First Ones chapter eight notes

Wow, was this a tough chapter to write. The end product is very different from what I initially conceived of. Originally, it was going to be Rei watching over several different fronts of the war, including Maya’s in particular. I quickly realized that merely watching is kinda dull, and I was losing focus on Rei in favor of the other characters. That, plus some comments from shelter (who also assisted in proofing this chapter) led me to spend more time trying to explain Rei’s situation and to keep tighter focus on her.

One of the big consequences of this shift is that Rei is more proactive; once she’s done merely watching in the Sakai battle scene, she’s able to do things, which is rather important whenever you write a character. A character who cannot act or affect his situation is challenging to write at best.

Another consequence is that this chapter covers less territory plotwise than the originally conceived chapter did. Had I followed through with my initial idea, the war with Eisheth would’ve ended with Rei’s sacrifice. There were some logical issues with this notion. First, just because Rei occupies Eisheth doesn’t mean that Eisheth’s children will stop coming for mankind. I toyed with various ideas to approach this problem, in particular with Rei’s remarks that Eisheth constantly speaks to her children and permits them no free thought. If I had gone ahead with a big battle as I intended, with Rei’s sacrifice being the only act that could end it, perhaps I would’ve stayed with that idea. Here, Rei is driven to take action to keep the situation from getting worse, but it’s not rock bottom, and it would’ve been very anticlimactic to end the war at this juncture.

Writing a seemingly omnipotent and omniscient character is very, very trying. Long before I wrote this chapter, I had ideas about the kinds of limitations Rei needed to have to be relatable and writeable. She couldn’t be all-powerful while in conflict with Eisheth. Hence, there are rules. Those rules are necessarily detailed in the text, despite my misgivings about doing so, because I feel knowing them is key to understanding Rei’s decision-making and dilemmas. A lot of exposition is always dangerous; it’s an easy trap for a writer, but here, I could see no meaningful way to avoid it and still have Rei’s thought process be understood.

One of those key elements is the set of rules that governs Rei and Eisheth’s conflict. I had some specific ideas about what these rules were from the very beginning: the concept of balance between the two forces, of some abilities being “free” and not subject to limitation (communication with one’s side in particular), of other abilities implicitly allowing the opponent to perform the same action at any time and place of choosing. It was this last point in particular that formed the thematic backbone of the chapter: that Rei would be punished for the mistakes she had made in using too much power. This element actually ended up weakened in the chapter as written, for Rei made the choice knowing the risks, where before I had imagined her horror at this point stemming from feeling pressured to act (as she had in chapter six).

Some new elements are introduced here, in particular some of the other Seeds of Life: Agrat Bat Mahlat and Naamah, the other Lilith-like Seeds. To complete the Hebrew mythology theme, I imagine the other two Adam-like seeds would have to be something like Cain and Abel, but I have no plans at this time to directly mention them. Still, they exist, and we can see that somehow, some way, Eisheth managed to merge with all of them. The children of Agrat and Naamah are discussed as well, but only those of Agrat are directly seen in this chapter.

Part of what makes this story about Shinji more than other characters is that he has a continuing role in each chapter, even when others like Asuka, Nozomi, Misato, and Rei float in and out based on whether the focus comes to them. Shinji’s continuing journey toward standing up as a paragon of humanity is on track. It is, perhaps, the only continuing storyline that really remains of the original idea that this would be Shinji’s story primarily, and his story would intersect with these other characters’ from time to tiem.

It is, perhaps, telling that Shinji and Rei’s relationship has received at least as much focus, perhaps more so, than Shinji and Asuka’s. I must admit I’m quite a fan of those two, but it was much more interesting to me to write Rei as looking in from the outside on Shinji and Asuka’s relationship. There is, of course, much more going on for Rei, and she can’t afford to merely worry over that. Is it love that Rei feels for him? In one sense, yes. But this is about something more fundamental than two people living their lives together. This is about connection. I’m not sure I even see it as a romantic love. There are good reasons it lacks a physical element, after all.

Originally, I planned for Rei and Eisheth to confront each other directly throughout the chapter, using a setting that was more like something out of The Matrix, or like a chess board at a park, with Rei and Eisheth playing on it. I went from this to the idea of a ribbon of time that Rei gazed into, but I eventually settled on the portrayal seen here: where Rei can choose to appear at a place and time, but otherwise, she sees as much as possible (subject to the agreement with Eisheth) but doesn’t exist at any one particular place. Indeed, the only way Rei and Eisheth interact is through their avatars.

I had a slightly different ending scene in place, with some explicit imagery of what it meant for Rei and Eisheth to become divorced from the rest of space and time. I eventually decided against this, for similar reasons to the above. It seemed, ultimately, more effective to see what a person would see: Rei disappears, with no sure sign that she’s gone for good, but the feeling that she must be is unavoidable.

The role of Kaworu in this chapter was originally to be more like a mouthpiece for the reader’s disdain and dislike of Eisheth. Where Rei would be quiet and focused on the conflict at hand, Kaworu would’ve had the luxury of openly calling Eisheth out. But this all played into the “park” setting that I originally envisioned the mind-games taking place. With the removal of that aspect, I tried to keep Kaworu as someone to give Rei advice and refocus her efforts. I don’t think this stands out quite as much, unfortunately, but it fits the needs of the story better.

