Derantor wrote:Edit: That comment was aimed at "The Way Out Is Through", which puts her to ridiculous levels of abuse. That's why I said the first rape will surely break her - because she suffers much more in that fic and still comes out mostly unchanged, which I find unbelievable und unecessary cruel.

I mean no offence but if you're going to do sexual assault/rape of any kind you have to realize the baggage that comes with that, it's not just bad sex its a lifetime of night terrors serious PTSD and living with the terror and fear that the person who did it could return to do it again, or that any person around you could do it to you again its life-changing and emotionally crippling.

Also, if you're writing this purely for shock, then your writing it for the wrong reasons and in doing so you could trigger a real-life victim reading it even more so if it's handled insensitively. Ghosts has the good sense to never show the scene happening in real-time it's offscreen, to never make light of and the rapist gets what's coming to them. I say if your gonna write rape only write it if your fully committed otherwise don't go there as you don't have to write it there are other ways to break characters outside of this that don't involve this.

I already explained in what context I said those words, but I will do it again: In "The Way Out Is Through", Asuka is raped multiple times. I think, the first of those rapes, done to her in that story, would already be enough to completely break her - precisely for the reasons you stated - yet she is fine at the end. I find that unbelievable and unecessarily cruel.

I think I should just delete all those posts, because no matter what I say, it seems people want to misunderstand me. I can only quote myself: "I find it distasteful [to randomly use rape as a plot point] and I don't intend to write anything which includes the rape of Asuka." Honestly, I don't know how I can put this any more clearly or bluntly.

Edit: And yes, I am taking offense at the insinuation that I take anything too lightly or enjoy writing about rape because it quenches some perverted itch of mine or to achieve some cheap, instant shock-value. But I bet me saying that cutting her hair would be a big deal for Asuka was taken as some sort of jab at those silly girls and their stupid issues with their image of self, right? Not me empathizing with her at all.

Agreeing with silvermoonlight mostly, I feel the need to oppose her here:

silvermoonlight wrote:Also, if you're writing this purely for shock, then your writing it for the wrong reasons and in doing so you could trigger a real-life victim reading it even more so if it's handled insensitively.

- cause being an artist, you never know. There are myriads of people out there, each of them being a different combination of soul ingredients, and with your brain able to hold only about seven*) variables at a time, you simply cannot say you know human nature well enough to warrant your work being safe for anyone and making no harm to everyone.

Actually, by doing so you'd basically enter the role of Kaworu, who only wanted to take the burden away from Shinji, because he thought his plan is super-duper safe and his good intentions**) will act as failsafe device. No, they didn't; they never do. And speaking of real life, some taxi drivers lost their life here only because such crime was portrayed in A Short Film About Killing, which actually took a firm stand against taking life of any human being, capital punishment included.
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* Plus-minus two.
** Yes, Reichu; I know.

I'm with ErgoProxy here. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with writing something for shock/disgust value.

And I very much disagree on the notion that one shouldn't include certain types of scenes for the sake of some people who had bad things happen to them; anyone who knows that these things can affect them is very much able to just stop reading when it becomes apparent that such a scene is coming up, especially in purely text-based media where jumpscare-esque scenes are not possible.
Anyone who knows/suspects that and still continues reading I quite honestly have very little sympathy for; you knew what was going to happen, yet still continued, that one is on you.

EDIT: That being said; while writing purely for shock value in and of itself is nothing reprehensible, any halfway decent author should be aware that if there is no other intention to it, the resulting story usually sucks

^ Seconded on all counts.

I am curious if this has been done already: Eva, but from the perspective of either the lower level employees of NERV or the general populace. I know of one Forum-RPG that covered the latter, basically people reacting to fictional news reports, eye-witness accounts and insider leaks, but no story comes to mind. Certain fics include elements, but none focus on them.

I don't know how feasible the idea is, given that many of the inner workings of NERV are not only classified but downright unrealistic to begin with, so maybe a more light-hearted take on things would be in order. I certainly could be funny watching the antics of the main cast through the eyes of some nobody technician assigned to Eva-Maintenance.

I haven't seen anything the like yet, but I also would be very surprised if it hasn't been done a few times already.

If my drive to write wasn't dead in the water right now, I'd probably give it a shot myself

That is actually a fic idea I have considered a couple of times. But in a Post-3rd Impact form.

Some decades after the event, an older Shinji Ikari, now a respected figure under whatever new government there is, hands some trusted young historian a lengthy dossier on NERV, GEHIRN, and SEELE's pre- and post 2nd Impact activities, including confidential documents and first hand accounts from people at different levels of the organisations, and tells them to make sense of it, with some indication that he is trying to get an objective view on everything that happened, as if he is piecing together some sort of official explanation to relay to a higher/foreign power, but also trying to get some personal closure as well. The story is told from the historian's view point as they conduct their investigation, with the official documents presented, but with the historian's own annotations, ruminations, and conclusions spread out across them (perhaps with Shinji's, and other character's own view points and interjections presented across them).

