who’s the real canon gay of evangelion? kaworu, shinji, maya, and mari move aside  - a lot of people don’t know that makoto hyuga was supposed to be canonly gay, too. anno and co. slipped a quiet allude to his sexuality in the original episode 24 drafts (the same drafts that had kaworu and shinji kiss). ultimately the idea was trashed and promptly replaced with his crush for misato, likely for the same reasons they trashed the original kawoshin kiss. 

here’s the scene in question (you can read the entire draft here):

HYUGA: Seems like we’ve got ourselves involved in a pretty unbelievable organization.

[HYUGA hands MISATO more documents.]

HYUGA: Here’s my research on the Fifth Child. There’s nothing particularly suspicious in his history. He’s been in contact with the committee, but there’s no sign of involvement. As far as family goes, it seems there’s been some turbulence there. You could say he’s just a garden-variety pretty boy who’s had an unfortunate life.

MISATO: Just your type of guy, huh?

HYUGA: Cut it out…

some interesting naming conventions in evangelion:

• asuka calls rei ‘yuutousei’, not ‘wondergirl’, which can be loosely translated as ‘honor student’
• shinji refers to asuka as simply ‘asuka’, but calls rei ‘ayanami’. likewise, rei refers to shinji as ‘ikari-kun’, adding the proper honorific at the end 
• asuka calls misato ‘misato’ without honorifics. a child referring to an adult without honorifics is considered extremely impolite in japan - for point of comparison, shinji first calls misato ‘katsuragi-san’ and later eases into ‘misato-san’. before you say it’s because she’s german, asuka is steadfast in calling kaji ‘kaji-san’ (she even refers to him as ‘kaji-senpai’ on one occasion)
  
• misato usually calls shinji ‘shinji-kun’, but sometimes she’ll jokingly refer to him as ‘shin-chan’ - a petname typically reserved for toddlers. imagine toji getting called ‘to-chan’ and you’ll get an idea of how cheeky this is on misato’s part
• on a similar note, the petnames ritsuko and kaji reserve for each other are especially hilarious. ritsuko refers to kaji as ‘ryo-chan’ and kaji refers to ritsuko as ‘rit-chan’ (consequently, ritsuko is the only character in nge who calls kaji by his first name, which is ryoji). ‘rit-chan’ and ‘ryo-chan’ are weirdly infantilizing/overly-affectionate; they only do this within the earshot of misato with the obvious purpose of annoying the shit out of her
• gendo still refers to fuyutsuki as ‘fuyutsuki-sensei’ (’professor fuyutsuki’); everyone else calls him ‘vice commander fuyutsuki’. old habits die hard
• misato and kaji refer to each other on an entirely last-name basis; misato calls kaji ‘kaji-kun’ and kaji calls misato ‘katsuragi’
• there are many different ways to refer to your father in japanese, but shinji refers to gendo as ‘otousan’. typically, children will use ‘otousan’ when speaking to their father and ‘chi-chi’ when speaking of their father, but shinji makes no such distinction, which says something about the emotional distance there. (interestingly, misato flip-flops between ‘otousan’ and ‘chi-chi’ when speaking of her own father. when does she use otousan? when she’s talking to kaji about her father)
• rei never once calls asuka by her name. the name ‘asuka’ never leaves rei’s mouth once. rei refers to asuka as ‘the pilot of unit-02‘ or simply ‘anta’ (‘you’) when speaking directly to her

“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

you know the recurring gag about misato besting the odds of .000001% isn’t a joke - the reason she ‘just so happens’ to ‘fluke’ her way to victory is because seele has the dead sea scrolls, a prophetic text that fortells of every angel defeat ahead of time, and the magi was created under their clout so that nerv may be kept simultaneously unsuspecting, reasonably motivated, and constantly ready for death

the joke isn’t that misato just so happens to best the odds, the joke is that the odds of defeating an angel are always 100%, every time, and in believing that they’re .0001% misato plays right into seele’s hands, every time

ya’ll: WHAT IF KAWORU DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A SNEEZE IS AND HE SNEEZES FOR THE FIRST TIME AND HE THINKS HIS HEAD’S ABOUT TO EXPLODE AND SHINJI HAS TO CALM HIM DOWN FDKSAJFLAFksggkD

me: 

in case you missed it: asuka and ritsuko are the same character. i could talk about this for ages, but in the interest of brevity:

• both asuka’s mother and ritsuko’s mother were emotionally distant in life, and compartmentalized upon death - asuka’s mother resides in unit-02, ritsuko’s mother resides in the magi
• both watched their mothers commit suicide 
• both have a distant mother-figure - for ritsuko it’s her grandmother, for asuka it’s her stepmother
• both fixated on an older man at a young age - for asuka it was kaji, for ritsuko it was gendo
• both express a desire for never having children
• both stand in opposition to rei/grow to detest rei over time
• their entrance and exit scenes are laterally mirrored - both emerge from water, then die at their mother’s betrayal
• in that same vein, both share in visual imagery: there’s a scene where ritsuko stops to wash her face in the bathroom that asuka goes on to mirror
• this one’s a little more elusive, but all the more fascinating: i need you. gendo’s silent words to ritsuko, shinji’s words to asuka during instrumentality. guess what asuka and ritsuko both respond with? liar.
• take it as you will, but in one of the supplementary games it’s said that asuka wanted to be a scientist after piloting. yeah.