Overall, this has been Rei’s arc throughout the story: trying to balance what she must do against what she wants. That discrepancy isn’t resolved so much. Rather, she comes to terms with the notion that she has taken on responsibility, and she always had a choice in doing so. She is reclaiming her ability to affect change on the world, shedding her previous helplessness. And yes, that does require some sacrifice, but the benefits are worth it. That sacrifice isn’t totally a cost.

Anyway, unless something changes, there should only be two chapters left. The end is near.

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First Ones notes: Chapter 7 - A Noble Piece of Work

One of my prereaders has intermittently given me grief for not leaving chapter three as a Nozomi perspective chapter, particularly since my intentions of writing the whole story through Shinji’s perspective were dashed in chapter four. I knew this chapter would eventually come, though, so this is, in many ways, a bit of an apology to him.

This is actually the original ordering, with Nozomi’s chapter coming first and Rei’s planned for chapter eight. I briefly considered switching them (I even wrote about 2000 words of the Rei chapter) before going back. Rei’s chapter conclusion makes for a much better ending to the war between humanity and Eisheth. However, as a result, some of the themes and scenes of this chapter, which I had outlined to go in Rei’s chapter, were merely reused here instead. They always had to do with Nozomi (for instance, her persistent fatigue and her battle with the walker and flying Angel) but they’ve just been shifted.

I actually did find myself a bit wondering about what Nozomi’s lesson should be here. I realized at some point that I’d written a very independent, solitary character, and as such she stood to learn to trust in others to help her. This is similar to Misato’s lesson in her chapter, but Misato’s was more about losing faith and personal vendettas.

The style of storytelling here is not really amenable to seeing the bigger picture of the war against Eisehth on Earth. This ultimately works to my advantage, as I can introduce details only as they become relevant (i.e. it’s a massive cheat). Still, I would like to be better at capturing the large, sweeping scale of things in future works. Most likely, I would have to abandon tethering to a specific character’s POV to accomplish this.

There are legitimate questions over how much leeway Misato gives to Nozomi despite the latter’s obvious struggles with the stress of piloting. I had hoped that her forcing Nozomi to sleep might seem like enough, but given that Nozomi completely breaks down, it’s may not be enough.

Shinji’s role in this chapter was a lot of fun to write. This is what I always intended for him: to be a mentor, to see things from a perspective like Misato must’ve in the series. Such is the transformation from a boy to a man, to training a new generation or replacements.

Nozomi’s scene with Eisheth is intended to be an analogue of Shinji’s train scenes. She’s experienced this many times before.

The character of Sasaki I alluded to in chapter three. He actually turned out to be a bit more of an arrogant jerk in this chapter than I anticipated, but I didn’t want to make him just this perfect guy whom Nozomi should be intereste in. Interacting with people means some clashing sometimes. Sasaki genuinely finds Nozomi interesting and admirable, and he’s definitely aware that she has a different (a more personal, and perhaps more romantic and emotional) approach to creating art. He aspires to be like her, to work with her. Well, you know, as much as a kid his age could be like that. I was tempted to have him touch Nozomi at one point, after her battle with the three Angels, but Nozomi would’ve had a strong negative reaction to this, and I felt it was inappropriate.

I had a lot of fun coming up with new Angels, especially so many. One thing Eisheth is able to do is deploy several Angels at once, giving a new dimension to these battles compared to the original series.

I wanted to make sure Nozomi had some interaction time with her family. Originally, I had planned a meal with the whole family, but I couldn’t work it into the final draft. So instead they each get a turn at Nozomi’s bedside, and I really enjoyed Horaki’s story about the Koshien tournament, which is based on an effort by Matsuzaka that I referenced in “Direction.”

The final battle is something that, while perhaps not as action-packed as the first two, thematically ties the chapter together. Resistance to Eisehth is something that each character can’t just go about and do; they have to find their own personal reasons for doing so, and this is Nozomi’s. She already learned to find comfort from her family, from people she cared for. Now she has a reason to be less of a loner and more of someone who can interface with other people.

Finally, there’s a character of Major Freeman who, alas, serves only a functional role here. I usually hate to give such characters names, but here, he serves an important purpose in representing American interests in Japan, and he’ll be making another appearance in chapter eight.

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First Ones - Chapter Six notes

In some sense, it’s been a long time coming, having a chapter focused on Asuka. That it’s taken this long to get to her for more than a few moments is, I must admit, a weakness of the form of storytelling I’ve been using through this story, and it’s the same reason that I’ve been unable to get back to Shinji for a few chapters, ever since leaving him at the end of chapter three with Nozomi. But this is the way the story is structured, and it is, in a lot of ways, too late to try to scramble things up and mix them together. I actually started writing the Identity rewrite in the same vein as First Ones, but I realized quickly the limitations of staying in one person’s perspective for a whole chapter (and doing that consistently). When there are a lot of moving pieces to a story, it’s hard to keep them all chronologically ordered that way.

But for this story, it can work because most chapters do not necessarily follow closely one to the next and to the next. Each chapter has separation in time and place, and I can pick the character who best tells that story. Conversely, I can pick the best time to tell each character’s story.

So it’s well overdue to get some time really focused on Asuka. In the series, Asuka was this blustery, mercurial girl, but she was always at the forefront of the action, whatever it might be. That was the place she always wanted to be: the center of attention. This chapter is about her adjusting to being out of that spotlight, to ceding that position to Shinji while still finding value in her life. You can see it in how she interacts with the SDF service members. She knows they want Shinji’s attention, not hers, and it would be disrespectful to try to force herself upon them.

