Your name: K. A. Pezzano E-mail address: kokopelli@mindspring.com Homepage: www.mindspring.com/~kokopelli CHARACTER Name: Hayakawa Noriko Age: 14 Nationality: Japanese Physical description (height, weight, build): Noriko is skinny, almost but not quite bony. She stands at 5' 2" and weighs 110 pounds, and so is quite small. Her measurements are 31-22-32 (hey, it's anime, after all). Hair, color and style: Straight black hair, cut into about a chin- length pageboy. Generally slightly unkempt, though not sloppily so. It's just unruly, even at that length. Eyes: Dark brown. Other appearance notes: She always wears large round glasses. Family status (mother, father, siblings...): She has an older brother, a NERV employee, who takes care of her and whom she idolizes. Current residence: She lives with her brother in the outskirts of Tokyo-3, in what is essentially NERV personnel assigned housing. PERSONALITY General: Noriko is extremely shy, almost pathologically shy. Noriko tends only to speak when spoken to, avoiding eye contact. When forced to interact socially, she often stutters and says the wrong things, which, when combined with her gawky, nerdy appearance, draws ridicule from her peers. She is very self-conscious about this, and tends to react with silent tears. As a result, any words spoken to her that are NOT words of denigration will result in a shocked look from her, which is why she rarely seems to hear these sorts of words more than twice from the same person. Regardless, she is kind at heart, and very sad because of her lonliness, and keeps trying to reach out in wierd, tentative ways...which usually end up in more laughter from the target of her approaches, and more tears and heartache for her. When it does work, though, she attaches herself Remora-like to that person, steadfastly loyal and friendly, if really quiet. Special (insanities?): Every once in a while, she withdraws into melancholia, sitting and staring at the wall of her room for a full day or more. When she comes out of these, she is an altered person, almost cheerful (well, by her normal standards, at least). This state rarely lasts more than a day, before she's back to her usual self. Quirks of note: She pours her heart out in poems and stories, which she keeps but thinks are insufferably bad, and so won't show a living soul. Any ridicule of these might destroy her. Love interests: She has a slight crush on the (other?) smartest person in the class, male or female. Friends: She has one person who she considers her best friend, one of the only people besides her brother that she can open up and talk to. With the few others in the class that are friendly to her, she is slightly less open with, but she doesn't stutter nervously when she talks to them, though she is still quieter than almost all other girls her age. Rivals, professional: None yet. Rivals, romantic: None. Enemies: None that can really be termed as "enemies", though she's unlikely to win a popularity contest...if she's even entered. SKILLS/APTITUDE Skills of note: Noriko has an extremely high synch ratio with her EVA. It's speculated that her lack of self-identity may be a factor in this, as she apparently has no trouble subsuming herself totally into her EVA. This has it's drawbacks in her case, however. Even at the best of times, she is not any sort of athlete, and can even be considered clumsy. Her EVA suffers from this as well, almost to a comic degree. She has to concentrate extremely hard just to keep it's physical performance at average. Noriko is also, as noted above, an amateur writer. She's not bad, but would never dare to get an outside opinion from someone, lest they denigrate her work. She does rather well in school, though that is more due to her concentration on it and lack of anything better to do than any inherent genius on her part. Lack of skills of note: She is a disaster when it comes to any kind of physical activity. In times of stress, like running because she's late for school, she'll trip, more often than not. Gym times are a particular torment for her. COMBAT Skill of note: Despite her almost total uselessness in hand-to-hand combat, she is a remarkable marksman. This fact is probably the only thing keeping her from washing out of the EVA program entirely. She has shown a rather good aptitude for gun combat, almost always hitting the target dead-on with her pallet rifle or positron rifle in simulation tests. In actual combat against the angels, she'd likely be prepositioned as a sniper...the less she and her EVA have to move around, the better. She would make a rather effective sniper, though. Outside of her EVA, a child of 10 could probably beat her up without breaking a sweat. Reactions of note: As noted above, her EVA is mostly as clumsy as she is unless she concentrates. This means that in combat, having to concentrate on moving AND fighting, she'd almost inevitably stumble and fall...which in combat would probably prove fatal. In gun combat, though, she is very good at quickly aiming and firing on a designated target...although only when she's been told what to do. If taken by surprise, it's likely she'd either freeze up, or shoot randomly on her own initiative...regardless of what other orders she might receive. BACKSTORY Noriko was born late to her parents, as they already had a teenage son at the time of her birth. When both her parents were killed in the chaos that followed the Second Impact, her brother was old enough to take care of her, so she avoided the mass orphanages of the post-Impact years that traumatized so many other children of the period. Her brother took on a job at the nascent Gerhirn to support them both, putting his technical skills to good use. When Gehirn later became NERV, he was assigned to Tokyo-3, and took Noriko with him. When the Marduk report named her as a potential pilot, she agreed only at the urging of her brother, who saw this opportunity as a way to cure her shyness and low self esteem problems. Being raised by a working brother didn't do much for her social development, so she grew up extremely shy. She is still painfully shy, but is now coming out of her shell slightly,due to the fact that she is forced to interact on a regular, intimate basis with the other EVA pilots, proving that her brother's instincts were correct...at least for now. Characters most often used name here (preferably in all caps): NORIKO Name: Hayakawa Noriko Player name and e-mail address: K. A. Pezzano kokopelli@mindspring.com --- STATS Speed: ** Power: *** Endurance: *** Will: **** Strategy: ***** Cunning: ** Ego: ** ---------------- SKILLS EVA Piloting: Novice EVA Melee Combat: Non-existant/Novice (she's trained, but pretty inept... somewhere in between) EVA ranged combat: Disciple (I hope that's not too high...it could easily be knocked down to Practicioner. However, I have her so BAD at everything else, and not likely to get any better given her character writeup, so I was generous here) EVA synchronization: Apprentice (same here) Hand-to-Hand Combat (outside the EVA): Non-existant --- Attitude: Noriko, if used as a sniper, will perform reasonably well in combat, following all orders to the best of her abilities. If forced to go hand-to-hand with an opponent, however, she will likely get hurt rather badly, if not killed. This sort of pain and shock, of the brutal combat that EVAs often engage in, will tear her apart...especially if there's a lot of collateral, civilian damage. She will gradually sink into her melancholia, and will become useless as any kind of pilot. She has an inner strength, however, and if praised enough for her good work and prowess as a marksman before she has to deal with close combat, she will build up a core of confidence that might negate this. Being ordered to do something that would cause lots of collateral damage or that is on the brutal level of, say, Shinji's battle with the 13th Angel, however, will also wreck her mind and gradually draw her deeper into her catatonic melancholia. If she gets to know any of the other pilots well, she might react to their being put in extreme danger by charging into close combat to aid them... which might have disastrous results, given her skill level. She has no compunctions about killing angels, especially the more "alien" they look, as long as she is still convinced that they're the "enemy" and need to be stopped. --- Weaknesses: She will react to any kind of harsh disciplining or words of disapproval by either running away (in tears, most likely) or withdrawing into herself. This, and the fact that she's pretty much useless in close combat in her EVA, will present a lot of problems for the military-oriented NERV...especially if she is forced into close combat due to limited EVA resources or the like.