#evangelion fanfic

[silvermoonshitshow]

new trans shinji chapter is out. probably not the best but eh. hopefully worth the wait? unlikely.

[miaqc1]

First attempt at NB/NB fanfic. NGE.

They already knows (121 words) by MiaQc Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Rebuild of Evangelion | Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ayanami Rei/Shikinami Asuka Langley Characters: Ayanami Rei, Shikinami Asuka Langley Additional Tags: One Shot, Happy Ending, Gender Identity, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Shikinami Asuka Langley, Nonbinary Ayanami Rei, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Evangelions/Angels, Talking, Laughter, Cute, Cute Ending, Wordcount: 100-500, POV First Person, POV Shikinami Asuka Langley, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, autistic author, Not Beta Read, category other because of non-binary/non-binary relationships Summary: Brief story. Asuka Shikinami has been Rei Ayanami's partner for years. Hir wants to tell her that sie is non-binary, but Rei interrupts them.

[wastokins]

Mari takes Rei to enjoy Tokyo-3's nightlife.

--

The 5th Chapter of my NGE fanfic, "Cross my Heart.", has been released. Focusing on the pairing of Mari and Rei, and exploring what a relationship between them would be like.

| Likes & Reblogs very much appreciated! |

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51990340/

Wattpad: https://wattpad.com/1402455969

FF: https://fanfiction.net/s/14303924/

[edgybluerat]

Ever wanted a fanfic focusing on Keel Lorenz and Kaworu Nagisa having a dad-son relationship? Look no further.

It's a 2470 words long one-shot and features Keel trying to get closer to the boy he raised for slaughter, knowing soon he will be sent to Nerv and never come back. Unlike the mask he usually puts on when in video call with his conspiracy chaps here Keel shows awkwardness and vulnerability and is a total Shinji+Gendo.

Ps: Kaworu is only referred to by his Angel name, Tabris.

[thekinglemingle]

Date Night

Every other fortnight, at 10 pm on a Thursday, the Eva cages are silent. It is logged on the calendar as "Ego decontamination - highly hazardous," and it is specified that no unqualified personnel can enter the area until it is completed. Like so many other things at NERV this is a lie. 

There is no team of highly qualified hazmat suited workers pouring over the Evangelions, there is only Gendo Ikari and Kozo Fuyutsuki. Ideally Gendo would be alone, but the plug system requires someone in the control room. If another person has to see his shame, it might as well be Fuyutsuki. They have shared so much worse together. Sometimes Gendo wonders if he might have actually made a friend. 

The doctors Akagi know what Gendo does when he is alone of course. Neither of them would have tolerated being ignorant to the purpose for a completely spurious protocol within their hectic maintenance schedule. It was one of the many reasons the elder Akagi hated him. The younger one seems more understanding. They never talk about it, but she tolerates his behaviour the way one tolerates a partner's cigarette habit. Or their partner's need to make an appearance for their wife.

That's what it really is. Once a fortnight, when no one else is around, Gendo dons his own white plugsuit, climbs into an entry plug and spends an hour with his wife. He tells her of his week and how their son is growing up. Shinji has friends. Two of them. They're idiots who will never amount to anything, but still his son has achieved something that he never could and for that he is quietly proud. He tells Yui about the progress of his plans to rescue her and about how much he misses her. Alone in the darkness of the entry plug he often cries.

After an hour, Kozo removes the entry plug and Gendo emerges from the LCL. Kozo waits for him outside the decontamination showers and they have their brief conversation through the cubicle door.

"Any luck?" Asks the old Professor. 

"No." Gendo replies without a hint of emotion in his voice. "How were the graphs?"

"No movement." Comes the reply. 

The key to syncing with an Eva is the emotional bond between souls. Parental love is a strong source of this, it's what makes Asuka and Shinji such strong pilots. Even Rei manages to pilot an Eva based on the mutual hatred between her and Naoko Akagi. A complete unknown, chosen at random from the street and shoved into an entry plug should expect a sync ratio fluctuating between five and 12 percent. Gendo's remains flatly at zero.

"We still know very little of her mental state in there." Kozo rationalises. "It's a miracle she was even able to recognise Shinji as her son."

"I find it hard to maintain focus while I'm in the plug." Gendo admits. "I need to practice more on just reaching out for her."

"We just need to keep trying."

"This should be possible. Even the boy manages it, and he knows nothing about what's really going on."

Gendo and Kozo's original plan, when they first realised that Yui had been consumed by the Eva, was that Gendo would be the pilot. Yui's child would remain safe in the countryside, miles away from the violence that would soon engulf Tokyo-3. It took over a decade, and the discovery that Rei and Unit 01 could achieve a (low) synchronization before they conceded defeat. Despite Gendo's evident love for Yui, the pair could not sync. Neither Gendo nor Kozo voice their suspicion about the obvious explanation for Yui's apparent rejection of him.

In actuality they're wrong to be worried. Or at least about this. Yui did care about Gendo. A bit. At least enough that, if she allowed it, he would be able to fight moderately well within the Eva, but that would not fit into her plans. The ancient prophecies are vague in many places, but some things are so evident that SEELE felt safe to release the information to the public over two millennia ago. In order to save humanity's souls, God must sacrifice their only son. And if there must be a God, Yui intends it to be her. Yui can allow Gendo no alternative: Shinji must pilot the Eva.

[srevangelion]

Silver Remnant Evangelion - Episode 003: Orientation Day - Part 1

It's been days since the Ursa attack on Vale. The sound of a yellow sports motorcycle could be heard speeding down the streets of Vale. The driver of said was a blonde haired teenager, wearing a tight brown jacket, a yellow wrap, orange scarf, and a pair of short shorts. Strapped to her wrists were two gauntlets, loaded with shotgun shells.

