FanFiction Requests/Recommendations/Discussion etc.

[Bagheera]

Hah! Fair point. I guess they could go either way after all.

[amitakartok]

I like your concept of the FAR and multiverse, amitakartok.

Well, that about gives the gist of it.

As non-interfering as they are, though, there is one thing that will immediately incur their not-quite-divine intervention: messing with time. The FAR themselves perceive time nonlinearly: if you get introduced to one, then travel back in time a billion years and run into the same FAR, it will recognize you as if the two of you had just met. And since they exist outside normal time and space, they have ripple effect proof memory as well, so alterations to the timeline do not affect them.

With that said, the universes they create still operate on conventional causality. Merely traveling back in time is already frowned upon as it is, but actually making an alteration that violates the Novikov self-consistency principle and thus creates a temporal paradox will cause the universe to contradict itself and basically experience a massive kernel fault that destroys all of existence. Naturally, with all the effort laid into the whole universal experiment thing, the FAR cannot allow such a fuckup to happen because it would ruin the experiment.

When Leliel devises and executes a time travel plot at one point, she only gets away with it because she set up a causal loop (ie. predestination paradox) to keep the timeline self-consistent. Even so, she was really pushing it and the others warned her not to try that again, or there will be consequences. When an Angel subsequently tries to make a non-consistent alteration, the FAR erase the offender from existence and resolve the paradox by making a duplicate universe, "rewinding" it back in time to the divergence point and applying the change only to this duplicate, thus turning traveling back in time into traveling to a parallel universe slightly (~28 years) lagging behind the original in terms of local time.

[DaddyFuyutsuki]

Any stories that follow Gendo or Yui before Second Impact? I know there is Reichu's Crying Man fic, but is there anything with Gendo/Yui as the protags, or at the very least, the main POV?

This is probably really late but I think I found exactly what you're looking for! It's a little gem I discovered in some archive during the summer. I really can't find the words to describe how good it is! Yui, Gendo and Fuyutsuki are 100% in character, it's fluid and interesting and the character development is really well written. Such a fun and good read with a bit of drama and emotion!

Here's the link: http://archives.eyrie.org/anime/Evangelion/eva.pages.gz

(If it asks you to download it, just do it then drag+drop in a Chrome window. I also know that the link works fine on iPhones. ) Enjoy!

[Glor]

^Wow, awesome find. Scrolling through now - thanks!

[NemZ]

That does look decent. I remember the author from many a quality Ranma 1/2 fic years ago.

[Glor]

Neon Steroids Evangelion is amazing.

[Monk Ed]

When Leliel devises and executes a time travel plot at one point, she only gets away with it because she set up a causal loop (ie. predestination paradox) to keep the timeline self-consistent. Even so, she was really pushing it and the others warned her not to try that again, or there will be consequences.

Wouldn't they have already known she'd do it before she did it? Or is there some extra layer of time that flows normally for the FAR that they exist in, rather than seeing each other's futures? In which case what guarantee is there that they're at the top of that food chain and there isn't another extra layer of time on top of that with even higher beings watching the FAR perform their experiments as an experiment?

That does look decent.

Conveniently paginated too, which is not something I've seen before in a fanfic. Might make for an awkward flow compared to an actual book, though -- I wonder.

[amitakartok]

Wouldn't they have already known she'd do it before she did it? Or is there some extra layer of time that flows normally for the FAR that they exist in, rather than seeing each other's futures?

The FAR cannot actually see the future. Or rather, their past selves can see up until the present, but none can see beyond the present because the future doesn't technically exist yet.

The best way I can explain it is that there is both an absolute present and a relative present. The relative present is what you are observing at all times (so every intelligent lifeform has their own relative present) and time travel affects this one. The absolute present is the point in time beyond which the future doesn't exist yet. The FAR exist in the absolute present, so they can observe everything that happened up to that point, but no further.

It's like when you're streaming a video from the net: as you are watching the video, your brain remembers what it has seen and you can rewind or fast-forward to any point that already finished buffering and continue watching from there without affecting your memory, but you can't watch the parts that haven't been downloaded yet because they don't physically exist on your hard drive/memory yet.

For entities that exist in sync with time like humans, precognition and future-sight is possible, but only up until the absolute present. The absolute present's current position relative to the relative present cannot be determined, though, because it's not constant (mathematically, time is an open interval with a constantly moving upper limit) and non-FAR future sight is not that accurate.

In which case what guarantee is there that they're at the top of that food chain and there isn't another extra layer of time on top of that with even higher beings watching the FAR perform their experiments as an experiment?

