K/S fics are super-rare and I'm very picky when it comes to fanfics.

I think their rarity is a pretty good indicator that a lot of people who get their fangirl on over the ship don't actually have a good understanding of the canon (whether it be the anime or the manga or the rebuild). This is also supported by the fact that what fics -do- exist are often very bad. XD The good ones are hard to find, I think I've only read two or three ever that I really enjoyed.

"hackEVA: Catharsis"

I ran across this little gem of a story on the TVTropes page, and thought I'd recommend it here. Its something of a .hack/Evangelion crossover, and its surprisingly well done, capturing the elements of both worlds quite well.

Short synopsis: CC Corporation is promoting their newest game by sending out thousands of free laptops preloaded with The World: R2, and Shinji Ikari has just received his copy. Seeking to flee from his issues in the real world, Shinji jacks in as the Adept Rogue Skari. But as Shinji is about to discover, the line between fantasy and reality isn't so clear-cut as one might like to imagine...

chaosakita wrote:I've heard of it. It's actually on my to-read list. It actually looks pretty ok. I'm not a big fan of the first-person, though.

Most self-injection fics tend to come up with totally Mary-Sue characters that bore one to death.

And I think that mine Fits most of your filters modestly. It's multi-chapter, though, I'm afraid, and I'm in the middle of what seems to be the twentieth rehaul of the storyline, not to mention distraction by my original Gundam fic.
By the way, can you please tell me if it comes up as 404? There's something funny with DarkScribes, and I haven't been able to edit at all. Damn glitches.
(Am I just advertising? Sorry. )

Rivenscryr wrote:"hackEVA: Catharsis"

I ran across this little gem of a story on the TVTropes page, and thought I'd recommend it here. Its something of a .hack/Evangelion crossover, and its surprisingly well done, capturing the elements of both worlds quite well.

Short synopsis: CC Corporation is promoting their newest game by sending out thousands of free laptops preloaded with The World: R2, and Shinji Ikari has just received his copy. Seeking to flee from his issues in the real world, Shinji jacks in as the Adept Rogue Skari. But as Shinji is about to discover, the line between fantasy and reality isn't so clear-cut as one might like to imagine...

A video game?
That "the line between fantasy and reality isn't so clear-cut as one might like to imagine..." sounds kind of AVATAR-ish

I never liked fics that got the TvTrope's seal of approval.

Cave repono quoque plures vel parum recenseo

tehprognoob wrote:A video game?
That "the line between fantasy and reality isn't so clear-cut as one might like to imagine..." sounds kind of AVATAR-ish

Eh, it actually meshes better than you might think. I was actually surprised, since I've seen too many bad crossovers in the past - but this one turned out well.

Eric Blair wrote:I never liked fics that got the TvTrope's seal of approval.

Cave repono quoque plures vel parum recenseo

Most of 'em are newer ones. You have to look at who'se doing the recommending, and what they've recommended... but it does throw up some interesting ones from time to time... certainly things I'd never have lokked at otherwise.

TvTropes is how I found Drunkards Walk... which I ended up doing a 'fanart' for... for one thing.

tehprognoob wrote:Most self-injection fics tend to come up with totally Mary-Sue characters that bore one to death.

First-person is not the same as self-insert -- in Orchestrating the Silence the first person narrative is there to get you inside the heads of the original characters. The 'I' is Asuka or Shinji, not the author's newly beamed-in avatar.

Mr. Tines wrote:First-person is not the same as self-insert -- in Orchestrating the Silence the first person narrative is there to get you inside the heads of the original characters. The 'I' is Asuka or Shinji, not the author's newly beamed-in avatar.

Indeed, and I'd say it does a better job of getting inside their heads than anything else I've read. The first-person perspective is definitely an asset here, and it's used brilliantly.

Mr. Tines wrote:First-person is not the same as self-insert -- in Orchestrating the Silence the first person narrative is there to get you inside the heads of the original characters. The 'I' is Asuka or Shinji, not the author's newly beamed-in avatar.

I sometimes write a character's inner conflicts in the form of a 1-sided conversation enclosed by '' and italicized. Is that what1 you mean?
EDIT: But if it is a beamed-in avatar story, you might as well try save some hard drive space in most cases. A few dozen KBytes are not worth most self-insertion stories. But good ones can still be. You never know.

tehprognoob wrote:I sometimes write a character's inner conflicts in the form of a 1-sided conversation enclosed by '' and italicized. Is that what1 you mean?
EDIT: But if it is a beamed-in avatar story, you might as well try save some hard drive space in most cases. A few dozen KBytes are not worth most self-insertion stories. But good ones can still be. You never know.

