#using asuka-shinji-kaworu as the example that just sucks so bad

[daisyachain]

there’s one version of an f/m/m triangle that crops up so often I’m surprised there isn’t at least a tvtropes/vernacular name for it. Miyokichi/Kiku/Shin. Molly/Fitz/Fool. Asuka/Shinji/Kaworu. Futaba/Taichi/Touma. not-really-but-you-could-shove-it-in-here Luthien/Beren/Finrod. Utena/Touga/Saionji is a twisted spun-on-its-head version of it. Specifically comprising:

masculine male character A: either is the protagonist or a character on to which male viewers can project.

female character B: a secondary character and A’s official love interest, often kept apart from A by story/circumstance/gender roles. Shows some resentment of the trials she’s put through by the story in being A’s lover such as being shoved to the side, cut out of his life, or put in danger.

less masculine male character C: another major character, A’s devoted sidekick, feminine and/or conspicuously cold toward women or sexuality, somewhat ill-used by A but not resentful about it, as a contrast to B.

The dynamic is used pretty equally by female and male creators, though probably with different purposes. Outside the story, there’s a clear explanation for how the roles are divided: men are main, women are peripheral. Obviously the female love interest has to be on the margins of the story. Obviously the male main character has to have an ally in-story who can bounce dialogue back. Any human person has to have a best friend (for men, has to be male) and a lover (for men, has to be female). The major character male bestie and the minor character female gf is the minimum character dynamic you need to sustain the main character as a believable construction.

Except within the story, the dynamic begs far too many questions. On B’s part: her other half and love interest uses her for sex once every few chapters and dumps her to go off on another plot-relevant adventure. She’s kept in the dark, talked down to, pushed away, and distrusted. Her place at her sweetie’s side is occupied by Some Dude and no matter how much she puts into their relationship, she’s always going to be a prize for after the mission. Why does she stay with him? What could possibly attract her about this bestubbled grunt machine whose passion for the sword outmatches anything she’s given him?

On C’s part: he gets used as an emotional support crutch, designed to service his best friend’s every need at the expense of his own goals or story. He’s a housewife, he’s a domestic, he does every thankless story task with a smile because he has to provide the exposition/set up the plot/set the plan in action that carries the main male character to victory. He doesn’t have a love interest of his own, meanwhile the most important person in his life is obsessed with a woman he barely speaks to. Why should he care so much about someone who only takes? Why is he committed to this one-way friendship? What does he think of taking the backseat, providing support, submerging his own will for the sake of a person instead of an ideology?

On A’s part: if he’s a red-blooded heterosexual male character who pursues a woman as is acceptable, why does he dig himself so deep in with his designated ally? Through dialogue and because he has to in order to show the audience, he exposes his heart and soul to C and keeps him in his pocket for as long as we are watching, so why then does he cast him aside so easily? He invests the most time and energy into his relationship with C, cultivating love and loyalty there, but he draws the line so firmly in the sand that the audience is sure he’ll never, ever step aside for one minute to follow the friend. Why does he choose a man for his emotional battery? Why doesn’t he communicate with his supposed partner? Why does he choose to use B and C for sex and solace respectively, and why don’t they ever mix?

The gender dynamics wrap around to simple: women aren’t up to being equal partners to a cool guy, so you need a male wife to do everything for you and appreciate the protagonist’s sick abilities. romance with a man is perverse and impossible, so you need a female love interest to prove that the protagonist isn’t gay and fulfil the audience’s needs. But in-between all of that you could ask some interesting questions of the spoke character, A, the male protagonist whose actions are taken as normal. the question being: bro. what’s wrong with you