This girl... is Yang Xiao-Long. No one knew it quite yet, but she was the woman who defeated the Ursa during it's rampage through the city. Invited to pilot a mechanical thing, called an Evangelion, Yang fought to save the city and spite the woman who gave birth to her.

She quickly turned herself in a way to pull her bike into a dramatic slide, coming parallel right before the gates to the Island of Patch. Pulling out a white card with her face on it, she slid it into a reader and placed her thumb on a scanner. A green light blinked a few times, prompting Yang to pull the card out of the reader as the arm of the gate raises up. Reorienting herself, she pressed onto a moving platform, segmented in car-length platforms. Pushing Bumblebee onto one of these, she deploys the kickstand and leans against the seat. Grabbing her scroll, she quickly tapped out a message. Coming to her stop, she pushed her bike off and looks around. Standing at the platform is a girl with copper hair with green eyes and matching dress.

"Sal-u-tations!" This girl's voice seemed rather chipper, almost delighted to see Yang arrive.

Yang looked right at the voice talking to her, her jaw dropping. "Oh, hey! You're the girl from a few nights ago. You doing alright?"

The other girl smiled. "I am functioning nominally, thank you for your concern. My name is Penny Polendina. It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Xiao-Long." She gave a bow to the other woman. "Commander Schnee has asked me to lead you to the briefing room."

"Oh... right." She looked at the message she received earlier. "So, she says I'm getting boarding assignments. I hope it's nothing small."

Penny stopped at a garage-like space. "Please park your bike here. Do not worry. No one shall steal it."

Yang shrugged. "Yeah, yeah." She popped the kickstand down and left it in a stall.

After a bit of silence, the two soon reach a conference room, where Winter stood, waiting for the two. Penny gave the woman a salute.

"Commander Schnee? Pilot Polendina reporting as ordered, with Pilot Xiao-Long."

Winter nodded. "At ease... and please, drop the formalities, Penny." She looked to Yang. "First off, thanks for joining us. The methods were questionable, but the Ursa's gone, so, that's the plus." She paused. "As for the reason you're here, we've still a bit of logistics to mesh out... such as where you're going to live."

"Where have you decided on me living?" Yang asked, leaning forward.

Winter crossed her ankles under the table. Resting her elbows on the surface and her chin on the backs of her hands, she smiled. "With me in my apartment here at Beacon-3. You'll also go to the school here. Penny can show you around the facility further. Meet me in the FABLE cafeteria at Close of Business and I'll bring you to my apartment."

"Uuh... sure. I mean... I just met you and all..." It was clear she was obviously confused about the woman's offer.

Winter expected this. "Your parents orders. Believe me, I think I'm a bit too old if you were thinking this would be a romantic thing. Plus, in another few days, we'll be getting another roommate."

Yang raised a brow. "Another?"

"All in due time." Winter stood up. "Also, I'm going to try making dinner, so don't gorge yourself on FABLE Cafeteria Pasta. I know it's delicious, but still..." A pause came from the stoic woman. "Dismissed."

Penny and Yang stand up, Penny giving a protocol-enforced salute as she did so before performing a proper About Face. The two walk out of the conference room and up along the halls once more.

"So, Pilot Xiao-Long, shall we head to school? Or are you wanting to meet more of the staff?" The ginger gynoid asked with heavy notes of curiosity in her voice.

The blonde newcomer let out a sigh. "Listen, the last thing I want to do is get overloaded with information. Does this place have a gym or something?"

"OOOH! That is a SPLEN-DIFFEROUS IDEA, Friend Yang! Yes! Let us go to the gym!" It seems Penny was just naturally optimistic. Yang heaved another sigh, slowly getting lost in thought as Penny led the way to the gym.

The gym was outfitted with the typical array of machinery and equipment. Once Yang stepped into the temple of athleticism, she strode to a punching bag. Pulling back, she let out a punch, letting the sand bag swing. "Thanks Penny. I'll be fine from here."

Meanwhile, an unkempt man walked through the corridors of Central Dogma, suitcase in one hand, weaving his way into the operations room. Winter stood by, her real reason why she had dismissed Penny and Weiss.

"Where's she?" The man asked in a gruff voice, his hand reaching for a silver flask on his hip. The air in the room shifted as all eyes shifted to look at the swirling mass of energy forming behind the man. Stepping forth from this portal was the Director herself, dressed in some form of scare mask.

"You're open to attack, brother." She said coldly. "I could feel your terrible luck several floors below. Tell me, Qrow... what measure of bad luck have you brought with you this time?"

The man named Qrow rolled his eyes and takes a seat on Coco's station, kicking his feet up. "Oh, nothing you should be worried about. I just heard my sister was planning on saving the world and I thought I should help. You are still planning on dodging those old kooks, right?"

She turned around, taking off the mask with a clear psittacine click of her tongue. Tsk.. Qrow raised a finger as he brought his flask to his lips, taking several gulps of the liquid within.  "I know what you're going to say. So, let's get this over with, shall we? Bring me to your office."

Raven let out another click of her tongue. "Come along, Qrow. Spoilsport, dashing my power fantasy..." The man grinned and followed behind, stepping into another swirling vortex of energy.

Winter gave a salute as the two exited before turning back with a groan. Why him? There was something about that man that made her heart flutter. However, her knees didn't knock, waiting for the two to exit the area.

Stepping out of the gym, she nodded to Penny. A smile was placed onto the previous frowning face and those eyes were filled with a bit of cathartic relief. "Alright, I'm headiing to the cafeteria."

