Fanfic / Series Thirty and Three Quarters

"The Doctor in his Tardis, and all in this world will soon be right." -Commission by Alex-Kellar

Isn't it obvious?... You and me, Shinji Ikari. We're going to save the world.

Series Thirty and Three Quarters (also known as Shinji and the Doctor and Doctor Who: The Evangelion Error) is a Doctor Who / Neon Genesis Evangelion crossover written by a troper known variously as philopoemen and machiavelli. One miserable, rainy day, fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari meets a very odd man who calls himself the Doctor (specifically the Tenth Doctor, during the period of time he spent traveling in between "The Waters of Mars" and "The End of Time") on a train. Unfortunately, something else has followed them on-board. That's when the screaming and the running starts... and when Shinji's life starts to change. Because the Doctor is in, and where he goes, chaos is sure to follow...

The series serves two purposes: first, it's an excuse to have the various unresolved questions and mysteries of the Evangelion universe investigated by a — let's say — uniquely qualified individual. Second, it gives Shinji a mentor figure who — while having his own issues — still brings a lot of experience to the table. The question is, will it be enough to change the destiny of humanity?

Read it now on Archive of Our Own, on Fanfiction.net, on Wattpad (book one; book two), or on A Teaspoon and an Open Mind.

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In addition to the character tropes present in the original work, this story provides examples of:

• Actually Pretty Funny: From Makoto's debrief after the Tenth Angel:
  Makoto: To be fair to Shinji, it was pretty funny up until the screaming started.
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 5 is this for Shinji's classmates.
• And I Must Scream: The Doctor points out that the Evas are living beings trapped inside metal shells and are only allowed to move when a pilot is inserted into them.
  • Lilith, who is nailed to a cross in Central Dogma, constantly screaming for help. As it turns out, however, it is a purely autonomic reaction... as Gendo had removed her brain.
  • The people who got turned into zombies in episode 5. They show up again in episode 9, and it turns out that NERV can't cure them; they can't eat, drink, or speak, and they have also retained their own minds. All that can be done for them is to make sure they are comfortable while they die.
• Assassin Outclassin': The Doctor's interactions with SEELE assassins tend to result in this. He goes from simply disabling them to tricking them into near-deathtraps with ease. It gets to the point where Shinji's only reaction to the failed EVA pilots blowing up the train that The Doctor was in with two dozen tank-busters is to ask if they actually saw any hit him.
• Author Tract: The author admits that the Doctor's speech to Misato in Chapter 23 is this, aimed mainly at those who wonder why Shinji never manned up in Neon Genesis Evangelion. The author, through the Doctor, points out that the boy was deliberately isolated and psychologically crippled from the get-go, and then never given the tools to cope with his pre-existing psychological issues plus the new ones he acquires over his "career" as a Child Soldier.
• Badass Boast: The Doctor delivers a pretty nonchalant one when Shinji asks how long it should take to get through the door to the main LCL plant.
  The Doctor: "Eh. Call it at fifteen minutes? Ten if I don't break for snacks."
• Badass Teacher: The Doctor, of course, once he becomes a teacher at Tokyo-3 First Municipal Middle School. Mr. Kongo, the shotgun-wielding math teacher who keeps the third-year students (and parents) safe, is one as well, by virtue of being ex-military and part of NERV's security detail for the school.
• Been There, Shaped History: In addition to the Doctor making various references to things like hanging out with Jesus and CS Lewis and various other adventures, there's a Downplayed example in Shigeru Aoba. After being sent back in time by the Weeping Angels, he became a moderately successful guitarist, hanging out with Jimi Hendrix at one point (and tragically failing to convince him to cut back on the drug abuse that would claim his life), and playing back up on several of Eric Clapton's solo albums.
• Big Brother Instinct: Well, more like Genetically Engineered Cloned Little Sister Instinct, but Rei has this towards Shinji, who she knows is, genetically speaking, her brother:
  • In Episode 11 Part IV, her response to Asuka planning to make his life miserable is to tell her that, if she willingly and intentionally causes him any physical harm, Rei will kill her.
  • A deleted scene later describes the exact moment that inspired this confrontation — she overheard Shinji and Asuka arguing about an earlier incident where the latter threatened him with a blunt knife. The scene is titled I can feel it coming over me slowly.
