not the sex essay, Hakuren
SO I think what this is going to end up being is a . . . general "interacting with people and Ayanami and wtf is Hyuuga's deal anyway" essay. Some of it will be expanding on that other post. I don't even know yet. LET'S FIND OUT.
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Okay, so . . . we don't know Hyuuga's backstory yet. I suspect we will FIND OUT eventually because that's how 07-Ghost is. Probably he will die horribly and then we'll get flashbacks and that's how it will be. |D
The point being that there's some headcanon I don't want to commit to either way. For example--we don't know whether Hyuuga joined the Black Hawks to follow Ayanami or Verloren.
BUT WAIT! Ayanami is Verloren! That's true. And some characters don't make a distinction. I don't think Konatsu does. He doesn't appear to--he joins the Black Hawks because he wants to face his darkness by being useful to Verloren, and he heard Ayanami was Verloren's reincarnation. He doesn't interact with Ayanami all that much actually, but there's no indication that he appreciates Ayanami as Ayanami and not just as . . . a cursed death god that his family worships and is blessed by. Likewise Kuroyuri conflates Ayanami and Verloren. He gets very emotional about OMG VERLOREN'S SCYTHE! and meanwhile--while he obviously loves Ayanami, as they ALL DO, there's no real "he's a human being too and I care about him as an equal" vibe going there. He's a devoted servant of a god.
Hyuuga is the only one of Ayanami's subordinates (the dead Yukikaze notwithstanding) who exhibits this very clear sense of Ayanami as a man. He also exhibits a very clear sense of Verloren as a god. That's what makes the relationship so unique and interesting. Hyuuga is devoted to Verloren in a way that people don't get devoted to their peers: he considers himself a tool to be used by Verloren, something lesser than Verloren, that exists merely to protect and serve him and die for him if necessary. "Everything you love is my justice" is what that one spread says. Like Kuroyuri, he's a servant/tool whose purpose and entire existence is defined by what Verloren wants of him.
On the other hand! Hyuuga is also devoted to Ayanami in a way that people don't get devoted to their Gods. He teases him, complains about him, henpecks him, flirts with him, and generally interacts with him as an equal despite the fact that he's also . . . his tool and completely defined by Verloren's whims and goals. He shows interest in Ayanami as a human being who needs to be taken care of both physically and emotionally. And he's not afraid to overstep boundaries to do that. Almost as if Ayanami were a child, and definitely as if Ayanami is a friend, beyond even just the relationship that an ordinary human would have with his ordinary human boss (I dunno how many of you would offer your bosses your sucked-on candy but uh). This isn't STUFF THAT YOU DO TO YOUR GOD. It's STUFF THAT YOU DO TO YOUR STUPID EMOTARD FRIEND.
It's not that he sees Verloren and Ayanami as separate entities, either--there's no Noah-esque situation of "Aya-tan is a normal human who just happened to be possessed by the god I worship, cool!" Ayanami IS VERLOREN INCARNATE and always has been. It's just that Hyuuga has managed to fit both concepts into his head with no real difficulty, and they co-exist peacefully. There is nothing strange to him about crushing on his angsty stupid BFF who also happens to be the demonic god who granted him the power of Warsfeil and to whom Hyuuga has sworn his allegiance and very life.
DO I THINK HYUUGA IS SLIGHTLY INSANE y-yeah I do. You've gotta be, to function that way so easily. He is not right in the head (as evidenced in more ways than this one), in that way that twists back around again to become beautifully well-adjusted and functional and happy.
My original point was that we don't know yet whether Hyuuga swore his allegiance first to Verloren or Ayanami; in other words, did he join the Black Hawks to serve Verloren and then realize Ayanami was an awesome human guy too, or did he meet Ayanami in some context, fall for him, and then find out later it was Verloren? I DUNNO and I'm not going to swing either way until we find out, because I know we will. I will say that I like the latter better and think it makes more sense in terms of their relationship, but that I also think the former is more likely since among Warsfeil it's kept quiet but not exactly a secret that Ayanami is Verloren.