"Allow me to show the way!" Penny replied cheerfully. Another perfectly executed about face, the copper-haired gynoid stepped forward, heading in the direction she knew where the organic folk ate. "The Commander wishes for me to inform you that your Uncle has arrived to FABLE. He is also waiting for you at the cafeteria."

"Qrow? He's here?" Yang's voice raised even higher with excitement at being told the news.

Penny nodded. "Is he someone you look up to?"

Yang begins gushing with pride. "My Uncle Qrow is so cool! He's like Davidson Chrysler in Ohio Stevens movies except drunk, constantly swearing, and usually being the bearer of bad-"

"Bad what?" Came a gruff voice in the distance. Qrow came walking up behind his niece. "I am not constantly swearing, Firecracker."

"Bullsh-" Yang starts before biting her tongue. Qrow narrows his eyebrows as the girl begins to speak. "I mean, you have willpower for days."

"Willpower for days." The man said with a nod. "Anyways, I'm wanting to get myself some noodles. I hear your mother hired the best chef in Vale who can make it. Coming with, Firecracker? You can bring your friend along too."

This is not endorsed by Rooster Teeth in any way. Views, opinions, thoughts are all my own. Rooster Teeth and RWBY are trade names or registered trademarks of Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC. © Rooster Teeth Productions, LLC.

[druh19]

pode fazer icons dos personagens entj? 🥺🩷

Só personagem grandão, hein?

໑ — ENTJ characters icons~ like and reblog if saved ‹3

[yourteght]

» UMA ÚLTIMA PRIMAVERA — capa teste

⟅17.05.2024 — eu passei um pouco da manhã procurando material para fazer capa pq queria editar, sem saber plot estilo personagens NADA, tudo na base do vou editar sim e pronto. Achei uns materiais lindos e fui criando uma base que pudesse trabalhar de alguma forma, pensei no Kaworu e Shinji pq eu sempre acabo vendo vídeos deles no ttk e penso que eles se parecem muito com uns ocs que tenho <3 tudo foi finalizado com menos de 1h e meia de produção da capa, o que é uma vitória depois da minha última capa :3 é isso, inté!

[mifeeey]

okay so i am desperate and i need any help i can get

a few years ago (between late 2020 and early 2021) i read a kawoshin fic on ao3 i've been trying to find again so i could reread it. yes i know i should've bookmarked it but this was before i understood how that works. so i would really appreciate if someone could help me find it again and if it's deleted i would love if someone could share a pdf with me.

i don't have a title or author but it was definetly on ao3 and it was an au not set in canon. shinji was a depressed teen and one day he came across one if those forum sites were a bunch of suicidal people gather (i don't remember the term for it) and he comes across kaworu's poetry at one point but kaworu isn't there bc he wants to die he's rather trying to talk to these lonely people and him and shinji get talking for a while. this is all i remember.

now i found one that is titled "the suicide pact" by geminibee99 but it is definetly not this one.

UPDATE:

THE FIC HAS BEEN FOUND

You can (not) connect

by devilbabycryman

I'm going to write a rec post for it in a second

[imjustheretoseetheprivateblogs]

Fanfic ideas swim in my head like carp in a koi pond; aesthetically pleasing, but expiring when removed from their native habitat.

[lomloomis]

╰┈➤ M/n is inspired by Kaworu Nagisa from "Neon genesis evangelon". [not much really] 【tws | Death】 ˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚˚ ༘♡ ⋆｡˚

The newest creation of Morax. Created to fight next to the other Adepti's, he was nothing more than a creature made for killing and slaughter. M/N must have fulfilled Morax's orders as fast as he could. And protect his land from the demons.

Before he met Xiao he was an emotionless monster full of bloodlust. "From now on we have a contract." Morax said looking straight at you. "If you proceed to broke it, i won't hesitate to kill you." You shook your head in agreement, your empty vision glew in the night as you stood under the moonlight.

"You shall poses the vision of war." The Archon spoke with an serious face, his words echoed in now your domain. "I shall fulfill your wish." You ended the conversation and looked at all the other Adeptis staring at you.

And that's how you met Xiao. His strong attitude made you feel something that you shouldn't especially not for someone like… Him. You were one of the Adepti's created to fight against the demons of the land, not to create a romance novel with a first met guy.

Even though you tried convincing yourself that it's not love… You always came back to him everynight. While he fough non-stop you always stick next to his back protecting him.

You didn't take the war to seriously since you were meant to slaughter these who dear to cross a blade with Morax. The time where you confessed to Xiao while fighting

"Xiao, may i tell you something?" You looked at his with your sparkly eyes. He only groaned in agreement fighting "I always though that i was meant to live fighting for Morax, you know. But when i met you… I finally realized that it wasn't it. I know this isn't the best circumstances. But i'm afraid that is the only moment when i'm brave enough to confess that… That i am in love with you, Xiao. I was born to meet you." You looked at his with a serious face.

He made a disgusting face "Yaksha's can't feel love, especially not for someone like you." Xiao turned back and keptfighting as you stand there. Flabbergasted at his words, was it how sadness felt? Eating you alive, as your heart pounded harder and harder.

"I understand." You picked up your weapon and headed as far as you can… Long away from Xiao. You were so dumb thinking that both of you could actually work out? You fighted for Eons keeping your feelings deep down inside you. And this is all you get.

That wasn't the life he wanted. He wanted to keep fighting? You didn't knew, but the feeling of your insides being torn apart were unbearable. Your feelings didn't matter to you anymore and you didn't want to proceed caring about them

But so did you know, that he was scared of accepting his own… He couldn't feel any kind of affection towards anyone besides Morax, but when it came to you his hands sweat and he began to stutter. Did all the time together was spend to waste?

