"Before and After" Conclusion - Chs. 9 & 10

The final chapters on FFN

So this is it. A story ends. Endings are always something difficult for me, this one a little less so because the feeling I meant to end with has been so clear.

That's not to say these last two chapters haven't been difficult. In part, it's my disquiet with their writing process that I present both of them together, if only to give myself the feeling that I'm ending with something I'm comfortable with, instead of the chapter nine that we have, of which so much comes directly from the source material. To a great extent, I could come up with nothing better to do for these parts. The events that transpire here I've interpreted as having a direct impact on Rei's thought processes and mindset. I couldn't simply gloss over them. Conversely, there's a lot of mental contemplation that happens in both the last two episodes of the series and End of Evangelion. A lot of this I chose not to rehash, simply because I thought doing it from scratch when necessary would be more powerful. In addition, such scenes I felt were difficult to integrate into a "real-time" sort of story the way "Before and After" generally is.

Overall, I felt the thought process for Rei had to be this: when she's reborn, she wants to die, but Misato implores her to reconsider. When she meets Kaworu, she realizes death won't be enough, as something else that's not her will still remain--that is, Lilith. As the events of chapter nine, the beginning of EoE, play out, she becomes convinced of her own and humanity's suffering, and in a moment of compassion with Shinji and spite for Gendo, she's willing to merge with Lilith and risk losing everything of herself, but instead, she finds herself the dominant one. She explores Shinji's mindset and, when he rejects Instrumentality, she makes the decision to die and let them all be freed. In a lot of ways, that's these two chapters in a nutshell. It's the journey to get to these places that I find interesting.

Most of chapter nine is told from Rei's perspective as an observer. It should be understood that she relates these events from having "peered" into people's hearts as well as going back in time to witness them as a specter, the same specters that reap people's souls and convert them to LCL in EoE. Thus, chronologically speaking, while these events actually happen in this chapter, when Rei would glimpse and experience them is actually during her time after merging with Lilith.

A lot of this chapter is built on the theory from EvaGeeks wiki on the phantom appearances of Rei--the idea that Rei, as Lilith, has transcended time and can be in multiple places and times at once. From this, I hoped to take things a step further: such a being would be effectively immortal, despite "dying" as we see her do in the final scenes of Eoe. For all intents and purposes, the "time" she has to go backward and forward and be everywhere is infinite. She can "exist" after her body has died and before she merged with Lilith at all.

As I said, chapter nine is largely taken straight from EoE, and the skeleton of chapter ten is largely the same, but here, since so much more emphasis is placed on the evolution of the mind, I thought it best to put as much new material here as I could. It's my opinion that episodes 25 and 26 take place alongside or concurrently with the film, and for a while, I'd thought I'd try to reconcile the two and depict them as such, but this I found to be an unsatisfying idea, and I decided to go with what I have here: namely, a glimpse of what Rei would see, which by no means do I intend to be complete. I'd originally thought to depict several scenes with the technicians--Hyuga, Ibuki, and Aoba--but I trimmed it down to one because I thought it'd be too long a jaunt away from the center of the piece: Rei and Shinji. I did hope that passage, with Hyuga's hopes going unrealized, gave substance to Rei's feeling that humanity was full of unfulfilled desires. It's not enough, at that point, to leave that as a blanket statement without backing.

I quickly latched onto the idea of Shinji being shown a dream world of sorts, keeping in mind that a dreaming alone would be a "substitute for reality" and shouldn't be done. Thus, he hears a little bit of what other people think of him. I pondered how to go about this. Instrumentality is depicted in many different ways. Sometimes, Shinji seems apart and himself. Other time, he's flooded with what Misato, Rei, and Asuka think of him. I felt I had the freedom to pursue this passage, then. I tried to keep it brief, as I felt the goal of the ending coming quickly. My reasoning here was that Rei would show Shinji a world that was the pinnacle of his desires--close to what he knows but better in several ways. In this, she tests Shinji, and he realizes that he does want the affections of other people, but not so easily that they become meaningless and fake. This, in my view, is consistent with his final decision in EoE, and I felt it was a logical way to extend his thinking: maybe it's not the only time Shinji made that decision. Maybe he was tested several times.

So we get to the end, and Shinji's alone. Rei wants to fix that, so she goes to Asuka. I considered going into more detail at this point, but that would've felt very off to me. Rei doesn't have that emotional connection to her--some sympathy yes, but not a lot of connection. It would've slowed everything way down here, so I hoped to avoid it. We already know it's going to happen, and there wasn't a lot of value, in my mind, in seeing Asuka's journey toward it.

And that leads us to the end. Asuka and Shinji have survived, and Rei will be the eternal observer, helping the souls of humanity return from the LCL sea. At last, her fate is one she chooses, and over Shinji, she'll always be watching. Here is the culmination of the extended use of A Tale of Two Cities, with Rei mirroring Sydney Carton. But Rei is still alive, even if she's chosen the time and place of her death, and this will not be the last we see of her, nor the last I write of her. As I said, I have plans for a companion story--a sequel in one sense--called The Coming of the First Ones. As Asuka and Shinji try to rebuild humanity's future, one of the other Seeds of Life, the sinister Eisheth, sets its gaze on mankind, and once again, it will be up to the older and wiser children to protect themselves and the Earth itself. Rei will play her part, and it's a story I look forward to writing, at some point in the future.

I guess that's why this doesn't really feel like the end to me. I know there's more story to be told, even if it's part of a different tale. To that end, this is not "goodbye," but rather, "see you soon."

To my readers, thank you.

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Before and After 08 - "Before Tabris"

The latest chapter on FFN

Commentary below will no longer be hidden by default. Be warned for spoilers here.

I'd thought before writing chapter seven that these two chapters could go together and make something of similar length to chapter six. It seems I was right on that, but the story is much, much better served by having them separate, for they accomplish different purposes. "After Armisael" was all about the futility of living. Here, this is Rei denying what she is over and over until she's forced to accept it.

A bit part of what distances Shinji from Rei is how he says he's afraid of her, that he doesn't want to see her or Misato. What does Shinji do? Run away from painful things. The Rei we have now is colder, and she isn't like the friend he knows. I hoped to take that to the logical extent, and while Shinji would try to run away as much as possible, it stood to reason (at least to me) that at some point he might get cornered, and in doing so, Rei would learn just what it is that makes him avoid her.