It probably doesn't really matter anyway. The situation remains the same! Hyuuga loves his boss both as a man and a god. He genuinely cares about the human "Ayanami" in a way that has nothing to do with religious devotion; if Ayanami weren't Verloren, Hyuuga would still love him. And he is also a devoted follower of Verloren in a way that has nothing to do with Ayanami! Even if Hyuuga had never MET Verloren and he were just mythical figure in a book, Hyuuga would be a Verloren worshiper, presumably because he was raised that way/is a Warsfeil. And there is just no conflict for him in this. It never even strikes him as odd. lol.
This isn't to say, though, that Hyuuga's "human" love for Ayanami is totally normal, or totally unaffected by the fact of what Ayanami is. Because Ayanami is affected by being Verloren. Again it's not like Ayanami's a guy who has a voice in his head that acts up every third day. Everything that he is as a person is defined by the fact that he is Verloren's reincarnation. So ADJUSTMENTS HAVE TO BE MADE. For one thing, even though Hyuuga is in fact romantically in love with Ayanami, there's no strong sexual component to it. Some of that has to do with Ayanami being Verloren and thus pretty much asexual, and some of it is because of how Hyuuga relates to all people, and you know what LET'S JUST DO THAT NOW.
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I said before that Hyuuga is messed up in the head a bit. Yeah he is. I don't really know what to call it; I don't think it's accurate to say he's a sociopath. And it's difficult to know how much of it is attributable directly to Ayanami and how much of it he already kinda exhibited before he fell in with his crowd.
Ayanami is . . . really the only important factor in Hyuuga's world. He's a god, friend, and CRUSHLOVEBOYTHING, and so there's no reason for Hyuuga to question anything he does in Ayanami's name unless it's something he's not comfortable with himself. And what Hyuuga's comfortable with is very fluid and emotion-based and inconsistent. He doesn't appear to have any qualms about killing probably hundreds of people in an invasion, nor about throwing Shuri out of the airship to his certain death BASICALLY JUST FOR THE LULZ. On the other hand, he questions Ayanami's murder of Mikage--not in the sense of AYA-TAN, I THINK THAT WAS WRONG but in the sense that he was perturbed enough about it to ask for an explanation. (Which he accepted easily, but still, he wanted to know, and he expressed that he would have done things differently himself.)
So Hyuuga's moral sense is very skewed. His only--well, like I quoted before, his only sense of justice and right vs. wrong is what Ayanami wants. Killing dudes? A-OK if it's for Aya-tan! And not even in an "I have to do this for my love, no matter how much I regret it" way, but in a way where he really comes off as . . . not particularly caring that he's taking lives, and even enjoying it on some occasions. He cops to his violent tendencies in that one omake. He's not a psycho who goes out and kills randomly for fun or has to SQUASH HIS MURDEROUS URGES EVERY TIME HE GETS ANNOYED; in fact, he discourages Kuroyuri and Konatsu from their OWN murderous urges. But yeah. He does enjoy killing. He enjoys a good fight and he likes to win. He does not feel bad for the people he kills unless the situation/person itself happens to ping him in his twisted morals. He says to Ayanami that he "understands Mikage's feelings"; Hyuuga is in some ways a foil for Mikage (he's the Mikage to Ayanami's Teito), which explains that. Killing enemy soldiers is fine, throwing out an annoying soldier to let him fend for himself and probably die is just fine and kinda lulzy, killing a kid who reminds Hyuuga of himself and was helpless is . . . iffy.
Iffy, but necessary, and what Aya-tan wanted, so also ultimately fine. Just a less comfy fine.
