Of course. It's mostly a thought experiment for my own amusement and part of my effort to explain to myself how EoE manages to elicit basically every reaction on the pessimism vs. optimism spectrum possible from viewers, and why there is so much disagreement over the message or messages, which I think has its roots in this discrepancy between narrative and metaphorical level. Shinji's point of view is relevant insofar as that he is the most direct audience surrogate.

Asuka’s behavior is understandable, but not necessarily acceptable in the eyes of the audience. I read an article somewhere of how Asuka and Shinji are equally at fault for their actions. Shinji runs away from social connectivity while Asuka pushes it away, rather than either of them confronting one another.

Many people seem to idolize here because she looks hot. Sadly there are some otaku’s out there that seem to justify a book by its cover. Hideki Anno himself is concerned about otakus that tend to associate themselves with the characters, when he himself doesn’t take them seriously. Its one thing to feel sympathy and learn something about a character, but its another thing to obsess about a character.

Every character in Evangelion has flaws, Asuka included. But are we really gonna take Asuka telling Shinji “No,” in EoE and think “Yeah, that’s the absolute worst thing a girl can do to someone, so she deserves to be strangled.”

That’s a special kinda of fucked up; the kind of fucked up that gets psychoanalyzed in Evangelion.

Like, of all the things to get caught up on.... it almost sounds like incel speak.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Every character in Evangelion has flaws, Asuka included. But are we really gonna take Asuka telling Shinji “No,” in EoE and think “Yeah, that’s the absolute worst thing a girl can do to someone, so she deserves to be strangled.”

I hope not. Imho, Asuka deserves almost none of what she gets in the show (with the exception being people disliking her for her cocky, demeaning attitude, which is something people should dislike. That nobody helps her with that is still tragic), and she is far from the worst character in it. I'm not even sure there is a "worst" character, since everybody has plenty of justification and ambiguity to them, so it is a matter of personal taste who you would grant that title too. My guess is that Lorenz Kiel would be the once character that is outright "evil". Above all, the characters are tragic, and it is much more interesting to examine the patterns of behaviour that lead them to their misery.

Since FreakyFilmFan4ever brought it up in private conversation, I think it would be helpful to examine the different layers of justification people are talking about here.

So, morally, or ethically, the answers are pretty straight forward. Physical violence is never justified by words alone. That's the standard we've set for ourselves, and how things should be. I don't think there is much discussion to be had here. Asuka rejecting Shinji is completely and absolutely justified, independently of what happened before. You do not get to demand affection. Shinji meanwhile is not; killing people because they do not bow to your wishes is absolutely wrong. The arguments I made before were a stupid attempt to defend a position I didn't even hold to begin with, confusing morality with thematic elements, and I never wanted to draw a direct equivalency between saying "no" and strangulation.

Thematically, Asuka and Shinji represent opposite extremes of the spectrum: One pushes away people, the other tries to draw them in. One is lashing out at people, the other tries to appease them. One is independent, the other dependent. The kitchen scene is the ultimate expression of this, and I personally view the actions displayed more on the metaphoric level in this case, and the characters not so much as people but as vehicles to display the concepts. Shinji is becoming more and more dependent in this behaviour, Asuka less and less so, culminating in the ultimate expression of either behaviour. Absolute rejection of any connection at all in her case (the infamous "No") and absolute possessiveness or dependency in the case of Shinji: The strangling is the final attempt to make a connection forcefully. "Love me or I will kill you". It is of course at the same time the ultimate rejection of the Other, a mirror of Asuka's "No" in physical form. Interestingly, the characters switch roles here: Normally, it is Asuka who is the agressor. Right before the strangling, she still is, while Shinji passively takes the punishment, not lashing out at her; the chair he throws doesn't hit her, it just comes close. He doesn't want to hurt her, while she wants to hurt him. It then flips into the opposite extreme, with Asuka being completely passive while Shinji strangles her, the ultimate form of agression.