Hoooo~, interesting idea.

I think I'll leave that one up to the readers' imagination.

[Iuvenal]

I found the fic I was looking for a few pages ago (where Gendo went into the eva instead of Yui) - Scenario no Yui. My recollection that it had been on hiatus for a year was sadly mistaken, however - it's been on ice for 8 years and will almost certainly never be worked on again. It's too bad, because it was a good fic. Such is fanfiction.

[jcmoorehead]

I found the fic I was looking for a few pages ago (where Gendo went into the eva instead of Yui) - Scenario no Yui. My recollection that it had been on hiatus for a year was sadly mistaken, however - it's been on ice for 8 years and will almost certainly never be worked on again. It's too bad, because it was a good fic. Such is fanfiction.

Ah damn that always sucks when you come across a fic and realize it's been on hiatus for so long :(

All of the ones I'm reading at the moment seem to be active but I just have a bit of a wait between chapters.

[amitakartok]

... did you guys ever had a WTF moment when you read a Bible quote and realized that it describes the direction you want to take an Eva fic of yours in with scary accuracy?

I just had. And it creeps me the fuck out.

This is the quote in question, taken from the Book of Revelations:

And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.

And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.

And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.

And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?

And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.

And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.

And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.

And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

[jcmoorehead]

Can't say I've got much in the way of knowledge of what's in the Bible so I've never been inspired by that but damn if that's the direction that's something I think I want to read.

For me it tends to be song lyrics, I listen to a lot of prog and that feeds me my inspiration so certain lyrics will just make me think of a character or situation and I'll incorporate it within the story. One of my favourite pieces was inspired by The Great Escape by Marillion.

And in keeping with the biblical theme, I've been using a bit of Supper's Ready by Genesis in the latest chapter I'm writing.

[amitakartok]

Take the above quote, replace the beast with Kaworu, and you've got my story with about 90% accuracy.

[Reichu]

Take the above quote, replace the beast with Kaworu, and you've got my story with about 90% accuracy.

I sure hope Kaworu will have seven heads!

...A lot of ancient folklore like what's in the Bible* is written in this vague but evocative way that invites one's imagination to elaborate. It's really no wonder that they continue to inspire as they do.

* YES I CALLED THE BIBLE "FOLKLORE" DEAL WITH IT

[amitakartok]

That's actually a part that won't be in my story. Kaworu growing multiple heads, I mean.

But he does get a ghastly scar across his torso, courtesy of Zeruel noticing the entry plug hatch during their second run-in and deciding to land a blow there to see what happens. This is the lethal wound referenced above: Kaworu got literally cut in half and only survived because he got tanged just as he flatlined. Thing is, nobody knew tanging was a thing, so when they scraped out what was left of the entry plug and found only a torn plugsuit and lots of blood everywhere, they wrote him off as nothing left to bury. The way he came back differs from Shinji's incident canon as well: instead of coming back out under his own will, the Eva grew a tumor-like growth from its core that was actually an amniotic sack with his replacement body inside, complete with umbilical cord and everything. He was quite literally reborn.

As for the scar, it's a case of "mental self-image shapes body". He receives multiple surgeries to clear out the scar tissue obstructing vital organs and major blood vessels, but the whole scar is too extensive to be removed via cosmetic surgery. Not to mention that it also refuses to heal despite Kaworu's enhanced healing factor, plus it inflames and bleeds on every anniversary of his death.

Absolutely nobody knows how and why it happened, only that he died and came back like some kind of present-day Jesus.

[Iuvenal]

YES I CALLED THE BIBLE "FOLKLORE" DEAL WITH IT

I didn't realize you wore a fedora

[amitakartok]

Fedora...? What...?
...I don't get it.

[NemZ]

Fedora...? What...?

Outspoken athiests have gotten a bad rap in some parts of the internet that would rather just not talk about such issues at all (which is why I try not to make a big deal of it until somewhat pulls the god card, but then shit is officially on). How that got mingled with fedoras I'm not quite sure though. Probably generalizing from some specific guy who happened to be wearing one in a meme exploitable or something.

[Gob Hobblin]

Fedoras tend to be the favored headgear of people with inflated opinions about things. No clue why, it just seems to be the headgear of choice among the crowd. Which sucks, because I'm a fan of the fedora, as is my wife (who owns nearly a dozen, and rocks all of them).

[Bagheera]

I've often heard fedoras associated with MRAs, but never atheists (nor anyone else in particular).