What are you reading?

[Merc]

There are others?

[thepanda]

Tons for different series.

[Brian]

What's that called, as a meme?  I know it's a form of deconstruction, but those things always annoy me.

"Oh, let's sound deep, and really just try and make you feel bad by claiming that whatever you liked as a child was a subtle allusion to someone coping with horrific mental issues due to a tragedy, and nearly everyone involved was actually dead all along!"

[Ergoemos]

Well, It took some digging. I don't know exactly what it would be called, and I don't think it has a name quite as specific as that, but it does show up as a part of Stock Epileptic Trees. Its a bit of a combination of the first that show up, Dead All Along and All Just A Dream.

Its mainly just a result of Everyone is Jesus in Purgatory intellectuals trying to make their old nostalgia woobie into something more adult, via turning everything into a Through the Eyes of Madness setting. Its surprisingly common and I have always found it rather banal.

I vaguely recall one about Pokemon the TV show for a while, where Ash was (surprise!) in a coma all along and everything was his subconscious trying to sort out his life. I've also heard similar theories for Hey Arnold, Dexter's Lab, and that one Disney live action show about the twins brothers in the hotel, though I can't name it for the life of me. The whole thing probably to have its own meme (perhaps a subtrope of Everyone is Jesus).

[thepanda]

I want to say creepypasta but that doesn't feel quite right.

(Also, can people even dream in a coma? I'm no neuroscientist but I was under the impression that people didn't REM-sleep when in a coma.)

[lolipettanko]

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/7354757/1/The_Game_of_Champions

By far, the best Pokemon fic I've read in some time. May have been mentioned here already, though it deserves every bit of attention it gets.

The world-building is coming along very nicely. If you've read the Sun Soul, this is leaps and bounds ahead of it in terms of quality. It doesn't try to be realistic, it just is.

The main protagonist is Red(not Ash) and he's written very interestingly. Smart, ruthless and a bit crazy. Apparently he's been captured by Team Rocket and is simply narrating his story.

Definitely reccomended.

[Dracos]

*eyes rising discussion*

I counter such ridiculousness with... http://lparchive.org/Animal-Crossing/Update%201/ .  If you're going to destroy a property, do it right.

I tend to sync with what Brian said on them.  They're pretty thoughtless destruction.  Basically the adult equivalent of walking up to a group of blocks and knocking them over while going "Well, only a retard would play with blocks!"

[Jason_Miao]

There was a great parody of this sort of thing that Kickaha posted into IRC, long ago, which purported to analyze The Three Stooges.  Wish I had a link (if the page even still exists), so I could post it.

A fic:  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8882468/1/Human-Immortality-Project

Premise is that a rational Shinji chooses not to pilot, and instead works his way into the command chain.

The story follows the major incidents of the anime, but Rationality usually triumphs to bring about some different result.    Expect long bouts of exposition.  But then again, it's an Eva fic, so maybe that's something to be expected, and at least the exposition actually says something.

[Dracos]

I...  really have trouble picturing Shinji not getting shot or smacked in that first chapter the way he's acting.

He's also 14.  I've understood peggy-sue'ish terrorist shinji's managing it by leveraging the critical moment there, but I don't see how he'd even get the social respect level to even be heard both not piloting and not having any rank at all to start with.  Maybe chapter 2 or 3 might cover how he isn't just shuffled outside but still.  I just find it hard to wrap my head around the concept enough to suspend disbelief and hearing Rationality as an excuse for it makes it even less plausible.

I'd also expect Rei to be dead by the middle of chapter 2 anyway.  She wasn't well enough to walk across a room much less pilot at the beginning of any take on the series.  Sachiel was also not a push-over and largely got beaten by Shinji descending into a berserker type state.

Logically, I'd expect nobody to be even remotely willing to answer his questions.  They do have backups after all canonically, even if they don't tell him to answer his questions.  They even have backups within the city by canon.

And I'm done.  :\  Just too much everyone being pushovers to even provide the opportunity for the story to start to be told.  A kid whines enough and he gets their head scientist ordered to answer questions instead of being picked up by the many guards of the place and tossed in a holding pen?  Rei (who can't stand up) somehow eeks out a victory over sachiel entirely offscreen, damaging the other eva so they basically are starting with two unusable evas for then starting period and no one is enormously worried about this situation?  Having extra unbelievable things happen off screen to give more time for unbelievable things to happen on screen just makes it harder to get a footing.  It's not even Gendo directed, with him having thoughts that they might be able to use the kid anyway and over-ruling the general staff who reasonably would think it's insane to waste time with a kid like that.  It's Fuyuki directed to give him space to do anything?  What the heck.

Removing the credibility building "I can kill an angel" from shinji and replacing it with "I ask a lot of questions" just doesn't work for me at all :\

[Jason_Miao]

I...  really have trouble picturing Shinji not getting shot or smacked in that first chapter the way he's acting.

Heh.  You know how there are people who have no experience on a topic, but they have The Answer and insist that you listen to them?  I have the suspicion that the writer is one of those people (again, "rational" and "expect long bouts of exposition").  There are people who do this sort of writing though, so I posted the fic. 

I'm with you all the way on everything you wrote, except for the age bit since I think that's a staple of anime, but we've probably both said most of what can be said with that discussion in the Internal Consistency thread, so I won't to talk any further about that.

[Dracos]

Eva though really isn't one of those animes.  It regularly has all the important procedural decisions done by adults, who also shoot and kill people that get in their way.

But yeah, even if Shinji was 30, it's hard to picture someone without leverage acting that way in a military situation and not being shot.

[Brian]

I've seen the same thing in Harry Potter fanfic, though.  Where the author's conviction in the stance that they've projected onto whichever characters they like is just so right that everyone shrugs and accedes to the demands of the eleven year old boy.  And they aren't all Peggy Sues, either.

It's a staple of bad writing, though I'm too mentally exhausted to try and find a trope that fits it.  Probably something like a debate version of Boring Invincible Hero.

[Dracos]

Totally agreed its a stable of bad writing, but having a little kid getting their way seems is less ridiculous in Harry Potter (or say Gurren Lagann) then it is in Eva.  Harry Potter elevates school-children to major players on the field of national politics which major politicians come by to say hi to, whereas they're mainly abuse victims in Eva (Adults don't interact with them as Peers).

I actually referenced a peggy-sue in as much as a specific Eva fic where Shinji had some advanced knowledge and terrorist equipment.  In that case it was plausible because it wasn't a 14 year old saying "My Way, My Way"; it was a guy with a nuke going "My Way, My Way".  The leverage made them taking him seriously plausible.  Following it with "Okay, also, here's me being a badass" made it plausible that they were willing to go along with the flow afterwards.  Here it's not a peggy-sue, just some kid who's getting horribly partial information, makes decisions on that, and then well, just as ye said.

"The kid has spoken, the adults will go along with it."

[Yuthirin]

BREAKING NEWS!

Nostalgia strikes downtown Los Angeles! No survivors!

[Jason_Miao]

BREAKING NEWS!

Nostalgia strikes downtown Los Angeles! No survivors!

Wow, blast from the past.

I preread that fic for Ben Oliver back in the day.