Both behaviours will ultimately end in death: You can not live on your own, you can not be completely independent. Shinji is told exactly that in EoTV and EoE: Without other people, you do not exist either. Depending completely on everybody else is equally bad: You cease to exist because you do nothing on your own. I think this is where all the equivalence arguments stem from. Both characters "deserve" death in this case, because they reject the Other and human connections completely, and both are equally wrong in their behaviour. This is then mirrored in the final scene: The most basic human connection is established. Shinji as the Self reacts in the most primitive way to the Other: I know I can kill you, so you can kill me. I do not want to die, so you have to die. The caress stops this: "I am the same as you. I do not want to die." Shinji stops his strangling, establishing the most basic layer of trust: "I will not kill you if you do not kill me." Both accept this most basic kind of human connection they rejected previously and get to live.

Emotionally, all characters have plenty of justification. To stick to Asuka and Shinji, she is making advances, is being "nice" by interacting with him, is inviting him, etc, and he never even once acknowledges her presence. He fails her at every turn: He doesn't kiss back, he doesn't hold her, he doesn't come to her aid. In addition, he overshadows her, he is coddled by Misato while she is not, he is allowed insubordination ... That she even approaches him after knowing that he masturbated to her just shows how desperate she is to form any connection at all and her ultimate rejection of him is the inevitable outcome and exactly what she should have done from the beginning: Shinji is unable to give her what she wants and will use her for his own happiness as much as he can.

From Shinji's point of view, Asuka is constantly seeking him out, seemingly only to set him up and hurt him in the process. She wanted to kiss him, she blames him for the failure. She belittles him, questions his masculinity and guilt trips him over beating her in a synch test he doesn't even care about. During Pre-Instrumentality, she does the same things again: Berate and belittle him while demanding that he bows to her every whim completely, gives her everything without anything in return. That he snaps after she rejects him when he accepts this completely unfair deal is just as inevitable as her rejection was. His reaction is wildly out of proportions, but he isn't even lashing out at her specifically, but what she stands for: Everybody around him who is neglecting him while demanding that he saves the world for them.

Assuming the position of both characters, I can not help but feel satisfaction at their actions. Go Asuka, reject all those miserable fools around you who never gave you what you needed, and go Shinji, finally fight back against a world that treats you like shit. It's primitive and wrong and immature, but it is also cathartic. At the point of the kitchen scene, everything is so fucked up anyways that it really doesn't matter. This, I guess, would count as incel speak. Not sure what the equivalent term would be for Asuka's side of the story. I think it goes without saying that I don't condone acting out on these impulses and am not basing my morality and wordview on my knee-jerk emotional reactions to things.

What this thread was originally about seems to have been the behaviour of the characters during the series, which can be summed up with "Shinji is trying to be nice and Asuka is mean and demanding." She has ridiculously high expectations of him (basically, that he should be able to read her mind) while he is trying to appease her despite everything, having very low expectations of a little friendliness in return. Her behaviour towards him is understandable but isn't justified; she is lashing out at him to cover up her own insecurities, she is demeaning him to feel better about herself. She might not be a bitch and a bully, but she looks pretty close to one.


Anyway, I feel like all of this has already been discussed in the past ad-nauseam. In the end, it is just a question of whether or not you can identify with the characters and to what extent. To reiterate, I hate none of the characters in Eva, and Asuka is my favorite, with Shinji a close second. Above all, I find their fate to be tragic and unjust. Stopping your assessment of the show at the emotional level is missing the deeper points, as are Waifu-wars or shipping debates. That said, I find the attitude that every wish for a happy, romantic ending somehow makes one an escapist or a shipper to be equally misguided. Romance is part of human connections and it isn't meaningless. It does not have to contradict the themes of maturity and responsibility in the slightest, and is a very useful tool to examine the core issues of the characters at hand, whatever your favorite pairing happens to be. Just be aware that when you pair them, it might just end in misery, but that, like everything else, is not set in stone.

