#evangelionposting

[possum-warfare-committee]

[girl who's watching the red beach for the millionth time] there really is something to asuka using her wounded arm to comfort shinji, i think. (you could question whether she's actually wounded wounded given the logistical hurdle her bandages pose, but that's stupid, and i just don't even want to have to think about shikinami as evidence either. we all know she has a gnarly scar and is missing an eye, okay ? okay.) presumably asuka's right-handed (she always fights right-handed in eva and i couldn't find a clip of her, like, writing or anything) so it makes sense that she'd be using her dominant hand but if you pull back a level it is really interesting that she is touching shinji with the wounded part of her body in this "proof/reconciliation of the other" scene. it's really interesting. considering that basically no matter what i think comforting shinji like that has to hurt, emotionally; doing so with her wounded arm becomes some sort of localization of hurt, and that's charming.

[possum-warfare-committee]

they really don't make anything better in this world than asuka posing with the spear of longinus. it's like catholic saints posed with the things that martyred them. but better, because it's asuka. you understand

[possum-warfare-committee]

the bad thing about being who i am is sometimes i think things like "asushin is like incest" and have to pause and ask what the hell that's supposed to mean. and i do have to preface my thoughts with saying i am an asukagirl forever and do think merely by saying the word "asushin" it makes it seem like i don't understand how much evangelion is fundamentally about power and abuse, and i don't think their papier-mâché heterosexuality is cute or laudable or whatever. regardless i was looking at a bad post someone made and thinking about much the relationship between asuka and shinji is really defined by the whims of adults that place them within domestic contexts (and does it like make logistical sense on the nerv backend that shinji and asuka both live with misato? not really, but it makes the show better and adds another layer of alienation from domestic life to rei's character, so it's a good choice. it also obviously heightens the blurring of boundaries between work and home, mother and commanding officer, which is a strong point.). but anyways it really is like all of the weird moments between those two ("afraid to kiss a girl on the anniversary of your mother's death?," shinji almost kissing asuka in her sleep) feel really fundamentally incestuous in some sort of way. and obviously like 30-60% of that is just sexual abuse being sexual abuse and whatnot. but there is something about how those moments are located in moments when "parents aren't home" (one must also acknowledge that whatever whatever, here). and misato is also NOT beating the incest allegations either and this is obvious. have sort of lost my train of thought, but i do think it's all interesting somehow. and sort of a key part i guess is that it is, for me, a little impossible to think of asuka's character without thinking about the audience response to her original series depiction -> end of evangelion + in general. and there's just something about the way the abuse she suffers is rendered illegible by popular discourse and it's like we all forgot the red beach. basically it all comes back to the red beach it's sort of the nail in the coffin. and there's something that feels like the illegibility of incest there

[possum-warfare-committee]

[girl with nothing wrong with her] i just think the best five seconds of animation ever committed to film are when asuka puts her hand to shinji's cheek, emulating the mother for [many, many unkind words about shinji ikari redacted], and she waits a second or two until after his grip loosens on her throat, when he starts crying, until she finally removes her hand. disgusting. you're writing this down right ? you're not writing this down. HEY--

[possum-warfare-committee]

DDOES ANYONE REMEMBER ASUKA LANGLEY SORYU ? IS IT JUST ME. ok im normal now. anyways. rewatched bits of eoe to see if there was anything iconworthy (no; i;m not that kind of girl) and look at her

THE WET ! THE WET ! THE WET ! it's just so crazy that you have to watch the blood flow from her ddamn eye like that. i really, really, really like the eva:body woundlink thing and they do it very vaguely across the series but it's always just like. pain. but really nothing beats the disgusting physicality of this scene. asuka's eye is popped and there is blood and IT"S REALLY FUNNY BECAUSE THAT CAN"T BE HOW BLOOD FLOWS IN LCL OHHHHH MY GOD MAN. but to the point its so visceral. and thank fuck. and then not a minute later you watch the guts of unit 02 spilled out carrion and asuka is clutching her stomach (and we can be big girls: her womb. this is a rape scene we can be honest.) her back arched in pain and all and you really do think, just a little, about what is happening inside of her guts as the offal spills out. it's so violating. [inescapable gravity of a millie asukapost asserts itself] and you go through all of that, all of this seeming somehow punishment for you fucking finally asserting any amount of self-actualization in your life and you mostly get over your thing with your mom because look, asuka, she's here and she loves you and you spread your AT field across a un helicopter and it cleaves like butter and you know it's because your mother loves you; and yeah you still feel weird about your stepmom and that's weird forever and stuff but you're doing pretty good for a girl that was in a suicide bathtub last week. and then ! and then ! hark ! the orange. you were dead just a minute ago, weren't you? you try not to think about that. it's all about him now. you tear into him like you should have months ago and it's really quite satisfying until his hands are around your throat and the world becomes its usual shape for asuka langley soryus. and the rest of it is other peoples problems and it's all orange and then you're on the red beach and shinji stares down at you hands around your throat and you know what you have to do, asuka. you know what you have to do.

[possum-warfare-committee]

can you imagine being asuka langley soryu and you probably have to see all of rei’s shit too. so bad. the things it would do to her at an already historic low to see the doll girl’s life in 1080p and come away from it thinking that at the very end she was less like a doll than you ever were. AND THEN YOU GET RED BEACHED ???????? you sit there with shinji’s hands around your throat, oxygen not flowing to your newly-separate brain, and your two thoughts are 1) you know what you have to do 2) rei didn’t do what she had to do. and asuka? you do what you have to do, because you’re just a doll.

[possum-warfare-committee]

and now i am, irreparably, thinking of the one terrible post i saw that framed asuka x shinji as kismesitude. just sort of one of the least literate takes i have EVER seen in my life. putting aside that within homestuck's text there are a lot of questions that you as the reader are meant to draw from quadrants as a force of social organization that reify abuse in a more alien way than the familiar real-world institutions of heterosexuality and patriarchy. like there's a LOT going on there and homestuck clearly has some thoughts on the matter. and we're going to sit and characterize shinji's relationship with asuka, pretty straightforwardly defined by sexual/domestic/whatever abuse, as kismesitude without even thinking about it? it makes me feel crazy.

and i did have to dig up my screenshot of said post to make sure i wasn't arguing in bad faith because shinji "pathetic wet cat" ikari does sort of seal the deal inviolably. and aside from that the framing of "asushin kismesitude" here as mutual (again, a really funny thing to posit about pretty canonical abuse) PLUS asuka feeling flushed towards shinji (NOT TRUE ?) and shinji is just pitch towards her (expresses none of his aching need for validation from all of the women in his life) is so crazy. what a backwards interpretation of anything ever.

[possum-warfare-committee]

it really is so demeaning that asuka gets characterized in casual parlance as tsundere when that implies that any of her demeanor towards others is rooted in affection, right. she sort of straightforwardly loathes rei and shinji when it comes down to it, and while you could probably infer that she would be insanely cagey if she did actually like anyone her age that's so not what happens in the text of the show. rei reminds her of the worst parts of herself and i really can't think of a moment other than their first meeting where she earnestly tries to connect with rei at all (and that scene was definitely socially antagonistic anyways). shinji pretty straightforwardly abuses asuka by the end of it, and the only "affection" she shows him by the end of it is at gunpoint. it's so bad.