Make no mistake: Rei's trying to understand what she is here, why she sees and feels things that shouldn't be. She latches on to the idea of being Yui because that's digestible, palatable compared to the alternative--that she's something much more bizarre and Lovecraftian in origin. What's more frightening--a creature of unthinkable thought and motive with grotesque and disgusting bodily features, or a girl like Rei who is that creature bottled into a human-looking form? For Rei, the fear is that that thing will come out, and she will no longer be herself. I tried to draw as much as I could on "The Case of Ayanami Rei" scene in episode 25, where the image of Rei I taunts the others, saying that they're afraid because of the thing that might not have human form (cue inkblot images). What Rei wants in dying is to no longer be, not to wake up and be something else again, something stripped of what she used to be--or worse, something completely inhuman.

I originally wrote the escalator scene first. The result was a chapter that jumped around a little chronologically. It felt like something more likely to be actually written by a person, but it also seemed rather ineffective at showing, at least to me. I made things more chronological by going to the lockers first (do they even have lockers? the best I've seen are a couple scenes from Rebuild where Misato slaps Shinji in what looks like a bathroom or a set of showers versus Shinji and Rei donning their plug suits in some sort of cargo container).

I spent comparatively more time on Rei's confrontation with Kaworu. I inserted the paragraphs where Rei imagines what Kaworu's saying with more details than he says. This, along with the couple scenes where Rei looks into the mirror and sees something wrong with herself, I felt was necessary. Otherwise, Rei's fear of being something else isn't really catalyzed, and it gives credence to Kaworu's hint that Rei's memories aren't gone, merely suppressed or taken from her, yet something is able to creep back in.

How Kaworu describes the First Ancestral Race is deliberately a bit vague. I didn't want to depict them directly--I vastly preferred to keep their appearance mysterious and secret. Describing their architecture seemed fair, however, and I realized that there had to be some explanation for why they wouldn't have spread to the stars, being as powerful as they were. The calamity that befalls them is no ordinary supernova, but rather a gamma-ray burst, something thought to be an extremely deadly event if one were to hit Earth. I drew heavily from the EvaGeeks wiki to get this background right, but it's very tangled and complex. For instance, a lot of fanwanking has been done just to figure out the possible plot hole in this episode, between Kaworu realizing it's Lilith, not Adam, on the cross and Seele telling him that Gendo has Adam's body already. I put forth my own theory here: that Kaworu, like the other Angels, senses what's in Terminal Dogma and knows it's far stronger than whatever Gendo has. He believes it's Adam because that's what he's been told, and he accepts that that would cause calamity, the Third Impact, because that's also what he's been told, but when he realizes it's Lilith, he understands: there's no extra mechanism here. The only Third Impact there can be is when the Fruits of Life and Knowledge merge, when something of Adam and Lilith come together. They're the same thing, and at last, he understands what Seele's trying to do.

I also consider it likely that what Kaworu says about the hybrid being, of what would happen if he and Lilith were to merge, as being somewhat untrue. I'd think the First Ancestral Race would fear that being's power (as we will see later) as much as they fear it being too prideful to be wise.

I deliberately kept from depicting Kaworu's realization in full until the end of the chapter, to punctuate the use of that name. Giving a name to something you already know of is a powerful thing, so when Shinji looks at her and wonders what she is, she knows the answer, as much as she may try to deny it.

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Before and After 07 - "After Armisael"

Now released on FFN

Commentary below.

I had difficulty writing this chapter. When I started, I didn't know if I would be writing it as "Before Tabris," encompassing all of what transpires up until Shinji kills Kaworu in Terminal Dogma, or something else. Eventually (and I don't know when this happened) I decided otherwise, and I went ahead with something more like in my original outline.On balance, I think this was partly motivated by some comments I received from bluepencil on The Fanfiction Forum--that in his mind, Rei's manner of writing did not come across as completely authentic, that I'd failed to adequately capture her voice. And while this indeed, in Da-Guru's words, could be attributed to artistic license, I thought this was a good opportunity to reshape Rei's voice as well.

My original outline was somewhat shorter than this chapter. To give it the right sense of pacing, I added the scenes in which Rei walks about the ruined city back home amidst the chaos and looting and meets Hikari. I wavered for some time whether to have Hikari leave without knowing Rei's forgotten her or do as I did, with Rei making it clear. I thought showing how shocked and hurt Hikari would be, even though she understands it, was the more effective choice.

Of course, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. There are a lot of choices I made here. That Rei remembers nothing of her personal life is an artistic choice. It's the dramatic choice. It could be considered unfair. I know there is some debate as to how much or how little Rei remembers after being reborn in episode 23. I don't intend this to be a point of logical argument or reasoning but rather an exploration as to how one interpretation could be consistent with the indusputable facts. Rei's behavior is markedly different here. Her attitudes are different. Taking away everything she knows, leaving a person with just the barest of conceptions, is one way to do that. I won't say it's the only way, but it's one way.

Again, in part from bluepencil's comments, I made Rei's writing style more choppy, though I still believe a good balance of variety in sentence structure is necessary to make a work readable and not come off entirely flat. Rei can be flat in speaking and manner, but in the written word, it can only go so far, and to an extent, I think her flatness is overstated. That said, it makes sense to me that any fluidity she might've gained over time is lost now, that she would be bare and minimal at this point in her new life. She wakes up, and she's hardly treated like a person. Gendo gets his jollies thinking about how he's going to use her to bring back Yui, and Ritsuko, while attentive to her job, is jealous over Gendo's attentions, which in her eyes seem fixed on Rei. While Ritsuko is helpful to Rei here, there are moments where she lets her pleasant mask slip: sending Rei alone with just an unfixed map, telling Gendo how he should look at her, not Rei, when she compliments her.

Fluidity between sentences aside, though, I had a major concern over the fluidity between events in this chapter. In the initial draft, they seemed to come together far too quickly, without adequate time to digest and think about what had come before. I added about 500 words to pad things out a little bit, to make each section come across with the proper sense of timing. It's very important to do so, or else the narrative comes across as merely telling what's happened without giving those events any meaning.

