Asuka Langley Sohryu

"You think an attack like that will hurt my Unit Two!?"

The multi-racial pilot of Evangelion Unit-02, Asuka Langley Sohryu will not fail to remind you that hers is the final Eva production model. She takes immense pride in her unit, her piloting skills, her genius intellect, and everything else about herself. Her ego is always on full display, usually in the form of obnoxious boasting about herself and cruel insults dished out to everyone else. Despite her bad attitude and poor teamwork skills, Asuka is an ace Evangelion pilot, and is smart enough to have earned a college degree by age 14... which she will not hesitate to remind you of.

Background Information
Perhaps people would be more tolerant of Asuka Langley Sohryu's general intolerance of them if they knew what a crappy hand life dealt her. It's hard enough being a bi-racial child in a country far removed from either side of your heritage (in this case, growing up in Germany when half your bloodline is from Japan and the other half is American, both thousands of miles and many degrees of culture away), but there's more to it than that. She has lived through adversity and tragedy, and come away stronger... but in her own way, because part of the tragedy was that she had no one to guide her into dealing with these stresses properly.

Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu, Asuka's mother, worked as part of the German branch of the Evangelion project -- a clandestine scientific enterprise designed to create highly advanced mobile suits capable of defeating the mysterious, seemingly unstoppable creatures called Angels. Things were normal enough when Asuka was born, but two working parents and a project that's of life-or-death importance to humanity at large tends to result in kids that are a bit on the neglected side. Still, she was happy and healthy, and too young to know any better.

Asuka was four years old when her mother attempted a dangerous experiment to make psychic contact with the monstrous Evangelion Unit-02. No one can say for sure what Kyoko underwent when her mind touched the Eva's, but whatever it was likely couldn't be comprehended by human minds anyway. Kyoko certainly couldn't, and her sanity was shattered by the experience, turning her from a brilliant scientist and an okay mother into a gibbering, shellshocked wreck. Hallucinating and unable to distinguish reality from imagination, she began caring for one of Asuka's toy dolls as her child, and dismissed Asuka as "that girl," as if the redheaded tot was little more than a distracting figment at best, a meddlesome nuisance at worst. A four-year-old does not know how to process this, and cannot understand as completely as an adult that Kyoko's actions were the result of a profoundly traumatic experience that had given rise to some sort of mental illness. Adults barely understood what had happened to Kyoko. All Asuka knew was that suddenly, her mother -- one of the few things a four-year-old can legitimately call their own -- had rejected her. Her world broke, and has yet to fully come back together.

Nor will it ever, probably. As Kyoko's disconnect from reality worsened over time, she was institutionalized. Asuka continued her childhood as best she could, under the steady hand of her American father. She displayed phenomenal aptitudes in a variety of disciplines even at a young age, and was, after a long and rigorous screening and testing process, selected to be an Evangelion pilot. Even though she would not take control of the terrifying machine for years yet, this excited young Asuka greatly. She ran to the asylum to tell her mother the good news. It was when she reached her mother's room that she discovered Kyoko Zeppelin Sohryu's body hanging from the ceiling, body stiffly drooping, feet turning side to side like a compass' needle. If a child doesn't know how to handle the irrational abandonment of a parent, then they certainly don't know how to cope with death. In killing herself, Kyoko gave her daughter a gift and a curse: Asuka knew from then on that no one could ever be relied on, and that the only person she could trust not to hurt her was herself.

The first trial of this was a monumental one. Asuka's father had, while his wife was in the crazy bin, been carrying on a sordid affair with Kyoko's psychologist. With Kyoko out of the way and the requisite period of mourning over, he promptly went ahead with the relationship full-steam, and before long the two were married. Asuka hated the notion of a stepmother, and did everything in her power to resist forming any kind of familial bond, or even friendship, with the intruder. With some trial and error, the two found a fine routine, wherein they pretended to like and tolerate one another, treating each other with courtesy, politeness, and something that looked like awkward love. Asuka found that she was rather good at this sort of thing... that is, shallow relationships born largely out of convenience to her. This would be her model going forward.

While Asuka taught herself how to interact with the world as a tween without guidance or perspective, her occupational life flourished. She excelled as an Evangelion trainee, and it quickly became obvious through her schoolwork that she was a child prodigy. Her IQ was inordinately high, and she taught herself to become trilingual by age 13: Japanese, German, and English. She had also completed educational coursework sufficient to earn a bachelor's degree, which helped to inflate her already sizable ego. The more special treatment she got, the more she recognized in herself a greater potential than is found in the average person. An Evangelion pilot -- one of only two in the world (at the time)! A child genius! A degree-holder at the onset of puberty! The exotic appeal of a redheaded Asian with a German accent! No acne! The more she realized how much she had going for her, the more Asuka became convinced that she had it all. She became pretty insufferable as her love affair with herself blossomed.