He had the gut feeling, that something is going to happen. Xiao's light suddenly lighten up in a shock as a pierce was flying to him in a inhuman speed.

You coughed the blood as you were covering Xiao with yourself. The pierce was send through your chest. "M/n?!" He shouted as you leaned on to him. Was it how it was supposed to end? Even tho he dumped you like a piece of trash… You sacrificed himself for his own good.

"Xi…Ao, I'm sorry… This isn't the love you wanted-" You sobbed out due to the pain… Your mind became blank as you said those words. Xiao started silently calling your name… "I'm the one who should apologize you idiot! I love you.." You chuckled at his words, your hands became cold as he hold you close to him. The moon shone on you as you said your last words.

"I guess i was… born to meet you then… Don't..worry we'll meet again in another life…" You grabbed him by his cheeks and pulled him into a kiss. The one that was the first for both of you… And at the same time the last. His glassy eyes looked at your body as he noticed that your vision turned blank... The vision turned cryo? Xiao hugged you for the last time... "Cryo... A vision of love." From back then, Xiao went every night to your grave. Which he made all by himself… "I miss fighting by your side." He whispered and he hold the Qingxing's close to his chest.

"If only i could change the past."

[silvermoonshitshow]

I was feeling Extremely mentally ill last night, and pumped out a 2000ish word prologue to a fic idea I've had for a while now about NGE and the whole time loop thing and also trans shinji. posted it to ao3, so if anyone is interested:

i have so much trans shinji brainrot jesus fuck. i didnt proofread or have any beta readers so its probably mid at best, but hey, feel more than free to leave comments telling me what i should or shouldnt do.

[miaqc1]

First attempt at NB/NB fanfic. NGE.

They already knows (121 words) by MiaQc Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Rebuild of Evangelion | Evangelion: New Theatrical Edition Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Ayanami Rei/Shikinami Asuka Langley Characters: Ayanami Rei, Shikinami Asuka Langley Additional Tags: One Shot, Happy Ending, Gender Identity, Non-Binary Character(s), Non-Binary Shikinami Asuka Langley, Non-Binary Ayanami Rei, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - No Evangelions/Angels, Talking, Laughter, Cute, Cute Ending, Word count: 100 - 500, POV First Person, POV Shikinami Asuka Langley, Gender-Neutral Pronouns, Autistic Author, Betaed – No, Category Other because of Non-Binary/Non-Binary relationships, Cross-Posted from AO3, Rare Pairings, Rare Fandoms Summary: Brief story. Asuka Shikinami has been Rei Ayanami's partner for years. Hir wants to tell her that sie is non-binary, but Rei interrupts them.

[wastokins]

Mari gets the grand tour of NERV HQ, and gets to pilot a *real* Eva!

--

The 3rd Chapter of my NGE fanfic, "Cross my Heart.", has been released. Focusing on the pairing of Mari and Rei, and exploring what a relationship between them would be like.

| Likes & Reblogs very much appreciated! |

AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51990340/

Wattpad: https://wattpad.com/1402455969

FF: https://fanfiction.net/s/14303924/

[anaharaeicons]

Meu girassol!

Poderia fazer icons do Nagisa (Evangelion), por favor? ♡

[takerfoxx]

(After)Life: Why the Evangelion Pilots Should Be Left Alone

Hey, throwing this up here before I officially publish it in a couple days as both of a sort of preview and also for feedback. This is the first installment of that Evangelion story that I've been talking about, a sort of in-universe opinion piece to introduce the premise and themes and whatnot. But basically, here's the general idea: it takes place over the course of about a century and a half after End of Evangelion, where Third Impact turned everyone into orange juice (LCL, whatever) and made humanity into a hivemind. Shinji and Asuka emerge onto that beach in a post-apocalyptic landscape like in the movie, Rei herself later returns under very odd circumstances, and after many trials and tribulations they eventually form a throuple. However, as more and more people also emerge from Instrumentality and society begins to rebuild, they find themselves needing someone to blame, and the Eva pilots seem the perfect fit. And since Shinji, Asuka, and Rei are afflicted with a somewhat modified version of the Eva's curse from the Rebuild films (basically, can't age, can't die), they're stuck with it for a long time.

So, basically the idea is for it to be a series of short stories released out-of-order, each of them taking place at a random point of time and touching in with how the trio are doing at that particular moment and keeping track of how society is reacting to them, and vice-versa. So, this will be very different than the more serialized stuff I've done in the past, and a lot more manageable as a result. Any installments will come out whenever I feel like working on this. Anyway, here's the first installment. Let me know what you think.

Why the Evangelion Pilots Should Be Left Alone, by Alice Glocke

One-hundred and twelve years ago, the world died, and ever since then, we have been seeking someone to blame.

A world still reeling from the horrors of Second Impact. A world under constant invasion by extraterrestrial monsters beyond comprehension. A world fighting desperately against increasingly hopeless odds not just to recover, but to survive, to not go quietly into that good night, to plant its feet and declare into the face of God himself that it not only existed, but would continue to exist, and woe be to all that would seek its destruction.

In this, it failed, and the world died.

In many ways, the horrors of Third Impact are less of a scar and more of an open wound, one bleeding LCL into our waters. Yes, we continue to rebuild, and life continues to repopulate and flourish. But though the brief moment in which humanity ceased to exist was now over a century ago, we still have those among us who were forced to take part in Instrumentality, only regaining their thoughts, bodies, and sense of personal identity through sheer force of will, and who had to eke out any means of survival that they could on a dead planet.