I really enjoyed writing the rebirth scene, as it hits home the abject horror of Rei's existence. She's treated and examined almost in an assembly-line-like manner, and Gendo's indifference to her long-term well-being should feel damning. I definitely wanted the only casual, humane perspective here to be Maya's. She's an empathetic character, she gets squeamish at the sight of blood and guts (which we see so often)--it made sense to me that she would be digusted at how Ritsuko and Gendo treat Rei like a piece of flesh to be mended, not a huamn being.

I didn't want Shinji's role in this chapter to be too big, so I added little to his meeting with Rei that wasn't already in the episode, just perspective in Rei's eyes on how Shinji expected someone else and got her instead.

Misato and Rei in the end is something I'd been driving toward for a while, and like I said last chapter, I was hesistant to give them such a strong scene then when I knew this was coming now. Nevertheless, I liked it then, and I like it now. Misato gives a good counterpoint to Rei's line of thinking. Misato is driven and focused (when she wants to be). Rei's obeyed with little thought to what she wanted. I had some trouble with this scene, as I felt like Misato didn't have or express a strong enough reason to be there at first, but in adding some transition material, I got it the way I wanted, and I ended it on a much more fitting note, too. Initially, Misato encouraged Rei to stay alive, saying that she had friends in both Misato and Shinji. It was a touching line, but it also felt off--Misato's coldness when Shinji kills Kaworu, which this was meant to mirror in some way, made that line feel very inappropriate. Misato's not that warm when it comes to death. Here, she stops Rei because in some sense she feels responsible, because it reminds her of what she almost did before, but in the end, she has the same world view: those who live deserve to live, and those who die (especially those who choose it) don't. Strong encouragement is the most she can give.

And that's really what sets up the end. Rei's decision to live, if only for a while, comes from within herself. She's not wholly sold on it. She still wonders if the best thing to do is to die. For now, though, she will move on, so next time she can meet Kaworu and realize just what she is.

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Before and After 06 - "After Arael"

Chapter six on FFN

Commentary below.

Have I mentioned before that plans change? Well, I'll say it again. This chapter has one of the scenes that drove me to write this story, and I ended up burying it at the end, so to speak. 90% of this chapter is new material made up just in the last couple weeks since finishing chapter five, mostly because I was unsatisfied with a chapter that, as I'd originally planned it, had only Shinji coming to Rei's apartment, panicked and stricken over Misato and Asuka, and Rei's attempt to kiss him.

So I fleshed things out a bit. Actually quite a bit, much more than I thought I would. I abandoned the in-depth storyboards that have characterized my writing process of late. I didn't write out all the dialogue first and fill in the gaps after that. I wonder if the difference is noticeable, if the flow of the story is better this way or worse. Clearly, this is the fastest I've written a chapter (or an act of Identity) in some time. Perhaps that's telling me something in itself.

I'd wanted for some time to work in the opening scene here, and since Rei's about to die right after this chapter, this was the last chance. What it means I won't explain, however--at least, not yet.

With the second scene, I wanted to get across Rei's emergent personality, one that is still very loyal to Gendo and who craves his attention, praise, and approval, but is also independent in her own way. Rei has her own vision of the truth, and while she tries to be compliant here, the subtle differences in what she says against what Gendo tells her to say is unexpected to everyone else in the room. Unexpected for Rei, at least, and she doesn't even realize how she's changed. I did want to imply, however obliquely, that this newfound independence could be something Gendo fears, that maybe he would plan for Rei to be destroyed to reassert control. It's not something definitive that I will say did happen; regardless, this scene is meant to show Rei's sense of self-direction.

With how episode 22 focuses so much on Asuka, it seemed wrong to simply shut her out of this chapter, and I thought it plausible that Rei, having learned to value her friends' friends more like her own, would visit Asuka and try to help, even as awkward as she knows it could be. Hikari is really an interesting character, and it's a shame that she'll have to go soon, but while Rei is there out of respect for Shinji, it's Hikari who gives Rei a sympathetic portrait of the girl. Hikari's relationship with Toji is something that mirrors Rei and Shinji as well.

I have mixed feelings about the transition scene here, where Rei sees a couple kissing. In a sense, it's like flashing a big neon sign that says she'll try it later, but it's also necessary. It's an idea that had to be planted; I think on balance I should've have worked it into last chapter and just kept that gun unfired, so to speak, until this one. I also had issues justifying Rei's circuitous travels here. Ultimately I decided that it was better to avoid the issue and let it be as much as possible.

Of course, Kaji's been dead since the end of episode 21. Misato learned about it then, and in chapter five, when Shinji said he saw Misato crying, that was why. So Misato's been dealing with it, struggling with it, for some days now. And I think, only after some careful contemplation and thinking would she go for a plan like this. Did Misato count on Rei being at Kaji's garden patch? No, I don't think so, but she did plan on taking Rei that day; fortune just moved up the timetable an hour or two (this is the kind of coincidence I consider acceptable--it tidies up the plot without seriously affecting the consequences). All along, of course, Misato doesn't say that Kaji's dead. Once the opportunity presents itself, she deceives Rei into coming to her apartment, where she can interrogate her, get the answers that she needs to justify Kaji's death. That's important to her. Like Hikari and Toji, Misato's relationship with Kaji is something that isn't properly fulfilled. That was what I wanted Rei to take away from this confrontation, more than anything else. It gives her the push to move on Shinji.

This scene, in a lot of ways, wrote itself. We have scenes with Misato in her bedroom, working, so we see that the room as a whole isn't full of crazy writing. This, I feel, is necessary since she can't stay cooped up in there forever and eventually Shinji would try to look in on her. How often does one look back at the door if one's just peeking through?

I actually looked up floor plans of Misato's apartment to be sure. See EvaGeeks for plans of Misato's and Rei's apartments, so everything ought to be geometrically correct now. (I did make a mistake in that Shinji has an actual bed, not just a futon, but I fixed that.)

Originally, I was just going to have Misato stuff Rei into a closet, but this didn't seem dangerous enough. Also, Rei gets a lot closer to jumping off the side of Misato's balcony than I thought to do at first. It remains to be seen whether this is a good thing or not when chapter seven comes out. Otherwise, Rei's thoughts inside the refrigerator are largely as I envisioned, except with the presence of "It," the part of her inside Unit-00, to taunt her (not really there, just a manifestation of her fears). This is, in a way, Rei's point of choice: that she wants to continue living and have experiences and not be forgotten.