Ugh ... don't even know what I am saying anymore, so I'll stop restating things everybody knows already.

FreakyFilmFan4ever wrote:Like, of all the things to get caught up on.... it almost sounds like incel speak.

Lol, no. Incel speak is basically be nice to me and I'll be nice to you, which is quite a reasonable attitude. What incels are doing wrong though is that they don't know jack shit about what women perceive as nice. The devil always hides in details, so to say.

Meanwhile, Shinji issues an ultimatum be nice to me, or I'll finally snap and kill you, because I have enough. Which, I think, can be explained this way: Shinji plays the Japanese game of being ultra-polite towards his peers, because this is what he was taught to play as a Japanese, with the unspoken promise to get some social reward for a good play. But what he gets instead from the life and the world is getting hurt, again and again. And then comes this bloody half-gaijin special snowflake who hurts him even more, and then demands him to fuck off because out of the blue she feels hurt too. Apparently her needs are somehow more important than his own ones and - this is the point - he's unable to protect himself against such abusive rudeness, because he has to be polite. And to put cherry on top, being a Japanese he cannot even commit a sin, because in Japanese culture sin is on equals with criminal offense. So all what he's left with is a strong feeling of injustice and betrayal of the society he has trusted. And when he gets sure that he can count on nothing, he starts killing people.

I don't know if this can be justified, but in the end it's Asuka who first reached for him and pushed for more. Maybe she should take some resposibility for her actions and inactions then? I don't know, really.

Derantor wrote:Physical violence is never justified by words alone. That's the standard we've set for ourselves, and how things should be.

You've never went through a toxic relationship with someone who can and do abuse this standard, ain't it so? And I don't mean romantic relationship without children which you can always cancel on your own.

ErgoProxy wrote:You've never went through a toxic relationship with someone who can and do abuse this standard, ain't it so? And I don't mean romantic relationship without children which you can always cancel on your own.

Oh, believe me: I personally believe that at some point, you are entirely justified in beating somebody up. At some point, words become meaningless, and if a situation can not be changed any other way and you are unable to leave, well. The legal system agrees to the extent of self-defence. In the abstract moral sense, it still is unjustified. That's an idealistic view of things, and not the world I see around myself, but it should be a standard to aspire too, and that I maintain as best as I can. I've only ever beaten another person once: One of my bullies, after 6 years of suffering through it. A single punch, and that was enough to finally shut him up, after everything else had failed. Don't mistake my generally peaceful and sensitive attitude in conversation for a lack of knowledge about reality.

I don't know if this can be justified, but in the end it's Asuka who first reached for him and pushed for more. Maybe she should take some resposibility for her actions and inactions then? I don't know, really.

Yes, she should. She even made the whole confrontation physical to begin with, she escalated the situation first. That does not mean that she deserves getting strangled, but at some point, it is like poking at a sleeping bear: If it mauls you when it wakes up, you've only got yourself to blame. Does not mean that it is inevitable and that Shinji is not to blame for lashing out far too strongly, but still. The world is what it is, including human nature, which, in the end, trumps moral ideals.

ErgoProxy wrote:Lol, no. Incel speak is basically be nice to me and I'll be nice to you, which is quite a reasonable attitude. What incels are doing wrong though is that they don't know jack shit about what women perceive as nice. The devil always hides in details, so to say.

That and the unspoken second half of "...and if you do anything less than what I percieve as nice, I will do my best to make you miserable"

Beginning to think that the amount of incels who uncritically sympathize with Shinji's psychosexual issues and Anno's feelings of failure regarding his attempt to get these people to leave the house and wash their ass just might be correlated

Mr. Tines wrote:Dropping one line from the script is all that it would take, the one that made me say to myself "Where the hell did that come from? Do they think that being on the silver screen necessitates injecting a romance angle?" In a story that had been about coming to terms with being oneself, injecting the template normalfaggotry about the mating dance is the distraction and dilution.