#kelsey rambles #aaaaaand the only thing that satisfactorily calls the A-character on his mistreatment is the podcast CARAVAN. which is not good #actually i'd go as far as to say it's bad #rgu goes into it a little but it's nowhere near the main focus of the series #using asuka-shinji-kaworu as the example that just sucks so bad #shinji's treatment of asuka is so horrible and misogynistic and despite her screentime. in shinji's mind she's never more than peripheral #and gets dumped at the last second and turned into a corpse. she's an object of desire and he refuses to recognize the ways they're the same #on the other hand shinji loves and idolizes kaworu.....only in as far as kaworu is his own dream guy who gives him everything he wants #and never makes even the slightest hint of a glimmer of expectation of anything from shinji in return #the moment kaworu's desires become explicit--he's not only killed but erased from the story altogether #eva rebuild 4.0 does this in the most insulting way possible by farming him off with....rei? #not to try and take eva rebuild seriously but the way it expands on kaworu and sidelines asuka is somehow insulting to both of them #even moreso than the original series was. which is saying something #someday i have to read the eva manga because i hear it takes kaworu in a more problematic direction that is still a direction and so better #or as for SGRS--shin is far more loving and devoted to kiku than he is to any woman and takes a killing blow for him #he watches him in life and guides him through the underworld. he gives more to kiku than he gives to anyone. #yet as a character any possibility of like-liking kiku is denied. what's the damage there? #how does it make story sense? why does kiku have a more serious relationship with a woman than the ostensibly straight shin? #the answer is The Misogyny but even then it's jarring to have shin's plain love be obfuscated with the constant references to being straight #as opposed to kiku. who actually has girlfriends and not one-night stands #it's nonsensical to read shin as a straight man and yet any possibility of him returning kiku's feelings is barred off blacked out redacted #leaving us with a dog's breakfast of a dynamic that IS fun. because in this case it's intentionally bad. and the author is winking at us

[ikiruwill]

ok, but what does shinji actually think of his eva? personally, but also aesthetically

OHH omg?? 😭 thank you for asking this, amazing surprise!! mhajsjsj I ended up writing something verrrry long bc my brain kept throwing info at me, so now this a meta I guess rip

For Shinji’s personal thoughts / relationship with Unit-01, there’s extra long detail mainly of Ep1 bc of first impressions / context ( then I’ll try to summarize ). Insight into some tiny details like Shinji’s unspoken thoughts that were maybe missed:

Shinji’s early and personal impressions of Unit-01 is mostly fear if we’re summing things up. The very first scene with it is even a jump scare to emphasize that:

The frame is black, and then after the lights turn on, boom, this:

A GIANT FACE WITH MONSTER EYES THAT GLOW YES I AM LOOKING DIRECTLY AT YOU NOW SON ( with bby framed right in the middle so you know how tiny he is in comparison / and narratively, that he’s also the subject of focus )

.... can confirm scare. Plz no

Much fear. But even before this scene, it’s great to remember that Shinji is already terrified bc he saw Fourth Angel-kun AKA Sachiel wrecking havoc outside, understandably freaked out by its monster appearance / how it was shooting down military planes like they were pieces of paper. Shinji was also directly caught in that earlier crossfire and legit could’ve died just bc everything happening was too close for comfort until Misato finally shows up in her car to pick him up. Best uber But after that they get caught in a huge N2 mine explosion that hits Sachiel dead on but it comes out with barely a scratch / casually just regrows a head or something. Sachiel seems invincible to Shinji by this point and that fact already scares him— as it should.

But back to the Unit-01 scene: as far as Shinji can remember, he’s never seen an Eva or heard of one and he lets everyone know this once Gendo starts pressuring him to pilot it and do the thing to save the world right now plz or else everyone in city dead including Shinji-kun gg

Ofc to Shinji, it’s not a good feeling at all, he’s running through all the sudden facts : Unit-01 is manmade, looks powerful, and it’s supposed to protect us. It isn’t an Angel destroying the city and nonchalantly killing things of military force so there’s no need to hide and run from it— but it’s still alien to me and scary and now my impression of it is even worse because my estranged father and adult strangers are forcing me to get comfortable with it immediately to fight the ‘Angel’ I saw earlier. So I might die after all today.

