound of petulant stomping feet and a scream of “NUH-UH, MY HERO HAS…” insert power here that makes the author save his ego. Weirdly similar to Games Workshop at its scummiest, really.
Wanderer2691: [Haunted look] In the grim darkness of the recent past, there is only 6th Edition power creep and spiritual lieges…
Leliel: …I’ll explain after this scene, but - let’s just say Matt Ward is an interesting study in how variable one writer can be. And Sophia will be glad to know he is over and done with, given his Ultramarines wank.
Down below a small café exploded, hundreds of knives rising up to the level of their confrontation, embedded in Kaworu's AT-field.
"As expected from someone who wants to take over the world," Shinji noted dryly before throwing up his arms to block the bits of the barrage that got through his telekinetic barriers.
Emma: Oh, now he’s projecting.
Futaba: Of course he is. He can’t comprehend intelligent people or enemies not thinking exactly like himself, after all. Because he’s an internet troll given godlike power. Fuck off, Tzeentchji.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 775
Several knives stabbed into his arms, legs, and chest, but once it was all done he simply shook them off, none of the bladed weapons having penetrated his armour down to his skin.
Taion: Reminder: This cloak is apparently something that looks like a monastic hood, and costs less than the American equivalent two scout Levnises. And none even scratched him. Pull the other one, it has bells on it.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 283
"You were prepared for this fight I see," Kaworu notes sarcastically.
"No, I prepared for a far more important one. You are merely an annoying side quest in the grand scheme of things, a trifling thing that needs to be dealt with, like a splinter beneath a nail," Shinji stated dismissively before hurling the cutlery back at Kaworu hard enough for them to disintegrate. He then flicks a finger and rips the top of a building off and throws it at Kaworu from behind.
Emma: Not only is this not true– look how much time we’re having to spend on this nonsense– it’s a particularly nasty dig at canon. An intelligent, “fixed” version of Shinji shouldn’t consider Kaworu as important, he shouldn’t be such an emotional crux or such a vital character. Romantic affection between two boys is a flaw to be written out in favour of *grinning nastily* oh yes, more ultraviolence.
Leliel: I dispute that. Ultraviolence generally involves lurid description and actual hardship, becoming more interesting.
Diego: Ah yes, screaming your opponent is an insect and they are nothing compared to you, especially as one is upset and irritated, while you assault them. Never heard that one before…or been it when I was especially annoyed with some two-bit would-be investigator who was absolutely sure I was summoning the Black Goat to end the world instead of conferring with her for some important data I didn’t have ready access to. Water under the bridge now, but that was a confrontation I truly didn’t ask for…unlike Tzeentchji here, who keeps rubbing his masculinity all over this area to convince himself he isn’t as bisexual as canon Shinji.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 776
Another AT-field appeared between Kaworu and the incoming collision, the impact reducing the suddenly mobilized top floor into a pile of rubble.
"Your defences are impressive," Shinji concedes.
"As are your offences. But they are no match for me, and how much longer will your armour hold out? How much longer until blood is drawn?" Kaworu asked.
Wanderer2691: Unless Academia Nut’s brain grew three sizes this chapter, try the 12th of Never. See what lack of tension does to the reader?
"Why would I tell you mission critical information like that?" Shinji asked in a sing-song voice before throwing another supersonic I-beam at Kaworu.
"I guess it will have to be a surprise then," Kaworu sneered, throwing more debris at Shinji.
Emma: Oh, end this farce already.
Leliel: Unfortunately, Academia’s manhood has been questioned, and so he needs to grind all his doubts and any possibility others might think he may not be Da Most Manly in self-inserts to a fine paste. Also…”sneering”? I literally do not think Kaworu is capable of that expression, even when being aggressive. A smirk or a sad look, but sneers are way too aggressive.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 587
They continued like that for several more minutes, hurling tonnes of debris and insults at one another, neither side really doing anything but forcing the battle to hop from building to building as they destroyed everything around them. It soon became clear though that Kaworu was getting stronger while Shinji's strength began to wane, many of his projectiles failing to break the sound barrier.
Diego: Also, a giant flashing neon sign saying “TENSE SCENE” over it. If Kaworu was the protagonist, this would work as we see him slowly recover from a disadvantage - but this is a fake mustache on Academia Nut’s desperate affirmation of masculinity. So I am just very…very bored.
Emma: It’s 15 chapters too late to pretend you know what tension is.
Finally, something had to give, namely the floor beneath Shinji. The roof and top two floors of a building imploding as a steamroller was dropped right on top of him, Shinji tumbled down into the debris, disappearing into a cloud of pulverized concrete.
Wanderer2691: And when it cleared, there was a support through his thick skull. The end.
Floating down into the wreckage, Kaworu taunted, "You have been keeping to the rooftops when I know you can levitate, indicating that your strength is limited, and you cannot in fact 'keep this up all day'. Your death is inevitable you know."
Emma: Oh, yes, it’s not enough for you to defeat him. No, we have to mock the very idea that he could ever win, or the idea that enemies could ever have sympathy or respect. There is nothing but hatred, nothing but strength, and nobody but insects to be crushed by you, and of course everyone operates on that level. Anyone who says otherwise is either lying or a fool.
Futaba: Allow me to offer a supporting point…
(https://gifdb.com/images/high/dwayne-johnson-saying-huh-qqsq2yq4folwxtsc.gif)
…uh…I’m just going to list some quotes of Kaworu’s here…
“Humans constantly feel pain in their hearts. Because the heart is so sensitive to pain, humans also feel that to live is to suffer. You're so delicate, like glass, especially your heart.”
“Because it's my destiny to continue to live, even if it may result in the destruction of humanity. But I can also die here. Life and death are of equal value to me. Dying of your own will. That is the one and only absolute freedom there is.”
[To Shinji, after the last quote] “And, you are not a being who should die. Your people need the future. Thank you. I'm glad I met you.”