I had the same reaction as I also saw the non-DC version first, and it was really the only version I had for about two years.

Thinking on it though, maybe it was to demonstrate that even angling towards romance is pointless, because self-validation was lacking in them both.
That looking for love without self-love will simply disappoint, or even lead you to a greater hell.

Thus, the point isn't "it's tragic these two can't get together", but, "these two are so lacking in self-regard that they can't possibly generate the latitude or proper mental distance to help one another."

Regardless, we also know the intent of the DC edits was to better connect the series with EoE, so it feels that these do represent something they intended for the story all along.

Derantor wrote:So, why would he change at all? For the better, on top of that? What can he possibly hope to gain? Why would he feel entitled to have anything positive happening to him? Even if it did, how could he feel positive about that and not guilty? If anything, he is set out to become just as nihilistic as his creator.

Are you just exaggerating for effect, or do you actually mean to say Anno is a Nihilist? Either now or just in the 90's?

Alaska Slim wrote:Are you just exaggerating for effect, or do you actually mean to say Anno is a Nihilist? Either now or just in the 90's?

Eh, I was a little worked up when I wrote that. EoE hits a little too close to home regarding depression, and I fail to see much hope in the narrative side of things. I obviously don't know what Anno thinks; but there is a quite heavy streak of Nihilism running through EoE and to a lesser extent the series - kinda inevitable when you are depressed, or write a story about depression. At least that's my impression of things. My view of Anno shifts with my mood, but in all honesty, he is a cypher to me. When I wrote that, I think I was more reacting to part of the fandom rather than Anno himself (namely the part that claims to know exactly what he thinks and wants to determine what the "pure and holy" interpretation of things is).

Derantor wrote:Eh, I was a little worked up when I wrote that. EoE hits a little too close to home regarding depression, and I fail to see much hope in the narrative side of things. I obviously don't know what Anno thinks; but there is a quite heavy streak of Nihilism running through EoE and to a lesser extent the series - kinda inevitable when you are depressed, or write a story about depression. At least that's my impression of things. My view of Anno shifts with my mood, but in all honesty, he is a cypher to me. When I wrote that, I think I was more reacting to part of the fandom rather than Anno himself (namely the part that claims to know exactly what he thinks and wants to determine what the "pure and holy" interpretation of things is).

Just to say, just as people would know Shinji did something they would also know the fuller context. They would see just as much if not more of the story as we the viewer have. They'd see SEELE's involvement and it's plan to initiate 3I even if Shinji didn't. They would see how Gendo's actions, the attack on NERV and other events that pushed Shinji into a corner. They would know Shinji didn't build the robot, that he didn't know how he might initiate 3I until mere seconds before he did so, and he didn't sortie out intending to end the world but to save it.

I would also think the people who manage to leave Instrumentality as being those who can at least slightly better self-reflect than those who don't. All in all, I would think the people who'd really have something to worry about would be SEELE, Gendo, and their upper-most collaborators. If any of them returned.

As to whether or not Shinji could be happy/ non-suicidal in this post-3I environment, I propose the following. It's something that sits between C-137 feral Jerry from Rick & Morty, and the message of Welcome to the NHK. That necessity and being able to meet it drives much of what people feel about themselves and how they grow. Shinji isn't completely ill-prepared; he knows how to cook, likely knows how to judge food for edibility, and thanks to Kensuke likely also has knowledge of how to gather fuel for a fire and light it. He moreover possesses an innate instinct to clean which is genuinely important if you want to survive something like a plane crash. Skills like finding shelter and performing first aid are not beyond his reach.

Survival to me then isn't the problem short to midterm, it's that intangible part of necessity he'd still struggle with. Connecting to the other person he'd be doing much of this for. Asuka.