I wanted Rei to talk Misato down without giving away too much, and drawing a connection between them, having Rei realize herself how she is used and yet she follows anyway, seeking gratification, seeking Gendo's attentions. Emphasizing that parallel and knowing that Shinji is there is enough to pacify Misato, and at the same time, it gives Rei reason to sympathize with her, to try to save her captor.

Nevertheless, the emotional toll of this day on Rei is great, and I hoped to make it feel natural that she'd want some comfort from someone, even if she doesn't necessarily expect Shinji to reciprocate, but that's a far cry from being second-place to Asuka, from knowing that he can't comfort her always. And so, Rei tries to find some solace in the dark and fails, with the halo of Armisael in the distance, a foreboding omen.

I wrote most of the above here after just having finished the chapter. Now that it's posted, I do want to mention that I tweaked the scene with Misato and Rei in the kitchen, right before soldiers broke in to secure the area. I wanted Misato to have a more pronounced breakdown. This way, it should feel like she hesitates to kill Rei for realizing how Shinji will react to it.

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Before and After 05 - "Before Arael"

Chapter Five on FFN

Commentary below.

I've said before that in stories I write I may not have every plot element or piece of dialogue planned out before I write it, but I do have some formative and critical scenes in mind that drive the story, that only need enough connective stuff in-between to form a complete tale. That's not to say that intermediate material is unimportant--I think I discover some interesting perspectives in that work--but writing out what's stuck in your mind for so long is particularly rewarding.

This chapter is one of those moments. Let me do something rare and quote my original outline:

Class is thinner now. Hikari is subdued. Toji still has physical therapy. Shinji is just beginning to catch up to all the assignments he missed. Asuka took Shinji's absence hard, too (or perhaps resented that she couldn't beat Zeruel before Shinji did); her synch scores are dropping. And Rei? She stares at the window, as usual, taking notice yet never watching, except for Shinji. He too is absent-minded, so she starts an IM conversation with him over the computer. He admits that he felt his mother in the Eva and asks if Rei felt the same, if Rei thinks there are others in the other Evas (which she denies but doesn't really know, save for her own Eva). To her own surprise, Rei asks Shinji to continue this conversation later, which flusters Shinji, but not enough to deter him.

Rei picks the place: a train station, someplace noisy, that Gendo's intelligence can penetrate but not easily eavesdrop on them. She doesn't know why she cares so much if Gendo hears what she says to Shinji, but she does, all the same. She notices the people touching each other, being intimate, and wonders. Shinji arrives, and she puts those feelings aside, uncertain. As roundabout as she can be, she arouses Shinji's dislike of Gendo, prompting him to remark how Gendo blackmailed him into piloting because he threatened to send Rei out instead. This, like the memory of how Shinji saved her, moves Rei into silence. Shinji inquires about what Rei does in her free time. Rei mentions the viola, reading. To these things Shinji can relate; he remarks how at times he's gone riding the train before but gone nowhere, but never with anyone else. He's always alone, and for the most part, he likes it that way. For the most part. Rei suggests they take the train somewhere, it doesn't matter where, and Shinji accepts, but not before catching a glimpse of Asuka.

On the train they ride in circles, going nowhere, yet both are grateful for the company. Shinji admits that, after Asuka came to Misato's apartment, he's worried about Rei, from time to time, but he also thinks that maybe the commotion Asuka makes would be too much for her. Shinji cares much for Asuka and her declining scores, but he doesn't know what he can do to help. His helplessness doesn't suit him, Rei thinks. He's capable of being brave where she is only capable of disregard for her own life. She cannot be brave while there are clones of her. The night wanes, and Shinji knows he needs to get back soon, so he walks Rei back to her apartment, and while Shinji bumbles ("I know we didn't really do anything, but if you enjoyed it--") and Rei cuts him off ("I should smile."). And she does. And Shinji delights to see it, but he wonders--why doesn't Rei smile more from now on? And Rei only says that that would diminish the action; she thinks, she guesses, most people smile even when they don't mean it. Shinji agrees that she's right, but when she's happy, she shouldn't fear to show it. And Rei doesn't; indeed, she wants more.

The next day, Rei thinks back on this encounter with Shinji, about how being with him made her feel, and while she doesn't particularly enjoy Asuka's company, her well-being is important to him, too. After a long silence, she musters the will to speak her mind about the Evas, about their souls, and Asuka slaps her, but Rei is confident, certain. She's not a doll anymore.

This is what I started with, and you can tell I made some adjustments. I inserted the scenes at the athletic fields to bookend the chapter and hit home the idea that Rei's learned something about friendship and what it means to people. I also had the idea for the arcade later on, to help hit it home further. I think my original idea in this respect was something like laser tag, but the arcade did just as well. It seemed empty to me to have Shinji and Rei go on a train ride and nothing happen after that. I also added the confrontation with Asuka near the beginning to emphasize how Rei's mindset has changed, how she's willing to engage Asuka when she wasn't before.

Originally, when I conceived of the "instant message" scene, it was going to be pretty generic, but I've been working on unix machines more of late, and I thought using a typical unix prompt and some realistic commands would give more a touch of groundedness to the scene that wasn't there before. I figured a legacy system like that would also bear relics of an earlier time--the school's server still considers it Hakone Middle School, for instance.

I have to admit, it's hard to write Asuka realistically here. She's going on and on about hating things and hating everyone, and I found even lifting the translated dialogue from DVDs or fansubs and tweaking it to fit my style was difficult. You can write, "I hate everyone!" only so many times with a straight face, but in that respect, I can't go against the material. I actually reproduced the elevator scene here, even though it goes against my usual rule, because I wanted to emphasize it as a culmination of the chapter's events. To gloss over it would've greatly reduced its impact.

The scene at the train station was, in my way, a means to explain why Shinji and Rei would be there in the first place (which is a scene present in the revised cuts of the episode). I admit, I struggled mightily with what Rei was trying to accomplish in engaging Shinji, but I thought her ultimate question--of why Shinji returned--was the real goal. Shinji is a hard person to peg, too. I think what goes through his head here, recounting his first day in Tokyo-3, is an everyman's perspective, and it's that perspective that's been warped through his childhood and his experiences piloting Eva. But's it's that everyman perspective, that human perspective, however buried and beaten it is, that Rei finds attractive, that she needs. Everyone else around her is bent and twisted in some way.