In the years following Third Impact, as society finally began to reconstruct itself and climb out of the muck into something that was at least functional, humanity has had to grapple with how to respond to the collective trauma that every person on the planet now shared. There was a great deal of righteous anger and a cry for justice, but with the entire SEELE Council still out of reach within Instrumentality, those cries went unfulfilled. Yes, a small number of NERV employees were found and taken into custody, but those were found to have nothing to do with Third Impact, with only that organization’s highest-ranking members working in cohorts with SEELE. And those individuals also remained out of reach.

And then, everything changed. Fourteen years after Third Impact, we finally had someone to blame. The surviving Evangelion Pilots had been found.

In a way, finding them had been a relief. So much bottled-up anger, so much unresolved pain, and those responsible were beyond justice. Now, humanity had the perfect scapegoats. Essential key components of SEELE’s Instrumentality Project, masquerading as fearless defenders of Earth while working the whole time to destroy it. Shinji Ikari, known as the Third Child, and son of NERV’s infamous commander Gendo Ikari, the man perhaps the most responsible for enacting Third Impact. And Asuka Soryu Langley, Second Child, daughter of one of the Human Instrumentality Project’s designers. And while there had been many to decry pinning the blame on those two, that it was unfair to place the sins of the parents on their hapless children, all of those protests faded away when Shinji Ikari made his fateful confession. It had been he that had been given the choice whether or not to allow Third Impact to take place. And it had been he who had made the decision to end the world.

Everyone knows that image of two young teenagers being led from the UN Council by their lawyers and bodyguards, being pelted with garbage from an angry crowd. Whether they saw it in textbooks, had it sent to them by friends as a meme, or even were one of those that watched it live, this is perhaps the most infamous image of the New World. And for a time, most felt that the anger directed at those two was fully justified. Certainly, the UN Council seemed to agree, finding them both guilty of aiding and abetting in SEELE’s schemes to end the world, Shinji intentionally and Asuka unintentionally. The two were then incarcerated in a “secure facility,” and that was that.

Since then, the condition of the two pilots has mostly fallen out of the public’s consciousness. No appeals, no interviews, no word as to what they were up to or how they were doing. Every single “Where are they now?” op-ed has always ended up as a rewritten version of the same events, with each one ending with “Shinji and Asuka: still locked up,” with the only significant change being the number of years between the trial and the newest article’s publication.

Which isn’t to say that they’ve disappeared completely, but rather they seemed to have ceased to become actual public figures and become more of caricatures. They appear in comic strips and cartoons as grossly exaggerated versions of themselves, usually with the destruction of the world as the punchline. They’ve become symbols, memes, representations of the guilt laid upon their shoulders, little more than villains straight out of a children’s story.

Which isn’t to say there haven’t been voices of support over the years. Asuka especially seems to have garnered a small but vocal following, pointing out that she actually had nothing to do with the implementation of Third Impact, and so forcing her to share Shinji’s fate was perhaps unfair. The phrase “Asuka did nothing wrong” has come in and out of vogue, and in time it seems that she has become something of a symbol of the unjustly persecuted. Even Shinji himself, who for so long shouldered the majority of the blame for Third Impact, has seen a turnaround in how the public has treated him, pointing out that perhaps placing the full blame for what had happened upon a child soldier indoctrinated by an evil organization of adult men is a bit unfair.

However, none of these voices ever gained much traction. Once the trial was over, most of humanity’s attention was directed toward just trying to heal, and there was little room for the Evangelion Pilots.

But then, nine months ago, all of that changed.

The hacking of the UN security files and the subsequent leaks of not only their own data on the pilots, but also all of the files that they had managed to recover from NERV, has been nothing less than earth-shaking. Granted, little had been revealed about the Human Instrumentality Project and SEELE’s designs that the public didn’t already know, though the full extent of their machinations had been troubling. However, it was the data on the pilots that had been the most troubling, and revealed how little we truly understood about the Earth’s murderers.

For decades, Shinji Ikari had been painted as a willing participant in his father’s schemes, Gendo Ikari’s heir anointed and trusted lieutenant. But now we knew the truth. He was little more than a child forced into taking part in a war that he wanted no part in and suffered greatly for. We listened to the recordings of his screams of agony, his enraged curses and threats, and his pleas for help on behalf of himself and his fellow pilots. We read the psychological evaluations of his frequent depressive states, his attempts to run away, and the lack of support that he received. We learned of his own father’s cold treatment of him, and how Gendo Ikari would psychologically torture his son to get him back into the cockpit of his Evangelion.

And with all of this came the truth. Shinji and the other pilots were deliberately abused. Evangelions were at their most effective when bonded with a broken soul. The pilots were traumatized time and time again in order to increase their effectiveness in combat and denied help afterward. In light of this new information, we ourselves were forced to confront an uncomfortable truth. Shinji Ikari’s decision to cause Third Impact was less the act of megalomaniac enacting his father’s master scheme as it was that of a suffering child drowning in a sea of rage and torment, desperate to escape the Hell that his life had become.

Who among us as children has not wished that the world would end at one time or another? Shinji was simply unfortunate enough to have the means to do so thrust into his hands when at his lowest, and he had far more reason to do so than anyone ever could have imagined. And by all accounts, he regretted it immediately afterward.

There is no justifying what he did, no taking back the suffering that he caused. But at least now, people have come to understand why, and feel that he had been unfairly mischaracterized by history.

But that was far from the biggest bombshell to come out of that leak. Just as everyone was coming to terms with what we had learned about someone so long believed to be a monster, we discovered something that pushed almost all discussion of Shinji Ikari out of everyone’s minds.

