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Only the biggest/most enthusiastic Good Sir
Here's some old stuff I thought of
Shinji was absorbed into Unit 01 in EoE. We do not see him burst into LCL nor do we see him become a red orb, we don’t even see him eject from Unit 01. He was absorbed just as he was in the Zeurel fight.
He’s been in Instrumentality for Fourteen years. While he’s been in there he’s been repeating the events of his life over and over again, each time is a little different though. The differences are due to his memories becoming warped, he’s been in there for so long that he’s been mixing things up and another contributing factor is the fact that none of the original cast is there to represent themselves in his mind.
He is unaware of the repeating, however his subconscious is not. It has been trying to tell him and us that this takes place after EoE, that’s why there been so many “callbacks”. It’s saying “Hey look! Don’t you remember this happening?” But he has been brainwashed by his stay thinking that what he sees is new and that this was always the way the world was.
There are four real people in his Instrumentality alongside him, they are, Shinji himself, the Rei we see near Shinji when he is using the payphone, Kaworu, and of course Mari. These people can interact and manipulate the reality Shinji’s finds himself in to a slight degree, mostly just by interacting with the fake versions of the other cast members. Kaworu and Rei have been in there the longest, Mari however is very new.
Mari is there in Shinji’s Instrumentality on a rescue mission. She is what causes the major divergence from the cycle that Shinji was repeating for those 14 years. She is there to get him out, so is Kaworu.
Their plan to get him out of Instrumentality is simple, make it so that he can get no further lost in the cycle. They wait for him to get absorbed and then put him and Unit 01 in a coma using the spear. This somehow puts his consciousness back into the real world but he isn’t awoken yet because as we know from the T.V series, only someone he cares about can awaken him from Unit 01.
Meanwhile during Shinji’s Fourteen year stay in Instrumentality…
People are coming out of the sea and the world is in shambles. The main cast and just about everyone else are pissed about what Shinji did or didn’t do, especially pissed are Misato and Asuka.
There is work to be done so NERV is reformed. Instead of using resources to rebuild HQ and the world they focus instead on building Evas for world security and ships for Lilith retrieval. Lilith’s body parts are stored in Terminal Dogma and kept under surveillance in case she starts regenerating again. Also Unit 02 is rebuilt during this time.
During this time a large object is caught on Satellite imaging slowly floating towards Earth, it’s Unit 01. They can’t destroy it and it’s currently asleep so they just imprison it.
Sometime during all this Gendo has returned. He is not a happy camper. He was not reunited with Yui like he wanted so he plans another Impact to finish the job.
Lilith has fully regenerated but Unit 02 and Unit 06 are there to shut her down with the spears.
A while later Misato is made aware of the fact that Gendo intends to start another Impact so she leads a rebellion. Pretty much everyone sides with her and they flee after being out numbered by the MPE’s. They take the ships and Unit 02 and 08.
They are constantly under attack by NERV, it goes on for years. In an act of desperation they decide to harness the power of Unit 01. They believe that since it has been inactive for so long they have nothing to worry about, if Shinji were coming back he’d be back by now, they are wrong.
Asuka and Mari take up the mission. They get there and are about to retrieve it when they get attacked. In a moment of weakness she calls out to Shinji for help and receives her answer, Shinji cannot resist the call of a loved one, he has awoken, Mari and Kaworu’s plan worked.
Compare all of Mari's looks before the glasses and her new hairstyle to these.
Oh and when Mari yells about the escaped rats, there's a similar look to that in the tv series that I can't find, I believe it's after Asuka talks on the phone with her step mother and yells at Shinji cause he got her to open up. but I've seen it somewhere.
I'm making the argument that Mari is the Feminine side of Asuka, the side that takes after her mother, she looks the most like her. She's the confident side of Asuka. She's the one that attached to Kaji. She's a genius, she eats the junk food, she makes Shinji uncomfortable sexually, she's the one that wants him to man up, she mocks him. She's also the Asuka with the bloodlust like we see in EoE, she even makes the same facial expressions in combat when fighting Zeurel that Asuka made in EoE when fighting the MPE's.
In the manga Mari states that she's 16, I don't know how long the events NGE lasted though. It could also link in with the time loop theory, that she is 16 in the sense that she has done the timeloops for the equivalent of 2 years, Asuka was 14 in EoE. She also skipped grades like Asuka did.
Here's a picture of Kyoko before the insanity
[img][img]http://i.imgur.com/64xXQES.jpg[/img][/img]
Compare to Mari
Shikinami is the Masculine side of Asuka, the side that takes after her father. It's always been speculated that Asuka's father was military and Shikinami is military too. She is the insecure side of Asuka. She's disciplined, organized, strategic, graceful she has the genuine feelings for Shinji. I also want to talk about how the military is a masculine/patriarchal thing in Evangelion and relate it to Shikinami's masculine side, but I think the masculine protest and military thing has already been written about in other threads. I also want to talk about how Shikinami is the damaged side of Asuka that is only able to unleash it when wearing the doll.
Mari has the feminine features of Soryu and Shikinami has the the body, if we were combine the two again she would get darker red hair color and the fuller breasts that Soryu had.
I also think that the preview that was shown for 4.0 is a hint that Shikinami and Mari are going to combine again, that's why they are half and half, Asuka will become complete again in 4.0.
The way it works for me is that it occurs during EoE, right before Asuka is killed by the MPE's Unit 02 briefly activates, I think Kyoko was trying to absorb her like Unit 02 did to her, but much like her it was only able to absorb part of her, it caused the division. At least I think Anno will retcon saying it did that.
"Look at Me!, I'm Mr. MeeSeeks!" - Mr. MeeSeeks
You know nothing, Jon Snow - Chuckman