To write the arcade scene I did some cursory research on Japanese arcades, which you can probably find pretty quickly on Google, but I have a love of pinball, and I definitely wanted to include one of those. A whack-a-mole machine seemed simple enough to describe and for Rei to pick up as well. The kind of support that Shinji's providing Kensuke is wordless, and I think Rei and Shinji both know that, so I didn't follow the two boys here for very long. The shooting game they play is somewhat distantly based on The House of the Dead, but really only in very broad detail.

As for Rei's smile, well, does it not seem a waste that she doesn't get to smile again before...well, before things start really hitting the fan?

I think I've said enough for now. There will be more to say with chapter six, which I've got a preliminary outline for and will start working on imminently.

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"Before and After" 04 - "After Zeruel"

The new chapter, after long last, is on FFN. The next isn't outlined yet; this week isn't going well. But one step at a time.

Commentary below.

This is the first chapter of this story I've written since I started my "storyboarding" method with Identity, and though the stories are different (as I've said before, I refuse to use scene breaks here, even when I use them quite liberally otherwise), the structure is at heart very much the same. I dare say chapter three of this story actually motivated the storyboarding process. While I based "After Bardiel" on basically five paragraphs of redone outline, it started me off with expanding my outlines in a way that would make the writing process more straightforward and require less on-the-spot filling of the gaps.

That's not to say there wasn't filling to do, of course, but I'll get to that in a moment.

If you remember this episode from the anime, you might be surprised that Rei was in it at all. She makes her only appearance a few minutes into the episode, waking up in the hospital room as I depict her here, and the only thing she says (as a radio plays in the background with news) is, "I'm still alive." It was that theme, of being alive and wondering why, that I wanted to work with. What is there to live for? Why should she live at all? And of course, the answer is that she doesn't think she should. She wants to die, but she can't. She isn't allowed to. But we're not at that point yet.

The main subplot I wanted to play on was a problem I actually had with Gendo. It's so, so easy to paint Gendo as a bad guy, as someone you want to hate, but you have to remember, he's in charge. He's, somehow, charismatic enough to seduce Ritsuko and her mother before her into doing his bidding. The Gendo we see here, though he may seem somewhat out of character, is my attempt to capture what he must act like when he's "turning on the charm," when he acts in a way that people see something attractive in him. In a lot of ways, he's not very much different. He's says little and speaks definitively. In my mind, this Gendo is an act, a facade that he puts on to get what he wants, and hence, most of the money is made off of revealing to others the image he wants them to take away. Don't think for a minute he's at Rei's hospital room because it was anything other than calculated, planned. It does beg the question of why he would've gone to so much trouble to save her from the entry plug. I'll get to that in a bit, too.

Sometimes as I wrote this I thought I was being a bit too poetic, but I do think there's something to be said for fluidity in narrative and dialogue. We as an audience tend to think of Rei as flat, stilted. And it's true, there are times I want to paint her that way, using short, choppy sentences that lack decoration, lack complication, that state the truth of things as she sees them, for that truth is very simple. But you can't do that all the time; it loses effect. Rei should, in principle, be poetic at times, if only to emphasize the times when she's at a loss, when she can't be.

Now, I know I've already skipped over something: the opening scene. I know it's a common interpretation that Rei doesn't dream, and I try not to violate that. I try to have her dreams, true to last chapter, be something that has a basis in reality. We all know, of course, that Rei is actually something else, even more strange that being a clone of a person aged to make up some time. And though she's trying to get out of Yui's shadow, the shadow of the giant is much larger still, and it's something she's yet to even contemplate, let alone comprehend. I did some research on the early Earth, including how its air pressure would've been much higher with heavier gases and that, despite the heat, this pressure would keep the water in the oceans liquid. It's the little things that count, after all.

But anyway, we have Gendo with Rei, and she's still wary of him. She remembers how he dismissed her, but inside, I think, she wants to believe. All of this here is Gendo setting himself up for later in the chapter--indirectly, discreetly. But even Gendo can't hide his indifference, his contempt, for Shinji. He's not even referred to by name. It's just, "That boy." That's not to say Gendo has never shown Shinji kindness. He praised him once. But I think that can only be something done because it served him then, too.

It's interesting to me, writing something like this when Identity has taken up so much of my free time. With Identity, people are plotting things. They make plans, have goals, and execute them. Of course, one can say goals are the drive behind any good story, but goals can take on different forms. They can be simple but require complex execution, like rescuing Ranma from the Sorcerers' clutches, or they can be more nebulous. In this case, Rei wants to go to the cage, to see, to understand. She may not even consciously have formed an opinion as to why she wants to or know what it will accomplish, but every action changes her, and it's that change that we chronicle, that we attach importance to.

You can go back to episode six when Rei says that she pilots Eva because of her bond. I like to go with that and say that what makes Rei grow are her interactions with other people. With Gendo, to start with, and now Misato, in a follow-up to their conversation in chapter two, building on the apparent suicidal action that Rei took on. And again for Rei, though Misato wants to know, it's not just that she can't speak about it. There's a tinge of attachment, of a wish to protect Misato from what she can't understand.

In keeping with that theme of interactions, though, I looked at Rei's fascination with books, with science texts in particular, and I thought it would be reasonable for her to visit a library, where she receives a piece of advise from a strange librarian--you might recognize her as the mind-reader Nodoka Miyazaki from Mahou Sensei Negima. In that, the timeline may be a bit off: Nodoka was born in 1988, and the events of that series take place with her in 8th or 9th grade. Still, rather than create a librarian out of whole cloth, I thought it would be nice for Nodoka to make a cameo, to give Rei a piece of advice about having a little bit of courage. It's that phrase that inspired Rei to go back and look at A Tale of Two Cities (you might notice she doesn't refer to the characters by name, only "the barrister" for Carton and "the marquis" for Darnay). In trying to find some value for herself, she contrasts herself with Carton. Her conclusions are anything but solid, but she's thinking about them. She's looking for something to hold on to, whether it's Shinji's courage or something else.

