Your Rei Ayanami Expy

If you're thinking about using a Rei Ayanami expy, then think about current characters, and think "what else can be done? What related ideas haven't been explored very much?"

Blade Runner predates Evangelion by over ten years (and Do Androids Dream is even older). It includes a Robot Girl named Rachael. She appears to have emotions and memories, but the movie states that they are artificial. This character might be one Ur-Example of a Rei Ayanami type, and worth considering for alternatives.

When I watched Angel Beats, I did not think that Angel/Tenshi was a Rei Ayanami expy. But now that I think about it, the comparison makes sense. Her appearance is similar, she also seems cold and non-human, and she also has many strange powers. And as for her actions... she seems to be a relentless, unstoppable opponent for a few episodes. But after she loses her student council status, Otonashi gets to know her. Suddenly, she becomes a strange but sympathetic character. You could draw some parallels between the ways that Angel/Tenshi becomes a more human character, and the ways in which Evangelion slowly reveals Rei's character and story. That said, I think that Angel Beats wants its character to be one of the show's many woobies, while Evangelion wants its character to be used for deconstruction.

...And that's a long way to ask "what's your intention in using this character type?" Love interest? Unusual point of view character? Reconstruction? Parody?

At first I thought a character of mine was a Rei Ayanami Expy, but then I realized she wasn't, really. Sometimes readers say "I imagine this character to look like x" and then the character is an expy, at least in my head, even though they're actually completely different. A character is an Izaya expy in my head but in practically no one else's, etc.

I suppose I only have one actual expy, in Nyarlathotep. It seems silly to have an expy for a character who's practically public domain, but the character's an in-universe expy, in that he's not actually Nyarlathotep but was named so because of his resemblance.

It seems that the main character of my story is one. I'm not sure if I did it on purpose or not.

Yup. Except that he's a boy. Then again, he looks so effeminate he gets mistaken for a girl the whole time.

He does make a very quiet and snarky comments from time to time, though.

A little bit of both. After an incident with a devil, he's more or less an avatar of the deity that represents the reality itself and lost his capacity to feel emotion. He is regaining them, though.

Kind of. His goal is status quo.

I haven't made or felt the need to make an expy of the actual Rei, but Zaran il Legio is strangely similar to the NGE Nobody Dies Rei. White skin, strange eyes, too many teeth, above-human abilities and overtly energetic personality. The funny thing is, I've created Zaran atleast a year before finding out about the fanfic in question. I should probably include a scene of her travelling through airducks or going "hee~ey" for the sake of reference.

You can't really do this by accident, I think - then it's just a coincidence, not really an expy.

I do not use Rei Ayanami expies because I feel that archetype is boring and horrible.

dorkatlarge, I think you hit the nail on the head: A Rei Expy need to grow, rather than just being Rei with the serial numbers filed off.

Dragonzordasaurus: I sort of agree, like other characters in the fountain of expies, the type's in danger of becoming a cliche. I like the character type, but my other RP characters are not expies at all. The other shapeshifter character I have is a lesbian christian goth (yes, they exist in real life, I made sure to google...). I wanted to really play against type and explore that contradiction.

The problem with cliches is that they become cliches when people overdo it. Special Snowflake Syndrome on the part of RP'ers and Follow the Leader on the part of authors can beat a character into the ground.

I know this thread is SUPER old, but I basically made an intentional one...but it's partially due to deconstruction purposes since the series I'm working on is sort of a Deconstructor Fleet of the Harem Genre and just Moe tropes in general. Okay, it's not close to School Days dark (depending on if it's intentional or not), in fact, it's still pretty comedic, but you get the picture.

The gist is that she's a Huge School Girl with long Mystical White Hair (although I might be considering a bob cut) that is a borderline-Emotionless Girl and may or may not be the reincarnation of an Eldritch style god along with her twin brother (no real incest ,but the subtext is still there) for the supernatural element...that or just Chunibyou either way sort of a Magical Girlfriend either figuratively or literally (alternatively take the Manic Pixie Dream Girl and replace it with stoicism). On top of that, she's actually the main girl that the protagonist goes after.