But Hyuuga's own comfort is meaningless, it's TOTALLY BACKSEAT to Ayanami's needs, and Hyuuga is fine with this. And what this means is that Hyuuga is completely prepared to kill everyone he interacts with who is not Ayanami, should it be necessary. Even people he's gotten very attached to, like Konatsu. Depending on the situation, he may or may not be totally cool with it, but he will do it, and his level of uncoolness with it is not the level a normal person should have. Any regret he feels over killing, when he does it, is passing, and usually nonexistent. And if it's done in a swordfighty badass battlefield kind of way, he finds it genuinely enjoyable (I imagine he finds just killing someone without a fight, or slowly, or torturing them, or whatever, not as enjoyable because the fun is in the cutting!). If it were A GOOD FRIEND OF HIS he would care more and would readily question Ayanami about it and look for alternatives, but if there were none? Sorry buddy. That's life, and yours is unimportant if your death can be useful to Aya-tan.
☆
WELL THEN, you say, clearly Hyuuga doesn't really give a shit about anyone but Ayanami! The funny thing is, that's not true. Hyuuga loves people. And not just in an "O ho ho you're a funny toy to play with and study" sociopath way, even though playing and teasing are his ways of showing . . . well really just of being, always. I mean he really genuinely likes people, he likes meeting new people, being around people, learning about people, helping people (as long as it's not too much effort!). He really IS that laid-back and cheerful and happy with life all the time; it's not a front to deceive anyone. HE'S A GOOD PERSON. A silly, lazy, blunt person with a healthy sense of schadenfreude, but a good guy, the kind who doesn't mind chatting up and getting to know even his sworn enemies for no other reason than curiosity and the joy of interaction. That is, until the moment they need to die. ☆
It's similar to the killing thing, though, in that Hyuuga is very impulse-driven and amusement-driven as well as goal-driven. Hyuuga is smart enough to do what will be good for him and Ayanami in the long run, but he also likes to . . . just do what he thinks will be fun. Or maybe I just love that omake!? When he meets Konatsu, he does him a big fucking favor--not just offering him a contract, but he basically offers him a way to come to terms with himself and finally move forward in his stalled life. This isn't an accident. Hyuuga knows that Konatsu has potential and will be an asset in the future. And he also obviously has a personal interest. He feels like helping him, so he helps him. . . . And then in the present day, he makes trouble for Konatsu all the time--also because he feels like it. XD THERE WILL BE NO HELPING OF KONATSU WHEN IT COMES TO PAPERWORK OR SHURI OR RAISING THE TWINS.
Likewise, with Shuri, Hyuuga prevents people from killing him on some occasions and on other occasions endangers his life himself, without any sense of his own hypocrisy. It's just how Hyuuga is. Sometimes he'll go out of his way to help someone, even someone he barely knows--and sometimes he'll impose upon them and make their life difficult without any sense of guilt, just because he's lazy/impulsive and it's funny. If he feels like being insightful and helpful, he will do that. And if he feels like rolling around uselessly or being annoying, he will do that.
SOMETIMES THEY'RE EVEN ONE AND THE SAME, because as much as Hyuuga loves people, he loves them regardless of what they think of him; he has no shame and his skin is almost impenetrably thick. I mean. He loves Ayanami. He's used to insults and suffering. He's not fazed by someone being annoyed by his ~HELPFUL EFFORTS~. In fact, sometimes that's part of the point. Hyuuga understands people well, and he never does anything annoying that he doesn't realize is annoying--either he felt like doing it anyway or he wanted that person annoyed. And he is not wounded by being disliked. Hyuuga's there to have fun interacting with people, and sometimes this involves helping them and bonding with them closely, and other times this involves just being an occasional annoying presence in someone's day. Sometimes it involves both of those WITH THE SAME PERSON. And Hyuuga has fun with both, because he has fun with just about everything in his life.
He is like if you took a perky, well-adjusted, friendly taco shell and stuffed it with obsessive secret rapist with violent tendencies meat, and then put it in a blender so it's not actually layered at all, it's just all one thing blended together seamlessly, which shouldn't work but somehow it does. And I think that's a good note to end on. Or something.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/APP KONATSU?
