All Purpose Evangelion Fanfiction Thread

Just do it as a nonsense parody and it'll be fine.

And now my backburner coughed up another idea... One that isn't a parody.

Bardiel infects Jet Alone instead of the latter going into a meltdown. Not really sure if that's possible...

Just have the Angels show up out of canon order (why don't more people do that?) and/or delay Jet Alone's testing. Your nail has just been made plausible.

Hmm. That could certainly be less tragic than canon, seeing as Jet Alone isn't piloted and isn't really strong enough to compete with an Eva anyway. Presumably the Angel infecting it would grant it an AT-field, plus whatever other powers the Angel can give whatever it infects (didn't it make Eva-04's limbs into rubber or something?), so it wouldn't be a curbstomp, but it certainly needn't be the clusterfuck canon Bardiel was either.

Well, the way I had it incubate (I tend to let these ideas flounder a bit) is that during the infection, Misato would try to disable Jet Alone on the inside like she did in the show, but during that time, Shinji is getting his ass handed to him trying to fight it off, so Gendo goes for the Dummy Plug and Jet Alone gets destroyed, injuring or even killing Misato who was still inside at the time.

edited 22nd Sep '12 6:02:58 PM by Psyga315

...Oh goddamn.

OH GODDAMN.

Why does this not exist already?! That's a great idea! I mean, Misato is one of my favorite characters for sure, but that would be insanely heartwrenching. And don't forget; Jet Alone is radioactive. If Misato's suit gets punctured, she gets irradiated.

Nevermind getting irradiated, if her suit is damaged Bardiel could end up somehow infecting her.

Although would Gendo throw her away so easily? Unlike Touji or Asuka who are unimportant to his plans, since he only really needs Shinji and Rei as pilots, Misato is rather useful to him as a capable strategist who has a personal grudge against the angels.

Given how often they only succeeded because of Misato's apparently insane but ultimately sound risky strategies, and since we never saw anyone else in the series who could think out of the box that way, I'd venture saying they are all fucked if they lose her that early in the game.

So it seems logical that Gendo would be a lot more hesitant to just write her off as a lost cause. Who knows, he might even end up agreeing with Shinji on this one, even if for different reasons.

The biggest thing is that Gendo has read the Dead Sea Scrolls which apparantly predicted everything the Angels would do down to the letter.

Hence him knowing ahead of time that Bardiel would take Unit 03 so he made whatever deal he'd have to to get Touji in it, because he knew he'd probably die and he wouldn't have to stick to it. And in Rebuild he almost deliberately baits Asuka into being the test pilot for it, by opting to lock up the undamaged Unit 2 instead of the severely damaged Unit 0, the logical choice, so she'd volunteer, because she was expendable while Shinji and Rei aren't. (Or as some have suggested, deliberately wanted her killed, so she wouldn't influence Shinji or Rei to come out of their shells)

Plus he let Misato go onto Jet Alone, because he knew she'd be alright since he was the one sabotaging it and could stop it before she was killed. So Gendo's always one step ahead.

The ways this could possibly work I think are.

1. Gendo's caught by surprise and Bardiel defys the scrolls by showing up early. Caught between losing Unit 01 or losing Misato, well he obviously opts to save Unit 01 and Shinji, because Misato isn't absolutely critical to his plan.

2. The Jet Alone is moved back to when Bardiel usually shows, and Gendo, knowing the remaining Angels will be powerful that Misato's strategies aren't useful anymore anyway, decides she's no longer useful.

Hm... both options make sense, though I did have an idea during the incubation process that's similar to 1 in which Bardiel jumps the gun and attacks way earlier than he was supposed to attack, which in turn messes up the ordering of the Angels and makes some of the more intelligent ones (coughkaworucough) question why Bardiel did that.

Plus it sticks to the divergence idea I have in mind, since after that, Shinji pretty much runs away and the sequence of events show what happens after the incident (from Touji being the pilot of 03 only to fall to Zeruel, to Asuka not knowing that Shinji is the Third Child once they meet, to Asuka and Rei having to team up to take down Israfel using a different plan, etc.)