The deconstruction part comes in that it examines how kind of messed up this type of relationship sounds like on paper; like you're taking advantage of someone's inability to emote properly to shape them into your own ideal image. I wouldn't go as far as to call the main character a stalker, but his obsession with her has been called extremely questionable by the some of the other characters including the brother. Not to say that these kinds of people can't be in a relationship, but it can come across as an Unequal Pairing if poorly written...especially since most of these protagonists are male.

In short, it's basically what Hideaki Anno intended Rei to be; a look at how pretty creepy the ideal Otaku's woman can be, even if he ended up accidentally adding more Fetish Fuel in the process (not helped at all by Gainax's treatment of the female characters in the merchandise....also did we forget that they're 14 years old?! Lolicons! sorry tangent). But point is, we have a weird-ass girl as the heroine of a weird-ass series.

If you want to ask more, I don't mind

edited 2nd May '17 1:18:42 PM by Sakubara

Eh. I'd just make her a R. Dorothy Wayneright-style robot. Checks all the requirements, even creepier because she's built to order, much more useful a character for storybuilding purposes.

The male version would probably be Chirico, and I'm working on something with a character deliberately based on him.

I also think it's really weird that, to a largely English-speaking audience, this trope only came into existence in 1995. It amuses me to no end that the "requirements" on the trope page fit Chirico just as well (except for the female-specific parts - but eh, nobody's perfect).

edited 2nd May '17 9:43:35 PM by DeusDenuo

My MC's mother would fit this archetype, unfortunately. But I don't think it matters too much since she isn't too important of a character, to begin with, and I don't really care about her.

On a side note, I noticed that the last person to post in this thread in 2011 mentioned that Rei Expies should grow. I'm curious to know what type of growth would make the farthest strides away from the archetype.

I was avoiding this thread up until today, since I thought it was just a glorified way of posters describing their ripoff characters/OCs. But there happens to be a character in a novel I'm planning who does have a number of traits of a Rei Ayanami Expy. The interesting thing is, this was all completely unintentional—I didn't realize how similar she was until after I came up with her.

The character in question is the mortal form of one of the most powerful beings in the universe; in other words, she's a demigod. However, her powers are severely weakened due to the fact that, in ancient times, she was split into four other beings known as the Sentinels in order to stop a great evil from escaping. Now that this evil force has finally escaped, she seeks to reunite with the Sentinels to become whole once more so she can again use her full strength to fight it. Although she appears human, she is not, and as a demigod she is Really 700 Years Old. She has pale skin with naturally occurring calligraphic markings on her back, arms, legs, and face, which glow when she uses her powers. Her hair is purplish, unlike the natural colors of the actual humans in the setting. Her eyes are pale blue and have no pupils. There are some differences, though. For one thing, she's a good bit older appearance-wise than Rei or most of the characters inspired by her, since she seems to be in her mid-20s. She is not a love interest to the protagonist, and indeed has no concept of romantic love at all. She doesn't have any special attachment to the villain either, nor is she injured and hospitalized especially often.

In my time writing I’ve never managed to make a Rei expy probably because World of Ham is kind of a staple of my writing

^ If World of Ham is your natural inclination, have you ever tried Cold Ham? Is it even possible for a Rei Expy to be a Cold Ham? Dang it now I wanna try making a Cold Ham character.

Now that I think of it, I might have a few unintentional expies kicking around in my head... I'm gonna compare them to each of the common characteristics of the archetype...