Now while I’ve bemoaned that Asuka hasn’t had focus until this point, there were moments where you could see something about her character before now. Chapter one is a good example. Those Asuka scenes definitely emphasize there’s some level of dysfunction in her relationship with Shinji and hint that she’s devalued him somewhat, that throwing herself into her work makes her feel important.

Similarly, there have been some hints about Asuka’s opinion of Rei and her suspicions about the relationship between Rei and Shinji. Asuka still considers Rei more of a ghastly thing than a person, partly out of fear, partly out of jealousy over the relationship Rei and Shinji share. This opinion colors Asuka’s judgments of Rei throughout the chapter, and while she accurately guesses Rei’s hangup at the end, she still characterizes Rei in a decidedly sinister manner: as someone who fancies herself a god with almighty power and capacity to judge. Nothing could be further from the truth for Rei. It’s only when Asuka sees Rei through the lens of being a person instead that she gets to the right result.

On the topic of Rei, I really struggled to make sure that her point of view was logical and reasonable. It’s hard to identify with someone who’s supposed to be on your side yet is obstructing you from using the very tools you need to survive. But this is absolutely Rei’s position, in my mind: it’s the careful balancing act between acting in her position as Lilith—the Seed of Life on Earth, the caretaker of mankind—and as Ayanami Rei, a person with personal connections to Shinji and, by extension, the rest of the cast. This is something I hope to explore better in Rei’s chapter.

You might also notice that Misato goes along with Rei, despite personal misgivings, as part of the lesson she learned in chapter five: to trust more in her fellow man (or in Rei, in this case), rather than going rogue and doing it all herself.

Something that was on my mind through the whole battle scenes was the characterization of secondary characters. I tried to portray Ishikawa as a rather quirky SDF sergeant, not a typical hard-nosed, gruff kind of guy. It’s been some time since we saw the Horaki family, so I tried to give each of them a note or two to reestablish their personalities.

The Hachibuse Mountain Base is, as I mentioned, based on Stargate Command, including the two sets of elevators/stairs. I did, however, play with where the civilian quarters would be for convenience (or rather, for their inconvenience).

The relationship between Asuka and Shinji may not be what was expected. I tried very hard to focus more on Asuka’s character development than to focus on any budding romance (especially since these two are already established in-story as being together). The focus is more on the support they give each other, the foundations on which a healthy relationship can be built, given time.

On the whole, I’m very pleased with this chapter. It was fun to write Asuka in a new and unusual situation—with her being helpless for long stretches and having to deal with what that meant for her. I think she comes out much better for it, much more content that she can do something worthwhile with her life.

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First Ones 05 - Assassins - notes

I took a break during the writing of this chapter to pen “Direction,” the Katawa Shoujo story that I’m still in the process of editing and publishing. I learned a lot during the writing of that piece to try to organize my chapters better and in a way that will be easier to write—and I also learned that no amount of organization makes up for enthusiasm.

That’s not to say I don’t want to write this piece. I do. But with any long piece, it takes a lot of energy and persistence, and the high that you have when you start it wears off over time. I felt that with “Direction,” even though I was able to maintain a high level of activity (partly aided by winter holiday) to finish it, just on a smaller scale. With longer pieces like this one, you ultimately just have to grind it out, even when you don’t want to write, even when you’re busy. It’s a long and continual process, but it is what it is.

What I realized after writing “Direction” and coming back to this chapter was that it was way too long. For “Direction,” no chapter had more than five scenes, and I was able to reach healthy lengths on the order of 9000-13000 words or so. When I came back to “Assassins” here, I realized I had at least eight scenes, perhaps nine or ten! A bit ridiculous. I pared it down somewhat and reorganized some things, but even then, the battle scene in Germany (which plays out as one big scene) ended up much longer than expected, even though I compressed it significantly.

This chapter ended up going into territory beyond what I initially expected. I was going to make it about Keel and his followers trying to assassinate the Prime Minister and Misato’s subsequent pursuit. I ended up cutting that entire attempt out for length, and Misato pursues Keel Lorenz entirely on her own.

The chapter is quite long, but I failed to find any obvious points to cut without consequences. The initial scene sets up Misato’s state of mind. Her conversation with Rei helps flesh out their relationship, as with the situation between her and Hyūga.

I originally had planned a ball for Misato to attend after returning from the LCL sea, where she would meet with Shinji, seeing he’d grown close to Asuka, and receive her pendant from him. I ended up cutting this from the outline and finishing out the boat scene as we see it now.

This chapter is all about Misato’s growing cynicism toward humanity—it’s more about her struggle with her outlook than against Keel, really. The mayhem in the streets—that people would even go along with Keel at all—damages her. What she saw when she emerged from the sea, how the police could only keep the crowd under control under threat of gunfire, catalyzed her drive. Her descent continues with her stark threat toward her prisoner and her wielding of a rocket launcher against the German fighters, culminating in her execution of Keel. Until that point, I don’t think Misato crosses the line. She dances around it, flirts with it, but that execution is really when she steps over, when her fear of humanity’s failings as a whole drive her to make a bold decision.

The wrong decision, as we see, but a decision nonetheless.