Asuka knows how to read emotional cues, and how to offer some shred of reciprocality. The question is whether she'd choose to do so, and if they ever fought over anything would she try to make amends? That requires judging what the depths of her thoughts were in OMF and how that would inform her future mindset going forward.

Hence, I think what Anno is done is set up a gauntlet where Shinji's chances of survival and mental well-being depend what you've brought into it. Your interpretation of how well these characters can grow together, if at all.

But even if you insist End of Eva is still tragic, I'd still counter tragedy isn't inherently nihilistic. It may merely be a brow-beating way of delivering a message. To Build a Fire by Jack London features a protagonist who outright dies, thus underlying the point THE BUDDY SYSTEM SAVES LIVES, QUIT GOING OUT ALONE YOU *****. Discovery of earlier manuscripts showed this was a harsher ending than London originally had in mind.

Anno I think did somewhat adopt this mode when the reaction to his "gentler" TV ending came through. Heck, we know he did; cuts to the death threat messages and the theater filled with viewers screams "Are you getting it yet?" But he does this to suggest there's a better path, not to say there's none. Otherwise why have Yui say anything?

Nihilism might be the wrong word. Pessimism is less contentious I think. That said, EoE especially follows the postmodern mindset of questioning everything until there is nothing of beauty left, so maybe I am confusing that with Nihilism. It also really doesn't take a stance on anything. "If it is too painful, you can always quit" - so life is worth living, or not, you decide. As for Yui's words, they could just as well be a cruel joke. Overall, EoE seems balanced or neutral at the metaphorical or "Aesop" level.

As for the narrative side: For Post-EoE scenarios I use my most favorite tools: Averages and bell-curves. You are right, people might know more than we do, maybe even everything - or they know nothing. Maybe some people know more than others. Three billion brains mashed into one and split apart again leaves much room for lost data. In the worst case, you don't even end up with your own memories. For the rest, I just take what people see in EoE and average it out, or rather, distribute it among the population of returnees. For every Mr. Tines pointing out that it was all an excercise in futility, there is an unflinching optimist proclaiming post-EoE-earth to be a paradise, and anything inbetween forms the bulk of reactions, so I presume a similar mindset persists in similar distributions in the returnees. In any case, it is far easier to break things than make them better. So maybe all the nuclear power plants shut themselves down as people got tanged - after all, all the big meltdowns occured through human error, save the Fukushima incident which was a planning mistake.

But what of chemical plants using highly toxic materials? Uncontrolled fires burning in the cities because somebody got tanged and left the stove on? You can do this forever. That's before taking into account the disruption of the global economy and other fun stuff. "All living things have the will to return, and the heart to go on living" - what does that mean exactly? Bacteria got tanged as well? That's bad news for the eco-system. Do all lifeforms crawl out of the oceans? It's bound to bring you lots of fun if you got microbes and germs accumulating at the beaches. Btw., does an unborn baby count as a separate lifeform yet? If so, at what stage of pregnancy? I'll leave the rest up to your imagination. But lets just say that everything is still intact enough to support life as we know it. You are right, short-term survival is not a problem, but what if people return en massé? Even if everybody leaving instrumentality is humbled and bettered by the experience, what about six month down the line? A year? Two? What if half the people don't return? Broken families, resentment, hunger, destruction, supply shortages - there's a lot going on to change you for the worse. If Gendo and SEELE don't return, blame will be shifted lower down the line until people find somebody reachable. True guilt really does not matter for things like resentment and hatred.

So lets say 1,5 billion people return in a way that ensures that society can continue to function somewhat like before the impact - no Mad Max world, more like Akira or Bladerunner 2049. Let's say 1% of them sees Shinji as literally Hitler - thats fifteen million people. A lot to protect from, balanced out by 15 million rabid admirers who think he is Jesus, Ghandi, Buddha and God combined. John Lennon knows how well that can turn out. Then the power struggle comes in. Think that people will trust the government if it becomes clear that a shady cabal used it and the UN to bring about the apokalypse? Sounds like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream situation to me - or somebody trying to pray on insecurities and tribalism. Most of the people directly responsible were Japanese, it was triggered in Japan - I can already hear the rhethoric coming. But okay, maybe those countries seeking revenge are impotent and can't actually do anything beyond spouting propaganda. Trade still suffers.

