"Reticence" discussion [spoilers]

[Stillborn]

She explicitly though that deep down, she still have hope that he could change for the better and move forward, and Asuka isn't someone who just wish silently for something to happen, but will make everything to make said thing happen

But my point is, if she didn't managed to become better, why would Shinji who is is even more prone to insanity, become better under her tutor in the same world?

and judging by her comment about how from now on Shinji will observe her, do what she says and learn from her, she seems to have taken the role of "mentor" to this new world(at least unconsciously) and will certainly not allow Shinji to become some sort of Death Seeker a la Rei II!

But that is already stated, hate or not, that his death is to little price for them.

Besides, to have the occasion to sacrifice himself, first he will have to be in a position to risks said life : for all we know Misato will put him on the cleaning team or in the kitchen!

That is most likely if they don't throw him in the cell. But wouldn't that make him feel even more useless? This is Shinji we're talking about. He can take even kitchen duty as an act scorn directed at him, and sunk even lower in his mind.
But even I wouldn't know what to do with him, so I can't exactly point finger and make a stement that this is bad, because at the moment even I don't know what to do with a kid who is like a collapsing castle from dried sand. No matter how you touch it, it will crumble, leace it alone, it will just crumble slower.

And same thing about disappearing, Asuka will certainly not let him disappear like that, even if WILLE deems that they are done with him!

And that I consider bad. The only reason she wouldn't let him go is to chain him to his past and guilt, and that would chain him to self hate.
Once they are done with him, the least they could do, is let him go and have a fresh start somewhere away from them. If he shouldn't cling to the past, he should leave them all behind as well. That I believe would be correct path for him, to preserve whatever sanity he may end up with.


Sorry to constatnly dismantle you arguments, but something in my nature, pushes me to torpedo every little point that is not rock solid and could be aimed at. At least in discussions.

[Kendrix]

I don't know how you managed to doublepost, but stop that. - NemZ

The boxes we saw in the hall when Shinji resigned after the Bardiel fight has "Kuroshio Logistics" on it, and in the scene were Asuka moved in, it was shown that these boxes were actually containing Shinji's stuff.

I was referring to the boxes we see after the Sahaquiel battle.
There is a "...and the next day..." montage, and then, the events of the climax really happen one after another, though we don't see how much time eactly passes between each cut, tough it makes little sense to round up here/assume that lots of stuff we didn't see happened.
Must be at least weeks because of the time it must've taken for unit three to be shipped/them getting the date of the test in advance etc.
What the "forgotten lunch" montage tells us is that some sort of "everday life routine" including Asuka was established, enough for her to be a part of the household that leaves a hole.

...I prefered the first chapter really.
Feels a bit like backpedalling, but no use to argue interpretation here;

But the faults from the previous chapter continue and become more glaring: Not differentiating between what the author wants to portray as "the truth", and the PoVs the characters would have.
Show, don't tell.

Esp. Asuka was made to sound obnoxiously omni-scient, when the intent of the chapter was probavbly the opposite (revealing dimension to her)

Also, I don't think calling Shinji "still obsessed with the clone of a clone" and reminding him who created ReiQ was that needed; In the movie itself, he pretty much started treating her as a stranger (which she technically is) the moment he found out and his remark during their descent to dogma makes clear that he doesn't trust her. If anything, one got the impression that he MIGHT need to be corrected into the opposite direction ("It's not her fault she looks like your deceased gf, she's really trying"), thought he didn't really get time to react to/process/notice that this wasn't an empty shell there.


...dunno if that was fully intentional, but the whole "world got blown up!" angle seems to have been forgotten over "Well, she's still in EVA 01" (Isn't that, like, much worse, in an "I -must-scream" way? I'd prefer dying with Zeruel. But this is a philosophic question, I guess. ) At least the author seemed to do PoV in the sense that Shinji didn't seem to have realized the implications of that and seems to have taken what Fuyu said as "She's dead, yet another epic fail."

That is most likely if they don't throw him in the cell. But wouldn't that make him feel even more useless? This is Shinji we're talking about. He can take even kitchen duty as an act scorn directed at him, and sunk even lower in his mind.

I dunno. At least he would be doing something/helping in some way.
Getting some however menial non-eva related task is probably one of the best things that could reasonably happen to Shinji; It wouldn't take a huge leap of faith from WILLE's side/something they could still be expected to trust him with, and how often can you munch on the guy's delicious miso soup without starting to see him as a human being/clueless kid and not a nameless horror they have an irrational hatred against?