And as noted by LanWan in the official Discord, there is also a level of genuine scientific curiosity - part of the reason Kaworu is drawn to Shinji is that, canonically, Shinji has a lot of the strongest and weakest parts of humanity in him, and he finds that genuinely fascinating.
Compare and contrast this cliche loser, who brags about how all is worms before him and insects and blah de blah. You know, it was good when Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist did it - because Envy had already established themself as a worthy threat and actually being the kind of shameless troll who pulls this kind of taunt-button shit. And unlike this fic, Envy facing comeuppance for their constant smack-talk was foreshadowed well and much-deserved after getting some nice heel heat.
Wanderer2691: This Kaworu, on the other hand, is following up the legacy of a different actual wrestling heel - specifically, X-Pac, the man who singlehandedly got a term and later trope named after him for the kind of hate a crowd gives when they want the guy to go away and be forgotten, as opposed to be gloriously smacked down. Sort of like us, wishing this that can you kill Kaworu and end this boring fucking scene already?
Emma: Death is a better fate than being in this fic. I’d say it’s a better fate than sporking it, but unfortunately for all involved I’m too stubborn to die and have too much self respect to let this thing kill me.
Taion: Since this is clearly not the actual Angel, who everyone here enjoys - motion to term this Kaworu something more insulting, and for ten points for this entire scene revolving around him being an unlikable ass to make sure we don’t realize it’s Tzeentchji who is an entire overheated stable’s worth of them?
Leliel: I officially announce K-Train, after one of wrestler Jeff Jerret’s notorious false starts before he finally found his footing (he was A-Train, by the by), and applaud you for picking up that metaphor despite not knowing what a donkey was at first. Nice improv.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 597
Rising from the rubble, not a speck of dust on his clothing, Shinji still brushes himself off to show his contempt before saying, "Death is always inevitable, it is merely the time and place that are in doubt."
Diego: …surprisingly, this isn’t quite as canon-breaking as it first seems. Daemon Princes of Tzeentch are nicknamed Deathbringers in Black Crusade, as they understand the total change of losing mortality, either through death or ascension into Onceborn, and are eager to bring destructive change everywhere. Of course, the issue is the Daemon Prince bit - you are literally aiming for a form of life that never dies, moron.
Sophia: Also, no real Arcanite would let that go by without trying to turn it around. “Perhaps your death is inevitable, but mine is not.” This is child’s play.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 328
"Says the frail Lilim. I will continue forever," Kaworu boasts.
Futaba: …ah yeah, Kaworu, who celebrates the idea to die by your own will to save another, is famously proud of a long lifespan. Really not making your Disguise rolls, K-Train.
Emma: Oh my god. OH MY GOD. I know we’ve been talking a lot about making K-Train a dick to make Tzeentchji look better, but I think there’s something deeper. I think that this is an effort to portray Kaworu’s canon kindness as fake in the sense of seduction. The implication, when you look at the horrified language of gay infiltration, is that Kaworu’s kindness is a front put on to seduce and ensnare Shinji, and because canon Shinji is “weak” he “fell for it”. However, since Tzeentchji here has been fixed to be “strong” and “masculine”, Kaworu immediately drops the facade, because the sort of affection and attraction and compassion can only ever be false. This is Academia Nut’s vision of a gay man whose undermining of masculinity hasn’t worked. *muttering* Don’t know why straight people think they’re in such high demand anyways.
Taion: I am certainly considering passing on heterosexuality, at this point.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 598
Raising an eyebrow, Shinji smiled, "No, no you won't. Your corpse however, will make a fine declaration of war to SEELE."
Taion: *K-Train* “They weren’t already?!”
Wanderer2691: *Tzeentchji* “Check the previous chapters. As shown, my author thinks that I am the smartest character here as understood by him, and the author is an idiot, so as shown, SEELE has the collective intelligence of a block of wood with the Eye of Providence drawn on it in crayon.”
Sophia: What were the mutilated bodies of their soldiers, then? A friendly hello? A housewarming gift?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 284 (Gendo already turned actively against Tzeentchji in that timeframe, and you’d think they’d develop a clue in the entire comatose episode.)
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 777 (And this bit of smug arrogance gives us jackbot! Everyone wins a free punch upon Tzeentchji, make it hurt!)
"And you called me stupid? In case you haven't noticed, you are losing," Kaworu growled.
Leliel: Yeah, sure, whatever you say, K-Train. You totes aren’t a jobber who is reading from a heel script instead of the anime.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 599
"In case you haven't noticed, I'm missing the jars that were strapped to my chest a moment ago," Shinji mocked.
Diego: …oh, fuck me. That’s why…
Sophia: I see that their sacred duty remains a way to avoid actual strategy or tension…
Emma: Oh, that’s right, Tzeentchji can’t win his own fights, so he wins by using his underlings. The underlings he was only handed because his Stu aura supersedes all loyalty and affection for anyone but him. Was that meant to impress me?
Wanderer2691: This is why you don’t write to support your ego, fellow authors. Odds are, readers won’t agree that your capacity to grant your Stu STUFF (™) is all that impressive. Also, that was kind of an unneeded taunt, and when did he release them?
TALON ON THE SCALES: 285
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 778
"So?" Kaworu asked just before there was the sound of blowing sand.
"So unlike you, I know how to deceive my enemies," Shinji said as his servants open fire.
Emma: So, is he an insidious deceptive failure who can’t fight face to face properly with a real man, or is he a failure because he’s not good enough at being insidious and deceptive.
Futaba: Uh…On the one hand, insidious and deceptive are things that an Arcanite should be, but I agree it should be showy insidious deceptiveness. On the other…did that sound like a pretender diss to anyone else? [Concerned look at Emma]
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 779 (Stop taunting him, Tzeentchji. You’re just drawing it out, and it’s not even new…)
Drawing his AT-field in about himself closely to ward off the unexpected fire from the giant armoured brutes, Kaworu can only scream, "What are you?"