By this point, it's time for the men in black to show, and I felt this was a good opportunity for Rei to, well, consider the consequences of her thoughts, her actions. She's hardly moved against Gendo, but she knows her thoughts have betrayed him, and as such, I think she's right to be afraid. And confronted with something, with Gendo's ire, she's willing to risk it, to run, to die, I think. I almost had her make her line about wanting to die at the train platform, but I felt it would be better later, after she realized what Gendo wanted from her. Even so, she feels the pull of death, of nothingness.

Something I had an idea about just recently was this following scene at Gendo's "cabin." I'd thought for longer than that about having Rei walk in on Gendo and Ritsuko having dinner, but that idea turned into this bizarre date, if you will. I thought about where Gendo would make a home, and without a doubt that had to be somewhere inside the Geofront, close to Nerv, close to Yui. His cabin on the "surface" is just for show. It's bare. It's empty. It's not even lived in. Gendo's a man who prefers privacy and to be, I think, away from the light of day. He makes his home underground, and the hallways bear that out. This man is crazy. He's obsessed. Only one thing matters to him, and he immerses himself in it. That's what the picture of Yui and Shinji is for. That's what the picture of Adam in Antarctica is for. (The third is, as best as I could describe it, the tree of life.)

I searched for a time to find a wine that would be the right shade of red. Eventually, I realized that was no easy task, and not being a wine aficionado myself, I chose a wine similar to what my father has always favored--he being a fan of Cabernet Sauvignon, I chose a Cabernet Franc, one of that mix's principal constituents. It was over this dinner that Gendo would try to connect with Rei, something that she rejects at first but comes around to, or would've if it weren't for the wine unsettling her and Ritsuko dropping by. But think, for a moment, what would've happened had Ritsuko not shown. Maybe Rei drinks the wine. Maybe she gets a little tipsy for it, and Gendo, being Gendo, sees Yui so close to alive for him.

It was always my thought that Gendo would, to try to reassert his hold over Rei, be absolutely willing to violate her. For me, however, it was enough for Rei to just realize that, to understand that he saw Yui when he looked at her, touched her, and to be repulsed, disgusted by that. There is such a thing as too much punishment, after all. There's such a thing as crossing a line. I don't think someone like Rei would recover from that.

I debated for a time how Ritsuko would react to this. In one sense, she sees herself as competing with Rei, with Yui, for Gendo's affection. On the other hand, I think she was genuinely shocked that Rei almost killed herself blowing up Zeruel. To balance those, I hoped she would cautiously advise Rei, both as a rival and as an adult, to caution Rei, to make her realize just what was happening. It's something Ritsuko fears herself and hopes to change, but she knows that day may never come.

The chapter basically ends with Kaji and my attempt to explain why there's a melon patch in the Geofront. But that's not the only thing. Kaji is here to give Rei a bit of hope--again, something to hold on to. If she can't rely on Gendo and lean on him, she'll have to hope for Shinji and his kindness instead. It's eminently practical, but it's also true. That's what she goes with, watching the last effort to save Shinji, and while I'd thought at first that crying would be the main theme of this chapter, of Rei trying to understand something, watchful eyes and reflections turned out to be more important. Yui watches her and lets go. She glimpses her own reflection, however, and feels the omen, the shadow of the giant on her. But that is what that is. Shinji's back, and next time, they're going on a date.

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"Before and After" 03 - "After Bardiel"

The third chapter of "Before and AFter" on Fanfiction.net

After taking a while to work out act 5.2 of Identity, I felt it was time to write this chapter of "Before and After," and I think it was a welcome break and chance to refocus. As usual, more thoughts on the themes and experience of writing this chapter below.

Sometimes, you have a story in your head, but you just can't figure out how to get it started, or you get started and you realize midway through that something's really just wrong, and you need to go back and fix it. I've heard before that you can't be afraid to tear down everything you've done if you know you can do it better, and while I seldom do that for analytical reasons, sometimes, you just know that what you have is missing something, that what you've already written, as much as you may want to stick to it, just isn't right.

It's for this reason that, as I write this right now, there are about six alternate copies of this chapter on my hard drive--some for trivial reasons like changing a paragraph to suit the mood, but most because around 3000 words in, I realized the chapter needed something more. It needed a sentiment to tie everything together; it needed reorganization.

I actually had the idea about dreams and dreaming before I started really reworking the chapter. The crux of the problem, instead, was the confrontation with Gendo, something I'd intended, originally, to start the chapter and set up the conflicts to follow, but more and more, I realized it didn't make sense to start there. Rather, it made the most sense to end there--or at least, to end as close to it as I could. Once Rei had spoken to Gendo and Shinji, everything else was done, and I realized there was more story to tell than that.

One thing I try to do is make sure every character has something they're after, something they want, even if that's not what drives them at any given point in time. You have paramedics trying to do their jobs here. You have Hikari who's worried for Toji, you have Asuka who's trying to protect Hikari, who may well be her only real friend in town. There's Gendo, who's only looking out for Yui, and there's Fuyutsuki, who's devoted to Yui in his own, low-key way. I know it's tempting, as an author, to use characters to merely advance story, and indeed, often times you must do that. What purpose does the nurse in the ER serve? What purpose does the guard in the cell block serve? In truth, they're there because it would make less sense if they weren't. They're not developed because they can't be, because they shouldn't be, but even so, I think it's good to make sure they make an impression. Do you remember how the nurse caught Rei trying to go out naked? Do you remember the guard, who was so easily intimidated by the weak threat of Gendo's ire that he let Rei do what she wanted? They're little moments, but they mean a lot.

When I really embraced the idea of dreaming, though, I felt I should truly run with it. Evangelion is a great series for playing with perception, with states of mind. I wanted to get to the idea of a part of Rei residing in Unit-00, and this seemed like a great opportunity. I will admit, it's not something you can prove, outside of the one line in episode 23 where she references directly "the me inside Eva," but it's a sensible theory. It adequately explains what Shinji saw in episode 14 when he tried to sync with Unit-00; it explains why Unit-00 went berserk before the series and necessitated Shinji's arrival. But it's just a theory, even still, and while ordinarily I hesitate to use fanon-esque theories, however sound they may be, it's much harder to completely avoid them when you write a story that deals with those issues in real time, as opposed to something that looks backward, like Identity.