• Brick Joke: Near the beginning, the Doctor asks if the Angels Shinji has been fighting have been weeping and made of stone. After the Weeping Angel chasing them in Episode 9 assumes its normal form and gets caught in the Reiquarium, Shinji gets a good look at it, and suddenly realises what the Doctor had been talking about back then.
• Child Soldier: How the Doctor views the pilots. Many at NERV are uncomfortable with using them (the decent ones at least), but see little choice in the matter, as the Evangelions are the only things that can fight the Angels, and only the children can pilot them.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: Rei is apparently a follower of Asimov, and thus goes out of her way to save the other students in Episode 5.
  • This is part of Shinji's character development as the Doctor's influence causes him to graduate from Reluctant Hero.
• Continuity Porn: As to be expected from a Doctor Who fic.
• Cool Teacher: The Doctor teaches Shinji's class English, History, and Physics.
• Death by Adaptation: of the "dies earlier than in canon" variety- Shigeru Aoba, of the Bridge Bunnies, is 'killed' (via being sent back in time) by a Weeping Angel.
• Description Cut: Asuka is worried after Shinji got captured, as she knows Mari, one of the people who captured him, is insane, violent, and only listens to her brother, meaning Shinji is in trouble. Cut to Shinji playing Mario Kart in captivity.
• Did I Just Say That Out Loud?: In Episode 6, while severely sleep deprived, Shinji thinks about the dream he just had, wondering how you would even play quidditch with an Eva. He then notices that Asuka and the Doctor are now staring at him, and they confirm that he just said it out loud. The Doctor, being who he is, starts brainstorming ways it could be done.
• The Empath: The Doctor believes Shinji is one, alongside some other possible minor psychic abilities. He notes how, since Shinji doesn't know he is one and doesn't know how to control it, he is probably constantly picking up emotions and thinks the emotions he picks up are his own, which is a very bad thing when you live in Tokyo-3.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Gendo is a massive jerk and a Manipulative Bastard, but he successfully prevented SEELE from using the same implants and procedures they used on Project Zero on Rei (they still used some indoctrination, partially out of necessity to allow her to control her own body), and he honestly feels that it was in Shinji's best interests to grow up away from him, a man who doesn't think he qualifies as a human due to all he's done, a man who was responsible for several hundred deaths by the time he was Shinji's age, a man who has no idea how much damage he's done to Shinji's childhood because if his own screwed up childhood. He also notes that, should SEELE replace him, things would be far worse for the pilots. Granted, how much of his refusal to use those methods to control thw pilots is kindess and how much of it is to make sure he controls them and not SEELE is up for debate.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Despite trying to get Shinji to agree that he cares what Gendo thinks of him, Leliel!Shinji agrees that him not telling Shinji that Rei is (genetically) his sister is kind of messed up.
  • While she isn't exactly nice to Shinji, even Asuka is worried when he gets captured. Partially because Mari was the one who took him. Asuka had to train alongside her in the past, and knows that she's a "complete psychopath" and that the only person she listens to is her brother, who is the only reason Asuka doesn't have more scars from that time.
• Exact Words: While Rei has standing orders to consider academic obligations secondary to NERV's goals, she doesn't just run out the door every time she gets a hunch. That would be inefficient. She sneaks out the window instead.
• Fantastic Racism: Upon discovering that Rei is part-Angel, Misato, whose attitude towards Angels is nothing less than vengeful, wrestles over whether Rei can be trusted. After Unit-00 possesses Shinji and heads for Terminal Dogma, and Rei refuses to pilot Unit-01 against it, she contemplates shooting her.
  • Averted with Shinji. After finding out that she's a clone and part Angel, he asks the Doctor how he should talk to Rei. The Doctor assumes that Shinji's afraid of her because she's not human, and assures him that she's still the same person as before and he doesn't need to change anything. He then realises that Shinji was asking along of the lines of "how to talk to a girl he has a crush on". Later, Rei tells the Doctor that even Shinji seems to think she's a threat, since he's started avoiding her since he found out what she was. The Doctor reveals that it's actually because he found out that, genetically, she's his sister, and he's a bit embarrassed that he had a crush on her.