☆
Okay, so . . . we don't know Hyuuga's backstory yet. I suspect we will FIND OUT eventually because that's how 07-Ghost is. Probably he will die horribly and then we'll get flashbacks and that's how it will be. |D
The point being that there's some headcanon I don't want to commit to either way. For example--we don't know whether Hyuuga joined the Black Hawks to follow Ayanami or Verloren.
BUT WAIT! Ayanami is Verloren! That's true. And some characters don't make a distinction. I don't think Konatsu does. He doesn't appear to--he joins the Black Hawks because he wants to face his darkness by being useful to Verloren, and he heard Ayanami was Verloren's reincarnation. He doesn't interact with Ayanami all that much actually, but there's no indication that he appreciates Ayanami as Ayanami and not just as . . . a cursed death god that his family worships and is blessed by. Likewise Kuroyuri conflates Ayanami and Verloren. He gets very emotional about OMG VERLOREN'S SCYTHE! and meanwhile--while he obviously loves Ayanami, as they ALL DO, there's no real "he's a human being too and I care about him as an equal" vibe going there. He's a devoted servant of a god.
Hyuuga is the only one of Ayanami's subordinates (the dead Yukikaze notwithstanding) who exhibits this very clear sense of Ayanami as a man. He also exhibits a very clear sense of Verloren as a god. That's what makes the relationship so unique and interesting. Hyuuga is devoted to Verloren in a way that people don't get devoted to their peers: he considers himself a tool to be used by Verloren, something lesser than Verloren, that exists merely to protect and serve him and die for him if necessary. "Everything you love is my justice" is what that one spread says. Like Kuroyuri, he's a servant/tool whose purpose and entire existence is defined by what Verloren wants of him.
On the other hand! Hyuuga is also devoted to Ayanami in a way that people don't get devoted to their Gods. He teases him, complains about him, henpecks him, flirts with him, and generally interacts with him as an equal despite the fact that he's also . . . his tool and completely defined by Verloren's whims and goals. He shows interest in Ayanami as a human being who needs to be taken care of both physically and emotionally. And he's not afraid to overstep boundaries to do that. Almost as if Ayanami were a child, and definitely as if Ayanami is a friend, beyond even just the relationship that an ordinary human would have with his ordinary human boss (I dunno how many of you would offer your bosses your sucked-on candy but uh). This isn't STUFF THAT YOU DO TO YOUR GOD. It's STUFF THAT YOU DO TO YOUR STUPID EMOTARD FRIEND.
It's not that he sees Verloren and Ayanami as separate entities, either--there's no Noah-esque situation of "Aya-tan is a normal human who just happened to be possessed by the god I worship, cool!" Ayanami IS VERLOREN INCARNATE and always has been. It's just that Hyuuga has managed to fit both concepts into his head with no real difficulty, and they co-exist peacefully. There is nothing strange to him about crushing on his angsty stupid BFF who also happens to be the demonic god who granted him the power of Warsfeil and to whom Hyuuga has sworn his allegiance and very life.
DO I THINK HYUUGA IS SLIGHTLY INSANE y-yeah I do. You've gotta be, to function that way so easily. He is not right in the head (as evidenced in more ways than this one), in that way that twists back around again to become beautifully well-adjusted and functional and happy.
My original point was that we don't know yet whether Hyuuga swore his allegiance first to Verloren or Ayanami; in other words, did he join the Black Hawks to serve Verloren and then realize Ayanami was an awesome human guy too, or did he meet Ayanami in some context, fall for him, and then find out later it was Verloren? I DUNNO and I'm not going to swing either way until we find out, because I know we will. I will say that I like the latter better and think it makes more sense in terms of their relationship, but that I also think the former is more likely since among Warsfeil it's kept quiet but not exactly a secret that Ayanami is Verloren.
