#TT Liveblogs Evangelion

[tyrantisterror]

I posted 1,921 times in 2022

484 posts created (25%)

1,437 posts reblogged (75%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@tyrantisterror

@cerothenull

@hiboudeluxe

@dragonzzilla

@maplesamurai

I tagged 360 of my posts in 2022

#wizard school mysteries - 35 posts

#midgaheim - 33 posts

#tt liveblogs evangelion - 22 posts

#as a treat - 7 posts

#tyrantis - 6 posts

#the atomic time of monsters - 5 posts

#but i'm doing my part - 2 posts

#typhon - 2 posts

#echidna - 2 posts

#i wanted to use the i'm doing my part gif for this - 2 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#when a horror story gets vast critical acclaim there will always be some critics who try to recategorize it as something other than horror

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

I found something hiding in the pokemon aisle...

What is this?  Knockoff Pokemon cards?  Unexpected, perhaps, but nothing exceptional... or are they?

See the full post

744 notes - Posted September 25, 2022

#4

You could not stage a visual shitpost more mind-shattering than this video.

1,481 notes - Posted January 8, 2022

#3

Just came across an episode of the 60′s Addams Family TV show where the Addamses take in a greaser motorcycle punk and, as you would expect, are absolutely delighted to have him as a houseguest.

And, like, the normal episode formula for this show so far has been “Some new normie meets the Addams family with some sort of ulterior motive, gets freaked out, and eventually abandons their schemes out of fear.”  But while the episode began in that direction, the greaser actually starts to like the family because, you know, they accept him for who he is.

It turns out his dad is trying to track him down and make him conform to societal standards, and the Addamses, not knowing this, invite the dad over for a birthday party they’re throwing for the kid.  And though the dad is also initially put off by the Adams family, he sees how his son loves them because they loved him unconditionally, and is shamed into opening his mind towards his son.

And fuck, man, it got me because I did not expect something that earnest from a 60′s sitcom, especially one as gleefully irreverent as this one.  The tumblr posts are right, the Addamses would accept you for who you are.

6,845 notes - Posted December 5, 2022

#2

Rescuers Down Under doesn’t get enough credit for a lot of things, but one creative choice in particular that I think should be talked about more is the movie’s decisions to mostly have real life fauna but then also making one of the main characters a dinosaur-sized eagle and just act as if that’s a thing that already exists.

Marahute is a gift.

13,971 notes - Posted October 2, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Conservatives yap and yap all the time about how kids don’t understand “woke” culture, but today the school age kids at the daycare had a field trip to a park and saw a really weird swing, and one immediately said “that’s for people with disabilities.”  And the others were like, “Oh, people with disabilities, yeah that makes sense.”  Like, the whole, clunky, politically correct phrase.  These are kids who spend most of their time on tablets and don’t like using five words when three words would do, and they said that phrase like it was natural to them.

Sometimes my kids will be making up characters and write pronouns on their pages.  One day a girl turned to me and said “This character is they/them.”  They don’t think of it as a foreign concept - different genders are just as new a concept to them as all the other stuff they’re learning at this age, and like all that stuff, they regard it not as something to fight about, but just another facet of the world to learn, understand, and incorporate into the stories they create.

The kids handle learning these things just fine.  It’s the adults who are moaning pissbabies about it.

41,023 notes - Posted July 18, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[tyrantisterror]

It’s a bit belated, but it’s time for me to do my annual Evangelion rewatch.  And this time I’m watching the classic dub baby!  Let’s see what everyone was missing so much!

[tyrantisterror]

I know this scene has been meme’d to hell, but really the ending of the anime is what turned Evangelion from a work I watched out of a sense of obligation because of its important historical place in several genres I love, to a work I rewatch at least once a year in an effort to recenter myself.

You spend this whole series learning about these sad, lonely, tortured people, their psychological issues reflected in the cosmic horrors they face each episode, and it seems like this can’t end well - that, like so many cosmic horror characters, their lives were doomed to inevitable tragedy from the start.

And then, through it all, as things get trippier and trippier and you learn that the end HAS come and everyone is dead, Shinji, who hates himself more than anyone else ever could, finds the desire to not only live, but to love himself as he loves others in turn.  In the face of overwhelming doom both within and without, Shinji chooses hope and life.

And that brings everyone back.  He lives, they live, the world goes on despite ending.  Shinji finally sees himself surrounded by people he loves, and that they love him in turn, and despite the odds, he wins.  Life wins, love wins, the overbearing despair is conquered.

Everyone hypes up how bleak and dark and edgy and grim this anime is, but in this ending at least, it’s got a powerful message of hope and love, one that shines all the brighter in the wake of all the darkness that came before it.

And that’s why I keep rewatching Evangelion.

[tyrantisterror]

Tempted to write a story that’s just the wacky shenanigans moments of eva cranked up to eleven, saving the world by mastering Dance Dance Revolution and getting trapped in parking complexes.  Could call it Evan the Gel Lion, be really blatant about what it’s inspired by.

[tyrantisterror]

Everyone focuses on the dark deconstructive elements of Neon Geneiss Evangelion, but I never see anyone talking about the comedic deconstructions, even though they’re just as big a part of the show as the grimdark stuff.  So I’m gonna talk about one of my favorite comedic bits in the show, which I shall now dub:

SHINJI’S KNIFE

Much has been made of how Eva is a deconstruction of your typical giant robot anime.  Well, one of the big tropes of a giant robot show is the robot’s super secret final weapon of last resort, which more often than not takes the form of some big, elaborate, cool-ass looking sword.

FORM BLAZING SWORD and the like, right?  It’s a rad as hell moment, the fist-pumping sign that the fight is finally going to end.  We don’t question why this giant weapon was saved until things got dire, or where the hell these robots store such massive and elaborate weapons.