• Flaming Sword: Asuka uses one built for Evas in Episode 10 to fight the not-zombie Evas. It is called the phosporus blade, and was a proof of concept made by the Germam branch of NERV, only for the project to be cancelled. Even Gendo thinks it's cool.
• Genre Savvy: Alongside the Doctor at times, Shinji has begun to catch on to several things, like the Eva guns being useless, realising that interrupting or apologising to Asuka is usually pointless, and realising that they are about to get attacked on the train in Episode 13 Part 1.
  • Sato in Episode 1 is quite knowledgable about horror films, initially refusing to follow the rest because he realises how often a group goes to check something out only to get picked off one by one, but agrees to come with when the Doctor points out that not coming with might mean he'd be the guy who thinks he's playing it safe, only to get killed, and he instantly realises that approaching Sadamoto after he had mysteriously disappeared then shown back up hiding his face is a bad idea, with him commenting that "It's like she's never seen a movie before" when Miyamura insists on approaching him.
• Groin Attack: Misato delivers a particularly vicious one to the Doctor.
• Historical In-Joke: Plenty, as per usual with The Doctor
  • In Episode 1, he pays for something with some rather new looking 500-yen notes. The Bank of Japan stopped printing 500-yen notes in 1994, over a decade before the story begins.
• Horrifying the Horror: In Episode 12, The Doctor manages to get inside Arael's Mind Rape beam and shows it what he can do, including what he did to Gallifrey. End result? The Angel runs away.
• Insomnia Episode: The first half or so of Episode 6 is this for Shinji, with circumstances constantly keeping him awake.
• Lampshade Hanging: Done pretty often, usually by Shinji.
• Meaningful Name:
  • In keeping with the canonical Theme Naming of characters after World War II warships, the math teacher at Shinji's school is named Kongo. It's doubly meaningful, as he elderly but still a Badass Teacher, while the Kongo was one of the older battleships^note As in, it entered service in 1913, and was the last Japanese capital ship built outside of Japan (it was built in Britain) in service in the IJN during the war but still saw a lot of service.
  • Mari's brother also keeps with the theme, as well as having both his names relate to Mari's: His middle name is Formidable, after the WW2 carrier HMS Formidable, one of the sister ships of HMS Illustrious, the ship Mari gets her middle name from. His first name, Yakobu, is the Japanese version of Jacob, a name with Biblical roots, similar to Mari being the Japanese form of Mary.
  • Quincy's first and last names are references to the WW2 cruiser USS Quincy and the (now decommissioned) Kenyan missile boat KNS Madaraka, being that he is from East Africa (though Word of God states he's most likely from the Rwanda/Uganda region, but as both of them are landlocked and don't have navies, he went with the closest country he could find.)
• Mind Rape: It's an Eva fic.
  • The Doctor points out that Shinji's life so far, given the amount of manipulation he's been through, the trauma, and the lack of any sort of psychological therapy of any kind, has been one fourteen-year-long mind rape. He and Misato are not happy about this.
  • After attempting to Mind Rape Asuka like it did in canon, Arael tries to do this to the Doctor. This ends badly... for the Angel, that is.
• Mistaken for Gay: Asuka does this to The Doctor and Shinji from episode 6 onwards, after they continually ignore her for their own conversation.
• Mr. Exposition: One reason Ritsuko doesn't like the Doctor is that he explains stuff that she normally explains.
• Mundane Made Awesome: NERV tries to confiscate a ladder the Doctor used to defeat Arael. They plan to stick it in an archive with other important relics and call it "The Ladder of Jacob."
• Mundane Utility: After being told the TARDIS now translates everything for him, Shinji's first question is: "So I can watch Animaniacs without the subtitles now?"
• "No. Just… No" Reaction:
  • The Doctor's response to Asuka's attempt to speak English with an English accent.
  • Also his reaction to her asking if he and Shinji were in a pedophilic relationship.
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • The Doctor sees a lot of himself in Shinji, and decides to stick around to help him.
  • The Doctor and Misato are this as well, being the only two figures of any authority who proactively care for Shinji despite wildly different methods and ideologies.
  • The Doctor points out to Asuka (something Shinji unintentionally overhears) that she and Shinji aren't that different. Shinji comes to the realization himself when he intuits that both he and Asuka both hunger for the recognition that someone values their existence.
