I think the real value of Scary News Out Of Tokyo-3 was that it allowed many of us to seriously contemplate, amid all the comedy, what the actual events of NGE would have looked like to the outside world, and the effects the story might have had on people who weren't directly part of it.

In my character's case (The Case of Juan Rafael "Jack" Villanueva, so to speak) you have a man who, despite his original field of study, is a hard-headed and practical type -- who has in fact been praised as a statesman for those very qualities, in relation to his contribution to putting the world back together after Second Impact... and yet he shatters like a dropped wineglass the minute things like NERV and Angels and conspiracies and the truth about Second Impact start coming down on him, things that are just too big for him to handle rationally. When the world suddenly refuses to make sense anymore -- when it won't stop confronting him with things he can't possibly face on his own terms -- he falls into angst and self-sabotaging behavior, flailing like a swimmer dragged out to sea, until Third Impact finally pulls him under.

As a metaphor for clinical depression and high-functioning autism, I think it reflects some aspects of me very well... I'm very familiar with that drowning-swimmer feeling.

Second, here's what I experienced in Instrumentality.

Followed immediately by what I experienced in Instrumentality.

If you mean the part about him having been a professor, I included that in the "news" article you posted for me -- maybe you skimmed over it and only your subconscious noticed.

And yeah, Jack is still echoing in my head too. I think he's gone for good, though -- he won't ever be coming back from Instrumentality; like I said, there isn't enough of him left. I imagine a lot of other ex-people are in the same boat.

For anyone who stuck around who's been wondering what my occasional references to a forum RP were all about, here's the link one last time: They made a TVTropes page out of us.

Of course. Rei's been appearing to everyone in the guise of the person they most want -- or need -- to see.

Shinji needed to see Kaworu, to know that he hadn't destroyed him entirely.

Over on our board, everyone had a lot of fun roleplaying through the events of EoE, especially after Third Impact was set off. I'm fairly certain both LibraryLass and I spent an incredible effort on our last few posts in the thread... I can only speak for myself, but I was working on it months in advance. My character's sanity had been circling the drain all through December, and he finally gave it up in the face of Third Impact with a disjointed stream of babble, song lyrics, literary references, and quotes from as many religions as I could find on the subjects of the unity of all things and the nonexistence of the self (he was a professor of comparative religion before he went into politics).

Other posters sent farewell messages from locations where they thought they could wait out Instrumentality -- and it probably doesn't speak in their favor that those were their last posts in the thread. Some even went so far as to mention who Rei appeared as to them -- in one case, it was a character's long-dead girlfriend; in another, it was his mother; in yet another, a character who literally stepped out of the TV. This last one, I think, is worth quoting in the context of Evangelion as a whole; it does a remarkably good job of summing up one of the show's primary themes.

"I ran, to add this to my post. Whatever defenses you think you have, it won't be enough.

"She is watching, waiting for me to finish, just as I would expect of her.

"You can try to wall out the world, but eventually, it will punch in through your defenses, and then you can either fight like a maniac or reach out.

I can't fight any more."

Your link's broken again.

I keep saying this: Family resemblances are a detail not usually given more than cursory attention in the making of an anime, but Gendo looks almost exactly like an older Shinji -- and there are important thematic reasons for it.

Also:

I don't think Gendo would have chosen the same Instrumentality as Shinji or even at all. He wanted to move his soul into Unit One/bring Yui out/merge with Yui.

He might still have let Instrumentality occur. What happened to the rest of the human race -- dissolving into LCL, or something even worse -- would be completely irrelevant to him.

I'm pretty sure Komm Süsser Tod only exists because Gainax already knew there was no way in hell they would be able to get the rights to Hey Jude.

Which is unfortunate, given that some of the lyrics are really appropriate:

And any time you feel the pain, hey Jude, refrain
Don't carry the world upon your shoulder
For well you know that it's a fool who plays it cool
By making his world a little colder

I think his argument would be this: Ab qbhog Lhv xarj Traqb jryy rabhtu gb xabj gung fur jnf fbzrguvat bs na rzbgvbany pehgpu sbe uvz. Fur pubfr gb evfx ure yvsr va gur Pbagnpg Rkcrevzrag xabjvat gung vs fur jnf nofbeorq vagb Havg-01 vg jbhyq zbgvingr Traqb obgu gb fgvpx jvgu AREI naq gb guebj n jerapu vagb FRRYR'f cynaf jura gur gvzr pnzr. Fur vagraqrq gb nffher n shgher sbe ure fba, ohg zvfpnyphyngrq ubeevoyl nf gb jung jbhyq unccra gb ure cyna jvgubhg ure gb thvqr vg va crefba.