Fear of death on top of feeling useless / cowardly / abandoned etc is a lot. Then injured Rei scene AKA Gendo’s master guilt tripping plan happens, and it works, but this is also where his impression of Unit-01 changes for the better : There’s a huge tremor, Rei falls off her stretcher, and giant debris is coming down from the ceiling right above her Shinji—

Unit-01 moves on its own does a giant good thing

So this part : It saved him? This robot that he’s only had bad feelings about so far? Shinji is confused af but now feels a strangely positive connection to Unit-01, one he probably can’t put into words, but it ultimately influences his decision on not to run away. bc now it finally feels like there’ll be at least something on his side if he agrees to do this— AKA Unit-01 is the literal “something that can protect / help him”, which we all know is a concept Shinji desperately wants and chases. In this terrifying mess, it’s encouraging to him. And then Shinji says the thing:

Brave bby ( it’s nice to know that he ends up saving Rei again a few eps later, shamelessly serious and gallant / heroic Shinji is underrated don’t @ me )

Fast forward : after that he gets in, syncs perfectly with it, fights Sachiel but almost dies bc he missteps once, starts to panic, but mainly bc he’s never had any proper training prior gg NERV. Unit-01 goes berserk, violently kicks Sachiel’s ass, scares the living hell out of everyone watching etc.

At the end of Ep 2, after Shinji wakes up in the hospital and moves in with Misato, he remembers everything that night, traumatized:

The blood has settled, an already freaked out Shinji turns to see Unit-01 without its cool sci-fi unicorn headplate thing that it shed earlier in battle:

Oh.

Oh.

It’s once again looking straight at him. Oh no this is much scarier than the first time plz no I want the yellow sci-fi Spiderman mask eyes back

Then Shinji understandably screams his lungs out ( and that’s when he probably fell unconscious? ) So now he’s back to fearing Unit-01 bc his Eva is a beast of a robot, on top of now having PTSD from the fight with Sachiel. Unit-01 protected Shinji twice now by going berserk, sure, but it’s also extremely unknown and frightening to him after in ways he couldn’t have expected when he first saw it— the primal kind of fear. ( side note: Primal fear, primal wants, and primal feelings, primal anything in general are a big thematic thing in nge, so it really lingers and comes back even harder in eoe )

Finally for the rest of his personal thoughts on Unit-01, badly summarized bc this is already 2 fucking long thank you to whoever’s still reading LMAOO: Shinji eventually gets used to piloting and tries to push the existential fear of his Eva to the back of his mind, mostly. He always wonders what it is exactly, once admitting that he really doesn’t know anything about Evas while peering into his NERV manual episodes later ( bc NERV is weird about everything and he’s too scared anyone ask past a certain point, ect ). Shinji thinks his Eva smells / feels weirdly calming to him inside despite being scary, but only when his life isn’t in violent danger. Things only suck whenever Unit-01 goes berserk / he loses control somehow / when he finds out certain truths about it. Youknow

On his opinions about Unit-01 aesthetically, I don’t think Shinji has any preferences that make him go ‘YES I totally vibe with this neon genesis green and purple it’s so me’ or anything, he’s just not caught up in the awesome looking giant robot idea at all ( Unlike Kensuke and Asuka ). For example his reaction was just ‘huh? oh... ok. I see?’ at Asuka when they first met when she was showing off shiny and red Unit-02 to him ( which is cool and cooler with a cape ). If you tell Shinji his giant robot is awesome and that you’re in love with the purple paint job, other than demurely acknowledge your praise, he might try to thank you surface level, very awkwardly bc he can’t take credit for that ( also will 1000/10 think that you remind him of Kensuke depending on who’s more intense LOL )

Confused and serious, I guess that’s Shinji’s attitude towards Evas in general ( minus when he’s not freaking out mhajsja ) and it fits the rest of his mild / boring / unassuming personality— like Kaji and Kaworu both said to his face, he can be clueless about his own position as a pilot and how it affects everyone around him. Like the random girls in his class, lots of people think Shinji’s cool for what he gets to do but to him it’s just a thing he has to do, for the most part.

