“rei ayanami was supposed to be creepy as a middle finger to fanboys!!”

this is an old western fandom myth fabricated during the early days of 4chan/evageeks. anno, hayashibara, and co. have never said anything remotely suggesting the sort (rather, anno’s described rei as the ‘most inexpressible’ part of him; hayashibara remarking similar) - this also evades everything rei is to justify never considering her beyond the surface level (if rei was supposed to be ‘creepy’, what else is there?)

rei is existential - rei is isolation, rei’s entire narrative gestures heavily at what it means to be a body (”the body as an identity involves resources”) - what it means to be defined by your trauma, physically and psychologically. people don’t relate to rei because she’s “creepy” (she’s not), people relate to rei because she’s othered, ostracized, abused, socially inept. rei was forced into a life of constant-dissociation by an abusive man, a life in which she is a stranger to herself, and pretentious nerds still have the gall to call her ‘creepy’ as if they’re saying something subversive

there’s nothing enlightened about calling an abused 14 year old girl “creepy”, nothing about rei is “creepy”, it’s sad and harrowing and existentially-laden