And If That Don't Work?
by Sunshine Temple is a Neon Genesis Evangelion -and some Team Fortress 2 and The Spoony Experiment- fanfic where with enough gun, even an Angel can be destroyed, AT field and all, without an Eva. Of course, this tactic usually means wiping out a fair chunk of the surrounding area. And you definitely don't want your pilot and Operations Director getting caught in the blast. Nevertheless, with a proven alternative available, NERV's political position has changed big time. And Shinji? Well...Shinji rapidly becomes either unrecognizable or more "natural".
By the same author is The Return, a Ranma ½/Sailor Moon cross which does much the same thing with those franchises.
This fic contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Neither Gendo or Dr. Insana are hostile to their children, but it's hard to categorize their parenting to either as anything else.
- Alice Allusion: Shinju's got the hairband, dress, and morbid cuteness.
- Asteroids Monster:
- Israfel keeps splitting and doesn't stop until it numbers in the hundreds. Then they start using tactics, proving that, yes, the Angels are getting smarter.
- Matarael uses a very similar tactic in its attack.
- Band of Brothers: Used and Deconstructed. In ch 9, Shinju gives the Saint Crispin's Day speech from Henry V to invoke this trope as part of a plan to get the public to accept the Cyborg, half Evangelion Asuka/Kiko.
- Beehive Hairdo: Asuka (yes, Asuka) is talked into wearing one of these to a victory party. It's likely a case of Author Appeal, especially given the dress◊ she wears with it. It eventually becomes a permanent feature.
- Conditioned to Accept Horror: Asuka is subjected to operand conditioning to keep her functional after being burned by acid down to a "screaming potato" and then rebuilt as a cybernetic human-Evangelion hybrid. She happily notes that she doesn't get nightmares about it, ever.
- Plus Brainwashing for loyalty, obedience, and discomfort with old bodily functions.
- Creepy Child: Shinju has two settings: this or
Moe...especially when she's happily cleaning her various weapons. - Creepy Doll: In keeping with the above, most people think Shinju's doll collection is cute. Asuka on the other hand...
- Doorstopper: 254,979 words over twelve chapters.
- Fembot: Visually at least◊ Kiko straddles the line between this and Robot Girl.
- First-Episode Resurrection
- Shinji gets resurrected via clone, resulting in Shinju becoming more badass, assertive, and popular than Shinji ever was.
- A couple chapters later the cycle restarts with Asuka seeing Shinju in her first scene and with Kaji seeing Misako. Apparently It Runs in the Family.
- Flower Motifs: Shinju is sent an unusual bouquet in ch. 6. As a Genius Bonus, the flowers can all be negatively interpreted as Death, Revenge, Suspicion, and Loathing. This is a warning of Mikki's true intentions.
- Four Is Death: This time Shinju is the Fourth Child. To ram the point home: after her fifth kill she gains the nickname "Ace of Spades."
- Humans Through Alien Eyes: From ch. 5 on, the fic is starting to feature scenes from the Angels' perspective. For them, humans are monsters that consort with Eldritch Abominations and perverted Angelic flesh to make war machines. Nuclear weapons are particularly horrifying to them, being machines capable of destroying souls.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Ritsuko goes for her office liquor stash while discussing Kiko and the Ayanamis' ability to generate AT fields, Insana's proposed built-in armaments, and general discipline issues.
- I'm Melting!: Asuka basically gets partially liquefied by Matarael's acid attack in ch. 7. Practically Gorn.
- It's Raining Men: Nerv hard drops far more than often than canon, such as the Ramiel battle. Unlike the canon this time the pilots regularly sing paratrooper songs. It's that kind of fic.
- Loss of Identity
- Shinju is unrecognizable as Shinji after a couple of chapters and is picking up bits of Rei.
- Misato is mostly herself, but she does refer to "Katsuragi" as another person.
- And poor
AsukaKiko. Shinju even encourages her to give up on her old self.
- Mad Scientist: Given all the cloning, Angel-killing nukes, and the Evangelions themselves...seems to be a theme.
- It should be noted that the "sanest" one is an expy of The Engineer who designed and built a plane armed with a giant nuclear-powered Gatling rail gun.
- Insana is after ch. 7 the undisputed king of this trope amongst the characters of this story.
- Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter: And the man that embraces the above to the fullest just happens to be Asuka's father. Former MIT Professor Tino Noah Insana. You can guess his nickname. Arguably a weirder father than Gendo, and in charge of S2 research.
- Meaningful Rename: Asuka —> Nigokiko/Kiko after Asuka was turned into a human/EVA-02 hybrid.
- Mildly Military: NERV is seen as this by JSSDF and Azazel. One of the key themes of the fic is NERV being forced to become more transparent.
- Nuclear Weapons Taboo: Very much averted, though the political (and other) fallout of using nukes keeps NERV in business.
- Oxymoronic Being: Kiko is a miniature giant robot. That is, she's half Evangelion but human sized.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: In chapter 5, Misako uses this exact phrase when discussing the dummy plugs.
- Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: Asuka is constantly reminded that she blew up a mountain as a high point of her first battle, despite her complaints of it being covered with Angels and rather small.
- Shinju too, just ask about Operation Excelsior around her.
- Robot Girl: Subverted by Kiko, who is a human/Eva hybrid .
- Shout-Out: Team Fortress 2, Firefly, The Spoony Experiment, The Venture Brothers, Portal
- Shovel Strike: The Evangelions have Spetsnaz-style prog shovels.
- Soviet Superscience: Mostly averted. The Angel Buster nukes are slight modifications of real weapons.
- Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Nigokiko was designed to be a Sapiency Driver for Unit 02... to enable Asuka to Pilot Unit 02, being able to generate AT fields is just a side effect.
- Survival Mantra: Latching onto a bit of advice from Rei, Shinju has "Open your heart" which she chants while gutting Angels.
- Tailor-Made Prison: Ever wonder where Nerv was planning to put Sandalphon? Enter the Caina Containment Complex, a prison for Angels. It's secured by a nuclear Sword of Damocles Dead Man's Switch, much to Iry's chagrin.
- They Called Me Mad!: Ritsuko says this exact line in the first chapter.
- Token Human: Toji is currently the only pilot who is not partly Angel/Evangelion.