I am as far beyond you as humans are beyond the apes. Incidentally, you are pouring all of your power into physical defences and completely neglecting any sort of mental barriers.
Sophia: Our mother is as high above us as we are above an Astarte. Ishtar still killed her, she just hasn’t realized it yet.
Emma: Oh, there you go. The fundamental superiority argument. Always good to see that. The mask is truly off now. You didn’t have to work, your nature is just inherently better.
Leliel: You know what the worst part is? This taunt could work for an Arcanite, and quite well - but it doesn’t tie into what he actually did at all. “Unlike you, humans are pack hunters”, dude. That’s screaming for a boast about how you kept that strength. An accurate boast is one people don’t mind, here it’s just “my mind-dick’s stronger.”
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 780
Shinji's astral construct cut through Kaworu's almost nonexistent defences
Futaba: [Through a megaphone] HIS. AT FIELD. IS STRONGEST. IN. THE FUCKING. SERIES. YOU. MORON! But for K-Train, I believe it, he clearly doesn’t have much of a sense of self to begin with, much less a good ego barrier beyond “is baddie.”
DUMMY PLUGGED: 599
like butter with its initial strike, causing the Angel to collapse to the ground in agony, his capacity to levitate cut off as he refocused his energies, and as a segment of his mind was simply erased. The second attack however bounced off his strengthened shields.
"This… is… impossible!" Kaworu screamed.
Leliel: …contractually required:
(https://makeameme.org/meme/thats-impossible-5c5e63)
Raising a hand casually to Kaworu, the boy struggling under the simultaneous physical attacks from the Rubric Marines and the mental attack, Shinji then said, "Chaos is all things."
Emma: *Explodes* *From within a column of rainbow fire* Yes, it is, which is why you have nothing to do with it! Look at you! You’re terrified of the other! You’re so devoted to heteronormativity you’d rather fuck your own mother-clone-sister than interact with a woman non-sexually or powers forbid, kiss a boy! You think the only things that gets to exist are humans and everything else needs to be wiped out! You’d get laughed out of any respectable Chaos cult from here to Cadia!
Diego: Me cago in la leche! …Taion, do you remember anything from being under the influence of that claw?!
Taion: …there is one Regalia that is not a true Daemon Weapon, but armor. The Carapace of the Bleak Grandmaster, that organizes the other Knights of Choronzon. Which, at least, is not the Perfected Scepter of Slaanesh, but its brand of Undivided ties into House Devine of the Chaos Knights, who are Slaaneshi…
Wanderer2691: …Goddammit. See what this fic is doing to everyone!? And also, entirely right for her to freak out?! Because this is an utterly shallow take on it that is just used as yet another boast, instead of the metaphysics of it. And again, the Angels should be aware of it, and at least anticipate psychic attack.
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 329
TALON ON THE SCALES: 286 (Breaking own lore in light of ending, too.)
Violet-white lighting leaps from his finger tips and exploded across Kaworu's AT-field, coruscating up and down hungrily, greedily searching for any crack in the defences. The field wavered for just a moment under the assault, but it was enough to let in a flicker of soul crushing energy. Kaworu screamed in agony as his body was cooked from within before a telekinetic thrust hurled him through a wall and to the ground below.
Leliel: [Too bored to acknowledge Emma’s Chaos mode] Oh look, K-Train is suffering. This says absolutely nothing about the motive of the author at all and clearly isn’t all about humiliating him and torturing someone who dared make Academia Nut question his sexuality.
His body and mind in searing pain, Kaworu struggled to rise from the crater where he landed, but found his legs broken. Levitating gently to the ground, his servants returned to their jars and the jars returned to his bandolier, Shinji looks down at the final Angel with contempt in his eyes. "This is the end for your race. Think of it as returning the sentiment for what you tried to do to mine."
Emma: *Fire now forming into gem like armour* Oh yes, the Genocide in Self-Defense. Are you trying to fill out some kind of Imperium Bingo Card?
Futaba: It certainly seems that way…and once again, the only reason that Kaworu isn’t going along with this is because the author needs to dickslap him for being non-heteronormative. Also, while that armor’s cool, I kinda don’t want two Chaos Undivided pressuring us to the dark side, so could we, um…
Wanderer2691: …well…I know one…but I feel dirty considering it…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 781
"Now… now I see what you meant about music… you… you Lilim truly are survivors," Kaworu said pathetically.
Leliel: -because he was rolling his eyes reading off the cue cards that Academia Nut was really proud of. Because he needs to humiliate K-Train too. Once again, Kaworu admires free will, not music - which is something Tzeentchji hates in others.
Emma: Oh, this is as much a triumph of blind obedience over freedom as it is a triumph of practical survival over the aesthetic. This is the symbol of everything that might possibly matter outside of blank self-justification for your own power capitulating and dying. If Kaworu hadn’t wasted all that time on useless distractions like music and being gay, perhaps he would have been allowed to survive.
Diego: There is something extremely poetic - and comic - about an adherent to Chaos, which is all about freedom through strength, and has an entire Dark Prince dedicated to free aesthetics from the strict prescription on religious and war art in the Imperium. And Tzeentch is mostly aligned to them.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 287 (Because Da Message must be said.)
DUMMY PLUGGED: 600
"A pity you only learned this at the end. And now young Angel… you die," Shinji stated before pouring lightning into the body of the Seventeenth Angel. Kaworu's body was seized in a spastic seizure as electricity danced across his flesh, twitching his muscles while cooking them. His hair caught fire, quickly burning away. The fluid in his eyeballs boiled over, causing them to explode. His jaw shut around his tongue, biting it off.
Emma: Behold! It is unacceptable to have mutual attraction between two men. It is not, however, unacceptable to get off on inflicting horrific sexual violence on someone who had potential attraction to another boy. Everything about this crawling worm is about cruelty and domination. That’s his great secret, that there is nothing but violence and no goal but being on the giving end.