On a sadder note, makes sense bc the only time we see Shinji enjoying something as a hobby is when he’s playing the cello and smiling, even then he just downplays his talent when asked. I think he would be a lot more passionate about music if his circumstances were better. That probably contributes to why he doesn’t care much about Evas in an aesthetic way either. But I think eventually, he’d come to prefer his own Eva just because of how familiar it would look and feel to him, plus his past experiences with it. Many ones.

Unrelated bonus note!! It’s interesting that Unit-01 is the only Eva with a completely different colour scheme when compared to its respective pilot’s plugsuit— in this case, Shinji’s plugsuit being blue and white instead ( as a side note Unit-13 is also purple and green but Shinji and Kaworu’s plugsuits match this time ) But why purple huh? My guess is that aside from wanting the main character’s giant robot to also stand out bc it’s special and awesome, Yui also wears a purple shirt in one of the later episodes showing a long flashback. That screencap stuck with me, idk why. Purple shirt confirmed in nge holy shit mind blown LOL jk in all seriousness we can only speculate. Maybe Yui’s fav colour was purple and Gendo decided to pay tribute to that when they made the Evas. Whatever headcanon hurts us more!

#skyvar #answer ; 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦 𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤. #ooc . #meta . #bless you always give me random and awesome asks q-q #long post /

[thepillareddark]

Complicating the ‘Message’ of Evangelion: Instrumentality and You

People are highly reductive about the final ‘message’ of Neon Genesis Evangelion. This might be a symptom of how the relative confusion of the show sits alongside parts that are clearly brilliant: they want to reduce it to some sort of takeaway point that it’s all building towards because they’re either scared that it’s so good that it justifies what looks like chaos if you pay enough attention- this is the truth- or they’re so overwhelmed and frustrated that they want to believe that it’s not actually that great, and that it’s ultimately making a basic point.

This ‘basic point’ in question is to do with Instrumentality. The moral dichotomy that people think is being set up is:

Either live with everyone in perfect theoretical harmony where no one has any differences and everyone fills each other’s flaws and there can be nothing but total understanding and happiness i.e. Instrumentality

Or

Choose individuality and accept that the best course of action is to be kind to one another, even though everyone has the choice to be mean too

 So they think that it’s just about the hedgehog’s dilemma, that AT fields are just a metaphor for the barriers we put up against one another and that all the personal issues in the show, all the parental and sexual stuff, can be reduced to “Come on guys, just be nice to each other”. This is obviously wrong.

This understanding emerges because lots of people don’t want to challenge themselves or to let a TV show be complicated. Evangelion became a meme, and people always assume that once a piece of art becomes a meme it must be in some way hollow or adolescent. However, to paraphrase Bloom:

“A diminished Evangelion is a critic’s creation”

That is, if you can find it in the show, it’s there and it’s real, and there’s no reason to theorise about how the show isn’t as complex or as good as it appears. Most people are bad critics though, and they tend to think they are smart for having realised a universal message. In fact, universal messages are such a prerequisite of common art that I think one possible definition of art would be that it has a universality to it.

So saying that the instrumentality-problem (the dichotomy mentioned above) is a universal problem, and ‘solving’ the show in that way, is symptomatic of reductive criticism, which is most people’s first mode of criticism. What about an expansive criticism of Evangelion? What would that look like?