Of course, whenever an author admits they thought there was "a lot more story to tell," that's code for "it's a lot longer than I thought it would be," and that's every bit as true here. Originally, I thought the progression of the chapter would be this: Rei's called to Gendo's office to discuss why she didn't fire, she goes see Shinji in the hospital ward, she dreams the traincar scene, she goes back to see if Shinji might stay, and then the ending where she's rejected by Unit-01, by Yui, which leads into the last bit. You can see I reordered things significantly, added quite a bit of work with the beginning (where Rei sees her "first" self, where Rei goes to the hospital herself) and middle (all the scenes at school). All this, I felt, was necessary to get Rei's emotional state of mind right. I realized in the first few drafts that Rei knew too much too fast, and part of the experience of first-person is getting to know things in the sequence the POV character learns them and reading their reaction.

Of course, introducing so much stuff really slowed everything down, so I had to be careful about emotional impact and pacing. Things in this chapter take a lot longer to develop than I imagined, as I purposefully put on the breaks so Rei, in essence, wouldn't get ahead of herself and feel stuff I wanted her to feel later. I think it would've been valid if Rei had realized she did care for Shinji much earlier than she does, but it only has impact where she realizes it, not anywhere else. Separating the traincar scene so far from where she actually talks to Shinji, I had to repeat myself a lot to make sure those ideas were remembered and fresh when she finally did get to see him. The sequence of events makes sense, though, and that's important.

In fact, a lot of the things I added I added not because I wanted to but because I realized the timing of the chapter--and, hence, the whole timing of episode 19--was very very fixed. The battle against Bardiel takes place on what we'll call the afternoon/evening of Day 0. When Toji wakes up, Hikari says he's been asleep three days, and this scene is before Shinji's thrown out of Nerv. Thus, I chose my timeline: Asuka and Rei are outside Shinji's room the night of day 0 (perhaps, by that time, it's the morning of day 1). I chose to have the traincar vision take place overnight that night. Hikari also says that Shinji's been discharged the day before Toji awakens; hence, he's not discharged here until day 2, even if it's early morning day 2. In essence, I packed the chapter more full of stuff because I knew I had at least two days to fill, and I didn't just want to skip over them.

Attention to detail is important to me, although sometimes it has to be compromised. When I started writing this story, I realized I absolutely had no idea how to handle something: what does Rei call Asuka in her mind? It's not "Asuka," certainly. I figured "Soryu" or "Pilot Soryu" would make the most sense as being not friendly but also not disrespectful, simply very neutral. Only while watching 2.0 and rewatching episode 14 did I realize it was more likely she just calls her, literally, "the pilot of Unit-02." And so, to be consistent, I would've had to veer from what I'd already done and use a totally clumsy moniker that, well, I can't imagine even Rei would stick with if she wrote about Asuka for any length of time. Maybe it works better in Japanese; I don't think it works in English. Hence, I've done what I've done and stuck with Rei calling Asuka by her family name (or variations thereof) most of the time. In places where it wouldn't be clumsy to work in "the pilot of Unit-02" or "Unit-02's pilot," I think I'll try to use that, but it's tough. At best, where Asuka's name could be used, I think of ways it could be avoided without making the construction overly clumsy. As always, a writer must strike a balance.

It's kind of the same thing as I did with Gendo. I chose the phrasing "the Commander" largely because I thought it conveyed a higher level of respect, in an English-speaker's mind, than "Commander Ikari," which, while maybe the literal or exact translation of what she says and how she refers to Gendo almost exclusively, doesn't really capture the kind of reverence I think she'd associate with him. Again, I think this is an English/Japanese distinction; it happens to a lesser extent with Misato and Fuyutsu.ki. In English, to repeat names often strikes as clumsy, while in Japanese it's normal and even, if I've heard correctly, more polite than even using a pronoun. Hence, it's a balance between the letter of what is said and the sense of things.

One thing I will say about Rei is that it's very difficult to find a good balance between stating what she feels and implying. My concept of her is that she's likely to understate whatever she's feeling, in part because she doesn't understand it, in part because she doesn't have the words for it. The result, however, makes it tough to convey how much in pain she is through her own voice. She's going to say she hurts. She can describe it in quite a bit of detail, but she's not the kind of person to dwell on it, and in truth, it's actually easier to rely on other people to say she's in pain. It's because she'd never complain about it that she doesn't get to describe it with as much time or detail as any other narrator would.

A lot can be said of why I chose to keep Rei in pain for this chapter. I mean, who knows how long the residual pain of having a limb taken off would last? Here, it lingers for a couple days, and that pain becomes symbolic of Rei's relationship with Gendo and how he won't show compassion for anyone, not just her. It's Yui he loves, no one else. And all Rei's looking for is some way, some person, to help deal with her pain.

Of course, after Gendo, the person she looks to for help with that is Shinji, and in his current state of mind, Shinji's less than receptive. I have a hard time pinning down what Shinji's problem is. You can see what my theories are, but in the end, he's a very complex character--his motives are seldom simple, his reactions are layered. I see a strong contrast between several aspects of Shinji. One aspect is a normal, compassionate, ordinary kid. Another is so scarred by his abandonment at Gendo's hands that he comes in very timid and passive. A third is so angry, by comparison, that he lashes out at the people who abuse him. And it's hard to say any one of those traits dominates. I think, naturally, what Rei likes about Shinji is his compassion, but that timidness and anger within him can get in the way. What's tragic about Shinji leaving her isn't that he's a pure monster at heart. It's that he's not.

And when Rei's abandoned, all she wants to do is die, but as we know, her death isn't to come just yet.

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"Before and After" 02 - "Before Bardiel"

Chapter two of "Before and After" on FFN

I'm about halfway through chapter four, act seven of Identity now. I think it'll be done before this week's installment.

Anyway, commentary below.

When I originally outlined this chapter, I had a much different vision of how things might work. I thought maybe Rei would call Misato's flat and speak with Shinji briefly before realizing Gendo's security was watching her and hanging up the phone. In that outline, the chapter would've been very, very short.

