>>280663169 (OP)she resented how he was a more succesful pilot than her despite never hardening the fuck up the way she resolved to do after her mother died, and she resented how he got along better with a "doll" like Rei, but ultimately she still wanted to ruse up (young boy on the wings of an angel) and meet her head on as a rival she could respect and maybe even admire. doubly so because he'd kinda started becoming the kind of confident guy she enjoyed butting heads with only for shinji to repress and revert after the dummy plug incident.
The thing abput EoE is that within instrumentality you can't seoerate your thoughts from the thoughts of others, so any comminication you do could just as easily be with another soul as it could be with a figment of your imagination, or even a figment of someone else's imagination. "The me that exists in the minds of others"