consignment application.

[paraclete]

PLAYER INFO.
✖ Handle: Rinna
✖ Contact: ridiculous moths (AIM) / sodapoppet
✖ Are You Over 16: yes
✖ Other Characters Played in Consignment: n/a

CHARACTER INFO.
✖ Character Name: Nagisa, Kaworu
✖ Canon: Neon Genesis Evangelion - Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo. (aka Rebuild of Evangelion 3.0, Evangelion 3.33, Evangelion: Q, ad nauseam...), following the events of his death.
✖ Character Appearance: Pictured in his plugsuit.
✖ Character Age: ???? Timeline complication! Fourteen years ago, he looked fifteen, but due to his inhuman nature, it's unknown whether he aged to that point through conventional means or otherwise. So is he fifteen? Is he twenty-nine? Is he even older, due to the heavily hinted idea that he has lived through and remembered multiple timelines?? We're not sure, but physically, Kaworu is fifteen years old.
✖ Pick A Number: 4 and 13

✖ Canon Setting: Kaworu currently lives on Earth, though his Earth is unlike ours in that it's been through multiple apocalyptic scenarios. Earth as he knows it is now a red wasteland with red seas and little plant life - or any life at all, really. Conditions do not encourage human life to thrive, though as an Angel, Kaworu is unaffected by the poor air quality. Previously, Earth was under assault by other Angels, Kaworu's brethren, though most of them are now dead. In order to combat the Angels, children were assigned to pilot massive cyborgs known as Evangelions. The Evangelion Units are still in use even now, as the few humans remaining have broken into warring factions and threaten one another. Kaworu's world is a dying one, full of decay and violence.

✖ Character History: Kaworu's origins are only teased at within the series proper; his actual role in the story is notoriously brief. Basically, Kaworu is born during the Second Impact, is raised under surveillance by the organization Seele, and then is sent to infiltrate Nerv. His goal is to rejoin his soul — that of Adam — with Adam's body, although Nerv is, in secret, housing Lilith in place of Adam. Seele knows that if Kaworu were to mistakenly join with Lilith instead of Adam, it would cause a massive catastrophe that would culminate in the Third Impact of Seele's choosing.

While at Nerv HQ, Kaworu takes an interest in the Nerv Commander's son, Shinji Ikari. Shinji is a helplessly lonely boy, suffering severe depression and psychological trauma from both an emotionally stunted childhood and a terrifying career as an Eva pilot. (Piloting a gigantic synthetic life form to brutally kill horrifying monsters is never the healthy option.) Kaworu befriends him, and also instantly comes to love him, this boy who so wholly embodies the fragility and suffering of all of humankind. Upon discovering that he's been lead to not Adam, but Lilith, it's that love for Shinji and humanity (the 'Lilin') which drives Kaworu to have Shinji kill him. Kaworu understands that his death by Shinji's hand is what will allow the Lilin to live and strive for their future, and so he dies, hoping for Shinji's happiness and for the Lilin to inherit the Earth. He makes some appearances in End of Evangelion, primarily as Adam, but otherwise his story ends there.

Then we have the Rebuild of Evangelion films, which are an alternate continuity and/or a rebirthed sequel to the main series. His role in these films has been expanded, with major hints that this version of Kaworu is in fact aware of the events that took place in NGE. Whether this is some sort of cycle of reincarnation or time loop is uncertain, but his fate plays out much the same: he befriends Shinji, he loves Shinji, he dies (and traumatizes Shinji). Time (and one more movie) will tell whether Kaworu is able to escape this cycle.

✖ Character Personality: Kaworu Nagisa has the face of a boy, but his air is very alien: he possesses a presence almost too placid to be normal. Most commonly he can be seen as uncomfortably pale, uncomfortably close, and uncomfortably calm, with innocently invasive hands and a smile nearly ever-present. And it is most decidedly a smile, not a grin — Kaworu does not seem cheerful, but content. Hands in his pockets, he is clearly at ease, and appears to simply relish the time he has here. His world is horrific, filled with plots and carnage, but you would find him at peace with these things, almost unfailingly dissonant. You'll seldom see him without his smooth smile and mellow eyes.

