[FFML] [NGE] Before and After - Chapter 8

[Michael Clark]

>> I met the Fifth one week after I was brought to life again.
>
> Try to avoid pasting two distinct numbers next to each other like
> this, by say inserting the word "child" between them.
>
>> He stiffened.  He stopped at the corner, facing away.
>
> Stiffened then skidded to a stop? In his skin tight outfit?
>
>> Ikari-kun was right.  I found my locker quickly.  I removed my
>> clothes.  I donned the white suit, and a button at the wrist
>> tightened it.  The material conformed to my flesh.  I stored my
>> [school] uniform in the locker.
>
> Suggested clarification.
>
>> There must've been a reason.
>
> That line doesn't do much for me.  How about "He knew I was a fake."

Fair points on all of these.
>
>> But she was right about the other thing.  I'd been looking for
>> Ikari-kun over those six days.  I'd seen him little since he visited
>> me in the hospital.  At that time, I still wore my bandages.  The
>> major had said, one of those days, that Ikari-kun and I were
>> connected.  "When I held you in my apartment," she'd said, "it was
>> Shinji-kun who called in the cavalry to save you.  You left that
>> night in a hurry, and it saddened him, but he wouldn't say what
>> happened or why."
>
> One of those days seems like an odd term.  How about having Rei throw
> in an exact day here, just to show she's weird?.
>
Yeah, I suppose something like saying it was the fourth day or so.  I
guess I'd avoid a specific, named day, as that would be meaningless.

>> and a bag of intravenous fluids hung from a stand.
>
> fluid, not plural.
>
Something like "a bag of fluids" or "intravenous fluid" then?

>> To the sound of the overhead speaker, a pair of nurses jogged by.
>
> They're playing jogging music or what?
>
This line is meant to set up Shinji running into the crash cart.
Perhaps "jogged" isn't the best term for it, but I did want something
between an outright run and a walk.

>> He looked at my shoes.  "But Ayanami[, you] came to visit; that's
>> nice of you."
>
> Without that part it seems like he's talking to her in third person.
> If you want him to stumble in and out of third then space that out a
> bit.

That's fair.

>> "You're not leaving?" he said again.  "That's okay; maybe..."  He
>> stepped back.  "Maybe it's better if I just take this [a]way.  I
>> don't want the nurses upset because of the food or anything, since I
>> have to go."
>
> Yes, or which way?

Yes.

>> There was a _thud_.  The tray tilted.  Ikari-kun ran headlong into a
>> defibrillation cart.  The bowl of stew flipped end-over-end.  It
>> missed the paddles and the two attendants.  It didn't miss Ikari-kun.
>
> Does she look outside the room? I don't get the angle here.

I should clarify that this is directly outside the doorway.  He turns,
he takes a step, and then bam!  So to speak.

>> We sat together on the futon.  With a bed right beside it, I surmised
>> he preferred the floor, but I didn't ask--not then.
>
> By not saying sleeping here, you've got an implication going on.

Yeah, that's the futon on which Shinji slept over the night before.  I
think originally I wanted to have Kaworu rub it in that Shinji trusted
him, a stranger, over Rei or anyone else, but the timing never felt
right to do so.

>> "You speak of aliens," I said.
>>
>> "Ah, so you've heard the term!"
>
> Isn't fighting them her day job?
>
To be honest, I'm not sure if at any time they really see themselves as
fighting aliens, nor are the Angels strictly more alien than humans
are... or something.  And that aside, it strikes me as reasonable that
Rei could have some level of arbitrary skepticism about aliens that
aren't on Earth versus ones that are already here.

>> Some of that is true, the rest lies, but all of it is incomplete.
>
> You need some sort of number agreement here. Perhaps delete "of that".
>
Fair point.

>> This boy--he knew things he shouldn't have.  I told myself it'd be
>> reasonable to stay, if only to find out what he knew, but...
>>
>> I sat, and the Fifth, with a smile, continued.
>
> So did she take off her shoes or not?
>
Maybe the shoes were just a bad idea; it gets a bit clumsy.

>> the first ones lived on, their planet was dying.  The great and many
>> creatures that grew in the soil, swam through the seas, or flew
>> through the air--all died or were irrevocably corrupted.  Can you see
>> it, First?  A sky with no birds, an ocean with no fish?  A place
>> where the soil itself is inert and hasn't a trace of microscopic
>> life?  That was the world they woke up to."
>
> How could anything have lived in the soil if the soil was already
> completely covered.

Sun or no sun, microbes should still be expected in the ground.  The
description here is a bit inspired from TNG's "The Inner Light," where
the people on an alien world realize their planet's dying because their
soil samples are completely inert.

That said, it strikes me that, if the first ones could survive a gamma
ray burst to a significant extent, there's probably some strange form of
bacteria or other single-celled organism that could survive it, too.

>> "You'd think humanity would be grateful for this turn, happy to be
>> alive, but they weren't.  So determined they are to achieve something
>> higher than their existence, they disturbed Adam.  They ripped the
>> soul of Adam from the giant's body.  They set off the cataclysm they
>> call _Second Impact_.  And that, First, is why we're both here, isn't
>> it?  To keep Adam's children from returning to their progenitor?  The
>> people here--they hold Adam's body in the place they call _Terminal
>> Dogma_.  Ikari Gendo--he hopes to make that body part of his own, but
>> that isn't enough."
>
> The underscores are getting a bit much here, especially for somebody
> who's famous for being understated.

It's not emphasis being indicated here so much as a use versus mention
distinction.  Admittedly, I may have used that too much here, or perhaps
single quotes (since this is in dialogue) would've been less
distracting.
>
>> He grinned.  It was serene; it was chilling.  I stood up, backing
>> away, and he rose, too.
>
> His grin is it?  The pronouns are a jumble here.

Yes. I'm not quite sure how I'm going to fix that construction.

> Nicely done, which choose your adventure ending do you put forwards?

I've been planning towards something along the lines of End of
Evangelion, but I've realized there are some problems with that.  All
along, I've tried to interpolate Rei's growth as it led to a major
decision point in her life:  she chooses to reunite with Lilith and
instigate Third Impact and Instrumentality.  Now that I'm rapidly
approaching that moment, I realize I can't gloss over it or treat it
broadly--to a more significant extent than before, I have to break my
rule of avoiding depictions of what was already shown to happen.  I
think I've come to terms with that by now, though yesterday I found it
unpalatable enough that I pounded out a prologue to a Haruhi story I'd
been thinking about for some time, just as a diversion.

But like I said, I feel like that's all inevitable, so I'm hoping to do
the best I can with it, so that the retreaded material isn't too dull.
I'd wanted to be a bit bolder and thought about integrating all the
introspection from the TV ending into the EoE stuff, but I came around
to thinking that had even less value.  I love writing introspection, but
repeating someone else's work in that respect just felt very empty and
much less necessary than repeating plot that must necessarily occur.

Thanks for all your help with this, Henry.

-Michael Clark