He'd have to aquire some realism there, they simply WONT trust him with anything front-line related task, because he has proven himself highly incapable in that regard.
Note the difference between "incapable" and "self-centered bastard";
I mean, Shinji knows he's no warrior material and, in his current state, would probably take anything remotely softer than the soles of Asuka's shoes as mercy he does not deserve;
He feels very damn undeserving right now, and the reason he pulled those damn spears in the first place was because he wanted to be allowed to help and just do something/anything other than fail.

Frankly, if he wants to do something bad enough to take the gamble of grabbing those spears in spite of all warnings, he wants it bad enough to resign himself to kitchen duty.

If there's anything left of his "indignation mode" after the whole Kaworu deal, he should (and probably can) get over it,.
It means there's no reset button and he'll have to go brick by brick, but but a situation where he has to start very low to earn their trust is quite different to the complete abyss of hopelessness and burned bridges he sees himself at now.

...but of course, plot demands that the protagonist do dangerous plot things, so he won't be this lucky in the actual final, and as we have seen, WILLE doesn't seem to be willing to give him even that meager of a chance...
But for the sake of a fic, it seems concievable that if he reached the point where he could call for this, Sakura and Mari might be able to convince the others, I can see Misato relenting because resurging feelings, and Asuka would probably come to see this as him "properly living in the world he created" and accept is ("Why not? At least let the brat be useful for once!" Mari: "You really DO like this Miso-soup, do you?" :3)

And that I consider bad. The only reason she wouldn't let him go is to chain him to his past and guilt, and that would chain him to self hate.
Once they are done with him, the least they could do, is let him go and have a fresh start somewhere away from them. If he shouldn't cling to the past, he should leave them all behind as well. That I believe would be correct path for him, to preserve whatever sanity he may end up with.

Yeah, humans cannot live on moral victory alone... He might form new bonds with Sakura and Mari ("change"), as "new" presences in his life, or take a fake name and anonymously aid the rebuilding efforts.
Still, Misato & Asuka are there and need resulotion... Assuming Shinji doesn't die and final doesn't top Q in terms of being a shaggy dog story, it would probably at least have him winning back some grudging respect from them.
respect being something different from pity or residual feelings/human weakness they can't help.

...that, or something one-more-final-esque, though that would be sorta repetitive after the end of Q.

[ElMariachi]

@ Stillborn : Asuka's speech about how Shinji's death isn't worth a fraction of the people who suffered through these past 14 years could also be interpreted as Asuka talking under the influence of anger, or a strategy to prevent Shinji to commit suicide or go full Death Seeker, by saying to him that he owns much more than his death to everyone.

But for now I think we should agree to wait for the next chapter, to see how the story evolves and what direction it takes in she Idealism/Cynicism Scale.

@ Kendrix : they also regrown new arms for EVA-01 between Sahaquiel and Bardiel, so some time must have passed.
But yeah, I would say that one month, one and half maximum passed between Clockiel and Bardiel.

[Stillborn]

I guess I have to leave it at that, till next chapter, since there is nothing left to dismantle for now. It's nice to have reasonable discussion, so till next chapter.

[Stillborn]

Third chapter of post 3.33 fanfic is on FF if anyones insterested.

[ElMariachi]

Third chapter of post 3.33 fanfic is on FF if anyones insterested.

Just LOL :

So much for the kitchen job : no more than one hour after Shinji and Co arrives in the WILLE outpost, meet Kaji who decides to trust Shinji that he won't do anything stupid and dangerous... a big fight ensue and Shinji goes all red eyed...
Great, now Shinji just proved that he's not only a danger for mankind while inside an EVA, but also outside of it! Poor boy just can't catch a breath!
Although at first I really though that Shinji would end up helping Asuka by piloting one of the JA, after all unlike the EVA these ones can't launch Impacts!

[Stillborn]

Only to outcomes possible, from now on. Since it's been established that Shinji can't be strong character or use gar, he will either fail again and make bigger mess or in the first paragraph of the next chapter, he will either see or hear Asuka and once he knows she lives, he will unconsciously power down.

[ElMariachi]

Kendrix, dude, if we put spoilers it's for a reason, don't talk about who appears in a new chapter outside of spoilers!

Only to outcomes possible, from now on. Since it's been established that Shinji can't be strong character or use gar, he will either fail again and make bigger mess or in the first paragraph of the next chapter, he will either see or hear Asuka and once he knows she lives, he will unconsciously power down.