Well, firstly, suggesting instrumentality as a potential end all solution ignores what happens in the show. Instrumentality is actually Seele’s final plan, which a lot of people overlook, and it’s a partisan effort to either lock all the members into Eva 06 and become like one of the first ancestral race, or to just eliminate humanity and return to liquid. Gendo’s version of instrumentality is either a very specific one where it’s just him and Yui, or one where he becomes a God alongside Yui in some sense. Seele here is clearly  evil, and Gendo is endorsing hyper-solipsism. Shinji is solipsistic in his worst moments, the moments when he doesn’t care about saving people by piloting Eva, when he just cares about his own emotions, and as we see from 3.33 Gendo is willing to trash the world, trash Nerv, and live out his life as the king of a broken castle just to get Yui back, because as soon as that happens nothing else matters, only his own stream of consciousness matters.

We should learn a lot about the nature of instrumentality from its actual presentation and how it is suggested as a thought experiment when contrasted with the other big questions of the show. One of these begins in the clip show with Rei, and it is “Who is the real me”: is it the me that I perceive, the me that is real, or the several mes that exist within the minds of other people? There’s a Rei that Shinji knows, a Rei that Asuka knows, a Rei that Gendo knows- so when Instrumentality occurs, which of these enter the LCL? The transition might be traumatic because Anno is putting in the characters with the “real” versions of the other characters, not just the ones that they know. In fact, we get a glimpse of this happening when Shinji does his Instrumentality trial period and gets sucked into 01 after the Zeruel fight. He’s able to meet other people in there, so presumably he has full versions of them in his head. I think Anno is offering us a full vision of solipsism: that instrumentality with an individual focus is a hell of self-punishment, that every human being can be their own universe.

Episode 25, when Instrumentality does occur, is accordingly pretty dark. Anno is certainly not playing the trope of “instrumentality is a tempting paradise which you must resist”: it’s a kind of torment. Maybe it was only going to be a torment for the first few days, before everyone’s differences became resolved once they’d yelled at Shinji enough. But what I’m seeing is that the “hell of other people” in the universe of solipsism isn’t actually much different to “other people” in the universe of instrumentality. It seems less like people are so far inside each other that they understand each other perfectly, and more like those people can’t now run away because they’re with each other in the LCL. They have no choice but to be berated until their differences are resolved.

Evangelion is really a show about parenthood, in large part, and I think it’s a show about parenthood because that’s the best way to show that some people just do prefer people to other people. Shinji cares about Gendo’s approval even though he’s a dick because that’s his father, Yui is attached to Shinji even from within the Eva, Shinji is attached to Rei because she’s his mother, Misato loves Kaji because she’s reminded of her father- there’s also the Ritsuko/Dr.Akagi angle, and the fact that to pilot an Eva you basically have to have your mother’s soul in it. It would be fine if we could return to an instrumentality state where there are no differentials, where everyone is equal to everyone, but I feel that this option is weighed against the idea that human interaction is made complex because parents always mean more, because you can’t just reduce human relations to “let’s all be nice to one another”. There’s a lot of beration because, for instance, Gendo refuses to care for Shinji like he cares for Rei, and it’s hard to see how the LCL might fix that.

My point is not that we should think that instrumentality is good before we realise it is evil, my point is that Anno is showing that instrumentality is bad by demonstrating what humans are really like, which leads us to his central point: a unique, stunning note that is struck by the show and which, as I see it, appears in no other piece of literature, film or music that I know of:

What motivates you is what you hate in other people

There’s a lot of talk about morals and messages in literature, but I don’t think anyone ever really learns from those things, they just enjoy them, but I feel like the above point is actually carried out so fully and so subversively that it really elevates Evangelion to being quite a great piece of art, it actually comes to form such an apocalyptic, nihilistic view of human interaction that it stays with me beyond the credits rolling. Let me explain.

One of the main questions that is repeated in the long, introspective segments is “Why do you Pilot Eva”. In Episode 25 we cycle through the three pilots, while within instrumentality, and everyone else in the LCL with them ask them a series of reductio ad absurdum questions about their reasons for doing stuff. This question arises more than would seem normal compared to other questions, and that’s because Anno wants us to realise that we only do things because of other people:

Shinji does it because he wants people to like him, or because his father tells him to, or because he’s just plain pressured into it.