  • The Doctor also later admits that he and Asuka both know something about pride, and dislike sharing the spotlight.
• Oh, Crap!: The end of Episode 9 Part 3.
  "Because," he said. "When we came in The Thinker was leaning on his left knee.
  • When the Doctor and Misato are watching Leliel start to vomit things from her shadow, they realize that they're in the "Splash Zone" when an office building nearly hits them.
• Only Sane Man: Somehow the Doctor has ended up in this role. He hates it.
• Other Me Annoys Me: The Doctor regularly converses with hallucinations of his past selves, and is more often than not irritated by their presence. Word of God says that the feeling is mutual. The fic is set immediately after "The Waters of Mars", and the previous Doctors aren't exactly happy with Ten at the moment. It's unclear how much independence they have, since John Smith is able to have a quick conversation with Shinji without the Doctor knowing, and they can apparently choose whether or not they want to argue with Ten. It should also be noted that this is hardly unusual- canon multi-Doctor episodes usually devolve into bickering among his incarnations fairly quickly.
• Parental Substitute: Alongside Misato, The Doctor acts as one to Shinji. Rei even lampshades it in Episode 13, referring to him as "an alloparental figure for Pilot Ikari".
• Pet the Dog: Expect The Doctor to do this at least once for Shinji in every scene they share.
• Phlebotinum Breakdown: The Doctor's TARDIS is broken due to him crossing into another universe (similar to how the TARDIS had a breakdown when going to Pete's World). Meta-wise, this is to give the Doctor an excuse to stay and help Shinji instead of running off.
  • The Doctor's sonic screwdriver breaks just as he was about to close a space-time rift to stop an angel traveling from the future
• Precision F-Strike: Misato drops an F-bomb when she meets a Weeping Angel.
• Pop-Cultured Badass: The Doctor's plan for Shinji seems to be this as he gives him lots of books to read and it seems to work as Shinji starts to make shout outs and actually cracks a joke!
• The Real Heroes: When Shinji asks why he should save people, The Doctor points to the Japan Heavy Chemicals volunteers who despite not being alien geniuses or mecha pilots are still risking their lives to help fight an angel in their own way.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • The Doctor delivers a pretty quick one to Asuka if for no other reason than to make her shut up.
  • He also gives one to Misato earlier for NERV's use use of child soldiers, ignoring Shinji's PTSD, and deliberate attempts to isolate him. In both instances, the Doctor feels that he went too far. In the case of the former instance, it's the fact that Asuka, for all her faults, is a fourteen-year-old girl. In the latter, he's blaming Misato for things that she is not complicit in (the PTSD or isolation) or has little choice but to accept (the use of children as pilots).
  • He also gives one to the First Doctor at one point, pointing out that he's the only incarnation still arguing against helping, as none of the others ever got as cold as he did near the end.
  • Unit-00, while possessing Shinji, unleashes an absolutely vicious one against Asuka, claiming that Shinji despises her for how she treats him and pointing out that for her playing at being an independent, self-sufficient badass, she's actually been manipulated by NERV her whole life, and that she subconsciously aware of this but is so desperate for validation she's in denial. It caps off the speech by calling Asuka a "doll", a word at the root of all Asuka's trauma.
• Red Herring: Around episode 8/9, the reader is led to believe that the Daleks and/or Cybermen would be making an appearance. It turns out neither of them do, as the real enemies of the episode are the Weeping Angels. The cyborg delivery woman is also implied to be a threat. She isn't, but she is related to the threat by way of being sent at the request of Aoba, who was sent back in time by the Weeping Angels and is long dead.
• Sanity Slippage: Shinji has regularly scheduled "Crazy Days" to help him avoid this. Being sent out against an Angel on the day he was supposed to have one results in a somewhat hilarious scene. Well, until the screaming started.
• Secret-Keeper: Shinji, of course.
• Shout-Out: Probably far too many to name.
  • Asuka really likes calling Shinji girl's names in this one. (Up through the end of Episode 8, at least.)
  • In Episode 9, the cyborg delivery woman stalking Makoto is based on the Major from Ghost in the Shell. Other characters from the same franchise get name-dropped.