Futaba: [Dead-inside smile] Gross. But…seriously, the luridness of it is-
When Shinji paused over this charred and smoking body, he noticed the Angel was trying to regenerate so he poured on another blast, this time not stopping until the fat boiled out of the body and caught fire, consuming the boy in unholy candle flames while bits of lung bubbling out of his mouth.
Futaba: …is not being helped at all. If you look closely, you can see all the Mars symbols written in K-Train’s ashes. And…hey wait, didn’t real!Kaworu die just by being physically crushed? No real effort beyond that?
Wanderer2691: It’s petty, but fuck this chapter in particular, so I’m counting it!
Emma: *with a horrible, broken smirk* Well, Wanderer, you know what they say about men who finish quickly.
DUMMY PLUGGED: 601
When the smoke cleared and the twitching stopped, there was only a pathetictwisted, blackened corpse left. Shinji took no chances, telekinetically ripping the head off and then stringing the rest upside-down off a protruding girder from a partially ruined building, using the intestines as the rope.
Taion: And then for extra points, hung those ridiculous rubber testicles off said intestines, as that was at the core of this whole thing.
Sophia: Well, thank the Gods that’s over with. At least I got something out of it–
Wanderer2691: God-fucking-dammit - I didn’t want to bring this up, because it kills me to praise him, but - Emma, I want to make it clear that this obsession with pwning the alien and reduction of everyone to just ‘bad’ and ‘bad but is surviving and that makes them GOOD!’, more than anything else, is proof that Academia Nut is a worse overall writer than Matt Ward.
Emma: *Visibly flinches* What?
Leliel: …unfortunately, seeing this? I can agree. And that makes my fingertips spasm to type it out. Because Matt Ward is one of the most infamously cheesy and sometimes uncomfortable authors in all of Warhammer 40K’s history…and he outright fixed several things that this fic seems to think are selling points of the universe. But first…some points, for this scene…
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 782
THE DARK PRINCE’S AT FIELD: 685 (One for each paragraph of this snuff.)
Now, let your Remembrancer recount the take of the Spiritual Liege, Fanwanker of Ultramarines…and possibly savior of the Necrons as a concept.
(https://civilianreader.com/2020/04/13/interview-with-matthew-ward/)
Wanderer2691: Matthew Ward is a novelist who used to work as one of the premiere writers of lore and rules codices for 40K, specifically around 5th Edition - which is to say, 2008-2012. He is also one of the most infamous, as the codices he wrote were what we could charitably called “iffy”, realistically “fucking broken overpowered confusing word puke.” And the thing is, the reason he made such broken rules was, to put it simply, fanboyism. The man loooves the Ultramarines…and I am going to sit a little away from Sophia now, because any amount of praise of their toxic fandom is likely gonna piss her off.
Sophia: Those obnoxious, toadying children have fans? In your world?
Leliel: To speak out of universe? On one level, it’s understandable, because the Ultramarines are essentially the prototypical Adeptus Astartes and are meant to be the best of what they were intended to be - in fact, their very name is part of the stealth puns early 40K was a fan of, because they are both “ultra” marines, a Space Marine’s Space Marine - and, well, as Captain Titus here shows…
(https://www.dualshockers.com/titus-air-grab-warhammer-40k-space-marine-2/)
They really, really like blue. I kind of disagree, because that also means there’s no real difference from other Space Marines, or that interesting design that isn’t picked up by other Imperial factions - I’m more into Space Wolves, Salamanders, and Blood Angels, from the Loyalists, Thousand Sons/Scions and Iron Warriors from the Renegades.
Emma: *Seeming calmer, somehow, a little more down to earth* As may be obvious, I like the Word Bearers. I’ve also always liked the Thousand Sons. I think I’ll have to agree with Wanderer on liking the Blood Angels.
Wanderer2691: To bring it back around to Ward…well, in all fairness his career at Games Workshop was unfortunately not something atypically bad and as outright lore-breaking as others (cough C.S. Goto cough).
Emma: Oh yeah, the Eldar torture guy.
Leliel: Behold, an actual comparison in quality, and content, to Academia Nut…however, Ward’s career was an instance where the obsession Games Workshop has with Space Marines boiled over, and he was effectively given free reign to do with them, and Ultramarines, as he pleased. To quote MandaloreGaming in GeeDubs in general when it comes to their obsession, and why he was allowed to rampage…
"[The child who had to keep winning at pretend] grew up to work at Games Workshop. An entire school bus of these kids did and they made their own factions for these settings. These kids are kept in check by an entity I'm gonna call "The Supreme Kid" and the Supreme Kid will somewhat balance other factions but made sure his favoritest is the most important. He will smite down and devour the creations of lesser kids who challenge him.
"In the end, only he will remain."
Wanderer2691: Matt Ward…is the Supreme Kid in human form, at least during his career there. He’s improved significantly after being released from full employment, but, while he was there? …that nickname we had for him, the Spiritual Liege? Yeah, that’s how he described how nearly every Loyalist Space Marine Chapter sees the Ultramarines. Including people who canonically do not get along with them that much.
Sophia: A truly brilliant claim to make, given I think Augusta put the metaphorical stick up her ass in the geneseed somehow.
Leliel: …honestly, this is probably the case for canon Roboute Guilliman too, at least for the ones Lion El’Jonson didn’t already. But yeah, beyond that, he’s also the source of the infamous Khornate Knights moment, where the Grey Knights, the all-psyker Space Marine Chapter used as direct anti-daemonic forces, proceeded to resort to human sacrifice of Sisters of Battle (nuns with guns, basically) to protect themselves from the influence of Chaos-possessed nanotech…after it was explicitly noted, by Ward himself in the same codex, that Grey Knights are functionally immune to being corrupted by Chaos, especially the generalized presence that corruption embodies. Everyone was quick to note that it resembled Chaotic rituals, especially Khornate ones, way more than anything Imperial.