Rei does it because Gendo won’t let her die (basically)

Asuka does it because she can’t get security from other people since her mother died, so she just wants to be the best instead

This is all very dark, especially for a sequence of children, but it shows you that all these moments are driven forward by the difficult and troubled relations we have with others. The solipsistic, even suicidal route is to decide that none of it matters and to let the angels win, the more motivated route is to do something about it, but this often ends up with strangling Asuka on a beach, because you can’t skip the stage where you have to test if others care about you. You need WILL to keep on going: those who want to leave the LCL, who have the will to live, can choose to, which is the shows most explicit example of the importance of self-will. In Episode 24 Misato tells Shinji that Kaworu died because he had no will to live, and that Shinji did nothing wrong: at this point, after Kaji and Kaworu’s deaths, both characters are so far into their own developments and the full tragic understanding that I can’t help but feel that the conversation ranks somewhere on the scale of great literature. Is Misato only talking like that because she has moved into a space of detachment? Or does what she say have a significance for instrumentality?

The thing about Will is that it becomes her organisation’s name (Wille) in 3.33, because at that point they’re only staying alive because they can. For all they know they’re the last humans anyway. They could give up their will, but this would just be the solipsism of the LCL, it would be a regression into death.

There are many telling lines and dialogue exchanges in NGE because it’s the greatest show of all time: but I just want to bring your attention to quite a remarkable one in episode 25, where Shinji laments that Instrumentality is “a world where everything’s already set”, to which Misato responds, correcting him:

“It’s a world where you make the decisions.”

In a world where there’s no-one to push against, where there are no qualities left to hate in anyone, Shinji initially can’t tell the difference between a world which he chooses and a world which he does not, because he has lived for so long, like all other humans, only existing and only having a will, a will to choose or to push forward or to motivate oneself, because of what he hates about others. Left to his own devices, he chooses a world around him which he hates because that’s the life he knows. There is no conception of a full life with instrumentality because there is no life without other people. There is no life without the will: Misato is proven right. The great issue of psychology in Evangelion is that you can reduce this hate-motivation to absurdity easily with the question “why pilot Eva”: the balance can be upset so, so easily within real people, and that brings us back to realising the original allure of instrumentality to both evil and good characters.

What we basically end up with is “expansive” criticism because we’ve started with instrumentality, a show concept, and widened it up in order to realise that to solve the emotional and relational problems of NGE characters is to theorise about the complexity of the human personality itself: the idea that things maybe could be simple, if it wasn’t that loving others is tough, that Misato’s love for Kaji could be real but it’s always muddied and made complex by her feelings for her father and her imposed feelings of impurity. If you look to the instrumentality-dichotomy as a solution then you miss the real fireworks, which is the astonishing psychological depth and reality of the characters and their cyclical, convincing problems.

I could write about Evangelion forever because it’s not like other shows: it’s not an “arc”, it doesn’t have character “arcs” or plotted character “development”- moreover, since when did that become a thing? How boring. It’s in the word itself: you can plot an arc on a graph. You can predict the development of Walter White and of Louie on Louie. Those are my other two favourite shows, but for the most part they’re either abstract stories in self-contained episodes or they’re parabolic stories where deep down, you know exactly what’s going to happen, and their efforts to be unpredictable ring hollow and meta-theatrical, not true-to-life. Evangelion is way ahead of those because, to me, it feels like one big crescendo: Anno gets so much out of turning up the heat on his big ideas by demonstrating how those questions come to matter for his characters in actual scenarios which show the tragedy of human interaction, and he weaves a Blake-esque web of symbolism and resonance (parenthood, religion, Gods, consciousness) which (and this is quite unique) actually feels like it matters beyond figuring it out in order to figure out the puzzle for its own sake.