I partially agree :
Shinji can use gar, it's just that it has a 50% of chance of destroying the world!
Against Sahaquiel Shinji was gar as hell, and no Impacts happened!
Now for the chapter, indeed he can make the situation worst, although just when Kaji appeared and showed to be a reasonable figure that would be fucking harsh on Shinji, besides if something happens to Kaji because of his outburst Misato will flaw him alive!
Or maybe as you said too, Shinji will hear Asuka and will put his Super Saiyan mode off, ReiQ will probably keep quiet about it but will talk to him about it later in private.
Or maybe Shinji will have some nifty powers and will telepathically make the remaining Nemesis Series implodes, to the relief and shock of everyone in the base, and Asuka!

[Stillborn]

If Shinji would have this kind of power, unit 01 wouldn't bother with laser eye during operation US and would simply explode the Nemesis tapping into that power. Shinji having ability to implode Nemesis without even an Eva as medium would be overkill and even if cool, would put him as overpowered and would displease readers.

[ElMariachi]

About the implosion thing, that was an example, I was making a parallel of Shinij's possible powers with Kaworu's, and from NGE we saw that one of his powers was to mentally take control of ADAM-based lifeforms, like an Evangelion, and since the Nemesis Series have a pattern blue blood, maybe Shinji could take control of them and order them to self-destruct.
But to use that kind of power he needs to be fully conscious, that would be why it didn't used it againd the 04B in space : he acted unconsciously and just throw eye beams to the thing until it dropped death!

And of course, I expect it to have limitation, like that Shinji don't have an S² organ and thus tire extremely quickly when using his powers. Hell, maybe after doing whatever he will did(if he do something), he we fell unconscious from the sheer fatigue and only wake up days later inside a confinement cell inside the Wunder, restrained and surrounded with Angel Sealing Hex Pillars!
That would promise to be fun to see him try to explain himself to Misato...

[Stillborn]

Unless they gag him as well, just to be sure he won't fire a radioactive gas beam, like Godzilla, since at that moment they could assume that possible, and I'm not even snarky now.

EDIT
4 Chapter is on. I was halfway right with my assumptions about this chapter, El

[driftking18594]

Wow, that was another excellent chapter. None of the characters were outlandishly OOC, and the dialogue is well-written.

[amitakartok]

The ending had probably the best wham line I've ever read in the fandom.

"Are you telling me Unit 01 went active?"
"Worse. It commandeered the ship."

[ElMariachi]

That chapter made me lol so hard!

Talk about anticlimatic : you expect Shinji to go all Super Saiyan and destroy the Nemesis Series and half the base with them... and he get KO'd in 5 seconds by a guards' chokehold!

... until the end of the chapter when you learn that his red eyes things served as a "bat signal" for Mama... meaning the Wunder!

By the way what surprised me is that the people in the Wunder were surprised : you put an Evangelion which attained godhood and showed signs of sentience before as the ship's Main Engine and Control System... what do you thought would happen you geniuses?! And Yui-sama made the Wunder arrive in minutes, that must have been one hell of a speed boost!

My big grip for this chapter is Misato, she's portrayed as far too cold and angry to be believable : seriously could you see that Misato hesitate even one second to activate the DSS Choker?!
At first I though that she was just angry because her hesitation almost led to 4I and she's kicking herself for letting her emotion get in the way of her duty... but Kaji's inner thoughs revealed that Misato was this extremely cold and angry person that blame Shinji for everything that happened for the past 14 years!
As I said, that's hard to believe since she hesitated to activate the DSS Choker and was the first to call Shinji by his name and not "BM-03".
And damn Shinji just proved that he can telepathically call EVA-01 even from a distance, the last thing to do is to alienate the kid even more, Misato is really asking for Yui to lose her patience and fry her face!

Now if Shinji is tasked by doing something, I think that it will be tied to piloting the JA Heavy Armors : the chapter showed that the Wunder had some too in case the EVAs weren't ready, and they can't launch an Impact!

ReiQ's musing about why Misato restrained her were very good : for Rei obeying orders is completely natural, and Misato sound so much like Gendo(uh-oh) that she would have obeyed her order to stay put without any problems, it shows well how ReiQ operate on a completely different set of values that the rest of the world.

Now for Mari... honestly I don't know what she had in mind, did she expect ReiQ to free Rei II from EVA-01 as a mean to repay her for helping her evade the N² missile blast 14 years ago, to calm Shinji so he won't try to rebel... or maybe she expect ReiQ to absorb Rei II's soul and become her, which I wouldn't like at all, 3.0 put her on the path of being her own person and not a soulless can for Rei II to inhabit.