• Love Interest (usually female).
  • Felicia: Nope, main character.
  • Arilay: Nope, one of many main characters.
  • Jen Jara: Nope, one of many main characters.
  • Shale: TOO YOUNG and one of many main characters.
• Mysterious and/or otherworldly origins.
  • Felicia: Well, she is a dragon.
  • Arilay: Her mechanical parts qualify as both mysterious and otherworldly.
  • Jen Jara: Definite alien.
  • Shale: The Greys with eldritch connections.
• Dark and Troubled Past
  • Felicia: Inverted - more like dark and troubled present, as she's being chased by Slenderman.
  • Arilay: Her past involved a gruesome explosion.
  • Jen Jara: Averted.
  • A scientific expedition went down into an unnaturally long tunnel-cave, Shale was the first-hatched of their children, and then all the parents contracted juggernaut madness (also called slithering sickness, they literally couldn't stop slithering forward on their gastropods and could barely steer) while the kids didn't. Eventually someone found the lost expedition and teleported everybody out to reintegrate into Sleutrienn society. It was quite tough to live through and cope, though I'm not the best judge of how dark and troubled it was.
• Age 10-20.
  • Felicia: pushing the maximum age limit at 20
  • Arilay: the stories she's in start with her at age thirteen and span many years.
  • Jen Jara: Earth chronology would give us an inaccurate number. Developmentally for her species, she's exiting her adolescence.
  • Shale: Earth chronology would give us an inaccurate number. Developmentally for her species, she's still in the sort-of-early stages of puberty. Old enough to have gone through internal changes and start laying eggs like menstruation, but not old enough to manifest visible external changes.
• Pale skin.
  • Felicia: Defied, her scales are a dark shade of yellow and she suns herself, tanning her human skin. (Tanning beds won't do for her, it has to be natural sunlight.)
  • Arilay: Her external nanobots can easily simulate this.
  • Jen Jara: Zig-zagged - her species gains and loses suntans faster than humans do.
  • Shale: Rocky gray, slightly darker than the average Sleutrienn but significantly darker than the usual Rei expies.
• Short, usually bobbed hair.
  • Felicia: Does barely brushing her shoulders count as short enough?
  • Arilay: Her external nanobots can easily simulate this.
  • Jen Jara: Her sleek black feathers imitate a short but not bobbed hairstyle.
  • Shale: Check, though it's technically not hair, it's a secondary way to drink water that just happens to look like hair.
• Unnatural hair color, often in cold tones like blue, silver, grey or white (also occasionally pink).
  • Felicia: Downplayed, her blond hair has a metallic sheen to it beyond what natural healthy human hair is capable of. Humans assume it's just expensive gimmicky hair gel.
  • Arilay: Her external nanobots could simulate this, but she prefers boring brown to preserve The Masquerade.
  • Jen Jara: Black feathers - unusual, but not in the "usual" way for this type of expy (if that makes any sense).
  • Shale: Rocky gray that matches her skin, natural for her species.
• Unnatural eye color, often red, blue, yellow, or even purple.
  • Felicia: her green eyes are a dark shade unusual for both human and dragon.
  • Arilay: Zig-zagged based on which artificial eyes are plugged into her sockets at the moment.
  • Jen Jara: Dark cobalt-blue eyes, which is a common eye color for her species.
  • Shale: Large black Monochromatic Eyes
• Appears emotionless, quiet, stoic, or otherwise odd.
  • Felicia: Definitely The Stoic - her anger naturally simmers, blunted capacity for fear is typical for dragons, she vents her sadness as quietly as she can for her own safety, and Slender Sickness has been taking its toll on her ability to feel more positive emotions.
  • Arilay: Zig-zagged as she has to relearn how to identify and express her emotions with an entirely new body while adjusting to The Masquerade.
  • Jen Jara: Usually The Stoic and a Deadpan Snarker, she has the potential be a Cold Ham under the right circumstances. She makes an exception for expressing her Blood Knight glee.
  • Shale: She lacks vocal cords, preferring to communicate through Touch Telepathy. Bizarre Alien Biology enables her to detach her secondary emotional brain from her primary emotionless brain.
• A tendency towards talking in Spock Speak, Monotone, Robo Speak, or a combination thereof.
  • Felicia: Zig-zagged - her human voice is capable of casual cadence and easily expressed emotions. Her dragon voice is both more melodious and more emotionless and she talks in Sssssnaketalk.
  • Arilay: Motor Mouth Spock Speak unless she needs to get an urgent point across or there's No Time to Explain.
  • Jen Jara: Creepy Monotone, creepy both in human context and the context of her own species.
  • Shale: Defied, she quickly learned how to make her Touch Telepathy mental voice sound like an expressive Genki Girl child even while her emotions were detached. She only pulls out the monotone for Tranquil Fury. She still has Little Professor Dialog from being exposed to many multilingual individuals.