weird shit from evangelion that go unnoticed:

• shinji only listens to one song on his sdat and it’s you are the only one by kotono mitsuishi, aka misato’s seiyuu
  
• nerv’s 2nd branch is located in nevada USA, which just so happens to be the site of area 51
  
• everyone grows several inches taller in rebuild for some reason
  
• gendo is apparently “very small-waisted” and has to wear suspenders to hold his pants up
• maya is so short she has to sit on her cat pillow to reach the control terminal
  
• ritsuko’s listed hobbies include “punk rock and bonsai trees”
  
• kaji mentions going scuba diving in episode 10 and is seen throwing up the shaka sign with a surfboard in his character sheet
• nerv’s division-2 stalled on retrieving asuka from the bathtub so that kaworu could sabotage her eva which means they were secretly loyal to seele all along
• gendo and fuyutsuki are literally just straker and freeman from ufo
• kaji is literally just emma peel from the original avengers
  
• misato reads car magazines and nothing else
• ritsuko doesn’t have a car. she’s either taking the train or riding passenger in misato’s car
• in episode 19 toji enters shinji’s dreamscape and it’s never explained
• rei is a voracious reader of oscar wilde
  

rei is the most tragic character in evangelion and that has everything to do with her becoming a goddess in eoe

it’s long been established that goddesshood is the pinnacle of femininity, because goddesshood is glorified objecthood: and objects, even divine and powerful ones, can’t be loved - they can be worshipped, idolized, and influential, but evangelion says that love is human and love depends first upon one’s ability to be empathized with. (that’s why it’s called cruel angel’s thesis, btw - angels can’t be loved). goddesshood requires no humanity, no feelings, and an inability to be empathized with, only worshipped and/or feared

when rei – who was already introduced as a girl who had trouble “being human” – becomes a goddess in eoe, she’s essentially carrying out the ultimate goal of femininity by molding herself into a vessel out of gendo’s cathexis, transferred to his son. i already mentioned how gendo symbolizes masculinity in that he is totally dependent on divine feminine energy: in keeping with the child/parent motif, shinji takes gendo’s place and rei appears to him as a goddess. notice when shinji reminisces the “friends he wants to see again”, rei’s head is blocked by shinji’s face (this groupshot includes all the characters who can come back if they want to: hence kaworu’s absence & rei getting literally and metaphorically photobombed by shinji’s smiling face). when asuka and shinji wake up on the beach, rei is a hallucination at best, and a forgotten and lonely spirit at worst

there’s also tragedy in not being a goddess – the “feminine imperfection” symbolized by asuka, misato, and ritsuko. the point is that there is no way for the girls/women to simply BE, to be human (”at least, be human”) without gendered pain. the irony inherent in kaworu, a nonhuman, still being able to choose the circumstances of his death (as the angel of free will) despite his inhumanity is 100% explained by his perceived gender as a boy while rei and the rest of the girls/women are barred from a proper self-determined death

this show is all about people seeking objectifying love instead of humanizing love, and hurting, limiting, and depriving themselves in pursuit of that objectifying love. the (other) point is that everyone needs love, including rei – but rei can never, ever be allowed it

but for real, stop the “asuka abused shinji” shit. it needs to die. 

when people say “asuka abused shinji”, i almost want to ask: what exactly are you referring to when you use a loaded term for a traumatized 13 year old girl in reference to her incredibly complex dynamic with a boy who would later go on and attempt to kill her twice? the fact that asuka is seemingly louder, more abrasive, and more unapologetically bitter than the seemingly meek, soft-willed shinji? is that abuse? the fact that asuka calls shinji stupid? is that abuse?

the fact that asuka doesn’t screen her righteous anger through a filter of kindness when she calls shinji out for his shit? is that abuse? or is it asuka, physically pushing shinji away from her after he invades her space and demands that she be nice to him? is that abuse? 

when shinji sexually assaulted asuka at her lowest point? did asuka abuse shinji? when shinji tried to kill asuka for not shutting up as she yells at him for objectifying her? when shinji tried to kill asuka again, after figuring out that he’ll be stuck with her for an indefinite period of time? did asuka abuse shinji with her response - a gentle stroke of the cheek, that frankly, shinji did not deserve?

the best thing about evangelion is that every single character is initially introduced as having a “superficial self” up until the point where that shatters, and it is revealed to the audience that their ‘true self’ is in fact the exact opposite of their superficial self. shinji ikari, for all his pain and suffering and trauma, is introduced as the meek nonviolent boy inclined to retreat from any and all contact. up until anno rips the rug from underneath us – shinji ikari, quickly jumping on the chance to hurt asuka when it finally dawns on him that she’ll never be who he wants her to be. asuka? asuka is introduced as the violent and self-absorbed girl – a stark contrast to shinji – until that, too, crumbles. cue the last scene in end of evangelion: shinji’s trying to kill asuka –shinji’s literally the manifestation of every stereotype normally attributed to asuka, here – and what does asuka do? she responds with clemency and mercy and grace. she caresses his face. the real shinji (all bite, no bark) vs the real asuka (all bark, no bite).

and then – just like that – the story of evangelion ends.

asuka and shinji’s dynamic is destructive and ugly and unhealthy, but the cards were never stacked in asuka’s favor. they were always stacked in shinji’s.