Very nice.

"Hit its weak points for MASSIVE DAMAGE!" I'm not too sure about this whole fic just yet, but I think this line might've sold me.

I watched NGE on the advice of a depressed friend of mine who was really inspired by it, and I've been feeling the fanfic itch as I do after every piece of media I devour. Thanks for writing a big thing for me to eat, man!

The scene with Shinji and ASuka confessing they like each other was beautiful and touching. Well done.

Something I found on the net that sums up the fans of eva.

I want to hone in on another particularly bizarre idea that the fandom has adopted. Specifically, the weird notion that the series protagonist, Shinji Ikari, is straight.

As with a lot of the other more frustrating reactions to the series, it's not just a reproduction of the shitty backwards attitudes that a lot of geeks hold, it reproduces them in such a way that it garbles the actual thematic arc of the series and makes character actions and development alike borderline incomprehensible. It's of particular interest to me, as well, for the way it results in a dismantling of creator efforts to increase representation, forcefully repressing "deviant" sexuality. This is the much canonized practice in fandom culture of erasing what few paltry instances of queer representation exist popular culture. It's the flip side of the coin I discussed a few weeks ago with respect to the possibility of reading queerness into Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell: it's reading queerness out of media.
By the end of the series, Shinji is on the verge of a mental breakdown because of the horrors he's seen, one pilot has been killed then replaced by a clone, and the other is in a coma after a suicide attempt. The sketchy secret organization backing the sketchy secret organization that created the Evas sends a new replacement pilot, the 5th Child:

Kaworu Nagisa.

And Kaworu Nagisa, white haired pretty boy, really likes Shinji Ikari.

This is notable because at this point he's... kind of the only person who does. His father treats him like shit (and really treats everyone else like shit too-Gendo Ikari is a monster), his adoptive guardian has totally sealed herself off emotionally after a pileup of betrayals culminating in the execution of her love interest, the other pilots are as good as dead and are in no condition to deal with Shinji Ikari's leeching need for infinite validation and affection... basically, he's more alone than he's ever been, and the Angel attacks have just been getting more and more mindbendingly incomprehensible and horrifying.

And Kaworu appears on the scene, white haired, perfect, beautiful, and totally, totally devoted to Shinji Ikari. I mean, I need to stress that this is like Free! levels of sheer, undiluted gay. He immediately latches onto Shinji, telling him that he pities and loves him, treating him as the sole focus of his meaning in life, straight up saying that he was born to meet the other boy, holding hands with him in the shower and then sleeping over with him... Like I am not making up or exaggerating any of this there is a lengthy scene of them sitting in the shower naked and talking about Feelings while gazing into each other's eyes.

It is. So. Gay.

But the backdrop to all of this is the growing discomfort of the other characters as they realize that Kaworu is not what he appears to be. So to some extent it's not that much of a surprise when his true nature is revealed:

Kaworu is Tabris, the 17th and final Angel.

You can probably predict where things go from here. Kaworu takes the other available Eva and attempts to do the whole end the world thing that the Angels have been trying to do (the mechanics of which I won't even begin to try to explain here). Shinji follows in Unit 01. During this whole sequence, which occurs, by the way, to the sounds of Ode to Joy from Beethoven's 9th because sure why not, Kaworu has seemed oddly hesitant and not particularly inclined toward racing to end the world. And when he finally arrives at the mcguffin that'll bring the curtain down on humanity, he seems to... change his mind. Shinji seizes the boy with his Eva's hand, and Kaworu gives him an ultimatum: Shinji must kill him so that he, and the rest of humanity, can live. In fact, Kaworu is glad Shinji caught up with him, because he thinks Shinji should be the one to live.

Anyway, so that's Key Moment Number One.

Key Moment Number Two comes during the movie End of Evangelion, where...

[deep breath]

Ok let me try to describe this without it becoming completely incomprehensible.

The final boss of Evangelion is essentially GOD. And God, an alien entity called Lilith that gave rise to humanity, essentially wants to take humanity back into a kind of fluid shared consciousness. This is called Instrumentality, and the shady organization backing the shady organization that is fighting the Angels secretly has been working towards this goal-this apocalypse where all of humanity becomes one entity-all along.

And the key to their plan is Shinji Freaking Ikari and Unit 01. If they can get him to lower his Absolute Terror Field-the Light of the Soul that differentiates organizations from each other through, essentially, fear of being wholly connected to another being-they can trigger an event where basically all of humanity turns into tang and gets absorbed into Lilith, and Unit 01 becomes a god or... something.

But what's key here is that when people lower their AT Fields during Instrumentality, they see a vision of the person they love most or care about the most or something along those lines-the person they most want to be "one" with. And in just about every case, barring a couple exceptions, it's strongly, strongly implied to be full on sexually tinged love. A LOT of these scenes involve gentle caresses and kisses before people's bodies literally explode into reddish-orange liquid (hence: tang). It's somewhere between extremely touching and extremely disturbing.

So alright, instrumentality involves people lowering their barriers, there's a heavy sexual content, we got it, good.