  • Episode 10 sees the Doctor pull a crowbar labeled PROPERTY OF BLACK MESA out of storage.
  • In the bonus material for Episode 10, it's revealed that one of the people who worked on the phosphorus blade is one Doctor Adam Savage. He is informed that "because it's cool" does not constitute a form of strategic value.
  • During Part 1 of Episode 11, Shinji complains that "I'm not even supposed to be here today."
  • The various deleted scenes for Episode 11 are all named for lines from the song "Crazie$" by I Fight Dragons
  • Episode 12 features a brief Seinfeldian Conversation about The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
• Shown Their Work:
  • The author seems to know a bit about Jewish mysticism. A few examples:
    • NERV's system of security clearances appears to be based on the Sephirot from Kabbalah.
    • During one meeting with SEELE, Gendo mentions the "Teacher of Righteousness", a mysterious figure from the (actual) Dead Sea Scrolls.
  • The Doctor at one point mentions that Jesus preferred to be called Josh. The name Jesus does in fact come from a Hebrew name that's usually anglicised as Joshua^note The reason for Jesus being called Jesus is because it comes from the Latin transliteration(Iesus) of the Greek rendering (Ἰησοῦς/Iesous) of the Hebrew name(ישוע‎/Yeshua)
• Talking the Monster to Death: The Doctor accidentally does this when he convinces the Angel-possessed Jet Alone that blowing itself up under the Rift in Tokyo 3 wouldn't just wipe out the humans preventing it from getting to its goal, it would probably blow up the planet as well. The Angel agrees and blows itself up right then and there rather than go through with its plan.
• There Are No Therapists: And The Doctor notices. Specifically, he notes that Tokyo-3 has no therapists anywhere in the entire city, and that the data networks and books have any and all psychological aid texts carefully removed so that no one can get any sort of relief or aid- perfect for making sure that people are able to be manipulated.
  • It goes further- there are actual laws that prevent people from approaching the Pilots, keeping them deliberately isolated and lonely, and the psych profiles for the pilots are just there to say "They are experiencing these symptoms, ignore them and don't provide aid." Misato is furious when she finds out.
• Techno Babble: Often.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Episode 6 has a whole bunch of time travel and time-related shenanigans.
  • The Weeping Angel that attacks NERV is Angel Bob, from "The Time Of Angels", which took place in the Eleventh Doctor's run, when the Doctor in this story is the Tenth. This is foreshadowed when the Doctor questions how an Angel fell into the Void, which is exactly how the Eleventh took out Angel Bob and his fellow Angels.
• Took a Level in Badass: Shinji, who is now completely willing to stand up for himself, snark at people, is able to come up with clever plans to deal with Angels, and no sells Leliel attempts to break him, rejecting his old philosophy, makes it clear that he has faith in The Doctor even though he's quite aware that The Doctor is not perfect, and is able to figure out that he's not actually talking to his inner self after the voice demonstrates that it knows things Shinji has never learned. Inner!Shinji claims he just repressed them.
• Tranquil Fury: Rei shows absolutely no emotion while informing Asuka that, if she intentionally causes Shinji (her biological brother) any physical harm whatsoever, Rei will kill her. She does this after pressing the emergency stop on their elevator hard enough that its screen cracked.
• Two-Teacher School: The Doctor ended up teaching English, Chemistry and History because the other teachers either died or are recovering from being turned into zombies.
• Wham Line: "...who's that?", directed from Shinji to the Ninth Doctor
  • "Just call me Bob, miss," the voice said. "Everyone does."
  • From the end of Episode 11 Part V:
  The Doctor: ^note (examining a microfilm containing the Chinese Government's newest economic plan, which hasn't been implemented yet) Communist Party's still in charge over in Beijing, yeah? And they still organize everything into five-year plans à la Mao?
  Kaji: Last I checked. Why?
  The Doctor: So why's this one only go up to the end of the year?
  • The last line of Episode 11:
  "Yui Ikari" The Doctor swallowed. "Shinji's mother was Project Zero."
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: The Doctor makes the argument that even though Rei isn't human, she's still a person and should consider herself as such. Interestingly, Gendo later tells the Doctor that, after all he's done, he doesn't consider himself to be a human anymore, at least mentally. He considers himself to be a machine.