I think this show is popular amongst losers not because Shinji is so alone, but because of that quite nerdy, but quite powerful and intelligent property in some rare, well-crafted pieces of art: the Will to Negation, the great drive towards total personal destruction, the fear of staring down the straight line, the crescendo-destruction where instead of arcing over, everything in the plot seems to resonate at a higher and higher frequency, like in Hamlet, until some remarkable, inexhaustibly meditatable condition is reached and the story leaves us. I can’t explain that any more than that: losers like it because of the Will to Negation, and I know that that dot is joined, but I can’t join that dot for you, I just know it to be true in the lives of people. The ‘message’ is a fullness, not an aphorism, and the fullness means more to people who are more broken than others, but I don’t know why really.

I feel like I could write endless posts about Evangelion, I feel like it’s inexhaustible to meditation. I don’t think analysis of it either begins or ends with “be nice to others” as a message, I think that it’s the product of a artist-director who, for certain stretches of the show, was way up at the height of his powers, and was showing what he thought about what life is like at a very intense pitch.

Love,

Alex

#Evangelion #Neon Genesis Evangelion #NGE #Shinji #Asuka #Anime #literature #art #Wille #nerv #Soul

[ikiruwill]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE ;   mun & muse - meme .

fill out & repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OC’s still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multi-Muses pick the muse you are the most invested in atm.

my muse is:   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless 

Is your character popular in the fandom?  YES / NO.

Is your character considered hot™ in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Is your character considered strong in the fandom?  YES / NO / IDK.

Are they underrated?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main story?  YES / NO.

Were they relevant for the main character?  YES / NO / THEY’RE THE PROTAG.

Are they widely known in their world?  YES / NO.

How’s their reputation?  GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL.

how strictly do you follow canon? 　i try to follow canon as much as possible for shinji in nge. for rebuild, mostly, only bc nge is my main version of shinji. it’s been a while since i read the manga, and there’s definitely stuff to like about it, but imo sadamoto’s writing there isn’t as good as anno’s is in nge ( and rebuild... to an extent ), so i’d probably end up changing some details for manga!shinji with whatever headcanons if i wrote him more often / went into depth about things? but it’s still interesting to see how different shinji and kaworu ( + other characters ) are in the manga, and new dynamics can be fun!!

SELL YOUR MUSE! aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutuals.    lemme try and sell you nge first unless you’ve already sold your soul to it LOL join me.... tldr it’s a classic anime and still relevant today despite it being like 24 years old ( with tons of merch now most i would shamelessly buy ). there’s so many characters that feel real and human in nge. hideaki anno poured too much of his heart and soul into it, the reflections of himself and his personal feelings feel very raw. i could also try to sell you like every nge character bc they’re all so well written but mha;lskdjf on to the last point. being the main character for eva, shinji is iconic too... he’s among the best leads i’ve seen in anime. most critics will agree and have agreed with this for decades ( if you only ask me, he’s number one for everything bc i’m biased af ❤ ). i talk too much about how he’s bby / cute and does his best, but probably not enough about how flawed he is as a person too, his deeper wants and needs, and when those things go horribly wrong. the duality is really what makes shinji complex and human. also bonus points!! he’s frequently scored at the top for fav anime characters in japan since ‘95 in newtype and stuff n_n

now the OPPOSITE, list everything why your muse could not be so interesting ( even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think? ).    next to louder and more colourful characters like asuka, for example, shinji can come off as quiet and boring ( especially compared to traditional hot blooded mecha protagonists in general ). shinji isn’t a genius or leader. he’s super passive, introverted, shy, and bad at fun conversations. he saves the world and tries to do the right thing, so by definition, he’s a hero--- but he’s also just a boy who’s gone through a lot. he has a lot of depth and hidden anger / feelings in general, but it would take a lot for him ( i.e. pressure, circumstances ) to express that outwardly--- daily shinji isn’t really like that. fandom wise, i think shinji recently came in 4th in the NHK eva popularity contest, so that’s pretty good, people do like him there. kawoshin is also as popular as ever ( and i’ve also seen more shinji fans in the western side too ). meanwhile old nge fandom be like ‘shinji u loser get in the fucking robot!!!111 ur surrounded by hot chicks every single day and still cry wow’ but that’s more like an ironic meme nowadays LOL