Well, Eva’s got its own take on that.  It’s own funny fucking take.

What, you don’t see it?  Here, I’ll get another shot for you.

Still not noticing it?  Here, look.

It’s a knife.  A fucking knife.

Not even a big knife.  I mean, ok, it’s scaled to a giant robot, so technically it’s a big knife, but at the robot’s scale... like, that’s not even a bowie knife.  It’s the size of a damn steak knife.  And despite the glowing effect some of these frames have, it’s not a particularly elaborate knife.  You could put that in the hands of an utterly mundane human character and it wouldn’t look out of place.  It’s just... just a knife.

It’s this dinky little knife that’s stored in one of the Eva’s fins, popping out when the battle’s gone south to give Shinji one last resort against the angels.  It technically performs the purpose of your giant robot super weapon, but... it’s JUST a knife.  An ordinary, not all that impressive knife!

And because it’s JUST a knife, there’s no fun super move to pull off with it.  Shinji doesn’t slash the air and make the enemy explode from a wave of energy it shoots out or whatever.  No, instead Shinji takes this dinky knife, makes his Eva run in close, and has to shank the fucking monster repeatedly with it, all while screaming like a fourteen year old who’s been forced to stab a kodiac bear to death before it tears his face off.

Like... think about that on paper, ok?  Imagine this as an episode of Voltron.  The monster has our hero on the ropes, none of the other weapons have worked, the robot’s running out of power, and, in a last desperate attempt to save the day, the hero unleashes their secret weapon, and it’s... just a knife.  And he has to run up to the monster and shank it to death with this dinky little knife.

It’s fucking hilarious.

The other weapons in the show are similarly humorously mundane.  Like, look at this shot.  Look at this fucking robot holding a tiny ass pea-shooter pistol and hiding behind buildings for cover like it’s in a shootout at the end of a Tarantino movie.  It’s fucking ridiculous!

And all of this is just as much a part of the deconstruction of super robot shows as the teenagers having series-long mental breakdowns while fighting eldritch abominations.  It’s all connected.  Hell, it’s so important that the model kits of Unit 01 even have one fin specially engineered to replicate the scene where that dinky piece of shit knife pops out.

God I love Evangelion.

[tyrantisterror]

Another reason I’m salty people don’t talk about the comedy bits in EVangelion more: there’s an entire episode about Shinji and Asuka needing to practice Dance Dance Revolution so they can be better at fighting monsters together, and it’s not only hilarious but has some of the best character interactions of the series, including one of the rare times when two of the characters actually sit down and try to understand each other.

In the Dance Dance Revolution filler episode.

[tyrantisterror]

In a just world, someone would have made an RPG adaptation of Evangelion with multiple different endings depending on your choices throughout the story.  The series is BUILT for this kind of shit - the choices our heroes make, their consequences, and most importantly the missed possibilities and potentials of their choices are such a core focus of the story, and that’s the kind of shit that makes for an excellent RPG.

I’m not just saying this because a hypothetical “golden ending” Evangelion is something I desperately crave (shoutout to the “Angelic Days” manga for coming as close to giving me that as any of the media in this franchise could), but because the ability to see how much you could fuck things up also has an appeal.  What was the point of End of Evangelion if not to say “Hey, wanna see things REALLY go to shit?”

Tell this story in a badass JRPG with secret endings and an expansive new game plus.  It’d work so well!

[tyrantisterror]

The filler episodes are some of my favorite parts of Evangelion because Evangelion is at its heart a character study, and these non-plot-heavy episodes are actually focused on the core of the series, which is damaged people trying to heal from their damage and become better.

It’s also why the show’s ending is the best one.

[tyrantisterror]

Welp, first one sucked.  Let’s see if we can Rebuild this Reboot, eh?

The end of the first one teased Kaworu, so, hopefully this one will, like, do something interesting and suck less, eh?

ALSO THE LAST ONE DIDN’T FIND A WAY TO USE CRUEL ANGEL’S THESIS AND THAT MAKES ME MAD

[tyrantisterror]

I don’t really care for the sheer sadism of End of Evangelion, but I do have to admit the scene where the world ends and everyone’s turned into tang is a macabre treat for the eyes that I really enjoy.

Also, out of all the characters who get put through the fucking woodchipper feet first by that movie, Asuka at least got to go out as a badass who was true to herself to the end, and I have respect for that.

[tyrantisterror]

The Kaworu confrontation is one of the best scenes in this series because it utterly changes how you view all the monster fights that led up to it.  His reluctance to win, his genuine admiration of Shinji, and his sad insistence that he has no choice but to force Shinji to kill him - it takes what initially look like simplistic monsters of the week and paints them in a tragic light.  His horror at what NERV has done to Lilith, and his knowing glances to Rei - the implication that the monsters are as horrified and revolted at what the NERV higher ups are doing as we are... just very good.

It’s a very good monster story, Evangelion.

[tyrantisterror]

I love the goofy monster-fighting hijinks section of Evangelion.  It’s fun as hell and does valuable work in making you love the characters, which is what makes the nightmarish shit they endure at the end of the series so effective.

[tyrantisterror]

i love the characters in Evangelion and am glad nothing bad ever happens to them.

[tyrantisterror]

I hope you haven't been flooded with asks about this, and while it's only tangentially related, there is actually an unofficial NGE ttrpg

Is it any good?

[tyrantisterror]

AW FUCK YEAH, IT’S DUCK AMOK TIME STARRING SHINJI IKARI!

[tyrantisterror]

I don’t know if Asuka’s frustration at the plot revolving around Shinji is intentionally a jab at how interesting female characters in Shonen manga and anime are frequently sidelined and forgotten in favor of focusing on the male hero, but I’m certainly taking it as such.