On a side not, I liked how the two pilots have an uniform other than the plugsuit when outside of battle! Mari's being pink of course!

[Stillborn]

So Shinji's power didn't blow anything up, and calmed down after he heard Asuka's alive, but apparently has been turned into "when distressed, call mommy" even more than before. On other hand, I don't know how this power operates. When it was first activated, he ripped piece of control panel with one hand, but now he can be overpowered by muscles. Either the red eyes are inconsistent, and for example, super strenght work only in LCL (But that doesn't explain Asukas strenght) or the author simply missed that part in 2.22 since it was just a moment. I also missed the fact Shinji torn the machine and noticed it only after it was said here and I rewatched this scene in 2.22.

Misato is even more unpleasant here then in the movie, but this I can explain by the fact that Shinji caused another impact, so now she thinks even lower of him.

And Kaji is right. If Misato keeps antagonizing Shinji, things can get unpleasant. Shinji doesn't seem to be capable of killing himself when past the breaking point. But other things do die when he goes of hinges, so yeah if this goes up he may decide that "screw this, I WILL become the villian then", and power or not, once Yui get involved, there may be nothing left alive in aftermath.

[ElMariachi]

Well maybe he needs to learn to use these powers, in 2.0 he knew he needed to rip off the machine to go to Rei and thus the "super-strenght" part activated, and here he didn't really wanted to harm the guards and was too panicked about Asuka to do anything except flay powerlessly.
Yui must have felt Shinji's distress and inability to do something, and intervened accordingly.

Fun fact : Misato said that Shinji made EVA-01 awake two times : first during operation US, and now in the Naraka base, and both time that was to save Asuka!
Now you can go all shipping and think that these are hints from the author that he will make LAS. Personally I think that it's the proof of just how much Shinji regrets what happened with Bardiel 14 years ago and wants to make up for it, after all in every chapter so far there is a moment where Shinji is kicking himself for his continuous failures to help her, and it's eating him alive.
Or maybe it's both, who knows...

Now for Misato, as I said her extra unpleasantness could come from the fact Shinji almost caused another Impact, but Kaji revealed that she has been like that for the past 14 years, and that contradicts her behavior in Q.

[Stillborn]

The author may dislike Misato even more then I do, or can't look deep enough and is missing details. Anyway I can't find a reson for this fic Misato, to NOT sedate Shinji into coma and put him in a box, to keep him alive but incapacitated so he couldn't provoke Unit 01 anymore. I guess only third person like Mari in ReiQ's case could keep him from carbonite freeze now.

And about ReiQ... Yeah the concept that Mari may want her to fuse with Rei II was my first idea. And I didn't liked it. I prefer to think of ReiQ as Rei II sister rather than spare body. As for Asuka... Yeah, it's probably another stone of guilt on Shinji's neck.
I don't know how others, but I see no shipping possible after Q, so I won't be waving LAS flag. At this point I would rather ship Shinji with OC or Kaworu, and I'm a straight guy

[KingXanaduu]

I've been reading Reticence since the first chapter came out, and what I've been reading so far, I can safely say that it's not particularly my cup of tea. First of all, the relationships that Shinji has with the current characters so far (mainly Asuka and Misato) come off as way too cold, even after what we've seen. Yes, Shinji did screw up the world, but Misato did show some genuine concern for him at key moments in the movie, showing that she still cares for the boy. The same applies with Asuka, she does have some rudimentary level of compassion for Shinji, it's just that 14 years of hardship has hardened her to where she has to hurt him to help get the message through, but not out of pure spite as this fic is putting it. Another thing I'm not agreeing with this fic is that how Shinji's rebuttals and actions are always revoked at every angle he tries to take in the fic. He tries to show basic compassion and genuine concern for a fellow friend, they spit in his face and say they don't want his pity. He tries to justify his actions of being put into a corner with no way out, they brush it off as a pitiful excuse and tell him to grow the hell up. He tries to do nothing to prevent any more damage, they call him pathetic and childish when any action he could take only screws up the world more. He's probably commit suicide, but they won't have that, so they keep him alive because they justify that he "owes" them, but it's clear they don't want anything to do with him.
Damned if he does, Damned if he doesn't.
Clearly, this direction is flawed and I don't think this is what Anno intended for Rebuild, cause even in the blackest of situations, there's still a chance for hope and redemption. But here, I don't see any sign of hope for him, except for him to either run away and trap himself in a cave to die, or trigger the fail-safe on the DSS collar and end his and everyone's misery....or worse, cause the Eva to go apeshit on everyone and kill everything on the planet. (The latter seems more likely at this point.) No, this fic is probably something I'd expect from Adam Kadmon in terms of bleakness, and thus has begun to lose my level of interest.

