All Purpose Evangelion Fanfiction Thread

Kadmon definitely takes his Grimdark to extremes, but I've never got a sense of things being over-the-top...I guess it's because I like his prose and the way he handles the characters. Let's put it like this - the way you see Kadmon, I see ARSENAL...but I'm still keeping up with that one for now.

Uggh, just read through the trope pages and first chapter of Nobody Dies. Does anyone else find stories that rely on Shout Outs, forced OTT-ness, and OOC Meta-ness or smug wittiness annoying?

Now I do. As a beginning troper,I would have found it great.

Just wait until you get to the ridiculously narmy My Name Is speeches. Also I loathe Rei in this fic.

Shinji And Warhammer40k and Nobody Dies are the most overrated Eva fanfics ever. I dislike them both.

edited 29th Nov '11 12:39:50 PM by kay4today

Yeah, Rei is like... she might as well be a completely different character. And to me all the dialogue is either a 'Shout Out' (in the same vein that Family Guy cutaway gags are shout outs) that feels really out of context and there just for readers to go 'Hey I remember G La DOS from Portal! That was funny', or forced wittiness like dialogue out of a Transformers movie.

I mean I honestly don't get the appeal of stories like this. The bits of things that aren't simply regurgitated from some other pop culture piece of media just feel forced and OOC. I wouldn't say its painful to read, but just incredibly groan inducing.

I enjoy ND more as a work of original fiction that happens to take place in Evaverse and share some character names. S&WH40K at least leaves everyone but Shinji intact (at first), but ND changes enough around that, true, the characters aren't really recognizable. But it's fairly justified—the people who survived in ND-timeline who didn't in canon would ensure huge changes in the first place.

I enjoy both ND and S&WH40K, but they're far outside the norm for Eva fanfics.

Well at that point I'm like "Well, why not write some original fiction then?" Its like if you took everything that made Eva Eva out of it and replaced it with references to Portal, witticisms that make the writer chuckle to himself, and a 'better' interpretation of how the characters should've been. All the OTT-ness just feels hollow and unearned.

S&WH 40 K leaves everyone intact, but only at first like you've said... after that every woman becomes a drooling fangirl that can only admire the awesomeness of the great Shinji who's the most annoying God-Mode Sue ever.

Probably because the story wouldn't be even near as popular if it weren't for the EVA characters. And then there are all these supposedly "awesome", "sad" and "heartwarming" moments that only come off as incredibly corny and ridiculous to me.

Quoted from a reviewer: "If you like the sound of yet another fanfiction designed to appeal to the average stereotypical Troper's power fantasies, obsession with perceived notions of awesome, and want for horribly clunky shout outs, then by all means go ahead. You poor bastard."

Meh. I am remarkably catholic in my reading tastes—I enjoyed Chunin Exam Day the first time I read it—so it's not necessarily an endorsement of remarkable quality, but I enjoyed it quite a bit. Of course, I maintain vigorously that it's better than CED, but again, not an endorsement of remarkable quality.

I feel no shame about liking ND or S&WH 40 K. No one could say that Gregg isn't Pandering to the Base with all the shout-outs, but at the same time I like his treatment of the characters, and for the most part I like how the story's progressed. Also, I contributed one of those shout outs, so a bit of the blame if you don't like it is on me. Granted, the fourth "season" pretty much completely derailed the fic, but he's brought it back on track with the fifth, so far.

As far as S&WH 40 K goes, it's a gold standard for Crack Fics, and was my introduction to both Eva fan fiction and 40K, so it's a sentimental favorite for me. Sure, it's hamfisted, subtle as a hand grenade, and is rife with grammatical issues, but I've read far worse fics, and haven't been shy about saying so in my reviews.

edited 30th Nov '11 3:33:46 AM by Willbyr

Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head, the author cannibalizes the Eva cast because it gives him more visibility. Though it's not like there's a single original thing in the fic anyways.

Which, this is kind of off topic but it just annoys me about a lot of fanfics in general, both Eva and otherwise. This focus on trying to shove as many tropes and nerd references and generic "awesome" things as possible and Nobody Dies is the nadir of that mindset.

Shout Outs are all well and good and can be fun, but when that's ALL your story is about, when about half the dialog are quotes from other sources, when your characterization is basically "Like this character.", it just makes the story feel hollow.

And as others have said, it's not like the references are used in particularly p clever manner, it's just "Hey I'm aware of this nerd thing" so the reader can pat themselves on the back for getting it.

Thrown in the fact that every character is HERP DERP BADASS MOTHERFUCKER and it's just ugggh. Like I love Crazy Awesome over the top stuff like Panty And Stocking With Garterbelt or Batman Brave And The Bold, but those show's are able to be so without trying as hard and do their shout outs in dynamic and interesting ways, along with coming up with their own ideas. Where in Nobody Dies, the more OMGSOAWESOME the author tries to make his world, the more mundane it actually feels.