• Is not quite human, such as an Artificial Human, Transhuman, clone, alien or robot, explaining their odd behavior.
  • Felicia: Despite identifying as a dragon and being freely capable of shapeshifting between human and dragon form at most given times, she masquerades as human for most of her life, only pulling out her dragon form on strictly scheduled relief nights, for concerts (It Makes Sense in Context), or as a Godzilla Threshold defense against Slenderman.
  • Arilay: Yup, she's a cyborg.
  • Jen Jara: Not Human Alien, just Humanoid Alien, which is probably close enough. Substitute feathers for head hair, add a second thumb on the other side of the hand from the first thumb (for both hands), picture armor-like growth of smooth plastic-like material on the legs, avert the Non-Mammal Mammaries trope and that's a rough idea of what a Viporis looks like.
  • Shale: Take the image of The Greys, add pseudo-hair and fluffy white antennae, replace the two legs with a gastropod, and that is what a Sleutrienn alien looks like.
• Suffers a major injury or illness, or at least is frequently hospitalized.
  • Felicia: Suffers from Slender Sickness, but can't exactly go to a hospital, not even the Supernatural Secret-Keeping Agency hospital.
  • Arilay: If being permanently stuck inside a life-support suit because crucial internal organs are missing doesn't count, I don't know what does.
  • Jen Jara: She accumulates scars in her chitin whenever she breaks her legs.^Confused? Her skeleton is internal from the knees up and external from the hips down. The two parts of her skeleton overlap and connect all up and down her thighs. To an unknowing human, she looks like she's wearing damaged plastic armor on her legs. What looks like plastic is actually chitin, like what Earth insects make their own exoskeletons out of.
  • Shale: Nope, she doesn't get sick easily and she usually gets through her hair-raising adventures unscathed.
• Occasionally has a strong connection to a parental figure, boss and/or antagonist, and may even display Undying Loyalty to them.
  • Felicia: Shows great respect for the Supernatural Secret Keeping Agency, especially her personal agent/honorary grandfather. He came up with the idea of marketing her draconic singing voice as a "trade-secret animatronic instrument" to fulfill her seemingly impossible dream to sing for the world in her true form, dozens of other agents made that possible. Selling records and concert tickets funds a small but personally satisfying Dragon Hoard, with the SSKA getting a mutually satisfying cut of the profit and valuable experience-building for their musically inclined new recruits.
  • Arilay: Inverted, she is the leader that the Web of Friendship respects.
  • Jen Jara: As part of Viporis culture, she respects all older-generation Viporises as parental figures. As a Viporis ambassador, she shows even stronger respect for her senior ambassadors. Ever since joining the Web of Friendship, she also has allegiance to Arilay. It's kind of too many connections for any one to become overpowering.
  • Shale: Averted, she's Wise Beyond Her Years, the years-long tunnel incident semipermanently estranged her from her parents, and as Arilay's advisor she dispenses irreverent Brutal Honesty. But she does have a tender long-distance bond with two Sleutrienn gurus who took it upon themselves to dispense therapy to the "tunnel children".
• Eventually becomes more emotional, such as by Becoming A Real Girl or turning out to have a Sugar-and-Ice Personality.
  • Felicia: Played for Drama. When Supernatural Secret Keeping Agents attempt to rescue Felicia from Slenderman, it goes horribly wrong through no fault of their own. To save the agents, Felicia sends them away, finally unleashes her temper and engages Slenderman in direct combat for the first time. She ends up deliberately exploding herself with her own fire. The resulting crater and grass fire is blamed on a large meteor impact.
  • Arilay: Once she's finally comfortable with her new body, she displays her hammy fun-loving side, mostly through the kinds of training simulations she sets up.
  • Jen Jara: (Playing with Sugar-and-Ice Personality) She really is friendly all along, but her emotional cues are very subtle to read, even for others of her own species, and strangers usually misinterpret this subtlety as cool standoffishness. Those who get to know her get better at noticing her subtle emotional cues. On the rare occasions when she does display her emotions blatantly, she's either excited at the prospect of fighting or invoking O.O.C. Is Serious Business.
  • Shale: Zig-zagged as she moves back and forth between visiting her own species or meeting strangers (prioritizing graceful serenity), interacting with fellow Web of Friendship members (prioritizing expressiveness), and intimidating enemies (prioritizing creepily flattened affect).

Edited by Miss_Desperado on Jun 17th 2020 at 9:08:27 AM