But while it's rare, it's not impossible. He's absolutely capable of discerning the serious times from the casual, and though he never really loses his cool — except perhaps when all his plans are so thoroughly derailed that he's left completely blindsided and stunned with the knowledge that everything he's been working toward for more than a handful of years has failed — his mouth will set into a line, when it's called for. His dissonance is penetrable, it just may take a while to notice. What's more, this incarnation of Kaworu, compared to his anime predecessor, hints at an excitable side, with his eyes and smile growing brighter and wider at the chance to surprise Shinji Ikari with what Kaworu finds to be fun. 'Fun' seems to be a concept Kaworu's been working on. For him, music definitely fits the bill; as the 'highest achievement of Lilin culture,' it's something he enjoys, and it's how he chooses to introduce himself to Shinji Ikari this time around. By urging Shinji to play piano with him, he's inviting Shinji to share his joy and interest. Kaworu takes enjoyment at face value: if something feels good to you, it's good, and if it doesn't, it isn't. Very simple! Though a talented pianist himself, he claims that anything Shinji plays will be good as long as it produces 'a pleasing sound.' "Every note is a joy," Kaworu says, and encourages Shinji to develop to a point where he feels good with what he's doing. Basically, it's a metaphor for how he wants Shinji to grow as a person.

And Kaworu really is one giant walking metaphor. In the anime's finale, End of Evangelion, Rei and Kaworu speak to Shinji together—

Shinji: But, what are you two within my heart?

Rei: Hope. The hope that people might be able to understand one another.

Kaworu: And the words 'I love you.'

Kaworu, for Shinji, embodies the idea — and the existence — of unconditional love. He exists to tell Shinji that he loves him, and to convey his love to all of humanity by way of his own death. (The Jesus Christ analogue never really goes out of style, you know?) Most appearances he makes in Evangelion, End of Evangelion, and the Rebuild films are affirmations of his love for Shinji, who is known for being love-starved. 3.0 has him appear to Shinji as a bastion of kindness in a world which has otherwise alienated the poor boy, and Kaworu makes quick work of befriending him.

Indeed, Kaworu's role is very much satellite to Shinji's emotional needs, or what Kaworu perceives those to be — that is, happiness. Many of his lines in the Rebuild films highlight this:

Kaworu: Now, then, the promised time has come, Ikari Shinji-kun. This time, I will, at least, make you happy.

Kaworu: We're amazing together.

Shinji: Yeah, you can do it.
Kaworu: We can do it, you mean.

Kaworu: Let's become the hope of the Lilin together. What you need most of all right now is hope, along with atonement and serenity.
Shinji: You're amazing. You know everything.
Kaworu: That's because I am always thinking of you.

Kaworu: It's the same as playing the piano. Good things will happen if we're together, Shinji-kun.

And, of course, one of the infamous links between Evangelion and the Rebuild films, as well as the way Kaworu seems to define his own raison d'être:

Kaworu (NGE): I might have been born to meet you.

Kaworu (Evangelion 3.0): I really was born to meet you.

In NGE proper, just as Kaworu represented the concept of unconditional love to Shinji, Shinji seemed to represent humanity as a whole to Kaworu — but the Rebuild films make this questionable, as Kaworu has seemingly developed to a love further than that, having singled Shinji out entirely. In fact, it looks to be that the only reason Kaworu is exerting so much for the Lilin's sake is that it's what Shinji wants. It's what will make Shinji happy, and bring him that atonement and serenity that Kaworu sees he needs. He will become the hope of the Lilin because that hope is what Shinji needs. It parallels his motives in NGE, where he'd declared that it was the Lilin who needed the future and all that came with it, but now everything has been narrowed down to Shinji Ikari, the boy for whom Kaworu has waited fourteen years — maybe longer. It's safe to say that Kaworu's most important relationship in this world (and possibly others) is that which he has with the human boy he's met, fragile, lonely, frightened Shinji. Kaworu defines them as friends, as though that simple Lilin term explains away every hint Kaworu gives that his only concern is for Shinji's happiness.