There were some other things I scaled back or changed. Originally, I wanted Keel to escape Erbach and Misato to shoot him with no one else around, making the secrecy of the murder more plausible, but that would’ve required her to go alone, which would’ve been massively unwise—or premeditated, or both. The result is that Misato’s decision is more spur-of-the-moment, and I think that’s a good thing.

One of the parts I considered cutting was the conversation between Shinji and Misato. It doesn’t really serve a lot of purpose as far as furthering the plot, but I felt it was too important from a character standpoint to cut out. I haven’t spent a lot of time with Shinji since chapter three—even then, one of my pre-readers has long expressed his preference for that chapter’s original draft, which was written in Nozomi’s perspective instead. I admit, I grew a bit bored with being confined to just Shinji’s perspective. Either the story had to be shorter, so I could stay solely in his viewpoint, or it had to be longer, so I could give everyone more time without seeing them only once or twice.

So it was really after chapter three that I decided to turn the piece more into an ensemble work, focusing directly on a lot of these characters, rather than on just Shinji’s view of them. That means it’s been a while since we’ve seen Shinji—not since the beginning of chapter four, at least. I always had in mind this character arc for him though: the idea that he would slowly move into a greater and more pivotal role. I felt this scene was important for that, as well as for the acknowledgement that Rei cares for Shinji deeply (whether it’s truly romantic love or something different isn’t something I care to quibble over). So while I seriously considered axing this scene because it contributed to an already huge chapter (seriously the largest single chapter I’ve written since the original “In the Cold Rain” in Identity or “Pilgrimage” in Echoes), in the end, I could see no way to redistribute these elements which I considered so crucial.

A note on research: research is very important to me, mostly because I can’t be bothered to create too much out of whole cloth. So the town of Erbach in the German state of Hesse is very real, and Google was quite helpful in providing aerial photos and images of the town.

Next time, we’ll be with Asuka.

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First Ones 04 - "The Archon" notes

It was with some chagrin that I realized, after having avoided writing chapter three from Nozomi’s perspective, that there was really no way to avoid writing this chapter from Maya’s perspective. I know one of my prereaders had campaigned vigorously for that chapter to be told from Nozomi’s point of view, so it was a bit awkward. Still, aside from the pragmatic issues (it would’ve been difficult to tell this chapter from Shinji’s point of view, just on the level of how involved he could’ve been), there was one reason I found this approach ultimately best: I’d started running out of issues for Shinji to confront. Perhaps that was poor planning on my part, but on the other hand, it meant I could explore another person’s issues without the distancing of using Shinji’s point of view. So, ultimately I’m comfortable with this approach, and for a while, I plan to rotate POV characters, making this more of an ensemble piece. Shinji will return to the forefront, and I do worry about balancing when that should happen.

But that’s an issue to confront later. For now, we have Maya, an unusual choice of protagonist, I’m sure, despite her status as a fan-favorite in some circles. This chapter about Maya and the Cult of Lilith is one I’ve had in mind for some time. This is really the point the Cult serves in the story, I should say.

Aside from her “cult” status among the cast, Maya is the last person you’d expect to be a Cultist, and I chose that deliberately. I felt her background would lend to her searching for a new direction, and Maya has always been a character who believed wholeheartedly in the goodness of civilization and science. In that sense, I felt her new role wasn’t so much of a stretch after all.

I had a fair number of ideas about how this chapter would play out that I ultimately changed even before I finished outlining. I’d originally thought Eisheth would appear to Maya as Masuyo and serve to subvert the Cult that way, without Maya even realizing she was being deceived until very late, but I quickly discarded that notion, for it didn’t flow well with others. I’d also thought Maya would meet with Shinji over lunch, and we’d realize she was a Cultist only after, but that didn’t fit with the ending of last chapter, so I chose to reverse the reveal instead. Masuyo mentions Archon Juniper in chapter one, remember? And Shinji clearly knows her and who she is.

The bit about Nozomi’s attacker exploding himself into goo was something I’d briefly had in a draft of chapter three, but I decided to cut it and put it here instead because it really helped ground the opening and didn’t fit in three. I expanded the scene dramatically with Maya’s involvement. Of course, the man could’ve popped himself as soon as he was captured, but his purpose here is to intimidate the characters and, by extension, the audience. This was a concern that was relayed to me about last chapter—that to an extent, Eisheth didn’t present a pervasive threat. It’s true chapter three presented a bit of a lull in terms of Eisheth’s large scale campaign, so I set about to try to change that. The vanguard’s rhetoric is confident, and his cohorts’ efforts to subvert existing institutions and groups, to plant eyes where Maya would find them—they serve to foster anxiety and fear. These are the reasons people would turn to Eisheth, and she and her followers all know that.

The theme of this chapter is hope in the face of despair, in spite of things we wanted that we never got, that we regretted but could never fix. Maya is searching for Ritsuko, or to replace her with Ami, and her inability to move on complicates her existing relationship. Ami, in turn, is dating a woman who strikingly resembles her dead girlfriend, Minori. Archon Camellia refuses to trust SDF or the government after her son was killed, and Lorenz has come back spefically to recruit from people who have found only despair in the new world.

There is also a secondary element of trust vs. suspicion and paranoia. Eisheth promotes suspicion and fear, and Maya’s inability to trust people with relgious faith (as opposed to her own logical belief in the goodness of what Rei has done) contributes to the debacle at Camellia’s apartment. Camellia’s own intransigent suspicion, along with Misato’s refusal to trust that Camellia might realize the truth, plays a part as well.