It probably doesn't really matter anyway. The situation remains the same! Hyuuga loves his boss both as a man and a god. He genuinely cares about the human "Ayanami" in a way that has nothing to do with religious devotion; if Ayanami weren't Verloren, Hyuuga would still love him. And he is also a devoted follower of Verloren in a way that has nothing to do with Ayanami! Even if Hyuuga had never MET Verloren and he were just mythical figure in a book, Hyuuga would be a Verloren worshiper, presumably because he was raised that way/is a Warsfeil. And there is just no conflict for him in this. It never even strikes him as odd. lol.
This isn't to say, though, that Hyuuga's "human" love for Ayanami is totally normal, or totally unaffected by the fact of what Ayanami is. Because Ayanami is affected by being Verloren. Again it's not like Ayanami's a guy who has a voice in his head that acts up every third day. Everything that he is as a person is defined by the fact that he is Verloren's reincarnation. So ADJUSTMENTS HAVE TO BE MADE. For one thing, even though Hyuuga is in fact romantically in love with Ayanami, there's no strong sexual component to it. Some of that has to do with Ayanami being Verloren and thus pretty much asexual, and some of it is because of how Hyuuga relates to all people, and you know what LET'S JUST DO THAT NOW.
☆
I said before that Hyuuga is messed up in the head a bit. Yeah he is. I don't really know what to call it; I don't think it's accurate to say he's a sociopath. And it's difficult to know how much of it is attributable directly to Ayanami and how much of it he already kinda exhibited before he fell in with his crowd.
Ayanami is . . . really the only important factor in Hyuuga's world. He's a god, friend, and CRUSHLOVEBOYTHING, and so there's no reason for Hyuuga to question anything he does in Ayanami's name unless it's something he's not comfortable with himself. And what Hyuuga's comfortable with is very fluid and emotion-based and inconsistent. He doesn't appear to have any qualms about killing probably hundreds of people in an invasion, nor about throwing Shuri out of the airship to his certain death BASICALLY JUST FOR THE LULZ. On the other hand, he questions Ayanami's murder of Mikage--not in the sense of AYA-TAN, I THINK THAT WAS WRONG but in the sense that he was perturbed enough about it to ask for an explanation. (Which he accepted easily, but still, he wanted to know, and he expressed that he would have done things differently himself.)
So Hyuuga's moral sense is very skewed. His only--well, like I quoted before, his only sense of justice and right vs. wrong is what Ayanami wants. Killing dudes? A-OK if it's for Aya-tan! And not even in an "I have to do this for my love, no matter how much I regret it" way, but in a way where he really comes off as . . . not particularly caring that he's taking lives, and even enjoying it on some occasions. He cops to his violent tendencies in that one omake. He's not a psycho who goes out and kills randomly for fun or has to SQUASH HIS MURDEROUS URGES EVERY TIME HE GETS ANNOYED; in fact, he discourages Kuroyuri and Konatsu from their OWN murderous urges. But yeah. He does enjoy killing. He enjoys a good fight and he likes to win. He does not feel bad for the people he kills unless the situation/person itself happens to ping him in his twisted morals. He says to Ayanami that he "understands Mikage's feelings"; Hyuuga is in some ways a foil for Mikage (he's the Mikage to Ayanami's Teito), which explains that. Killing enemy soldiers is fine, throwing out an annoying soldier to let him fend for himself and probably die is just fine and kinda lulzy, killing a kid who reminds Hyuuga of himself and was helpless is . . . iffy.
Iffy, but necessary, and what Aya-tan wanted, so also ultimately fine. Just a less comfy fine.