That said, 'friendship' may still have a somewhat alien meaning to Kaworu. He is clearly lacking in social graces, with little regard for personal space and a manner of speaking that could kill someone with its blunt force trauma, were it tangible. Though almost unfailingly kind, Kaworu isn't shy with anything he says, whether it's I love you or Most people are dead and it's your fault. Though inhuman, Kaworu seems to analyze personalities quite well, when he encounters them; the problem is that he hasn't interacted with many people at all. Having spent most of his life amidst the apocalyptic plotters of Seele and Nerv, his social pool has been sorely lacking. Still, and despite his singular interest in Shinji's needs and wants, Kaworu likes people, likes to be around them and watch them and talk with them, and admires — to put it simply — their humanity. Kaworu finds a human's fragility and the ease with which they find pain, and joy in their pain, qualities of great value. Humans are beautiful and creative, and those creations are, in Kaworu's eyes, the most incredible achievements to be showcased unto the world. He sees people as deserving of happiness, and the chance to acquire that happiness. That is what he would die for.

Pondering that, it seems as Kaworu may not place his own value at a very great height. He doesn't exactly seem insecure in his Angelic nature: in Rebuild especially, he makes no secret of the fact that he's an Angel, thoughtlessly referring to humans as Lilin in conversation with Shinji, and easily announcing his status as the Thirteenth Angel once he's made aware of his 'demotion.' But he also takes no issue with placing humans at a greater priority than his own kin (siblings, children, what have you), and finds it quite easy to decide to die for the Lilin's sake. Kaworu's desire to rejoin with Adam in NGE seems little more than an intrinsic urge, and his general survival instincts are pretty lacking, so it seems logical to say that, in comparison to his love of Lilin, his opinion of himself is as dissonant as his genial smile. This would mean that Kaworu isn't just selfless: he's selfless to a fault, with his willingness to throw himself into the flames prominent enough that it amounts to a flaw. Despite coming off as a Messianic archetype, he's got a few of those, and some of them make it pretty clear why it is he can't seem to keep Shinji happy. That he so easily welcomes death is of course a big part of it — Misato Katsuragi mentions shortly after his passing in NGE that he simply hadn't the will to live. This lack of will, combined with his Angelic personality rendering him unable to ever wholly understand a human personality, has had an unfortunate side effect on Kaworu: he opens Shinji's heart sweetly, fills it with novel, wonderful things, and then rips it all away quite suddenly, and sees no problem at all with this. Kaworu doesn't seem to understand that while loving and being loved is good, losing that love is terrible. He treats Shinji like they've known each other forever and will keep knowing each other, without any regard for how Shinji might feel about all that after Kaworu's death. In this, his selflessness might actually loop back around to being selfishness. He's happy to have met Shinji, and is happy to have his death be Shinji's doing, but he's very poor at considering the consequences of all this for anyone but himself. At the time of his death in 3.0, he chides Shinji gently: "Don't make that face. We'll meet again, Shinji-kun," smiling all the while with that disturbing ease. With this, we see that despite Kaworu's ability to grasp and articulate various pieces of a person's personality, truly understanding and connecting with that spectrum of emotions is beyond him. Kaworu will always be an outlier, in love with Lilin, but too alien, too lacking in creativity to ever be like one of their kind. He might come off as being socially inept, but it's really a disconnect between species that can never be fully reconciled. He knows that, but still prefers to try.