Let me speak a bit on the character of Ami. When I first conceived of her, I had in mind someone who worked most to mitigate the connotations of the word cult. She’s blonde, fair, pretty, upbeat, and caring. That’s a good start. Her dark backstory is something I came up with rather suddenly, to contrast against Maya’s refusal to tell her own story. I figured that people’s stories of how they came back from the sea and why would be important in the Cult. I admit I wondered whether it made sense for Ami to be so idealistic despite that experience, but in part, I viewed it as being something of a defense mechanism, too. Ami is very little like Ritsuko, and that’s purposeful. Any resemblance is only superficial, to emphasize how faintly Maya is grasping for something like Ritsuko (or for contact in general), and Maya’s hesitation to enter into a relationship with Ami shows how she’s still holding a candle for Ritsuko, waiting and hoping for her to come back.

I realized some ways through the outlining of this chapter that I needed to really keep things moving. The end of this chapter should come with some distinct change in the circumstances and move the story forward. It seems like an obvious maxim, but it’s still something I had to ponder. I decided that the time for Eisheth to wait and let things develop had to be over. This is the beginning of her efforts in earnest to destabilize human civilization as a whole, even before her main invasion force arrives. Hence, Eisheth’s Reckoning. The honeymoon is over. Things are about to get worse, and the anticipation over what Eisheth’s Reckoning is and how it may come about is, I hope, what keeps this chapter focused and gives the story the forward momentum it needs in the coming chapters.

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First Ones 03 - The Sixth Child - Notes

It’s been a long while. In truth, I had the basics of this chapter worked out around a month ago, but the polishing effort has been slow and meticulous. Even then, as usual, I found a number of errors in this chapter after posting, but really, my intention was to get everything done and to a point where I felt I could move on more than anything else.

That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy writing this chapter. Far from it, I’m quite happy with the result and the balance between Shinji and Nozomi, how they both have grown from this experience.

My first draft of this chapter was pretty similar to what you see before you now up until Shinji wakes up from having tried to synch with the Eva. At that point, he and Asuka would’ve gone through files and realized that Nozomi was a prospective pilot and gone over to the Horaki apartment to talk it over with the family. Asuka considers Hikari a close friend, after all, and such would be a minimal courtesy. It was around that point, however, that I grew unhappy with the draft. It was taking a long time to get to Nozomi at all (this was about 9000 words in), so I decided to rewrite from Nozomi’s perspective instead. I completed that draft and was pleased that I’d been forced to come up with more background for her and her family and her growth—this is where the dynamics of her family and their issues really came together—but I was unhappy with that draft, too, for it made Shinji into a guardian/mentor figure who only served to guide Nozomi. He didn’t have much of a story of his own. So I went back to the original draft and incorporated Nozomi’s growth into that, and that’s what we have now.

The first section of this chapter deals with immediate aftermath from Eisheth’s attack. It should be noted that Misato is the one giving the press conference. Despite her rank, she is one of the most important post-Instrumentality figures in Japan, if not among the human race, and I consider her exact rank within the GSDF to be of little importance. She does what she wants, and few people are really in a position to stop her without incurring great backlash.

Part of the importance of the first section (through the end of the press conference) is to establish the theme of people seeking validation. Asuka shows Shinji affection and takes pride in him over what he did to tell Eisheth off in chapter two. Of course, there’s a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes regarding the overall political situation thanks to this announcement—something I haven’t really explored in detail yet but should be prominent in the next few chapters.

By popular demand, Kyōko returns briefly with tales of debauchery and scientific interests—sometimes with the two more intermingled than the rest of us might find sane.

The second big part of this chapter is Shinji trying to pilot and being forced to take up a more modest role instead. Of course, none of us know why 14-year-olds were chosen to be pilots. I tried to neatly gloss over the why in favor of what Shinji might experience with this connection to the Eva not working nearly as well as it should. Hopefully it was something no one really noticed at that moment.

Nepers are a logarithmic unit similar to decibels. People know decibels, though. Nepers sound appropriately exotic for this, though, and they give a much more logical way to talk about strength of a signal or a connection than very small percentages.

The Hachibuse Mountain Complex was modeled somewhat around Stargate Command. You might notice that the cage is placed on the same level as the gate room, for instance.

In one of my drafts, the children Maeda and Nagase that I mention Shinji interviewing actually died during Eisheth’s attack at the end of the chapter. When I ended up killing the security guard in Nozomi’s building, too, I felt it was inappropriate to show one death on screen and add a couple more from off-screen. Ironically, this made a lot of their background that I introduced less impactful, but I left it in to give the impression that there was much more scope to the program than just Nozomi. And indeed, the way it works out is that it all proves to be part of Shinji realizing he can and should take a proactive role in guiding these children.

Now we’re at Nozomi, the youngest Horaki sister. I’m sure this has been done a lot—taking a minor character that was never really seen or heard from and giving them a personality and motives from scratch. It’s really only one step below creating an original character, but I feel that one step is a big one. There seems to be a general aversion to accepting original characters in a lot of communities, so it does matter. Still, one has to be wary to avoid making the character too perfect or too well-liked (or the opposite—too imperfect to the point of parody). No one wants to read a Mary Sue, after all. In point of fact, I’d originally thought to create up to three pilots—Nozomi, a younger sister for Kensuke, and possibly Tōji’s younger sister, too—but I quickly realized that was too much to develop all at once. Shinji is the main character here. He’s the one who needs someone to bounce off of. One pilot was plenty, and that drove some of the decisions regarding how many Eva there were and so on.