Sophia: I’d be proud of whoever corrupted the Imperium’s greatest knights… if I had any reason to believe that that had actually happened.
Wanderer2691: Yeah, and much mockery resounded until it was at least suppressed in 7th Edition and the Sisters were given a cool moment to pull the Grey Knights’ asses out of the fire as an apology to the fans of the nuns. At the same time, there is one massive issue with a lot of unironic Imperial fandom that Matt Ward does not have - xenophobia. The man may well have both saved the uniqueness of the Eldar by creating Battle Focus…and the entire fictional universe itself from the horror of constant threat escalation a la comic books. Quite simply, Matt Ward helped kill the Old Necron lore.
Emma: Wait, the new Necrons are Ward? The ones that are actually people instead of mindless killbots? The Reason we have Trazyn? Ward did THAT?
Leliel: Yep! And man did it piss some neckbeards off at the time…not that they will ever admit it today. So, lore history!
(https://wh40k.lexicanum.com/wiki/Necron)
Leliel: See, originally, the fact that Necrons were enemies of the Old Ones, the local galactic version of a precursor species, who turned themselves into a digital, vaguely Egyptian machine civilization for immortality and to out-kill their Old One enemies with the help of vampiric “star gods”, the C’tan. But before 5th Edition or so, that was…kind of the extent of their relevant history. See, in that era, it was held that the war with the Old Ones had caused the Necrontyr, their organic forms, to go from merely having a deep and understandable resentment of the hardships of life (they were effectively born with cancer), to active loathing of the concept of organic life in general, which the C’tan used to get them to give up their personalities and identities during the great upload - in effect, they became little more than semi-sentient robotic minions for the C’tan, powered by hate, and used to harvest life force for their masters. The personification of the worst kinds of order and stasis, to contrast Chaos.
Wanderer2691: This also meant, however, that the only Necron characters were…the C’tan. And by definition, the core of their personality is “hungry”, with even Mephet'ran the Deceiver’s schemes being ultimately to soften up the galxy so he could graze on it. And thus, made playing them from a fluff perspective…really fucking boring. Hell, it made fighting them boring, because the few times one speaks at all, it’s more generic necromantic ‘we come to liberate you from the curse of life’ crap we’ve seen a hundred times before…and unlike the Chaos Gods, the C’tan are actual characters one can put on the battlefield. Which means that these so-called gods that even the Ruinous Powers feared…regularly had their asses kicked. Both in tabletop, and in lore when writers realized they had their asses kicked in tabletop. They weren’t even the only “unreasoning horde of monsters”, the Tyranids are right there, gnawing on a planet!
Emma: It frankly wasn’t a good look. All Warhammer 40k lore is, fundamentally, a gloss on the gameplay of a wargame where every faction fights every other faction forever, but the Oldcrons barely had any coat of story-paint, and they didn’t have the fun of the Orks, the other faction whose reason for war is basically “it’s in their nature”, to make up for it.
Leliel: Thus, Matt Ward was one of the writers who actually gave them a distinct personality and reasoning for their actions - he’s not the only one, but he is the creator of the aforementioned Trazyn the Infinite…and with that one thieving robotic mummy archeologist’s creation, more or less singlehandedly sold the concept of Necrons having personalities. Even back before people fully accepted that Necrons were simply better as Warhammer Fantasy Tomb Kings IN SPACE AND WITH HIGH SCIENCE FICTION!, people who wanted to go back to “unreasoning destroyer” fluff were looking for ways to explain how that totes didn’t mean they had to eliminate Trazyn or other characters. Which really kind of shows the issue with having a faction of personality-less killbots - even the people who wanted the killbots were trying to get the personalities.
Wanderer2691: Add that the C’tan are officially and intentionally weaker than the Chaos Gods, because they were actively taken apart by vengeful Necrons when they realized the downside of being robot undead and now exist as a bunch of shards in robot war-slaves, and now the Necrons are one of the more popular factions in tabletop, when previously everyone was trying to work around them. And it wouldn’t have worked if Ward hadn’t been able to step back, look at them, and go “okay - if these people are just an alien species, that means they are the heroes of their own story. How would that work, and how do they see the world?” Are they hostile? Yes, but it’s easy to see why - they’ve spent literal eons recovering from a war that they only won by technicality, and they wake up to discover that their entire old civilization has been overtaken by strangers who see their tech and relics as prizes to research and take for themselves. They’re pretty pissed about that, especially given how most extant species are the result of Old One genecrafting. But they have a reason, and that lets them be actual characters.
…
Contrast this bullshit.
(https://riithewordsmith.wordpress.com/2018/06/18/no-because-im-evil/)
Leliel: The thing about Academia Nut that really strikes me is his aggressive refusal to consider perspectives that aren’t the main character or directly aligned. We’ve had, at most, a couple switches to Gendo, which can be summed up as “scheming, reacting rather than acting, grudging respect towards son”, and one or two from Ritsuko - but especially in the latter, we don’t see their opinions on things. We have, at most, frustration, and Ritsuko calling Rei a bitch when going to kill her - but not why just seeing the red AT field caused her to default to that. It’s just assumed you accept she hates Rei because…reasons that are not actually outlined in fic. In spite of it being clearly more likely Tzeentchji, it’s just assumed she’d default to Rei for [WATCH THE MAIN FRANCHISE].