Now I wanted to make all that clear because while all this is going down and side characters in the command center of NERV are getting turned into rehydrated fruit drinks, Shinji's hovering up in space facing down Lilith... and Lilith for reasons way too weird and creepy to get into here looks like one of the other pilots, like a giant 14 year old girl with creepy eyes. And Shinji's understandably freaking out because he's facing down a giant naked version of this girl, a version so vast that she extends out of Earth's atmosphere. He's just straight up flipping his shit and it looks like he's all set to reject what's going on and then Lilith essentially is just like... mmmmmaaaaaybe this form would be more appealing to you?

And turns into Giant!Kaworu.

And Shinji grins like an idiot and that's pretty much it for humanity-it's all over but the collective screaming as everyone on the planet explodes in glowing crosses and is sucked into Lilith's vagina hands while an eight minute long pop track about suicide plays in the background. It's... look, End of Evangelion is a very, very weird movie, ok? There are Reasons why the fanbase is willing to believe that it was created specifically to troll them.

So to summarize: the person that Shinji finally lets down his barriers for in a way that for almost all the other characters has a strongly romantic and sexual undertone... is Kaworu Nagisa.

All of this is gay as hell and it blows my mind that so many fans apparently can't deal with what isn't even subtext at this point but straight* up 100% text. Like they could literally have shown Shinji and Kaworu boning and it both would not be that much more obvious than what they did show, and I am convinced Eva fans would still find some way to make that just a sign of "close friendship" or something.

*Sorry.

I don't think it's out of line to describe this as indicative of deeply rooted homophobia in the Otaku community, homophobia that manifests as denial of male bisexuality while drooling over femslash pairings of all sorts. (There's the occasional defenders of public decency who apply the same standard of complete and total erasure of canonical female bisexuality or lesbianism but they're at least less hypocritical, if not less offensively ridiculous.)

The reason why the rhetoric surrounding this issue is so disturbing to me is because it mirrors word for word discourse used to deny queer identities in real life. For example, one of the most prominent descriptions, one that I saw over and over again from fans, was that Shinji was "just confused" about his feelings for Kaworu.

Queer readers, I know I don't have to explain to you why this is gross, because you've probably lived this shit. I know I have. But for those not in the know, this is a common tactic used to deny queer identities, particularly bisexuality, pansexuality, or any variety of trans identities (all identities prone to erasure in real life-I'll return to this point momentarily) but pretty much capable of being mobilized to deny just about any queer person you'd like to shove back into the closet. It's a form of sort of soft homophobia, a reaction that's less extreme than getting kicked out of your home but is still destructive to your sense of self at a time when you're already questioning your identity. Compare phrases like "it's just a phase" and concepts like women being bisexuals at parties but really, at their core, being straight or notions like bisexuals actually having a binary attraction to whoever they're currently dating.

It's particularly frustrating in the case of an apparently bisexual male character because bisexuality, and male bisexuality in particular, is so highly stigmatized not just in heteronormative dominant culture but in the ostensibly more inclusive queer culture as well. Bisexuals are, by and large (ahah), treated as traitors to both sides, untrustworthy and prone to promiscuity, dirty, slutty, and barely worthy of political consideration in their own right as they are simply the transitional phase, the chrysalis period, before a formerly straight person emerges as a beautiful fully gay butterfly.

Make no mistake, the treatment of bisexual fictional characters is symptomatic of a treatment of actual flesh and blood bisexuals. And the research I did

i loved your fanfiction greatly it almost made me cry. Keep up the great work buddy. p.s i havent showered in over a week

Anyone else can see that cane become a huge Chekhov's gun later?

That aside, looking forward to the author completing this one.

Her ringtone is the Katamari Damacy theme isn't it?

So much is different with Shinji's mom around. Granted, you've taken created license with some things given all the OCs, but it's a wonderful job.

*Muffled Majora's Mask theme plays in the distance*

"Is the evangelion...dancing?" That's why I like this fic. Odd stuff perfectly crouched in seriousness.

Asuka sneak thing was unexpected. I suppose it makes a sort of sense from a given perspective, which increases the sense of her broken birdness.

Lots of thoughts from her this chapter. It was grade A woobie stuff.

Once again you hit it out of the park on all categories; funny stuff with Rei, sweet stuff with ShinjiAsuka and awesome stuff with the giant robot and its hammer space arsenal.

Well, dunno if this will be continued or not, but hands down - even with that IMO wat too long "all just a dream" thingy I still think Nobody Dies is one of the if not THE best NGE fanfic out there and I reccomand bloody everyone to just read it :D It's just awesome. I'll be looking forward for any updates Gregg :)

Fun stuff. "Crab battle!" and many other small funny moments.

The ShinjiAsuka stuff was awfully cute and sweet. I'm looking forward to more.

That introduction at the end; one heck of an introduction. It's epic and classic; practically biblical in language.

For what it's worth, I understand and approve of the massiv retcon. I really hope this story gets underway again someday, it's honestly one of the best stories I've ever read

You know what I love about this story? There is never a dull moment. The Angel attacks have a tendency to change everything, and the rest of the story does it too