This idea is, of course, heavily inspired by the Twin Peak books, The Secret History of Twin Peaks and The Final Dossier, with the historian being skeptical towards the more fantastical elements the different documents relay to them, especially to begin with, but being unable to entirely dismiss them because of some first-hand encounter with the fantastic (the Post-3rd Impact world would be a pretty crazy place to live).

Bhorium wrote:with the historian being skeptical towards the more fantastical elements the different documents relay to them

Hm, this being post 3I, how can he NOT believe in fantastical elements? He experienced them himself. But I guess that depends on the Impact-scenario itself.

Hey not sure if this has been posted or not. But how about a continuation of the manga’s post 3rd impact world. Give the book only has 1 chapter in it. Leaves a lot of room to go. Maybe Shinji runs into Asuka again after the train meeting. (Yes I am going with an AsuShin ship) with them lacking most of their emotional bagged other than some apparent deja vu.

It's been done, just boring as fuck.

I could be more interesting, rather than go down the old hackneyed Asushin path in a slightly different setting, instead write the story of Shinji's (and Asuka's, if you like) life before the point at which we see them. How does their education talk of the strange statues, for instance, and maybe other retained artefacts that we don't see in Sadamoto's chapter..

Well those are gaps that could absolutely be filled in for both of them. Though I would always wanted them together, especially after how their MP Eva battle went. Maybe have first third or half be life before the train meeting. And then the rest be after that point.




And as far as this being done before and boring. Could someone post/PM links/story names please.

PW, at this point subversion is hackneyed.

@tomdj1701: Don't be discouraged because it has been done before (though I can not remember coming across a single instance of a continuation of the Manga-verse) - everything has been done before. Depending on how you count, Evangelion is in its fourth canonical iteration right now (Original series, DC-Episodes+EoE, Manga, Rebuild), and there are a multitude of similar shows.

Repetition is not the problem - quality is. If you got a nice hook for your story and an interesting angle, just go for it.

Chaddy, at this point pretty much everything canon-compliant is hackneyed. People just don't dare write anything else because of the stigma around AUs.

And judging from the success of A&T, people can never have enough Asushin.

^
Tha...that's what I just said, subversion itself has become hackneyed.

Nothing new exists, all we're doing is repeating ourselves.

Derantor wrote:@tomdj1701: Don't be discouraged because it has been done before (though I can not remember coming across a single instance of a continuation of the Manga-verse) - everything has been done before. Depending on how you count, Evangelion is in its fourth canonical iteration right now (Original series, DC-Episodes+EoE, Manga, Rebuild), and there are a multitude of similar shows.

Repetition is not the problem - quality is. If you got a nice hook for your story and an interesting angle, just go for it.

Thank You. Yeah, if I was more creative I would do it might self but was hoping on the off chance that someone would pick the idea up. Given how little manga-verse continuation stories I have found (not a one, still looking though). Mostly just seen them adapt some personality traits (angry Shinji, etc) or maybe some altered scenes (mostly Toji dying) and merging those with the anime.

Though if sudden inspiration hits me to fully flesh and along with a spontaneous ability to actually write a decent story maybe one day.

So if anyone wants to pick this up feel free

If you ever get around to writing it yourself, feel free to; just keep in mind that it might not attract much traffic.

With how much time has gone by since Q, interest in Eva is nowhere near as high as it was ten years ago. A few months ago, one of my reviewers pretty much chewed me out for asking for feedback by asking back "dude, what were you seriously expecting when you're writing for a fandom this old that nobody gives a shit about anymore?"

Not exact words, just paraphrasing.

Wasn't really concerned with traffic as much as fixing the ending of the Manga in my own head cannon (yes I know it is the most straight forward and optimistic ending of the TV Series/EOE/Manga jury still out on the rebuilds but this is Anno) the ending just felt off to me.

Part of it is yes, I whole heartily approve of that ship of AsuShin hands down.

True the fandom my not be at it is absolute height, but has not completely fallen off either.

With the final rebuild movie that should have been finally out this month (thank you pandemic) all the merchandising regular and movie tie in (toys to life mobile game, Oppa exclusive phone with a killer ad) that keeps coming out. For better or worse hitting Netflix about a year or so ago. People still putting out covers Cruel Angel's Thesis on Youtube. I still have people in my office talking about it from time to time on the regular. Getting decent coverage on places like cbr.com

In short and not trying to offend anyone, people still give a shit.