Hm, seems like I have developed a tolerance. Sure, making Ritsuko into a rapist is not very nice, but I don't sense hatred towards her from the author's side, so character bashing doesn't come to mind, but I'm not that invested in Ritsuko's character. I am only at chapter three, though. So far, it's quite well written and interesting. Edit: Allright, at the end of chapter two he starts with his usual gory antics, which quite frankly add nothing to his stories because it's always so over the top.

He's doing it on purpose. One time, he wrote a sappy and WAFFy AsuShin romance oneshot - and an omake epilogue where Shinji wakes up in the kitchen to the sight of Misato lying in a pool of her own blood and Asuka in the middle of tying a noose around his neck with a cheery grin in preparation for a Kyoko-style murder-suicide.

Followed by the author going 'haha, gotcha, did you really expect anything else from me?' in the end-of-fic notes.

amitakartok wrote:He's doing it on purpose. One time, he wrote a sappy and WAFFy AsuShin romance oneshot - and an omake epilogue where Shinji wakes up in the kitchen to the sight of Misato lying in a pool of her own blood and Asuka in the middle of tying a noose around his neck with a cheery grin in preparation for a Kyoko-style murder-suicide.

Followed by the author going 'haha, gotcha, did you really expect anything else from me?' in the end-of-fic notes.

Link? That sounds very peculiar.

amitakartok wrote:He's doing it on purpose. One time, he wrote a sappy and WAFFy AsuShin romance oneshot - and an omake epilogue where Shinji wakes up in the kitchen to the sight of Misato lying in a pool of her own blood and Asuka in the middle of tying a noose around his neck with a cheery grin in preparation for a Kyoko-style murder-suicide.

Followed by the author going 'haha, gotcha, did you really expect anything else from me?' in the end-of-fic notes.

Even Cats Die was the first and last ones I read of his...he is not a bad writer as writing style goes but his grim dark subject is just not to my taste plus I always view killing pets as a low move done for knee-jerk reaction and I hated it in the manga...

Like the only movie in my view that ever worked on this subject was Ginger Snaps, and it only worked because it was based on the idea that a starving werewolf was on the housing estate eating everyone's cats and dogs and a person was going to be next because it's that hungry and wants something better on the menu..

It's called Heart Catcher and it's based on the manga continuity.

ShinjiStranglesAsuka wrote:It's called Heart Catcher and it's based on the manga continuity.

Oh, I remember that now. That omake looks like it was written deliberately to match long-time readers' expectations rather than as a genuine alternate ending, because it clashes too heavily with the actual story.

So, finished reading the original Witness. Overall, it was much better than expected, with a surprisingly sweet ending. Well, what I consider sweet, but I guess I am just too jaded overall to make a distinction between bittersweet and sweet. The bad part is the midpoint of the story, where the typical Kadmon mistake of making everybody too vile kicks in. It just makes the story as a whole unbelievable. I just can't get myself to care for his descriptions of violence. The body horror he does is good, but fights or injuries are always way over the top. Not necessarily unrealistic, but just too much for the emotional realm of the scenes they are contained in.

To pick up on something armitakartok said, he explicitely states that he is not bashin Ritsuko in his chapter notes - he thinks that in series, Ritsuko is one of the more well-adjusted characters, and that she is often overlooked for that reason, while he himself is quite fond of her. Huh, I guess defending him makes me a fanboy. A very strange feeling indeed.

Hey, does anyone know of any fanfics where Shinji and Asuka have already met a long time ago and are already good friends by the time they meet on the Over the Rainbow, presumably having maintained long-distance contact by being pen pals? I only know of / found two such fanfics, both of which are over a decade old in terms of both creation and last update and are rather mediocre in writing quality at best: Different Beginnings and Old friends, new enemies. The irony is that each one takes an opposite approach to the other for getting Shinji and Asuka familiar with each other -- the first has Shinji move to Germany after Yui's death and live with Asuka for a few years, while the latter has Asuka move to Japan after Kyoko's death to live with Shinji for a few years -- and neither one really makes sense when you think about it.

MarqFJA87 wrote:Hey, does anyone know of any fanfics where Shinji and Asuka have already met a long time ago and are already good friends by the time they meet on the Over the Rainbow, presumably having maintained long-distance contact by being pen pals? I only know of / found two such fanfics, both of which are over a decade old in terms of both creation and last update and are rather mediocre in writing quality at best: Different Beginnings and Old friends, new enemies. The irony is that each one takes an opposite approach to the other for getting Shinji and Asuka familiar with each other -- the first has Shinji move to Germany after Yui's death and live with Asuka for a few years, while the latter has Asuka move to Japan after Kyoko's death to live with Shinji for a few years -- and neither one really makes sense when you think about it.