Wanderer2691: Which is a good idea, but not for the reasons the author thinks. But to tie back into this - the Necrons, post-Ward, actually have a coherent internal logic. Before, they were simultaneously very simple in motive…but also paradoxes, because the C’tan’s core motive is to have a supply of life force and souls to harvest that doesn’t need them to shoot it first. So their very motives ended up becoming a paradox - wanting to destroy all life, except the C’tan wanted to conquer all life for agriculture by nature, or were very stupid and short-sighted. In the new lore, even the Necrons who do want to destroy all life rather than get physical bodies back are being explicitly driven by a combination of jealousy and isolation, wanting no other being to have what’s been denied them, given a logic to their actions that makes them more believable characters, and thus, scarier. It also lets them be dumb in a way that makes defeating them believable - there’s an explicit note this makes them less of an expanding threat than sane Necrons (or insane Necrons that are obsessed with returning to life now, in the case of the Flayed Ones), because Destroyers hate all life as a potential reminder of what they lost…so they’re so tunnel visioned they’ll just plain forget to plan their next campaign or check for survivors in favor of making sure every microbe is gone in an area they control. The flaw, ironically, gives the Destroyers an excuse to be smart and tactical in other ways, because taking advantage of that bit of myopia is an interesting story that shows an actual intelligent character figuring out how such an alien and malevolent mind works.
Taion: [Finishing up a long drink after given the opportunity] And here? What is K-Train’s motive? Why even bother talking with Tzeentchji at all or lying to him if his core was “find Adam, destroy humanity”? Even in this suspiciously weaker state, he has enough psychic ability to sneak into NERV as a Child, float down, and merge with (what he thinks is) his progenitor? Why engage in debate, because clearly it wasn’t meant to demoralize rather than taunt? Why’d he suddenly turn far more of a mudder towards the end? Why does he care about a concept like ‘singing’ at all?!
Futaba: All this, and more, can be answered by anyone who is not Academia Nut, just buy the Competent Fucking Writer DLC for 8000 Yen! Now featuring confidence in own masculinity to the point where the existence of rainbows and guys who appreciate the existence of OSTs doesn’t cause conniptions of gay panic and refusal to think through for fear of ever showing appreciation for a guy at all! Real talk - of the people we covered, one is a member of a community of pseudo-intellectual hacks that blindly worships a humanocentric xenophobic empire riddled with corruption but is totally good because it is ‘the best chance to survive’ and ‘discipline’ and ‘it looks cool.’ The other, of course, wrote some bad rules for a game involving miniature sci-fi armies. While I’m being snide, at least Matt Ward’s love of his favorite factions isn’t spiced with a desperate need to assert how very MANLY! they are by scooping out the character, competence, and general brains of everyone against them, especially those that make him feel sexually threatened, until they’re almost as shallow as Academia Nut himself…and then spice liberally with hypocrisy, because all the same arrogance Tzeentchji mocks in K-Train? Yeah, we’ve been in your head, asshole. The only reason you’re upset is that it might impact you constantly counting your treasure, and fucking it, not anything about ‘humanity’ - not even that it’d take away something you want to rule.
Diego: Thus, for this extended dick-slapping to assert just how very hetero Tzeentchji, and by extension this story is, and for the sheer hatred shown of Kaworu, I give this one hundred points for being both critical to the plot - and absolutely lacking in any creativity or ability to play off Kaworu’s existence. Because frankly…what’s a better feather in the cap of an Arcanite? Zapping a unique and fascinating source of knowledge that had been previously denied…or convincing him, through logic and temptation to be something more, to become your willing lieutenant? What would be a more extreme change, from someone who is resigned to his biological programming to a Champion of Tzeentch whose body is slaved to his desire and spirit…or Tzeentchji changing from someone whose head is up his ass to one who owns his appeal to more than one gender, like, y’know, someone who worships constant change of self and society? Be Bi, Do Heresy - and Learn 2 POV. Fuck off, Academia Nut.
HETERONORMATIVE HEDGEHOG: 747
Wanderer2691: And with that, we have finished our praise of Matt Ward. If you excuse me, I need to go sink my hands in bleach for a bit to atone and clean myself.
Leliel: Seriously. But as this shows…even actual officially paid Imperium fanboys are better than Academia Nut - Emma, take hope in the fact that at least some of GeeDubs thinks this kind of xenophobia and need to pwn people other than their pets is stupid too. You aren’t alone.
Emma: Wait… wait shit, that’s it. There are always other paths. And yeah, you can ignore other paths because of arrogance and selfishness, true. But some people cut off everything else because of hopelessness *grabs the armor and tears it off* and I’m not going to do that. I said I wouldn’t let this stupid thing break me, and I meant it.
Wanderer2691: [Sighs in relief as he finished watching his hands of bleach] That’s the spirit. And now, the final stretch of this fucking chapter. Let’s do this.
As a final touch, Shinji melted the words, "You're next" into a nearby concrete wall.
Diego: This gave Kenji the Salvager Man an awful fright, as he assumed it was meant for him - reasonably, as nobody has any idea what he meant it for, except as a general threat towards most of humanity, which…fair.
Leliel: Yes, this is meant for NERV or SEELE, but…let’s be real, SEELE isn’t going to stick out its head, and NERV is going to be on high alert, despite the “subtlety” of this mission. Because Tzeentchji needed to show off the size of his dick, and show he’s hostile. Fuck off, moron.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 783
TALON ON THE SCALES: 287 (This, naturally, will go nowhere.)
He kept the head. It would make a wonderful gift for Asuka.
Futaba: And totally not a trophy for yourself and your own author-mandated-leet-skillz. Because we know how proud Khorne, lord of personal strength, is of skulls that his worshipers didn’t get themselves. End sarcasm.
Sophia: I would be more disapproving… but Tzeentchji handing a Khornate a skull of his own enemy that he killed, thereby implying she couldn’t make her own kills would result in him experiencing a violent end beyond your capability to comprehend. So I say he should continue.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 784
PRIMORDIAL BRAINFART: 330
Speaking of which, he was late for his appointment. The lock-down he had initiated in NERV once he noticed the Angel would be problematic, but it had been necessary to keep nosey busybodies out of his business with the Seventeenth Angel.