Rei Ayanami had survived.

If there is anyone among the Evangelion Pilots subject to more discussion, demonization, and blame for what had happened, it is her. And why wouldn’t she be? An artificial human, created by a combination of human DNA and genetic material gathered from Lilith, the secretly imprisoned second Angel, literally created to serve as Lilith’s resurrection and the one to carry out the Third Impact.

Rei had fulfilled her purpose. She had bonded with Adam, the first Angel, and transformed into an abomination. Those who witnessed Third Impact spoke of a monster, an enormous pale-skinned woman embracing the Earth. And there was little reason to doubt this, as her gigantic corpse had been found just offshore of the ruins of Tokyo-3 and sits in the Human Instrumentality Research Center to this day, alongside the recovered remains of the Evangelions themselves, the corpses of the Angels, and the last remaining pool of LCL, containing the souls of those who decided to remain in Instrumentality. Surely, if anyone deserves to be painted as a monster, it is her. And it wasn’t as if she were around to protest how the history books characterized her, as she had perished immediately after destroying the world.

Except she hadn’t, at least not permanently. She had come back, and had been found alongside Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley. The whole time when the UN had been making scapegoats of those poor children, the actual monster had been in their hands, and they said nothing.

However, calling even Rei a monster had proven to be more complicated than anyone could have expected.

The topic of Rei Ayanami’s rebirth is woven into the enigma of her existence. Much has been made of her reincarnation as Lilith, while next to nothing has ever been discussed about Rei Ayanami the person, Rei Ayanami the human. And why would there be? All accounts of her painted her as a cold, emotionless being, as befitting her alien origins. What more is there to discuss?

As it turns out, there is plenty.

We have long known of NERV’s barbaric and, dare I say, downright blasphemous experiments involving the human soul, how each of the Evangelions literally had the soul of a person close to its chosen pilot embedded into its neural network. For Shinji and Asuka, it was their mothers. But what of Rei? What of this artificial person, created from a test tube, born from a vat? What person could possibly fill that role?

As it turns out, it was herself.

Three years after her creation, Rei was accidentally killed by Dr. Akagi, one of the scientists working on the Human Instrumentality Project. Her soul was preserved, thanks to its artificial nature. However, with her death, NERV saw an opportunity. Only half of her soul was implanted within a fresh clone body, while the other served as the core of Unit 00, the first of the Evangelions.

With only half a human soul, Rei’s capacity to experience normal emotions and form human connections was severely stunted, resulting in the passive, almost robotic individual described by those who knew her. She was likewise groomed to be utterly obedient, valuing little for her own life while carrying out her orders with no hesitation. And yet, despite these handicaps, connections did form. Notes from her handlers speak of a growing friendship between herself and Shinji Ikari, one that had NERV’s command concerned. After all, should she somehow break free from their programming, it could threaten all of their carefully laid plans.

This was further complicated by her second death, when Eva 00 became infected by Armisael, the Sixteenth Angel, and was forced to self-destruct before the infection could spread. Again, Rei’s soul was retrieved, but with no Eva to implant half of it into, the entire thing was placed within her new body. And unwilling to risk having a Rei Ayanami suddenly experiencing the full range of human emotions with no prior experience controlling them in such a critical stage, NERV using psychiatric drugs, tranquilizers, and mental conditioning to keep her confined within her customary passive and pliable state, right up until the end.

The topic of Rei’s latest resurrection has also been heavily debated. Certainly, her own recounting of the event has been less than helpful. We know that NERV had a number of clone bodies in reserve should she die in battle, but they were all destroyed leading up to Third Impact. According to Rei herself, a new body was formed by a “her,” presumably Lilith. Another time she claimed to have created the new body herself. But regardless of the body’s origin, following Lilith’s death, her human soul somehow found its way back into the final clone body, where she was later found by Shinji and Asuka, and remained with them for the next fourteen.

Part of the reason that the outrage against the UN has found it difficult to be sustained is that there is a lack of agreement on what exactly to be outraged about, as so much was revealed that turned everything that we thought to be true on its head, causing more confusion than anger. But perhaps the most revealing aspect of the leaks were what has since been dubbed the Pilot Interviews, recordings of the interrogations of the Evangelion Pilots following their capture.

Shinji Ikari’s were certainly eye-opening. Throughout his questioning, he was revealed to be a man haunted by his actions, someone who spent years drowning in guilt and who had only just begun to break the surface. He spoke of his many failed suicide attempts, of begging both Rei and Asuka to put him out of his misery, and seemed completely resigned to whatever justice he was to be sentenced to, though at times a passive-aggressive streak would surface, especially whenever the topic of his infamous father came up. Still, if anything, it was these series of tapes that did the most to rehabilitate his image.

Asuka’s, on the other hand, were anything but passive. If anything, she was downright hostile. It was clear that she did not feel that her and her companion’s capture was in any way justified, and felt compelled to explain her disdain to her interrogators in full, and often very colorful, detail. Nor did she feel the slightest bit remorseful for any part that she had to play in NERV’s atrocities.

There has been some debate if her attitude was warranted, with her defenders pointing out that she was correct, that she hadn’t actually had anything to do directly with Third Impact, while others claim that given the circumstances, her behavior reeked of haughty entitlement.

However, all of that was completely overshadowed by the third set of interview sessions, that of Rei Ayanami.