...what? No, again, it's not a self-insert story. There are only two people in the story, Shinji and Asuka. There are no added characters. The chapters are written from Shinji's and Asuka's personal perspectives, with them taking the place of the narrator, alternating between their viewpoints each chapter.

...

Why am I having to explain this?

Somebody is totally missing the point of a what a "First-person Narrative" is. Lets enlighten him.

I sometimes write a character's inner conflicts in the form of a 1-sided conversation enclosed by '' and italicized. Is that what1 you mean?
EDIT: But if it is a beamed-in avatar story, you might as well try save some hard drive space in most cases. A few dozen KBytes are not worth most self-insertion stories. But good ones can still be. You never know.

._.

Have you ever read the Great Gatsby or Catcher in the Rye...?

I really do recommend them. Sachi's link is a must read. Take notes and literature classes will be 100x easier.

What? Oh, sorry. I was talking about something else, but I don't remember what anymore.
EDIT: I wasn't talking about any specific story, actually.
EDIT 2: And oh, you're talking about those first person narratives?
I was on a completely different page altogether...I get it...sorry...

Eric Blair wrote:I never liked fics that got the TvTrope's seal of approval.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/TheSecondTry

JimmyWolk wrote:http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/FanFic/TheSecondTry

SPOILER: Show

(btw, I just noticed, there's a few "errors":
1. The uncensored version of "love" isn't an "Old Shame" at all, in fact it's the real version as far as I'm concerned. It's just not posted on ff.net/my page because of their/my hoster's rules about smut (this apparently got at least partially corrected since the last time I've seen it with a "Possibly" added).
2. Asuka doesn't say it's bad luck to have sex before a battle, but to propose to someone.
3. If I want to be nitpicky: The title. :P
Anyone who can, feel free to edit those (dunno how well that last one would work, given the links and all, and again that's not that much of a biggie.)
Otherwise though, I for one am pretty happy that it got a place there. After all, recs are an even bigger ego-boost for an author than reviews )

Speaking of which, are you any less baffled than I am by that page's claim that you somehow "averted" the "Everything's Better With Monkeys" trope? Unless I'm forgetting something major, I can't remember anything in the story that I would expect to have included a monkey for any reason, so it seems as arbitrary an inclusion in the list as it would be to state "Spongebob Squarepants: Averted. Shinji and Asuka do not live in a pineapple under the sea."

@Jimmy: ego boosters are nice and welcomed by any author; hence why the pimp, project, post and mention their stuff at any time. It's only natural human behavior, and everyone's guilty of doing that more often than not; There nothing bad with it.

What I don't really like is "hype"; Also TvTropes as a general site grates on my nerves due to their intention of trying to condense everything to a minimum quotient and having to have everything conform to it; it's like someone trying to use the word "subversion" over and over to explain why they decide to troll fans; if a fic has a place there, I don't think the fic is flawed or over-hyped; however if someone recommends a fics based on a TVTrope entry, I'll probably ignore the person and the request summarily; I'd rather get fanfic recommendations from Encyclopedia Dramatica

@Essel: One of the chapters has something about wild monkeys appearing post 3I at the Ikari farm and Asuka trying to protect Aki, if I'm not mistaken.

Eric Blair wrote:hence why the pimp, project, post and mention their stuff at any time.

Bah, who'd ever do that? XP

Eric Blair wrote:What I don't really like is "hype"; {..} if a fic has a place there, I don't think the fic is flawed or over-hyped; however if someone recommends a fics based on a TVTrope entry, I'll probably ignore the person and the request summarily; I'd rather get fanfic recommendations from Encyclopedia Dramatica

Ah. So like judging a fic by its number of reviews on ff.net?

Eric Blair wrote:@Essel: One of the chapters has something about wild monkeys appearing post 3I at the Ikari farm and Asuka trying to protect Aki, if I'm not mistaken.

Yeah, I guess they referred to that. Dunno if that really counts as "Averted", but I guess they know their definitions better than I do.

JimmyWolk wrote:Bah, who'd ever do that? XP

No clue. People.

JimmyWolk wrote:Ah. So like judging a fic by its number of reviews on ff.net?

Like I said before (in a very bad latin) timeo fabula recenseo pluris; I fear stories with many reviews

Never had Latin, so my knowledge there is pretty much limited to what I got from the Asterix comics.

"beware the oft-reviewed tale"