what inspired you to rp your muse?    i finally watched eva properly like two years ago?? ( too late 4 kawoshin 2015 fandom q-q ) it was good so i sold my soul to it and shinji mhasdflkj

what keeps your inspiration going?    eva being my fav anime and shinji my fav character, seeing fanworks of eva, and ofc everyone who interacts with me here on my blog q-q bless u and thank u

some more personal questions for the mun .

give your mutuals some insight about the way you are in some matters, which could lead them to get more comfortable with you or perhaps not.

do you think you give your character justice?  YES / NO.

do you frequently write headcanons?  YES / NO ( sometimes )

do you sometimes write drabbles?  YES / NO.

do you think a lot about your muse during the day?  YES / NO.

are you confident in your portrayal?   YES / NO.

are you confident in your writing?  YES / NO ( sort of?? )

are you a sensitive person?  YES / NO.

do you accept criticism well about your portrayal?    yes to respectful and constructive criticism!! but i’m still pretty circumstantial about it for my comfort ( just to avoid random ppl being rude etc ), so i think i’d prefer to reblog a meme for that and / or ask for opinions and tips from my mutuals!

do you like questions, which help you explore your character?    yesss, i think most of us would love that n_n both unprompted and reblogged memes work for me

if someone disagrees to a headcanon of yours, do you want to know why?    i’m a private blog, so if it’s more of a plot based headcanon that a mutual wanted to discuss for fun and in a friendly way, then ok! i think there’d be room for constructive discussion there ( ah yes eva and its 24 years of pepe silvia meme.png complex lore discussion still going strong ) 

if someone disagrees with your portrayal, how would you take it? 　similar to the above and the constructive criticism thing, i’ll only care / be open to discussing that kinda stuff if we’re mutuals and if you’ve seen eva, etc. 

if someone really hates your character, how do you take it?    as seriously as a funny meme when it comes to randos LOL buuuut long answer too: i’ve also seen passionately mean spirited, usually terrible and equally as unironic takes about shinji on the internet bc that’s the internet sometimes rip. this version of hate is more annoying and can suck just to look at, especially if it gets lots of attention in the form of agreement ( it usually makes me think, did we even watch the same show ). but also arguing endlessly with whoever wrote it / believes it would suck even more ( being a waste of time for one ). i guess that’s one reason why i care more about the personal safe space i’m trying to create on my dashboard etc. and people have very different opinions about anything in general. but basically, in general, this: if someone hates x or y fictional character with such a burning passion, and they won’t be satisfied unless they try to convince others to hate them too, or say that fans of x or y character are bad people irl and belittle said fans for it on their own time ( or openly harass those fans ), and if they’re crusading this idea, constantly?? block, blacklist, report for harassment if noted, filter it out--- it’s definitely better to stay away from that kind of negativity ( also bc it’s absurd and necessary ). i question anyone who finds joy / importance in trying to police the content and comfort of others, but i also know that they wouldn’t have fun hanging out with me LOL kaworu vc surround yourself with people who love shinji ikari 

are you okay with people pointing out your grammatical errors?    sure, once in a while is fine, especially if i made a typo or something that makes the context or anything confusing / unclear!

do you think you are easy going as a mun?    i try to be!! despite that longer rant just now mhas;ldkfj thanks for reading this far if you still are LOL 

That’s about it, congrats for filling out!

tagged by: @skyvar​ aka the creator n_n thank you omg?? this was awesome!! tagging: if you wanna!

#meme ; 𝐑𝐏 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐬. #good questions!! this was fun #and i ranted a little 1000/10 #long post /