I'll stop here, but any scenario that doesn't involve magic intervention looks very bleak to me if thought through until the end. That doesn't mean hopeless - people survived the siege of Leningrad, after all. Either way, it really doesn't matter all that much how well Shinji and Asuka (who got their own spectrum of states-of-mind, from "Utterly broken and insane" to "Massively improved") get along or how successful they are in putting into practice what they've learned - if they learned anything at all. The only requirement to return is "Imagine yourself in your heart" - who is to tell that people can not imagine themselves as monsters? There's also the fact that Instrumentality apparently ended when Shinji said he wanted to leave. The therapy session got cut short - if EoTV Instrumentality is actually is compatible with EoE Instrumentality and the therapy session happened in the first place - we only know for sure with Shinji. How healthy will souls be that drifted through the void all on their own for what could be years? Again, the bell-curve helps: 5% lunatics, 5% enlightened, with a normal distribution in between.

This is the narrative side I'm talking about, which acts pretty independently from the metaphorical or "aesop" level. In any case, the only thing I can say and feel I am in saying is that EoE offers a blank slate to build your own view upon - so we agree in that regard. All the negatives I listed could very well be inconsequential, being balanced out by other things, leaving the narrative side truly neutral, with things being different from place to place and from person to person (persons in the world of Eva, that is). That debate is as old as EoE though, and I'm basically reiterating what has been discussed in a lot of threads before.

Uff, this was a lot longer than intended. Just to reiterate, I'm not saying everything is definitely screwed - keeping with the theme of hope, I'm actually inclined to believe that in the long run, things will be fine. For whom and how long it takes for things to be fine again is the rather more interesting question, though. I'm not angsting about it, either. It is just an interesting story conundrum at this point. Figuring out life after such an enormous event (and I've left out a few possible angles of investigation still) is a fun excercise in imagination.

Derantor#896105 wrote:Nihilism might be the wrong word. Pessimism is less contentious I think. That said, EoE especially follows the postmodern mindset of questioning everything until there is nothing of beauty left, so maybe I am confusing that with Nihilism. It also really doesn't take a stance on anything. "If it is too painful, you can always quit" - so life is worth living, or not, you decide. As for Yui's words, they could just as well be a cruel joke. Overall, EoE seems balanced or neutral at the metaphorical or "Aesop" level.

I take it as EoE communicating that's it's not naive about what it's asking people to do. It's avoiding the implication "things will be easy now that you've decided on loving yourself and relating to others." It's more like finally dealing with the consequences after years of being an alcoholic. Things will improve, but ahead of you are decidedly not fun repairs.

Choosing Asuka as the final stage partner is EoE being upfront as it can about what it thinks people will face. You'll likely start with someone close to you whom you've in some way ignored or mistreated. Someone who has good reason to suspect you. Start from scratch, see where it goes.

But what of chemical plants using highly toxic materials? Uncontrolled fires burning in the cities because somebody got tanged and left the stove on? You can do this forever.

Suffice to say the world and its infrastructure would be extremely hardened after 2nd Impact which itself still dwarfs whatever impact bits and pieces of Rei would have done to the planet. We're left with no indication that 3rd impact altered the tilt of the planet or atomized a continent.

I'll stop here, but any scenario that doesn't involve magic intervention looks very bleak to me

It could be this is why Quantum Rei sticks around; she initially guided humans into the black moon, now she's hanging around just long enough to guide them back to an approximate location of where they once were. Perhaps complete with a parting pep talk.

Magic'd in, magic'd out. That's conservation, right?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr.co ... a-did/amp/

All the more reason why I despise Asuka.

