I’m very bad at finishing things. It’s the ADHD curse; I’m not officially diagnosed with it but not only are a lot of the experiences I read about are HIGHLY relatable but also both my brothers are diagnosed. My mom even displays a lot of symptoms, albeit also undiagnosed, and she’s the one link my brothers (who are technically my HALF-brothers but I never cared to make the distinction) share with me.
As a result, I have very few finished long-form fics. I’ve finished three, four if you count a series of shorter form fics as a longer-form fic. Solaris Caelum is the most recent of these and the one I consider the best.
Of course, it has a lot going for it. First of all, the actual finished version, Solaris Caelum Rebuilt, is a “rebuild” (re: a rewrite AND reworking) of its unfinished predecessor Solaris Caelum. There was a few reasons I never finished that version; I was falling out of hyperfixation with Neon Genesis Evangelion, I was struggling on how to make the back half interesting and largely...I didn’t know how to end it! The big problem was the final Rebuild movie, which we now know as 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time, was still stuck in development hell and would remain there until 2022, a whole three years after the last chapter of my original fic! Finally watching that in mid-2024 (somewhat delayed due to said falling out of interest) gave me a lot of fresh inspiration on how I could not only rewrite it but add some new and interesting twists.
Solaris Caelum is a Peggy Sue fic, or if you’re a newgen, a “Time-Travel Fix-It”. My first exposure to NGE fics of this genre used the prior term which makes sense considering the fanbase has been around since the 90s! Peggy Sue fics are pretty common in the fanbase and it seems canon even leans into the idea with the Kaworu Time Loop theory being at least soft-confirmed in 3.0+1.0. Most fics of the trope center around Shinji waking back up during Episode 1 with all his memories intact and now having to deal with the challenge of preventing Third Impact, often diverging the timeline wildly in the process.
Peggy Sue fics are easy to write which is probably why they’re so common in the fandom. You’ve already got a formula; 15 angels to defeat and a big finale to (hopefully) prevent. This can create a problem though which I see many fics fall into; you might end up retreading territory the show or movies already covered. If I want to see the kids kill Matarael through teamwork and without guidance, I’d just watch the original series! And don’t worry, Solaris Caelum fell into this in its first version. There’s a reason why I ripped the Matarael fight out of Rebuilt entirely. Even Rebuilt falls into this a little; the Sahaquiel chapter is more about character dynamics than how the actual fight changes.
I don’t really see too many fics like this centering around the other kids. I’ve seen a few with Rei, including the incredible The Girl Who Shouted I at the Heart of the World. Asuka’s also got a handful like the sadly unfinished Unbroken. Occasionally, you see some with other characters like Gendo in the also sadly dormant Evangelion: Rebuild a Legend. But I rarely saw ones where two (or even more?) characters were in on it. So here’s the first block: a Peggy Sue fic where two characters are in on it and have to, SHUDDER….work together.
The second building block is easy; my two favorite characters are Kaworu and Asuka. Kaworu is an inhuman being who seems to desire being human and is even kinder than the humanity you see in the show. Asuka is a deeply traumatized girl who lashes out at the world and is nowhere near aware of the deeper machinations surrounding her. Kaworu ends the series dead (but the Rebuilds imply he does not stay this way) and Asuka seems to end the series...resigned to her fate. End of Evangelion’s ending is so vague it’s hard to tell what Asuka will have to suffer the Post-Impact world but I decided to explore what happens when a notoriously self-centered girl learns there is so so much more at stake...and even better meets Kaworu who, like he did Shinji before, offers to accept her despite her flaws.
Being aromantic made it important to me their relationship remained platonic (sorry, that really isn’t a spoiler unless you missed the tags) and, eventually, nonhostile. The two have interacted maybe a handful of times in the franchise, including an audio play where Asuka ribs him for being gay and it’s become a little bit of an accepted bit of characterization in the fandom (unless you’re an Asurei or Asumari shipper in which case, that would make her a big ol’ hypocrite). So already, I knew they’d make an odd pair of friends...but isn’t that one of the appeals of fanfiction? Making things happen that would never in canon?
So the basic premise was here; Asuka and Kaworu, with memories of the past, go out to try to prevent Third Impact. Kaworu has gone through this many many times where this is Asuka’s first experience which gave them an interesting dynamic; the laidback yet jaded veteran to the still optimistic and determined first-timer. Without spoiling things too much, their dynamic evolves over the course of the fic along with how they, together, change the people around them.
But to find that all out...you’ve got to read it for yourself.