There's Amarantos. It's an AU where Shinji is sent to live in Germany after Yui's death. It's really good.

https://m.fanfiction.net/s/12332555/1/Amarantos

I think Beauty and the Beast (BnB for short) on Sufficient Velocity is a bit like that too, right?

That's Shinji/Mari, not Shinji/Asuka.

Didn't you mean You Should (Not) Sign Weird Contracts? AKA the fic where Shinji and Asuka are childhood penpals and he accidentally sells his soul to her for some chocolate?

May be. It's been a while since I've read either one.

amitakartok wrote:That's Shinji/Mari, not Shinji/Asuka.

From what I remember, the premise is that Mari is an adult who is made the legal guardian of Shinji after Yui's death, and introduces the boy to Asuka and her family, so presumably he spends much of his remaining childhood years in Germany.

Didn't you mean You Should (Not) Sign Weird Contracts? AKA the fic where Shinji and Asuka are childhood penpals and he accidentally sells his soul to her for some chocolate?

... Does she have demonic ancestry, or is such soul-selling possible for ordinary humans in this setting under the right circumstances?

MarqFJA87 wrote:From what I remember, the premise is that Mari is an adult who is made the legal guardian of Shinji after Yui's death, and introduces the boy to Asuka and her family, so presumably he spends much of his remaining childhood years in Germany.

...are we talking about the same story? Because from what I remember, Shinji is diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child due to constantly being haunted by visions of canon and Mari becomes his only friend, with their friendship being narratively portrayed as toxic and unhealthy for Shinji.

... Does she have demonic ancestry, or is such soul-selling possible for ordinary humans in this setting under the right circumstances?

They found a joke contract someone uploaded onto the internet and used that, only to find out when they became teens that it was actually very much real as far as certain infernal powers are concerned. So now Shinji is stuck with Asuka owning his soul, rendering him incapable of piloting an Eva by himself and incapable of tasting any food that isn't cooked by her. Sticking him in the same entry plug as Asuka works, but gradually causes the border between their individual minds to blur until they're finishing each other's sentences, doing each other's tic gestures and even sharing sensory information.

Not only that, but Gendo swore the same contract with Yui back in the day and it's now biting him in the ass because he didn't get his soul back when she got swallowed into Unit 01, so his personal AT-field is slowly deteriorating.

amitakartok wrote:...are we talking about the same story? Because from what I remember, Shinji is diagnosed with schizophrenia as a child due to constantly being haunted by visions of canon and Mari becomes his only friend, with their friendship being narratively portrayed as toxic and unhealthy for Shinji.

This is the one that I'm talking about. Note that I only read the first post (to decide whether or not to put it on my to-read-later list; the decision was "yes", BTW).

They found a joke contract someone uploaded onto the internet and used that, only to find out when they became teens that it was actually very much real as far as certain infernal powers are concerned. So now Shinji is stuck with Asuka owning his soul, rendering him incapable of piloting an Eva by himself and incapable of tasting any food that isn't cooked by her. Sticking him in the same entry plug as Asuka works, but gradually causes the border between their individual minds to blur until they're finishing each other's sentences, doing each other's tic gestures and even sharing sensory information.

Not only that, but Gendo swore the same contract with Yui back in the day and it's now biting him in the ass because he didn't get his soul back when she got swallowed into Unit 01, so his personal AT-field is slowly deteriorating.

Wow, that's very intriguing.

amitakartok wrote:They found a joke contract someone uploaded onto the internet and used that, only to find out when they became teens that it was actually very much real as far as certain infernal powers are concerned. So now Shinji is stuck with Asuka owning his soul, rendering him incapable of piloting an Eva by himself and incapable of tasting any food that isn't cooked by her. Sticking him in the same entry plug as Asuka works, but gradually causes the border between their individual minds to blur until they're finishing each other's sentences, doing each other's tic gestures and even sharing sensory information.

Not only that, but Gendo swore the same contract with Yui back in the day and it's now biting him in the ass because he didn't get his soul back when she got swallowed into Unit 01, so his personal AT-field is slowly deteriorating.

...how have I never heard of this one before? It sounds just wacky enough to thoroughly enjoy. Poor Shinji, he sold his soul to Asuka for chocolates.

Actually, now that I really think about it, that doesn't sound that bad. There are certainly worse deals out there than being soul-owned by a feisty redhead.

Anyone remember that really terrible late 90's early 2000's fanfic where the writer placed the characters in the equivalent of a Hilary Duff film and gave them all American names?

Looks like Kadmon started working on another project. Let's hope this one doesn't end darkly for no reason.

It's Kadmon, of course it will

I don't know who hurt that boy but all he knows is dark.