Taion: This scheme was so subtle, you may not have noticed it. Neither did we, though in hindsight, the mild flatulence as the author pulled it out of his anus was audible. In all seriousness, this was only just mentioned now, and has no real reasoning behind it, because it’s more likely NERV would have assisted him and then he could escape later, if his powers can erase memory.
TALON ON THE SCALES: 288
Making his way quietly down to Central Dogma, seemingly oblivious to the state of panic caused by the mysterious happenings on the surface, Shinji watched in amusement as everyone streams past him, completely oblivious to the duffel bag he was carrying.
Diego: Er, wouldn’t they be on high alert-
None recognized him, his mind clouding their perceptions so that he would not be bothered with trifling things like being deployed to kill the Angel he had already decapitated.
Diego: …well, that explains them not noticing you, but *Hermes Conrad* “that just raises further questions!” Like, if anything, K-Train’s corpse is going to confuse them, but it’s also the sense of causing them to relax. Because, as shallow as you knowing it is, Gendo knows that he was the last Angel. All the late delay is going to say is that both there’s something able to kill an Angel out there without their knowledge - and it is hiding their existence, meaning it is probably hostile. Because they can detect if there’s a blue-pattern AT Field any more if they already saw one.
Futaba: Oy, stop kill-stealing my department, and don’t question! It’ll make the author cry!
TALON ON THE SCALES: 289
Arriving a good two hours after his fight with Tabris at the location he had intended to arrive at significantly earlier, Shinji waltzed right into Asuka's room without impedance, the guards too occupied with their sudden bouts of explosive diarrhoea to question him. He considered killing them, but that would be rather obvious and Gendo still had a hostage.
Sporkers:
(https://esperchildanya.tumblr.com/post/189684134629/the-look-of-utter-disgust)
Sophia: I long ago abandoned any hopes for this man to show any loyalty, any deeper convictions or any care for anyone but himself, but now he doesn’t even have dignity? This is just embarrassing for everyone involved.
Leliel: He put a Nike symbol on his Eva. Tzeentchji would probably denature if exposed to dignity, as his peptidoglycan cell wall would dissolve.
Wanderer2691: …uh-
Leliel: Biologist joke, peptidoglycan is a core part of most bacteria.
GENDO’S FATED BASTARD: 785
Setting up a small shrine and surrounding himself with the canopic jars, energized to spring to life should any threat present itself, Shinji began his meditation.
Wanderer2691: The Rubrics promptly realized the closest threat to intelligent thought was Tzeentchji, and bludgeoned him to death. The end.
The fight with Kaworu had taken a great of his strength, but he still had enough for what needed to be done.
It would simply take longer.
Futaba: Just in case you thought that entire fight mattered at all to the narrative or will be mentioned again in spite of Kaworu continuing to be a character even in End of Evangelion…
TALON ON THE SCALES: 290
Leliel: And now, people of the sporkiverse - I give you proof that Academia Nut wrote that entire timeskip not as drama, but because he’s a wuss who chickened out of character drama, as he does not know how to Hoo-Mahn….
Okay Asuka, time to rebuild your mind. Time to relive these lost months and repair the damage they have done.
[Long pause]
Taion: He’s only going to be showing fight scenes rather than actual drama, isn’t he.
Wanderer2691: Very much so! In fact, as we’ll see, Academia Nut is going to utterly ignore even the most surface-level trouble for his self-insert that happened during the time skip, and use the excuse of “not mentally damaged there” to avoid it. In fact, all we’re going to see is Asuka being a damsel in distress, largely. She will be given agency once, and even then it’s in the lowest stakes imaginable!
Taion: …well then. I’ll just put this here in advance, as there’s an entire chapter and counting based around cheating a writing challenge…
TALON ON THE SCALES: 390
Also, a painting I call “Duality of a Stuthor: Academia Nut”
(https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/246949658/Big-dog-small-dog)
Speaking of, here’s his author’s note:
What, you thought I was going to just skip all those months, all those fights?
Sophia: …you don’t want me to answer that.
Emma: Yes! Of course! You’re a terrible writer! Literally nothing is beyond the pale for you! You just wrote a chapter that made me try to join a Space Murder Cult!
Wanderer2691: And as we’ll show…you do! Bardiel is completely missing, and that’s very distinctively the one where he lost even in this fic!
Futaba: But, that’s for next time. Thank. GOD.
Leliel: And when we start up next time, we start a minisode I like to call: Psychonauts, BUT STUPID!
Meanwhile, Somewhere Across the Seas of Tindalos
Timeline GNX-2014-3 (Xothian Classification)
Sol Sector, Earth, Geosynchronous Near-Orbit
“...I should be panicking,” Ritsuko Akagi finally said, examining the mechanical iris of her new, necrodermis eyes. “I should be wondering if I am truly me, or if I am some program made in the image of a dead woman, who died…violated in the depths. And betrayed. I should be realizing that I can’t tell if my skin feels like metal or flesh, or that I regard touch as diagnostic assessments I can see being worked out in my basal hardware…and yet, all I can feel is fascination. This is…remarkable. Is this the emotion suppression…or am I just that stunned? The theory of mental uploading exists, of course…but to be proof of it…”
She tilted her head. “But, I must say…I look good.”
To be honest, she probably wasn’t the hardest Necron on the human eye. She was still definitely and unavoidably robotic - her eyes had the same unhealthy emerald glow most Necron technology had, her skin was the same silvery-gray as all necrodermis, and joints were obvious mechanical actuators and breaks in her exoskeleton. But in truth, those served mostly to keep her out of the uncanny valley, by making it clear this was a machine, and not an odd human who did not move like a human should. Said glowing eyes had the same flexibility and expression an organic human’s did, the skin contrasted nicely with the golden wires that served as her new hair, now blonde in truth and sparking with electricity when intense. A couple of those joints formed her mouth, which completely extraneously to her voice circuits followed along with her speaking, mouthing the words her artificial larynx could make on its own.