As I said, though, the issues regarding Nozomi’s family and their interactions were something I didn’t have pinned down well until the second draft. Until then, Nozomi’s father didn’t appear at all, and while I could justify not having a mother around, excluding a father was a real oversight on my part. So here, he is a workaholic reporter with some regrets over how long he’s away from his girls, representing the middle ground between Hikari’s desire to shield Nozomi from any burdens and Kodama’s insistence that she pilot. All three of these are really toned down compared to how prevalent they were in the Nozomi-POV draft, and I think not being too overbearing about them helps balance the chapter.

Nozomi herself is an interesting girl. You might notice that she addresses her sisters by “Hikari” and “Kodama”—i.e. without any respectful adornments. Even Shinji is just “Ikari” to her. Though the idea that she looked up to and respected Shinji was always there (she even had a little shrine to him in one draft), it’s something she generally keeps to herself. She may have her interest piqued, as during the interview when Shinji finally speaks up, but she doesn’t go fangirl gush over him.

Nozomi’s interest in art is her defining hobby, and at one point in her draft, there was more of a scene between her as the art club president Sasaki, which would’ve made clear how infatuated he is with her, something that Nozomi is unaware of as yet.

Originally, Nozomi drew Shinji tending to her after she’d slapped him, but when I rewrote the last battle scene, Shinji with the fire extinguisher really won out. It also introduced an error that I had to correct, since in the original drawing, Asuka was in the background half undressed. Clearly she is nowhere in sight for the current version.

How often do people resolve their issues with family in one conversation? Not often. I hope that Nozomi’s failure to find validation from her family initially seems realistic for that reason.

It was important to establish that whatever the Zenunim from chapter two were doing, they wouldn’t be sneaking around into cities to wreak havoc. To me, Eisheth isn’t interested in doing that anyway. She will make narrow attacks on points of targeted interest. Still, you might notice that Misato has some throwaway lines about detectors that Asuka and Kyōko’s work has helped with. This actually allowed me to integrate them more tightly into the whole effort, too. Knowing that, though, it becomes clearer why Eisheth would turn to human followers instead. Just where these followers come from will be explored in chapter four.

I tried to make the security guard in the Horaki family’s building sympathetic enough. This is actually the third version of this battle scene—the first happening without Shinji at all and from Nozomi’s POV, the second from Shinji’s POV with copious SDF support that made him superfluous, and now. A lot of the basic elements are the same: a man breaks into the Horaki apartment, wounds the father, disables Kodama for a time, and Nozomi and Hikari hide out in Nozomi’s room. Nozomi persuades Hikari to listen to her, hears from her father that he does care what she does, and Kodama stabs the attacker with one of her precious knives (remember how Nozomi talked about them with Shinji earlier?), saying that she always believed Nozomi had that kind of courage within her. That’s all the point of what’s going on here. The attacker seeks validation from Eisheth for his deeds, but it’s Nozomi who has those issues resolved instead.

In this draft, I went with something that would keep Shinji involved—he’s the only one who can help Nozomi here once the officer shoots the guard (which I hope came across as logical given that the officer had weapons of his own, if only a stun gun).

All throughout this chapter, Shinji has been trying his best to guide the children, to temper their enthusiasm but also give them hope. It’s a tough balance to strike, and knowing how many children leave the program after Eisheth’s attack, as well as the damage that was done to Nozomi and her family even before Eisheth struck, I hope it’s reasonable that Shinji would feel like perhaps his efforts are better spent elsewhere. Still, this is his story, and Nozomi’s not going to just let him walk away. As she says, what is a hero supposed to be? The grand, implacable person that we might imagine in our fantasies? Or is Shinji that hero now, despite how his looks and demeanor don’t fit with our image of what he should be? Nozomi’s opinion on this is clear, of course, and Shinji, too, has found some validation in his life. That, ultimately, is the theme of this chapter: where Eisheth believed humans were incapable of recognizing each other and giving each other hope, Shinji and Nozomi have proved that it is possible, and that is just one reason why Eisheth must be fought.

In the long run, I look forward to having Nozomi pilot against the most bizarre monstrosities Eisheth can imagine with Shinji in the Hachibuse Mountain control room, looking on and trying to give advice and guidance as best he can. That’s why I’m happy with this draft—it emphasizes that Shinji is in a new position, having to look after someone, rather than enduring trials all by himself. In that sense, Nozomi is a reflection of him. She’s obviously not the same. She’s forward where Shinji might be deferential. She’s a bit odd and has interests that don’t intersect with his own, but they have the same drive inside them throughout this chapter.

Finally, there used to be a hook at the end of this chapter for what would come in chapter four, but I decided against it, preferring an ending that simply concludes this chapter in a more general way. I guess cliffhangers and I have had a falling out, but rest assured, the path from here is clear for me. There are more followers of Eisheth on earth, and mankind will not be safe until they are found and rooted out. The key to that effort will be the Cult of Lilith and Archon Juniper (mentioned in chapter one). Who do you think that person might be?