Even his leap into marytrdom could be a side effect of his being an Angel. 'Tabris' — his Angel name from birth, as 'Kaworu Nagisa' is only the identity of his human face — is known as the Angel of Free Will. Free will is his dominion, and Kaworu views death as the only true freedom he might achieve. His ability to choose his own manner of demise is extremely important to him. With all of these personal contradictions and his fractured sense of self, and no one to articulate them to, Kaworu must be lonely. Indeed, he has spent these past fourteen years fundamentally isolated by the Lilin who keep watch over him. He understand — and openly notes — that these people are frightened of him for his Angelic nature, and of course fear breeds anger. Kaworu responds to that fear and anger by telling Shinji that no sin is beyond redemption. "There is always hope," Kaworu says firmly. "Always." It's sadder than ever to realize that these creatures Kaworu loves so much do not treat him kindly, yet he continually forgives them, filled with hope that their own future might flourish before his eyes.

And none of this stops his loving, nor his smiling. He is full of adoration for Lilith's creations, and for their creations, and he finds that things he loves, such as music, and Shinji, make him joyful, and his time here feels worthwhile. He acts like a stranger from a strange land but he's pleased by things like plants and songs, and any loneliness his heart does hold manifests not as a great pain, but as a willingness to touch and be touched, to find closeness with another. He spends his free time — of which there's been much — productively, learning about the world around him, the things that Lilin see and do: he masters the piano, he learns to be a tinker and fix outdated electronic devices. Repetition, he says, is what's important. If you do the same thing over and over again, you'll learn and grow and change.

Kaworu, too, has the potential to learn and grow. He's a boy who loves music and people and who believes in hope and good things to come; and he's an Angel who will never be able to wholly understand the thing he loves most. He's a friend with gentle eyes, and a martyr with a sweet farewell. And he's an alien, honest and straightforward and never shy, but detached from the surface of the world he inhabits. He cannot assimilate and he wouldn't really care to try, and this further fuels the disconnect between himself and the Lilin; while he loves them, he tends to think of them all as one, and while a person can love the seashore, they might not stop to appreciate every single grain of sand as an individual. This, along with his serenity, can make him seem 'far away,' and often he'll say things that seem strange without caring to explain himself. Because of these qualities, and the ease with which he may say things nobody really wants to hear, Kaworu can come off as aloof or condescending — but he's not a fan of cruelties, and simply sets himself up for misunderstandings. Despite his almost ancient air, his level of interacting with human beings isn't much different from a child's. But he learns from Shinji, and his heart is wide and honest. He just wants to be a gentle watcher, and to see happiness take root.

✖ Character Powers & Skills: As an Angel, Kaworu possesses a variety of abilities that are wholly beyond human... but many of them are never fully elaborated upon, so when it comes down to it, I'll have to be a little vague, or do some guesswork.

The most prominent of his known abilities is his A.T. Field. Within the Evangelion franchise, A.T. Fields refer to the physical forcefields that both Angels and Evangelions are able to generate. These forcefields are unable to be penetrated by most man-made weaponry, though they can be broken down by other A.T. Fields. Later in the series, it's revealed that A.T. Fields are manifestations of the soul. Despite the A.T. Field's amazing defensive capabilities, it seems able to be activated or deactivated at will, meaning that if an Angel decides not to protect itself, its A.T. Field will not manifest. Until his death, Kaworu possessed the strongest A.T. Field recorded, and was able to use it to interact with his surroundings a great deal. Basically, he's able to utilize his A.T. Field for both offensive and defensive purposes, as well as other things such as floating around, undoing locks, or moving/connecting with objects. It could be treated as almost a sort of telekinesis stemming from the soul. It might also be his A.T. Field which allows him to glow.

In NGE, all Angels are shown to have a 'core' — that is, the primary physical source of power for an Angel. The core houses both the Angel's soul and its S² Engine, an organ which serves as an unlimited supply of energy for the Angel. In essence, the core and the S² Engine are what keep the Angels from dying. An Angel's body can sustain a great deal of damage, but unless its core and S² Engine are damaged and/or destroyed, it will, without fail, regenerate. As Kaworu is an Angel, it can be assumed that he maintains these organs as well, although it's never addressed. The S² Engine is also called The Fruit of Life: with it, the Angels are functionally immortal. Of course, take an Eva's knife to the core - or, as canon has taught us, pop Kaworu's head off - and that's all down the toilet... Still, for all its human likeness, Kaworu's body is especially resilient. One scene shows that while Shinji needs a full-body pressurized suit to survive in the apocalyptic gale outside of NERV, Kaworu's just fine in his usual clothes, breathing and speaking like it's nothing. Kaworu's also become rather infamous for his ability to endure the frigid void of space... while wearing nothing at all. What it comes down to is this: if he isn't killed, he won't die, or such is the assumption. Kaworu offers little insight into his supposed immortality, only saying, "I've been destined to live forever [...] However, I'm able to die."