This idea probably won't make it to the light of day due to my subpar knowledge of the canon.

Wait... So you say it's not SEEELE but Gendo who has the Dead Sea Scrolls? That information is heavily relevant to my interests.

Also, a question to Mr Mallard. Sorry if it's a bit inaproppriate, but was your nickname, perchance, inspired by the current face of The Coroner trope page?

He's saying Gendo had read the Scrolls, not that he possesses them. I do think that's correct (or at the very least, he knows of some information that comes from the Scrolls), but I can't recall a specific instance of him referring to the Scrolls' instructions canonically.

Nope, I actually came up with it myself. It had a nice ring to it.

I later learned there's actually a fictional character named Mr Mallard. So, uhh... yeah. Bit of a slipup there.

I don't think it's ever actually mentioned who currently possesses the scrolls (but probably Seele since according to the background info books they were the ones who found them) but both Seele and Gendo seem to have read them.

Or at least in Rebuild Gendo at one point mentions something is just like the scrolls predicted. I believe during the first Angel battle in Rebuild 1. Now I don't really remember the TV series version of that battle, but since Rebuild 1 is often shot for shot and word for word identical to the series it probably was similar.

edited 24th Sep '12 1:51:27 PM by AquamanOS

Yeah, now that I think of it, wasn't there a bit where the fourth Angel attack (the giant phallic Angel) confirmed that the Angels are indeed attacking? Wouldn't that contradict the whole "I knew this would happen from the scrolls I've read!" thing?

Or am I missing something again?

Well that was the 2nd Angel to attack. The first could have been a fluke but the 2nd Angel showing like the scrolls said would sort of confirm that the scrolls were indeed correct. Gendo could have read them but been uncertain he was willing to believe in them without proof.

At another point he mentions the AT Field, and how it's just like the scrolls said it would be.

Ah. Thanks.

... This just makes me realize how much of a badass Gendo is now that I know that the 03 Test may have been a Batman Gambit.

edited 24th Sep '12 2:57:26 PM by Psyga315

I tend to think of him like a more punchy version of Shinji who got temporarily fixed by a BEAUTIFUL MAD SCIENTIST only for her to decide all of humanity was more important than her, and he misinterpreted it as her deciding their son was more important that him. Cue bitterness and yandere plotting.

Huh... I always thought of him more as a brooding boy whose gentle girl not only wears the pants in the relationship but also intended to merge with the EVA, though this in turn caused said boy to decide that he should be reunited with her and so orchestrates his Batman Gambit, using everyone from the drunkard to his mistress to that suave looking dude that the German wants to bone right down to his own son and a clone of his wife, in order to be with his love.

I feel like Gendo thought no one else could possibly understand or love him, and hence his pursuit of Yui to the exclusion of all else was not only justified but had no perceived downside—he believed everyone else would see him as a monster regardless, so it didn't matter what he did to them in return. That included Shinji.

A lot of that comes direct from EoE, but I also think there has to be a component of why Gendo singled Shinji out by sending him away (rather than raising him neglectfully). Maybe he just wanted to be free of the distraction, but I can't rule out entirely that Gendo thought Shinji was someone Yui could love other than him, that they may have been in competition for her affection. That may be taking the Freudian themes of the show a bit far, though.

I dunno if Anno would share that viewpoint, but obviously Sadamoto does, since that's exactly the way it is spelled out by Gendo himself in the manga.

I thought the reason Gendo sent Shinji away was because he was scared of him?

I thought it was because he knew he'd suck as a dad what with his Dark and Troubled Past.

If Gendo didn't want Yui to love anyone other than him, I doubt they would have had a kid. He might have sent him away because he wasn't interested in raising a kid without Yui, or because he was afraid he'd be a terrible father/ afraid he'd come to love Shinji enough to give up his crusade, or because he wanted Shinji sufficiently emotionally stunted to be better manipulated, or a combination of the 3.

It's curious how Gendo removing all visual traces of Yui so he could keep her only in his heart fits into all that. He could have been denying Shinji the image of his mother. Then again it could also just be to keep him or anyone else from noticing her resemblence to Rei.