But as I like to do from time to time, especially with a work like this that's supposed to interleave with canon, I went back to watch episode 17, just to pick up any details I may have missed. And one thing became painfully obvious: if I did as I'd outlined, Shinji shouldn't be home. Or at least, it would've been very cumbersome to do.

So I axed that idea, rearranged some things, and expanded the section of time this chapter meant to cover considerably, and on the whole, I think the result is much, much better. The time spent with Shinji is much reduced by proportion, but I think that makes the chapter broader in scope, more satisfying from an intellectual level. Without a doubt Rei's attentions toward Shinji make up a significant motivation for the chapter and color her interactions with everyone--with Gendo, Asuka, Misato, and Ritsuko--but not, I hope, obnoxiously so.

One thing that did bother me somewhat was that Misato and Asuka came off as somewhat hostile toward each other. Some of this I attribute to Misato being a sort of playful, ditzy prankster in persona at times, where Asuka doesn't take anything she does in an amused sort of way. But Asuka says it: Misato can be ruthless. She has her moments of immaturity, but then she gets dead serious, and you know it. You can feel it. It makes her an entertaining character to watch and write, and I felt that Rei, though not wholly understanding of that dynamic, would at least appreciate and respect Misato for her better qualities without judging her for her worse ones.

Rei comes off as hostile, in some ways, toward Asuka too, but I think in the context of episode 16, this is justified. What I wanted more was to show how Rei doesn't understand Asuka, how her behavior and actions can be irritating without Rei necessarily lashing out. It's in Rei's nature to be passive, mind, but she's gradually changing. And while she doesn't understand Asuka's egotistical nature, in a lot of ways it's the exact opposite of who Rei is, and for Rei to grow, she has to go more in Asuka's direction. Maybe not with the rabid sort of denial or misanthropy that Asuka displays sometimes, but it's the only direction she has to change herself. And I think, once Rei does understand Asuka, it'll be much easier for her to see the more vulnerable, sympathetic person underneath.

That's the great thing about Evangelion characters: they often have this dual nature about them, and at different times, they operate in different modes. I really enjoyed writing the scene with Rei and Ritsuko, for example, because you see both of those modes in Ritsuko in the same scene--at once a fairly normal, compassionate person, but in the next breath, she's cold, calculating. She's outright threatening Rei by withholding her pills. And at this point, one may still wonder why I had Ritsuko show Rei who and what she is. I think while Ritsuko's happy to see Rei as a person and a child interacting with other children, when she starts taking too much of Gendo's attention, when she starts being at threat to her womanhood, she has to go the other way. And it's not easy for her to do.

When I imagined Rei reading to Shinji in the first chapter, I knew right away that I wanted that book, whatever book I chose, to be a recurring theme throughout the story, and A Tale of Two Cities is pretty apt for comparison. Remember Darnay is a fake name, an alias, just as Ayanami might be considered a fake name, and both names hide secrets. That's the theme of lying for this chapter, too, for not only does Rei lie to Shinji but to herself in the process of trying to understand herself. As much as Rei permits herself, she's confused, trying to sort out her feelings...and failing.

And, of course, that's all the more tragic, that she becomes complicit in concealing the truth from Shinji. But it also fits that she knows, for she approaches Toji in ep. 18 knowing he's the Fourth Children. And Shinji, too, makes his feelings about the next pilot clear. It's the only way I can see justifying his refusal to fight in 18.

But nobody said interpreting and writing were easy tasks. Anyway, that ends the commentary for chapter two. See everybody in a couple months (if pace holds) for chapter three, "After Bardiel." Cheers!

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Before and After 01 - "After Leliel"

I tweaked the first chapter of "Before and After" and have published it on FFN here. I made most of my thoughts on the story in general known at the end of that chapter, so I will not duplicate those remarks here. Let me instead talk about the chapter itself, behind the link below.

When I first conceived of this story, the beginning was the main driving force. It was only after I gathered my thoughts enough to outline the rest that I felt comfortable actually writing it. For the most part, the chapter is almost exactly the way I envisioned it; it was very easy to write, which is either good...or bad. I did, in retrospect, add a few things that I didn't have in the first draft. The joke at the beginning with the janitor, I hoped, would more effectively ease people into Rei's perspective--I've always heard that one of the things that is most effective at drawing in a new reader is humor, and while I don't tend to write comedy, I think every author needs an understanding of humor, of when it is appropriate for pacing or other concerns. I've been told my sense of humor is unusual; admittedly, with the serious nature of most of my works, the characters themselves seldom get to laugh at their companions' antics. I think most of my humor is based on...what should I call it? The sheer ridiculousness of the situation? Perhaps that; the juxtaposition of the serious and absurd. Maya and Kaji getting it on and Fuyutsuki having the tape? Something along those lines. To tell the truth, I'm not really sure.

A big theme I want to emphasize in this piece (when I do get around to continuing it; I view it much as a side project that I will continue at my leisure) is how Rei perceives herself as having Yui's body and disliking it, disliking how it means she is not herself, her own person. That will extend to Lilith as well. I know there is a squicky component to the mother/son overtones between Rei and Shinji, and I wanted to keep that because while it's there, it's not because Rei sees herself as his mother (even though, in this chapter, she suspects she does). For Shinji (especially coming off episode 16, as he is in the first chapter here), it's natural for him to associate Rei with those things, but I think if you ask him point blank or analyze his behavior, he doesn't treat her like his mother. He treats her like a person, and that's an important point.

It's going to be interesting, I think, working so closely within the bounds of canon. It means there are a lot of things, little details, that one might get wrong. Watching Ep. 16 again, I noticed some things: Gendo isn't there when Shinji is absorbed into the angel (Misato complains that he isn't there), but he is by the time Unit-01 is being washed off. It's dusk by the time Rei and Asuka start getting each other's faces--remember Shinji had up to 16 hours to survive on internal life support. Timing and stuff like that is important to me; I feel even the tiniest detail can change the complexity and meaning of things. Writing to interleave events like this means a lot of attention must be paid, and while I'm willing to do it, I will always worry I'll make a mistake.

Finally, I'm excited to be writing this, even if it isn't my top priority. In the back of my mind, I have a longer Eva piece in mind taking place post-instrumentality, and this piece might be considered a prequal for that, at least in terms of how I interpret what happens during Instrumentality, but that isn't even outlined or well-formed. I may never write it. We'll see.

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