If Shinji’s were regretful and Asuka’s volatile, then Rei’s were downright unhinged. A far cry from the serene, almost emotionless person that she was said to be, this Rei was fully out of control, at times exploding with anger, screaming curses and profanities and death threats so detailed that they seemed less threats as they were expressed intentions that she would have carried out were she able. Other times she would collapse into a blubbering mess, wailing and pleading for forgiveness. Other times she would enter into a catatonic state, seeming to retreat within herself and not respond to any stimuli whatsoever. And still others times she would sink into a full depressive state, unable to respond with anything more than a few whispered, one-word answers, while frequently asking for death.

Certainly, the tapes of Rei’s sessions were disturbing, and to this day no one seems to know what to make of them. Is she truly the monster that she’s made out to be? An innocent victim? Nothing on those tapes seemed to indicate either way.

However, Dr. Anno of London-2 University seems to have what I feel to be the most likely answer. Rei was someone who grew up as an incomplete person. With half of her soul locked away in a gigantic bio-mechanical abomination, she was kept from experiencing the full range of human emotions, and thus never learned how to control her feelings when those emotions were returned to her. She then spent the next fourteen years thrust into a harrowing survival situation, where her only two points of human contact weren’t exactly the finest examples of emotional stability either.

However, as different as the three pilots’ reactions to their interrogators were, there is one thing that united all three: a fervent, almost desperate concern for the well-being of the other two. Rei was the most overt, with her episodes of rage especially largely spent demanding to see Shinji and Asuka and making graphic threats should any harm befall them, but Shinji and Asuka also frequently pleaded to be reunited with each other and Rei. It is clear that whatever their relationship had been during their time actually piloting the Evangelions, the fourteen years that they had spent together had formed an extremely close bond.

What followed next, we all know. Shinji and Asuka’s capture was made public, with no mention of Rei. Those two were then put on trial before the UN Council and found guilty, with the last time that the world saw them was them being led through a jeering crowd toward the waiting transports. And from there, they were to be taken away, never to see the light of day again.

However, we now know that the trial was, at least in part, a façade. An act. Almost a stage play. A deal had been struck with Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley: take the fall for the Third Impact, and you will be reunited with Rei. And then the three of you will be taken somewhere safe to live out your days in peace. The world needed a scapegoat, and it was to be them. Naturally, they agreed.

At this point, the tide had fully turned in favor of the unfairly maligned Evangelion Pilots. Even Rei was starting to be treated with some measure of sympathy. But it was what happened next that fully won over people’s hearts.

As I said, we all have the image of Shinji and Asuka being led away from the trial burned into our minds. The sorrow on Shinji’s face and the resentment on Asuka’s. The featureless helmets of their bodyguards. The trash flying through the air, hurled by the angry crowd. But what nobody knew until now was what happened when they reached their destination, and when they were finally reunited with Rei.

The nature of the relationship between Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley has, like everything else about them, been hotly debated, though it has been commonly accepted that they were lovers. And it was this moment that definitively proved that assertion, but with a new wrinkle: not only were Shinji and Asuka romantically tied, but Rei was equally involved with both of them.

It feels horribly gauche to comment on such an intimate moment, especially since it was no doubt intended to be private, but I feel that it was this moment that the world fully realized how cruel those grossly exaggerated portrayals in our media have been. These were not monsters. These were not villainous masterminds. These were people. People that loved one another, people that were willing to shoulder the blame for history’s greatest tragedy in order to protect one another, people that gave up everything just to be with each other. Yes, they had done terrible things, and yes, they should bear that responsibility. However, it is now clear that they are far from the monsters that history has deliberately painted them out to be.

But of course, it was not enough to completely upend everything that we had thought that we had known the Eva Pilots. It was not enough to smack us with the truth of Rei’s existence or her humanity. We were then confronted with perhaps the strangest revelations of them all.

And that was that the Evangelion Pilots were almost certainly still alive.

One hundred and twelve years have passed since Third Impact, and though people living past a hundred is not unheard of, it is still exceptionally rare. However, even before the leaks, people have pointed that despite the fourteen-year gap between Third Impact and the pilots’ capture, Shinji and Asuka still looked fourteen, when they ought to be in their late twenties. Was this the result of piloting an Evangelion? Some Faustian deal made with Lilith? A result of NERV’s experiments, perhaps?

Whatever it was that kept their youth, it persisted even after their incarceration. Shinji, Asuka, and Rei lived on under the watch of the United Nations for another eight years, and none of them so much as aged a day. What is more, tests ran on the pilots showed that their cells lacked any sort of molecular decay. Quite the contrary, their bodies stalwartly resisted any sort of damage at all. Any wounds were swiftly healed, any diseases immediately snuffed out, with even complete brain death being nothing more than a temporary inconvenience. A rather disturbing but revealing file revealed that all three pilots had attempted suicide a number of different times during the first few years following Third Impact, with Rei Ayanami especially taking painstaking notes on the various methods that she employed and their effectiveness, which was none. There was some speculation as to whether this strange regeneration would persist in the face of total disintegration, but no one was willing to give the go-ahead to check.

Regardless, the case was clear. Whether it be an undeserved blessing or an ironic curse, the three Eva pilots had been afflicted with some sort of immortality, frozen forever in time from the moment of Third Impact. As such, despite the decades since, they are no doubt living today, unchanged from those historical photos.

Unfortunately, there seems no way to actually check, as they are very much gone. As stated before, eight years into their incarceration, they simply vanished without a trace. A thorough, yet discrete investigation into the matter took place, during which a conspiracy sympathetic to the pilots’ plight was uncovered, with a number of UN staffers close to the pilots found to be complicit. However, no one could say where the pilots were now, as their point of release was known only to a small few, and deliberate effort was made not to keep track of them after they had been released.