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First Ones 02 - Eisheth

I wrote about the first four thousand words of this chapter and stopped, unsettled, thinking it was not going to develop correctly or be as long as I’d hoped. As always, estimates of length are quite poor in general, and this ended up being longer than chapter one, despite my initial expectations.

Where best to begin than the beginning, huh? Let’s see here. I’d long had the idea that Eisheth would appear to Shinji not as a Rei or Kaworu knock-off but using something more familiar and, hence, all the more unsettling. I think Eisheth would appear to individuals differently. Shinji sees the cultist Masuyo, but others might see someone else. The constancy of the design of her clothing—always having the pattern of five buttons or other adornments in the same pattern as her eyes—should be a bit of a clue as to who’s talking to Shinji even before it’s made clear. It also, to me, captures an idea that Eisheth can’t be completely perceived, but parts of what she really is leak through.

The idea of this chapter is that Shinji is reluctant to speak out and embrace his status as a public figure for the greater good, but in the end, he realizes the necessity of doing so, that he has to stand up and speak out. This first section of the chapter, concerning the passengers in the traincar, sets up Shinji’s reluctance to act. The conductor is the good, responsible man, trying to do what’s right amid a horde of panicking people, who are—as Eisheth says—slaves to their fears. And Shinji isn’t able to stand up and make a difference before it’s too late for any of them.

The scene with Shinji in the lavatory was originally going to be when Shinji and Rei spoke again for the first time, but I ended up pushing that back to later. Rei being ever-present throughout the rest of the chapter made the feel and dynamics of it very awkward. I felt it was much more powerful to have Shinji be alone for this first section, unknowing and unaware of what would happen and forced to try to cope, to survive. It really lends to the horror feel of this chapter as a result. Otherwise, Shinji’s attempt at a ruse should show that he is a little bolder than before.

The use of tentacled monsters is, of course, something largely overdone in Lovecraftian work, but I did try to add something unique to these creatures, in terms of their sunction-cupped bodies and lack of hands but fingerlike appendages even still. I figure the Zenunim would be able to cling to ceilings or walls thanks to the suction cups, for example, which would give them a real tactical advantage. In keeping with their purpose, they carry no weapons, and their only real ability is to dissolve people back into LCL. Eisheth is not, in her mind, evil, nor does she wish indiscriminate death on people. Her children’s form is in keeping with this philosophy.

At last, Rei appears to Shinji directly and plays a part in saving him when he’s cornered by the Zenunim. There’s a lot about what Rei has become that I can’t really get into yet, but rest assured, I have a lot of her nature and abilities worked out.

All along in chapter one, I knew Misato and Rei would be in it together as far as the fight against Eisheth, and while originally I hadn’t planned for Misato to play such a significant role in this chapter, I’m happy with how it turned out. I don’t think what she’s been involved in should be much of a surprise, but it’s still fun to see.

By the by, on the name “Eisheth Zenunim”—the name comes from Kabbalah. Lilith, Naamah, Agrat Bat Mahlat, and Eisheth make up a group of four demons called “Angels of Sacred Prostitution.” I fully intend for Agrat and Naamah to be among the seven Seeds of Life.

Originally, I planned for there to be several mad people, touched by the influence of Eisheth and the Zenunim while tanged, but I reduced it down to one, feeling that one person would be the most impactful. Actually, this whole scene after Shinji and Rei meet in the LCL sea was originally Shinji being rescued by uknown SDF members and having to hole up in a traincar while more creatures came after them, hoping for help to arrive. The main element, however, of someone taking up a gun against the others remains the same. Here, I think it’s more powerful because it’s a threat against Shinji’s life here, as opposed to one against a nameless bunch of extras. I’m really quite happy with this scene.

A consequence, however, was that a lot of exposition about Misato and her efforts was needed to make her entrance make sense. The natural question would’ve been, “Misato-san, how did you know I was here?” So Misato and Rei’s involvement could not be hidden any longer. It also means that Eva-14 appears a little before I’d originally meant for it to. Actually, this probably represents a bit of a coming around in my outlines, for I’d planned on it appearing, then wrote it out, then wrote it back in in this final draft.

(It’s also Eva-14 due to a bit of a goof on my part. For whatever dumb reason, I forgot that Toji piloted Eva-03. I wrote Eva-04 by mistake and started counting up MP Evas from there. With 9 MP Evas, the new unit should be 13, not 14, but I think we can excuse the Japanese trying to skip that number, as long as 13 exists…somewhere.)

I said at the start of these notes that Shinji was meant to realize he needed to speak up and be heard and stand up for humanity, and it actually surprised me a little how much he ended up doing so. I thought to myself, “Man, this could be a little cheesy.” But on balance, I stuck with it because that is exactly what I wanted to get across. In a lot of ways, though the subject matter is bleak, this is about the good guys fighting to represent humanity in the best way possible, to justify our existence as individuals. They are going to face trials and hardships, yes, but the one thing they will not do is questions whether mankind is worth fighting for. This represents a bit of a departure for me, as Identity is all about people questioning themselves, but I feel that having any of these characters backtrack that way would be a trite. No, more than that—it would be a betrayal of what they learned in the series and End of Evangelion. If these characters were to step back that way, I would just be retreating stuff Anno did much better than I ever could, so I will not do that.

In that way, though, what I’m left with are the pieces for a reconstruction of Evangelion. The comments in the SpaceBattles thread already seem to have picked up on that, comparing Shinji to Simon of Gurren Lagann for example.