She was clearly something other than a noble among Necrons, one whose personality was the utmost concern in a transfer - her features were more of a Human’s rounded ones, than the narrow chin and sharp angles of a Necrontyr. But she was something infinitely more than a Pariah, the half-baked experiments of biotransference of Blanks into human-shaped bodies that were clearly meant more to copy the general human form without personal identity. Ritsuko was clearly Ritsuko, and anyone who saw a picture of her human self would quickly see that as well, even if her hair was now inherently closer to dreadlocks thanks to their new, practical purpose as sensor antennae.
“My sentiments exactly, my new Cryptek-Dawnling, and I must say, it feels nostalgic to use that title!”, Trazyn said, clearly having the time of his life observing something truly new get used to her new body. “Really, I think that is the reason why I am not any more insane than I was in my mortal days. Or my old friend, for that matter,” he continued with a wry look at Orikan.
“I didn't do it for her sake,” Orikan grunted from his holographic star map. “I did so because the stars here indicate that she is our first step into discovering the next step in biotransference, and that it would be beyond even Szeras’ knowledge.”
“Ah, but you are using her actual pronouns!”, a completely undaunted Trazyn continued. “You do have a compassion subroutine in there somewhere! Or, at least, an instruction. But it’s there.”
“Before the full Cryptek vents the atmosphere out of annoyance,” Shinobu cut in. “How are you feeling, Ms. Akagi? Do you…remember…your, uh…?”
Ritsuko paused, and the sheer pinpoint simulation of Necron frames showed itself as she shivered involuntarily. “...mostly pain,” she admits. “And…a sense of betrayal. And confusion. Because…Misato wasn’t Misato. I don’t know how I was certain of it. A breakdown, certainly, and she was raving about how I killed Inspector Kaji, so if she saw some evidence that seemed convincing, I cannot truly fault her motives…but the way she moved…” She hummed, crossing her arms in remembered habit. “That is not how a woman having a breakdown should move. Controlled. Precise. Flourishing. Just enough time between stabs so I could see them coming…and thinking on it, she aimed for areas that would be disabling, then minimize the chance of death. M…Major Katsuragi does not have the medical background to know that anatomy, and given her state, she should not be able to plan as coherently to do that…”
“...because it was not entirely Misato,” Nocht added, gripping an Aquila close. “It was a daemon.”
“...I so sincerely wish that I had not found that file in my new processor,” Ritsuko said with a grimace. “Or that I couldn’t immediately find it plausible. Of course a being that can be described as a living AT Field is capable of forceful hybridization with another until the ego of the other is corrupted into a similar thought process. Physical mutation is a bit more out of left field, but given the physical abilities displayed by Angels and how they are able to cheat physics…”
“And, of course,” Corax added. “That gruesome, repulsive, avaricious, prideful, hedonistic, and megalomaniacal pervert that is a knock-off of my brother making things so much worse. It is truly only my sheer rage at how it made Vulkan feel that is preventing me from locking myself in the bathroom and not voiding more than I physically put in my own stomach from my mouth for the next decade or so.”
“Though, almost a relief. I always felt that there was some sense of ‘I am smarter than this. Why can’t I think?’ To realize I was physically being prevented through use of these psyker techniques is a relief, that means that I am not suffering from any neurological disorders. And if these ‘Tsan-Chan’ were running interference subtly on probability, given this ‘Fate’ concept, that also explains his absurd luck.” Ritsuko paused. “What has this arrogant child done to me? I’m fully admitting that literal magic and psychic powers, along with malevolent beings from a place that can be described as Hell exist, and I’m relieved the world makes rational sense again…”
“It happens. Suspire deep, and let the steam of disbelief come out from your flesh - or chassis, in this case. Better to collapse in sheer exasperation and despair at the fundamental cruel irrationality of the universe between battles, rather than during,” Corax said, gently. “Then, we can work on removing this particularly irrational and cruel element from it.”
“Oh no. I’m ready to go now, I think I can start work on the Evangelion upgrades even without the Cryptek lore fully assimilated,” Ritsuko said, turning around.
“What-now?!” Shinobu started. “Like, aren’t you going to explore your abilities first?!”
“I can learn on the job, I’m used to hands and what I kept from my organic self. And I do not think I can focus on that until I do something.”
Orikan looked over, cyclopean eye looking intrigued. “...quite the work ethic. If you do not mind my asking…why? Time is not yet of the essence, you have a chance to research and explore…”
“Because I remember enough of my death. And I remember Lieutenant Ibuki trying to save me.” She looked down. “I remember her crying, even after…how I treated her. I realized that…she really does love me, doesn’t she? Even as I’m such an awful woman, and awful to her…”
Understanding blossomed across the whole group.
“...gratitude is a powerful force, isn’t it?”, Orikan said, in a softer tone than Trazyn had heard him use in centuries - not rare enough to be a shock, but enough to recognize when even the notoriously bitter and rude Diviner was feeling a rare moment of empathy.
“It is, indeed. I…I am not certain I can return that. Especially now, that what hormones and attraction I have are recordings of what I experienced as a human, and…well, to be honest, I am not certain if I had any actual romantic feelings for a man or if he helped me convince myself I did. Commander Ikari is…” She trailed off, shaking her head. “But I know this; I am not, by some definitions, human anymore. Even the tech that composes my new body is something alien to Earth, and my soul is provably not in my body any more, debatably connected to my mind. The only way I can still call myself human is through action and mind.”
“If I did not work to save someone who saved me, who loved me, despite everything…I don’t think I could call myself human before biotransference, either.”
(A/N: For those of you trying to imagine Necron Ritsuko, I’m thinking an Exo from Destiny with green eyes and a similar glow from her joints, and golden cable-hair to her neck, in something similar to her old hairdo. Sorry for the wait!)
