No.4735
One of the most surprising things I've seen as I've been rewatching Evangelion is that the show actively encourages you to ship Shinji and Misato. This pairing never came out of nowhere at all, the chemistry between them within the show itself is decidely not merely mother-and-son.
Episode 4, for example, almost plays out like the plot of a difficult romance, with Shinji and Misato as the main couple. Misato wants Shinji to care about her, rather than just blankly agree with everything she says. Then he runs away, and she's heartbroken by his disappearance, but also feels for him and all the pain he's endured piloting Eva.
Later on, Misato thinks about the Hedgehog's Dilemma, and then from there she has the epiphany that Shinji is running away precisely because he DOES care about her, and his way of showing affection is to distance himself from other people so he doesn't hurt them.
This leads to her frantically trying to catch him at the train station, being crushed when she thinks he's left, and then the connection between them when it's revealed he's stayed.
It's a fucking romance plot. None of the Shinji/Misato shippers are hallucinating at all. Shinji even overtly denies a mother-and-son relationship between them himself, when he goes out of his way to point out they're not related.
No.4736
I also saw that thread on 4/a/.