That Eva-14 does not yet have a pilot will prove the major plot point of chapter three, “The Sixth Child,” and while I will say that the pilot won’t be Shinji, I’ll also say it won’t be an entirely original character, either.

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The Coming of the First Ones - Chapter 1 notes

In the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand Forty-eight

Since finishing “Before and After,” I’ve had the plan for this story in mind. That I started writing it this soon reflects, in my mind, the volatility of the creative process. What story comes out is what comes out, and we as authors have only so much control over it. Naturally, first chapters—the beginnings of stories in general—tend to be easiest. There’s much more time to develop them compared to when you finish one chapter and have to figure out the process for the next. Even with outlining, that process of evaluating where you are and what comes next is continual. This is one reason why I outline less now than I have before. I know that, by nature, a lot will change between outlining and writing.

Hence, the first scene reflects a lot of changes between how I thought this scene would play out and how it ended up. Nakamura should seem like a familiar character from Echoes, though his background is a bit different. Originally, Nakamura’s wife had died before Instrumentality as well, but here, she is a victim of the First Ones’ attempts to touch her mind, to test their influence on people. Beyond that, this scene has played out much as I imagined it, and it’s only better for the change, in my mind.

In general, during the reivision process it was pointed out to me that the piece was a bit unfocused. I had felt this way, too. Before rewriting, Shinji pursued Rei for no strong purpose or reason, reflecting his aimlessness. In the revision as it stands, Shinji’s motivations are tightened up a little bit. He still reflects the general malaise that has afflicted humanity, but once he realizes how it has touched him, he makes sure to do right by Nakamura for helping him. I think this is an important point. Shinji is flawed, but he’s capable of doing the right thing once he has the time to think it through and go beyond his own weaknesses. This is part of what I’m trying to do with writing as a whole—stay a little more positive while still probing the psychology of the human mind.

It may seem strange that I chose the year 2048 to be 2 years after Instrumentality ended. I went with this for a couple reasons. First, by giving more time between the Hybrid Adam-Lilith being’s formation and the present, there was more time to have information pass into space at the speed of light, which to me is a constraint on how much can be known and when. In addition, it adds to the mystique of what Rei has done.

One thing I wanted to avoid was having this story retread all the same issues of NGE. I will not have Shinji regress to the same person who questioned whether it was good to exist. I think Shinji is stronger than that, but he will have to learn and change and confront who he is. Shinji has retreated, to some extent, to protect himself, though he maintains his relationship with Asuka. A big part of this story will be having him realize he can come out and step into the spotlight.

In some ways, it may have been a bit too much of a cop-out to have Rei preserve so much of society. To be honest, I felt it would be too expected to examine a truly post-apocalyptic world. This setup gives a lot of possibilities to examine consequences in a (somewhat) more stable environment, to hit home just how difficult it is to keep humanity intact even with so much already done for people, and even with the miracles Rei’s performed, there are still after-effects, like the Cult.

The Cult is something I consciously tried to portray here as a positive thing, but by nature, it attracts the downtrodden and people looking for hope. Cultist Masuyo is the archetype of the positive aspects of the Cult, but there are other sides to it. See if you can guess who Archon Juniper is.

The scene where Shinji reflects on his time at the refugee shelter was something I came up with largely on the spot, only going back to add in more detail on the gunman who tried to kill Shinji, especially to make it clear how he was influenced by the First Ones and how Rei saved Shinji. In fact, this goes well with how Rei’s role in this chapter has changed, also. Initially, Rei appeared to Shinji and gave as exposition the First Ones’ goals and intentions. Here, she doesn’t appear to him at all, adding to the mystique about her. Of course, if you haven’t read “Before and After,” the idea that Rei exists at all might be surprising, but I tried to present it as easily as I could. A lot of what Rei has become and what she’s doing isn’t clear just yet, but I’ve long accepted the idea that something like Rei could present at all places and times, with no real concept of linearity. She doesn’t obey those rules strictly in this story, mostly because her limitations are more restrictive.

There’s a ton of stuff to talk about. Kyōko, for instance—I thought her coming back would be part of the best that could happen, that what Rei has done in general is a best-case scenario that, nevertheless, is still a little sour. Kyōko as an eccentric scientist just kind of happened, but I think it adds a touch of humor to the story. Asuka, too, is a lot more mellow, as one person described her. Overdedicating herself to her work is her only big flaw, but I thought it fit from how she put so much pride in Eva. She encourages Shinji to step up, but that doesn’t mean she’s prepared to see what that entails. Asuka, too, has room to grow, and grow she will.

I could talk on an on about this chapter. Misato and her secret job (three guesses what she’s doing, and the first two don’t count), Gendō and his influence on Shinji’s thinking, on repeating past mistakes, on reconciliation that may never come. I definitely take the opinion that Gendō is somewhere in the LCL sea and that he doesn’t return reflects that he chooses not to.

Overall, the big part of revising this chapter was to increase the influence of the First Ones on people, including how they’re trying to kill Shinji or torment him. That undercurrent, though it doesn’t dominate the chapter until the end, is important and really ties everything together.

Finally, I spent a lot of time writing and rewriting the final scene, eventually settling on what you see now. I was told the last few lines could be either epic or cheesy. I guess we’ll have to see. The First Ones are coming, as you might expect, and I hope not to waste too much time before showcasing their arrival.

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