But Hyuuga's own comfort is meaningless, it's TOTALLY BACKSEAT to Ayanami's needs, and Hyuuga is fine with this. And what this means is that Hyuuga is completely prepared to kill everyone he interacts with who is not Ayanami, should it be necessary. Even people he's gotten very attached to, like Konatsu. Depending on the situation, he may or may not be totally cool with it, but he will do it, and his level of uncoolness with it is not the level a normal person should have. Any regret he feels over killing, when he does it, is passing, and usually nonexistent. And if it's done in a swordfighty badass battlefield kind of way, he finds it genuinely enjoyable (I imagine he finds just killing someone without a fight, or slowly, or torturing them, or whatever, not as enjoyable because the fun is in the cutting!). If it were A GOOD FRIEND OF HIS he would care more and would readily question Ayanami about it and look for alternatives, but if there were none? Sorry buddy. That's life, and yours is unimportant if your death can be useful to Aya-tan.
☆
WELL THEN, you say, clearly Hyuuga doesn't really give a shit about anyone but Ayanami! The funny thing is, that's not true. Hyuuga loves people. And not just in an "O ho ho you're a funny toy to play with and study" sociopath way, even though playing and teasing are his ways of showing . . . well really just of being, always. I mean he really genuinely likes people, he likes meeting new people, being around people, learning about people, helping people (as long as it's not too much effort!). He really IS that laid-back and cheerful and happy with life all the time; it's not a front to deceive anyone. HE'S A GOOD PERSON. A silly, lazy, blunt person with a healthy sense of schadenfreude, but a good guy, the kind who doesn't mind chatting up and getting to know even his sworn enemies for no other reason than curiosity and the joy of interaction. That is, until the moment they need to die. ☆
It's similar to the killing thing, though, in that Hyuuga is very impulse-driven and amusement-driven as well as goal-driven. Hyuuga is smart enough to do what will be good for him and Ayanami in the long run, but he also likes to . . . just do what he thinks will be fun. Or maybe I just love that omake!? When he meets Konatsu, he does him a big fucking favor--not just offering him a contract, but he basically offers him a way to come to terms with himself and finally move forward in his stalled life. This isn't an accident. Hyuuga knows that Konatsu has potential and will be an asset in the future. And he also obviously has a personal interest. He feels like helping him, so he helps him. . . . And then in the present day, he makes trouble for Konatsu all the time--also because he feels like it. XD THERE WILL BE NO HELPING OF KONATSU WHEN IT COMES TO PAPERWORK OR SHURI OR RAISING THE TWINS.
Likewise, with Shuri, Hyuuga prevents people from killing him on some occasions and on other occasions endangers his life himself, without any sense of his own hypocrisy. It's just how Hyuuga is. Sometimes he'll go out of his way to help someone, even someone he barely knows--and sometimes he'll impose upon them and make their life difficult without any sense of guilt, just because he's lazy/impulsive and it's funny. If he feels like being insightful and helpful, he will do that. And if he feels like rolling around uselessly or being annoying, he will do that.
SOMETIMES THEY'RE EVEN ONE AND THE SAME, because as much as Hyuuga loves people, he loves them regardless of what they think of him; he has no shame and his skin is almost impenetrably thick. I mean. He loves Ayanami. He's used to insults and suffering. He's not fazed by someone being annoyed by his ~HELPFUL EFFORTS~. In fact, sometimes that's part of the point. Hyuuga understands people well, and he never does anything annoying that he doesn't realize is annoying--either he felt like doing it anyway or he wanted that person annoyed. And he is not wounded by being disliked. Hyuuga's there to have fun interacting with people, and sometimes this involves helping them and bonding with them closely, and other times this involves just being an occasional annoying presence in someone's day. Sometimes it involves both of those WITH THE SAME PERSON. And Hyuuga has fun with both, because he has fun with just about everything in his life.
He is like if you took a perky, well-adjusted, friendly taco shell and stuffed it with obsessive secret rapist with violent tendencies meat, and then put it in a blender so it's not actually layered at all, it's just all one thing blended together seamlessly, which shouldn't work but somehow it does. And I think that's a good note to end on. Or something.
QUESTIONS/COMMENTS/APP KONATSU?