What I really want to see is her get on her knees in front of Shinji and apologize for everything she’s done. That would really be a plus for fan service.

User has been warned for use of click-bait and obstinate refusal to watch the show they feel qualified to argue with others about.

>providing click-bait article to justify hatred of poor redhead girl who went through far more shit than Shinji (who did exactly the same as her and worse) while harboring fantasies of humiliating her
Consider my jimmies rustled, my dude. Have you even watched the series yet, or are you basing your opinion on second hand information and guesstimations of what the fuck you are even talking about?

My dude, Asuka didn't spurt a goddamn lady nut directly over an exposed and unconscious Shinji.

Now that I think about it, none of the characters actions in the show are necessarily justified. To justify ones actions it to use it as a motive for their behavior. But one thing cannot exclude the other. Justification, no matter how hard one tries, cannot outweigh the consequences of ones actions. If a person tries to justify their actions, it is a sign that they are being defensive. In my instance, I once had a difficult time taking advice from others and reflecting on constructive criticism.

Justification isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it’s moreover how people use it. Justification can be used fo further understand one’s motives and reasoning for their actions.

But understandable isn’t always the same acceptable. Acceptance is the next step towards self improvement, which time and again these characters including Asuka not only fail at, but refuse to recognize and reflect upon it.

Hopelessromantic wrote:But understandable isn’t always the same acceptable. Acceptance is the next step towards self improvement, which time and again these characters including Asuka not only fail at, but refuse to recognize and reflect upon it.

I would love to say "I'm sorry for making this ad hominem", but at this point I'm really not. The only person here who refuses to recognize and reflect on anything is you on the steaming hot bullshit you post in this thread. For the love of fuck, watch the goddamn show before you try to argue anything in here.

I like to point out and say that both kids are messed up and need some serious help. If Shinji and Asuka are really similar to one another, they both need to sit down, talk about their issues, work things over, and get some fucking therapy. Nothing comes from these two hurting each other. The least they would do is be civil to one another and try to understand each other of where they came from.

I know, I’m not really one to speak about this, but it’s worth noting that it’s worth a try to talk to someone about our personal issues and find a way to get them resolved. And that’s the case of Shinji and Asuka; they both got on a wrong foot, like how many people do in general, and need to find a good way to reconcile. I think that’s the point of the series; Understanding, and I think that’s one of the things I failed to grasp before.

In short, they just need to talk it over before starting a more positive relationship, like how a lot of troubled people do.

I like how the linked 10 Worst Things Asuka Ever Did, Ranked article places "She Attempted to Seduce Kaji" at number 4, and then provides a screen cap from the iteration of Evangelion where she never even had a crush on him to begin with, and is only focused on angrily eating her food. (The only on-screen time she really had with Kaji in those movies is when Asuka went with everyone to the aquarium Kaji invited them to, and even then she spent most of her time complaining about Rei's vegetarian diet.)

Clearly, this article has been thoroughly researched with the strictest regard to the facts of the fiction of the cartoon at hand.

Also, for real? Hopelessromantic has never even seen Evangelion? I mean, that's cool. I never saw any of the Back to the Future movies (true story!), and now all of the films have been set in the past. But you don't see me going on BttA forums and lighting a fire under Doc Brown's pants for, I dunno, orchestrating a situation in which Marty almost has sex with his own mother. (I heard that's a thing that happened in one of the movies, anyway. Like I said, I never saw them.)

Seriously though, this is the most toxic incel-type behavior I've seen on this forum in a while. The only thing Asuka needs to get on her knees to do is play with cute puppies or something. In fact, everyone in Evangelion needs to get on the floor and play with cute puppies together; Yui, Gendo, the angels, Keel Lorenz, everyone. It'll probably calm everyone down and allow them to decide to do something less crazy than Third Impact. (For all Hopelessromantic knows, it'll probably work!)