By age 14, Asuka Langley Sohryu was ready to be deployed as a counter-Angel warrior. Piloting the beastly Evangelion Unit-02, she was united with Rei Ayanami, pilot of Unit-00, and Shinji Ikari, pilot of Unit-01, under the auspices of NERV strategist Misato Katsuragi. Asuka wasted no time deciding all of these people were terrible. Rei was a brain-dead doll, Misato was a skeezy cougar, and Shinji was just pathetic... although in a kind of cute way, like a kicked puppy. No matter, though, as this just made him easier for Asuka to bully. Storming her way through every social situation and Angel battle, she established herself as the dominant alpha female, refusing to listen to anyone's advice or suggestions while doling out plenty of her own, usually unsolicited.

Since debuting, though, she has not been the unstoppable force that she thinks she should be. In fact, she's lost a fair number of fights, and while she continues to project the outward appearance of a cocky, unflappable ace teen, secretly she has begun harboring severe self-doubt about her capabilities as an Evangelion pilot. Her worries over her own ability have begun affecting her synchronization with her Eva... it remains to be seen whether the young pilot will regain her nerve as she grows up, or flame out in her immaturity. The difference between the two, though, could prove to be one of life and death.

Personality Traits
Asuka has so much potential that it's really rather a shame what a little brat she is. Her intellect is serious, but it's surpassed in size and weight by her ego, which has its own gravitational pull. Indeed, everything in Asuka's world revolves around the principle of "me me me," and anything that dares to differ will soon find her tugging it back toward that central idea. Asuka is ill-equipped to suffer anything that does not involve her as a central focus, and her ego dictates that the limelight isn't something to be earned, it's something everyone else should just cast on her as a given and be happy to do it.

Asuka is, in this regard and several others, fabulously immature. When she's not being held up on a pedestal by everyone, she has a fit, sulks, and acts crabby. When people make fun of her or act in ways that she considers stupid or immature, she explodes on them without restraint or tact. A true social villain, she always considers herself in the right, and resents any insinuation that she's not "very mature for 14." She considers herself to be an educated, sophisticated woman and if anyone says otherwise she'll kick them right in the junk.

Asuka is a proven bully. Her self-reliance is an admirable trait, but because she didn't have a reliable mother figure to keep her ego in check, this self-reliance has blossomed into a debilitating condition wherein she thinks everyone else is totally stupid when compared to her. She not only engages in smug preening, she actively belittles those around her in order to make herself feel dominant. Just ask Shinji Ikari, who according to Asuka is a dweeb, a loser, a coward, a pervert, a crybaby, and a list of other names as long as your arm; or possibly Rei Ayanami, who according to Asuka is brain-dead, a zombie, a puppet, a retard, a fetal-alcohol baby, and a list of other names even longer than Shinji's. Those two are the closest things Asuka has to friends.

Asuka takes her job as an Eva pilot seriously, because it's her proof to the rest of the world that she is better than them. There are only a handful of people capable of making these cybernetic suits move, and she's one of them... this puts her above everyone who can't. She's fiercely protective of her status, and often desires to show off while fighting, as if she were in competition with her fellow Eva pilots and EFA soldiers. This makes her a poor fit for any team operation, but the right amount of yelling from a superior officer can cow her into doing what she's told, more often than not. Besides, she's talented enough that she makes up for her lack of teamwork. Mostly. Usually.

Asuka's competitive nature makes her easily threatened by any display of skill around her. She has a compulsive need to put everyone else down, especially when they're doing well, and especially when she wants to assert that she could do whatever they're doing better. Many people think that this just comes down to Asuka being a giant, raging bitch. They're half right. She is a giant, raging bitch, but she's also incredibly insecure. Ever since she was abandoned by her crazy mother, Asuka has suffered from an inexhaustible need for attention, even though all of the praise and adoration in the world won't be enough to make up for the mother's love that she so desperately wants. If she's not the best, she's nothing. Deep down, Asuka is a sad, lonely, troubled young woman, but she's built up such an irascible, abrasive shell that it's likely no one will ever get deep enough to see.

Talents & Abilities
Asuka is an extremely aggressive pilot. She charges into most situations headfirst, (over)confident that she can handle anything. She's the definition of fiery, passionate combat, often going in for the kill at close-range. Part of this risk-taking nature comes from Asuka's need to show off and flaunt her skill, but she's talented enough that it pays off. Asuka's synchronization with her Eva is dependent on her confidence, though, and if a battle begins going extremely poorly or she suffers a string of losses, her confidence may be shaken and her Eva may not respond to her commands as a result. Still, so far her ego has kept it in check.

Asuka is a child prodigy who possesses a genius-level IQ despite only being 14 years old. She's familiar with various kinds of mobile suit engineering, including some aspects of the Evangelions, which would not be known to the rest of the EFA. Additionally, her position as an Eva pilot and operative of NERV gives her levels of security clearance within the organization that the rest of the EFA plebes lack. She's still pretty low on the totem pole of access clearances within NERV, but it's more than most people get.

Logs
Logs go here.