Which means that Shinji Ikari, Asuka Soryu Langley, and, perhaps most unsettling, Rei Ayanami, the three most controversial figures of the last century, are currently loose somewhere in the world. Perhaps they are wandering the forests of the Americas, the deserts of Africa, or perhaps even returned home to Japan. Perhaps they took on new names, disguised their appearances, and are now living in some suburban home somewhere, or returned their old life from before incarceration and joined one of the many refugee camps in one of the cities slow to recover. They could be in a small Swedish village, in a cabin in the Australian outback, in a treehouse in the Amazon jungle, or any one of the literally millions of other points on the map.

Naturally, there has been much talk about finding them again, some wishing to make amends and publicly make up for the blame that they had been forced to shoulder, others feeling that they still had not repaid their debt to society and should be returned to imprisonment. And there are still others that do not care for either side, but instead insist that they remain a clear and present danger, that more was changed about them than granting them eternal life, that they are inhuman monsters fully capable of ending the world again and need to be stopped. But whatever the motive, something almost everyone agrees on is that they do need to be found.

And I am here to offer up a dissenting opinion. Regardless of whether you love them, hate them, feel bad for them, or feel threatened by them, the Evangelion Pilots should be left alone. This, I feel, would be best for everyone.

Whenever the exploits, positive or negative, of the pilots are brought up, there seems to be a sort of hierarchy to the degree each one is discussed. Shinji seems to be the one brought up the most, as he is still unquestionably the trigger-man of Third Impact. Asuka comes next, given everyone’s complicated feelings toward her and her swaths of supporters. After that is Rei, who, even before her survival was discovered, still occupied a very contentious place in history as the monster who directly ended the world. And then there is Kaworu Nagisa, perhaps the greatest enigma of them all, a half-Angel/half-human artificial being like Rei, created specifically by SEELE as a countermeasure to any possible treachery on NERV’s part, but was killed by Shinji Ikari before his plans could come about, and yet seems to have played as vital a part in Third Impact as Rei, but by the same token, apparently did not see resurrection like she did.

But there is a fifth name that is often forgotten in those discussions, a fifth Evangelion Pilot. And that is none other than Touji Suzuhara the Fourth Child.

It is not that Touji is totally unknown, but he exists in the public consciousness as a sort of footnote, a trivia question at best. Though he was selected as a pilot and given an Evangelion of his own, his Evangelion became possessed by Bardiel, the Thirteenth Angel, during its first test run, leading to its destruction. And though he survived, Touji was critically injured in the process, and with no Evangelion to pilot, he quietly left the program to fade out of history.

In a way, Touji was perhaps the luckiest one of them all. The early destruction of his Evangelion protected him from having to participate in the mentally harrowing battles against the Angels, and he was spared of being an active participant in Third Impact. Even afterward, he was part of the first wave of people to emerge from Instrumentality, even reuniting with most of his family and many of his friends, going on to live about as full of a life as one could in those desolate circumstances. And while the tides of history have mostly washed over him, some effort was made to locate him. During Shinji and Asuka’s trials, once it was discovered that he was among the refugees recovered from Tokyo-3, there were multiple news outlets attempting to seek him out for interviews. However, they were far too late, as he and his family were long gone.

And I know all of this, as Touji Suzuhara was my great-grandfather.

I have very little memory of Touji. Though he lived much longer than most, he at least was spared the immortality that afflicted the other pilots and passed away when I was six, and what little I do recall about him paints a picture of a quiet, reserved old man. However, in interviewing various members of my family, I was told of someone who made every effort to flee his past but was unable to fully shake its shadow. I heard stories of bullying and harassment in those early refugee camps, of the other survivors trying to blame him and his family for what had happened, much as Shinji and Asuka would be publicly blamed later. It got to the point that as soon as they were rescued and carried away from Tokyo-3, his whole family changed their names and fled, disappearing into a still-chaotic world to find a place where nobody knew them.

In time, they succeeded, eventually settling in Austria. Though they had nothing and did not even know the language, that mattered little as very few of their neighbors had much either, and they were far from the only immigrants wandering in. There, they were able to blend in, carving out a niche for themselves and building something resembling a life, and no one ever discovered their connection to history’s so-called greatest monsters.

But even so, my great-grandfather never forgot. Though he never neglected his family and tried his best to provide for them, everyone that I spoke to made him out to be a broken man, someone who had lost the light in his eyes, who would smile very little and always seemed to be lost in his own thoughts. It was forbidden to speak to him of the time before Third Impact, and the very few times he did talk of it, it was from the viewpoint of someone who never truly left Tokyo-3, haunted by ghosts.

Touji might have been forgotten by history, but he bore his scars. Unfair blame was placed upon my family’s shoulders for what had happened, and we know all too well what it is like to be made scapegoats by the those who need someone to blame for their suffering. And though I have never met Shinji Ikari, Asuka Soryu Langley, or Rei Ayanami, and know about as much about them as everyone else, I at least have some measure of understanding of how unfairly they’ve been characterized. And I am sure that they desire validation about as much as they deserve further condemnation, which is to say, not at all. As such, I feel that the kindest thing to do would be to just let them be. Wherever they are, leave them alone to seek their own peace. Because I assure you, they have paid for their sins in full. They pay every day, remembering their part in the previous world’s death.

And to those who still think them a threat, who still believe that they possess the power to once again end the world despite no evidence to back that up, consider this: they have had ample opportunity and reason to wield that power, and yet never have. As such, perhaps it would be best not to provoke them?

No matter how you feel about the Evangelion Pilots, I see little that can be gained by seeking them out. They have taken more than their fair punishment, and would likely shun any reward. And as the descendant of one of their number, I say, let my great-grandfather’s companions be and move on. We have all suffered enough.