FunWiki: NeonExodusEvangelion

A piece of FanFic, based mostly on NeonGenesisEvangelion. Or the plot is, anyway. Perhaps the major differences from the original series can best be summed up by saying that:

Shinji is replaced by someone with a spine (or rather two someones)
The plot makes sense. It's obviously not the sense that Anno had in mind (if he had any), but ...

Other non-spoiler material sources which factor into the 'fic include SailorMoon? (!), X-Com, Tomb Raider, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Marathon, Men in Black, and Titanic (!). If that doesn't make your head spin, you've probably not seen one or more of the series involved. But it works.

If you have interest in reading the series, you should probably watch NeonGenesisEvangelion first, if only to get some idea of Shinji's character (as he doesn't show up until late in the third season in the FanFic). If you read the fanfic first, seeing Shinji in action (or maybe Shinji's inaction...) will probably emotionally scar you, as well... ;-)

Where does SailorMoon? come up? I didn't see it (but then, I'm not a great SailorMoon? fan).

Amy Anderson and Serena deLapin (?) (and possibly others; been too long since I've read that episode) show up at DJ's school sometime in the middle of the first season. They're the dubbed names for Sailors Mercury and Moon, respectively.

So, I (CurtisVinson) was bored (well, not really, but I had massive amounts of free time at my disposal, which amounts to the same thing). So I read it. All of it. Which took several days, given distractions. And frankly, I don't know to what to think.

The FanFic is a horrible bastardization of all the series mentioned above and then some. I'm frightened by the number of references I got, the number I recognized as references but didn't get, and the number of references I am sure I missed entirely. While the series starts off relatively close to NeonGenesisEvangelion (whose plot I am actually beginning to understand better), by part 3 it has diverged so radically that the two could no longer even be called remotely similar.

I submit that it's a horrible bastardization of neither Marathon, nor X-COM (though since X-COM has no characters, that's not much of a trick).

I had two major gripes: first, it had a lot of elements which shattered my suspension of disbelief, and second, it didn't end. There were overt fourth-wall breaches in the text of the document, though none of them lasted very long. Some of the political and social backstory struck me as patently ridiculous, and I'm not sure whether the authors intended it that way, but it's always very disturbing to read a piece of fiction while arguing with it. As for the other gripe, the webpage indicates they are going to be releasing a "motion picture." I'm hoping that this is the conclusion they didn't bother to write for the rest of the series, but it could always turn out to be similar to Hideki Anno's trick with the real series. "You thought that I was going to make a CONCLUSION?! Haha, you fools, I tricked you!"

I respond to that comment by saying that "violation of reality integrity" (inconsistency, in terms of formal systems) and "character mutilation" are two different crimes. I don't know much about Lara Croft and frankly I don't even know if she has much of a character beyond her unnatural bustline. I do agree that SPOILER (who isn't much one; I at least recognized the source for D.J.'s father early in the FanFic and I think it should be pretty obvious to most people with even cursory familiarity with the source) was acting out of character. However, lots of both the NGE characters and the other characters do plenty of that, and most of their actions had at least some psychological plausibility (with the exception of D.J. sometimes; there's no way a fourteen year old could do some of the things he does). I.e., they may not have been consistent with the way the characters were presented in the source material, but they were consistent in NXE. So much for character mutilation. The social and political setting borrow a lot from the real world, however, and so I apply slightly different standards. Namely, anything that isn't said or implied to be different remains the same, and that means humans act a lot like they do in the real world, which in turn implies different social reactions than are portrayed. This probably isn't the best explanation; if it's not clear what I'm saying, bug me and I'll try to outline it a bit better. I really need to sit down and write my essay/rant about consistency and integrity in fantasy worlds, but now is not that time.--CurtisVinson

: It would appear that they have actually released the 'motion picture', as of May, 2003. Take that as you will.

Well, I (RobAdams) just finished reading the whole thing. I have very similar gripes to Curtis. There are times when the story is very engaging, especially towards the "end". But there are also problems like the fact that D.J. is a wholly unrealistic character and I find it completely impossible to believe the backstory, and trying to weave something like Tomb Raider into NGE is an endeavor doomed from the start. They could have made the whole thing orders of magnitude more plausible by simply making a real character with a reasonable backstory -- even if the end result (the actions of the character) are identical. Gratuitous references are spotted throughout the documents. Not just references though -- they actually try to weave all of the X-files, Men in Black, X-COM, Marathon, 2001: A Space Odyssey as well as 2010 (of all things) into the plot itself. My ability to suspend disbeleif, I've discovered as a result of this FanFic, no longer functions when attempts to weave elements from completely different universes (Like using both Lara Croft and Fox Mulder as key elements of the plot?!?) are made. Whenever something like this was introduced, all I could do was shake my head and try to ignore it, and attempt to think of the character divorced from their own universes (which are largely incompatible).

But even ignoring that, I was very annoyed that it doesn't end so much as just stop. Not even a comcluding paragraph. Just a sentence. May as well have been "kkkskxkkxkkxkkkkkkk click. Signal lost". NGE at least actually ended -- even if it didn't make any sense.

But I must say that apart from the gratuity mentioned above and the lack of an ending, it was actually pretty good. It just could have been SO MUCH BETTER if the authors had tried to keep it plausible.

--RobAdams

...I finally finished reading this tonight; it currently holds the "best FanFic read in recent memory" spot in my mind. My only gripe with it is that episode 3:8 isn't titled "Ingue Ferroque"... --AndrewSchoonmaker (just to give this some perspective)

Why?

[1]. Perhaps the page will also give a sense for why people rave about the Marathon series (as well as some good reading).

Check it out if you have time to kill: [2]