NGE: Nobody Dies 2: The Reevival

[OpMegs]

Well, then, you should feel right at home. Cool.

Yeah, I like this place.

Here's the thing; I never take a critique personally, at least not anymore.  That's one of the reasons I tend to pop in on fanfic threads that mention and/or rip into my stuff.  Any critique, outside of "You suck and you suck for sucking" helps me either improve the story, or improve other things I plan to work on in the future.  That's half the beauty of it, really.  I will admit I do get obsessive about my stories, but at the same time it's probably from a sense of pride.

Or schaudenfreude.  Whichever comes first.

Ironically, the timing of this is kinda funny.

I've introduced people to Nobody Dies that've dropped off reading it and such (mostly around the Multiverse arc, due to the fanfic in-jokes they missed and such), and while I understood their reasons, I stuck with it because the madcap stuff was funny to me. (DINOSAUR TANK)

However, the most recent chapters with Tamiel and Ichi becoming the Mark-01 and the whole near-Instrumentality brought back what I really enjoyed about this story, which is that you're one of the few Eva writes that goes somewhere new with the premise, while maintaining a fairly close relation to the original canon. I loved Eva's cast, and the cosmology was interesting, but where Anno took it just pissed me off because I liked the cast. Whereas with Nobody Dies, Crowning Moments Of Awesome aren't horribly subverted into awful let-downs minutes later. Even the worse ones (Raziel, the near-Instrumentality, etc.) may have setbacks, but they go beyond that.

Essentially, Nobody Dies has hit that wonderful middle ground with me where Angst and Drama do not mean Depressing As All Shit And Why Am I Watching This When I Want Entertainment.

Hell, you've made the Angels into characters we empathize with and can understand, even if they're weird and out there (Leliel is a notable case, but I recall someone's argument that Zeruel was trying very hard to be the father figure for the Angels after ADAM was trapped away and failing due to the fact that his very nature means he can't do the job, like someone failing the Sibling Promoted To Parent test).

All in all, the only real criticism I can bring up that isn't stylistic nitpicking at this point is something you seem to already be addressing, namely that the Ree are more plot devices than characters (besides Kei). You have no idea how much I outright cheered when Kyoko got put in charge of them, because it means someone in-story who won't just go "eh, it's the Ree. What you gonna do? *shrug*"

That, and you have my undying respect for managing to turn Kyoko around from Over 9000 UberBitch to a character I like and can cheer for through character development. That's just amazing. Even if it put Asuka in the state she was in at the start of the fic, it just made the eventual resolution all the sweeter. I swear, you could mine some of the Sohryu family moments for 100 proof sugar these days. It's amazing.
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"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."