[ElMariachi]

^ And the last chapter is even worse :

Turns out that not only he can effectively activate EVA-01 at a distance, but it's also revealed that basically EVA-01 was rigged since the beginning to go apeshit and start an Impact when Shinji start to grow, which is the thing everyone in WILLE is telling him to do!(it's probably something made by Gendo, tying with his plan to get Rei and Shinji closer and then use them to awake EVA-01)

Now for the characters, there is still some hope if you know where to look : Asuka is extremely harsh, but when she's alone with Shinji she behaves a little more softer and tries to rouse him instead of putting him down, the second chapter being the best example. Besides her outburst in the last chapter revealed that she was indeed jealous that Shinji seemingly put Rei above her and tried everything to save her and did nothing for Asuka(even though what happened to Asuka is the very reason that Shinji tried everything and beyond to save Rei, so something like that never happens again and that currently he's obsessed by his inability to help Asuka to make up for what he did to her), that means that Shinji's opinion of her still counts in Asuka's eyes.
We also have Kaji and Mari who are on Shinji's side, and surprisingly Ritsuko who thanks to her scientific mind take only the facts and can more objectively judge what Shinji did(she's the one who noticed to Asuka that he attacked Gendo after Bardiel and that he called the Wunder specifically to save her), but she can also chew on him when necessary, like when she explained to Shinji that he is a threat because of his mental connection with Unit 01 and that they have to keep him locked up for the world's sake, although she agreed that giving some task would be beneficial to his mental state. Overall I think that Ritsuko has the capacity to be the fairest on Shinji.

My big grip, as you said, is Misato : in this fic she's just a raging asshole completely incapable of any rational though wherever Shinji is implicated. What shocked me was when Mari, Asuka and Ritsuko genuinely feared that Misato would activate Shinji's DSS Choker to shut him up, did she really sank that low?
Besides, once Ritsuko ends her tests on Unit 01 and confirm that Shinji has a mental link with Unit 01, I can't pictures that version of Misato doing anything else but just put a bullet in his head or drug him to oblivion and keep him in an artificial coma...

The most intriguing character so far is Mari, who seems to have her own agenda, let's see where that lead us.

[Kendrix]

I've tuned out by now;It's clear that this is steadily veering into the Gary Stu direction, which I feel I can't bear, not even because of literary critic reasons, but emotionally, because the crux of Q kinda is that Shinji couldn't possibly have acted in a stu-like fashion - I get a feeling similar to seeing a RL desaster averted through magic in some show, or something like that.

I'm surprised in the discrepancy here, though.
How come Asuka got the "she still secretly wuws him" treatment, while Misato is...yeah.... Now I'm the first to say that her treatment of Shinji in the movie was just uneccesarily cold and dehumanizing,
(Ogata explicitly notes in her interview that the intended perception of the WILLE scene was "completely unforgiving" - at least that was her impression, and I personally tend to share it.)
but this is crossing the line between war movie and disney villain.

Esp. with Kaji being still alive.
If anything, you got the opposite impression in the actual movie - that Misato is still somewhat conflicted, while Asuka uses him as a football and seems to consider even death too good for him at this point (probably because the affection of an (albeit adoptive) mother for her son is simply a rather permanent thing, because a RL flesh-and-blood mother would have a hard time shooting her son even if he was an actual, fully willing mass murderer...)
Misato is probably more correctly discribed as having similar quantities of genuine hatred and resurging feelings that annihilate each other to create the sterile coldness we see, but both things can take over with just a little flareup, but without opening that can of worms any further, my main point is that I don't get the difference in the treatment.

I mean, It would make more sense if they were, like, both disney villains or both "secretly wuwing". At least then it would be internally consistent.

Also, the characters general degree of heroism (or heroic portrayal) is not directly proportional to their treatment of Shinji; They can be total asses to him (and HAVE to be if you want them halways IC) and still be the closest the planet has to heroes; It sorta felt like they introduced Kaji an an extra faction because working with thesefine distinctions was somehow too much to ask, as were the many shades of grey, much of them quite dark(Such as "Still able to restrain the urge to kill him"), that exist between "disney villain" and "still sescretly wuwing him"