Err I could probably go on about this but this post is long and off topic enough as it is. Just a trend that's been bugging me. :/ *Get's off soap box*

edited 30th Nov '11 4:37:15 AM by Firestorm

*shakes head at overall inanity of some of these complaints*

If ND truly sucked, I'm sure it would've fallen by the wayside a long time back. That it's lasted as long as it has, has been fuel for as many side stories and alternate universes as it has, and spawned (quite literally) several thousand posts worth of discussion since its beginning (two of which either crashed or helped crash Spacebattles' servers), tells me that people are seeing a lot more in it than I'm seeing credit given here. Let's put it like this - EarthScorpion, IMO, is a better overall author than Landsman (and if you've read ANE and/or AEE, this should be self-evident) and he's been one of ND's most enthusiastic supporters and contributors from the get-go, and one of its harshest critics when it's needed.

edited 30th Nov '11 2:39:30 PM by Willbyr

Justin Bieber is popular too.

Sure, ND is popular. I can see the appeal in it, but it's nothing for me. I don't enjoy forced "awesomeness", random Shout Outs and flat characters. The author tried too hard to make Rei a Crazy Awesome Memetic Badass. To me she's just an obnoxious bitch.

Meh. Some like it, some don't. The fact that it has the following that it does would seem to imply that it's not objectively bad by any sensible standard (and yes, I would argue the same about Justin Bieber, much though I dislike him myself). Positions have been made clear; it's silly to continue the argument further.

No fanfic can be objectively bad. Writing is a matter of personal preference.

It's the same with music. Except Rebecca Black.

edited 30th Nov '11 3:26:42 PM by kay4today

Well, sure, if you want to say that. Myself, I argue that My Immortal, hilarious though it may be, is objectively quite a bit worse than S&WH40K or ND. 'Matter of preference' arguments only go so far.

I wouldn't say that My Immortal is objectively worse than those two. Just uh... different. But at least it doesn't take itself seriously at all.

edited 30th Nov '11 3:30:16 PM by kay4today

Okay, as a serious story. It's a blatantly obvious Troll Fic, but in its own frame of reference it takes itself seriously (all those author's notes denouncing flamers, flamerz, framerz, lamers, flammers, spell it how you will). It's easy enough to agree that as a serious story, something like My Immortal is greatly inferior to something like ND—and pulling the 'everything is subjective' card is, I think, stupid in this instance. Sure, do it if you want, the rest of us will be over here using terminology that fits our frame of reference.

On another note, are there any blatantly horrible Eva fics along the lines of My Immortal or Naruto Veangance Revelaitons?

edited 30th Nov '11 5:11:34 PM by alethiophile

I'd like you to tell me how you objectively decide which story is the better one.

There are. Nobody Dies, for example.

Just kidding. How about Hellstorm Evangelion?

edited 30th Nov '11 5:22:18 PM by kay4today

Yes...not many that I've come across, but they're out there. I'd have to look at the rec page and check my reviews to give you specific titles.

EDIT:

• I'm sure some people would probably call ARSENAL objectively horrible...I'm not one of them, but I can see how someone would have that reaction.
• Definitely Hellstorm Evangelion
• Eros and Psyche / Rear End of Evangelion is pretty much the stupidest overall of any Eva fic I've read.

edited 30th Nov '11 6:56:52 PM by Willbyr

I mean, I love the shit out of Rebuild Of Evangelion, but I fell that most of its shit was earned and was actually, for better or worse depending on who you ask, its own narrative, not a bunch of Shout Outs and bits of Crazy Awesome strung together by characters who merely exist to spout said Shout Outs and be Crazy Awesome. Everything just feels so hollow.

I think Nobody Dies has some originality, and I dig some of the fic's versions of the Eva characters (especially Shinji and Asuka, but decidedly not Rei), but I have to admit I never liked the alleged humor. It really is pretty much just Shout-Out after Shout-Out with little to no actual wit.

edited 1st Dec '11 12:51:44 AM by Sporkaganza

Well I think there are some attempts from the author to be witty originally, but its in that sorta 'Only funny as an in-joke with friends' kind of way. Feels really forced and seems like the author thinks its a lot more wittier than it is.

As for being original, I honestly couldn't get far enough into it to see that. What does it do well in your opinion?

For me, off the top of my head:

• Kyoko Sohryu, her entire character arc, and how her being in the story has completely transformed Asuka. On a similar note, Asuka's father and his influence on her and the story.
• The entire backstory of Naoko Akagi creating Rei and the Ree, which AFAICR still hasn't been completely resolved
• The expansion of the Angels into having a large "family" of similar creatures based on classic angelic hierarchies, with corresponding personalities and traits. This one's a double-edged sword for me, because while I like the idea, for a while it was one of the reasons why I almost gave up on the fic as I thought it was spiralling out of control. The latest season's making up for that, in spades.
• On a similar note, the changes made to some of the Angels, what they do, and how they affect the story.

edited 1st Dec '11 3:50:54 AM by Willbyr