Within Consignment's mechanics, 'deaths' or near-death experiences may weaken his S² Engine severely, leaving him unable to regenerate at an ideal pace. While things like scrapes and cuts and puncture wounds may seal back up just fine, larger injuries - losing limbs, too much blood, or, of course, his head - may not regenerate quickly enough to prevent permanent damage and/or death.

As Adam, his power is a great deal stronger - godlike, in fact - but I don't think we'll need to worry about that, since I don't expect he'll be doing any crazy godmode soul-merging in game.

Incredible physical manifestations of the soul aside, Kaworu is very musically inclined. He plays the piano expertly, and does beautifully with the violin as well. In fact, he seems to know a little about this and that and whatever else: Shinji remarks that he 'knows everything,' and he's shown to be able to fix Shinji's old malfunctioning SDAT player. Kaworu explains that this is because he's been around 'a little longer' than Shinji; it can be inferred that Kaworu is generally studious, and will pick up skills easily if he tries.

Finally, Kaworu is an ace pilot of Evangelion units (as long as their souls are repressed), thanks to his amazing synchronization rate with the Eva, though this can be attributed to his statuses as 'Angel' and 'Adam.'


CHARACTER SAMPLES.
✖ First Person POV: Test drive sample.

✖ Third Person POV: Death feels like nothing profound. The first time, perhaps, when it was unexplored territory, but then came life again. Then came the waiting, the loneliness. The unhappiness he couldn't quell.

The unhappiness has always belonged to Shinji, and it's always been the thing that's most profound. What a depth of soul, to feel such sadness and fear. What a fragility. And Kaworu had seen it again, just before dying, though he himself could smile. He had seen tears. Then there was a bursting, and this time was over.

I failed. It's a faint thing. Has life come back? Everything is hazy and wet. It smells like blood, but that's not unusual, since Kaworu had died in LCL. And also, he supposes, because his head has just been separated from his body. Things should be different, now, though. This is an unusual death. It's less quiet, and somebody is here. Why is somebody here?

"That wasn't the happiness he wished for?" the somebody says. Their form is so vague. Kaworu squints.

"No," he admits, "it wasn't." Where is he? He can feel his body.

"Do you want to try again?" the somebody asks him.

There doesn't even need to be a moment of thought. "I do," Kaworu says sincerely. Things become less vague, and his eyes can widen. He can see more clearly.

"Come help our cause," the somebody says, "and you'll have the opportunity to change things. This time—"

"This time, I'll get it right." Kaworu and the somebody are nearing each other, now, of Kaworu's own volition. He realizes that he can function and move. He must be alive, after all. "I'll help you, if it will make him happy."

Everything is brighter. "Welcome aboard," the somebody says, and just because he can, Kaworu starts to breathe.

CHARACTER ITEMS.
✖ Pick a Team: Green Team would suit Kaworu best, I believe, as he is already a seasoned pilot and has weathered battles before. Red Team is another good option: Kaworu has had previous experience with infiltration, and his A.T. Field would serve him well with diversion and overseeing threats.

✖ Reason for Joining the CDC: As Kaworu's ambitions revolve around achieving happiness for Shinji Ikari, he's been promised another chance to succeed at that goal, after dying.
✖ Mission Freebie: Another opportunity, after death, to fulfill Shinji's happiness.
✖ Personal Item or Weapon: A violin and bow in its case.

✖ Character Inventory:

Just the plugsuit on his back.