THE YOUNG GIRL◈◈
◇ ◈ ◆◈
Name
Brigitta Hertzbrandt
Color
Cold Fusion #4DD0C3
Age
Sixteen
Nationality
Brazilian.
Home/Financial Status
Between middle and upper class.
School
Teufel Town High School
◈◈◈◈ Personality
Brigitta can be easily labeled with just a few words."That shy little girl" is what anyone would say. This first impression of shyness, however, breaks down quickly when one tries to really get to know her. With some gentle words and a little patience, Brigitta blossoms into a gentle and extremely energetic girl, eager to share the little things that are most precious in her life, and bring you a little closer to her whenever she can. One of the things she desires the most is to make friends, but never manages to be outgoing enough to even talk to new people unless she's forced by the situation. That and the lack of daily socialization deprived her of a sense of what she should or should not do when interacting with people, and she can sometimes push your personal limits, but as soon as she notices that she did that, she'll withdraw into shyness once more, embarassed by her mistake.
Beneath this outer layer of shyness, Brigitta is a girl of widely varied interests. Extremely intelligent, she is fascinated by the most diverse scientific subjects, and spend hours absorbing every drop of knowledge that come across her, from a documentary about the evolution of salamanders, to articles about the different types of heavenly bodies found to date. In addition to the academic side, she's crazy about the nerdiest subjects, such as comics, veideogames, computers, and the wonderful world called internet. She comes to visit several conventions throughout the year on each of these issues, where she finds people with similar interests and often the same difficulty to interact.
In these events, she discovered a passion besides science, the colorful world of cosplay. At first she was terrified by the idea of dressing in colorful clothes of a favorite character and show herself to large crowds, but after a first and second time (slightly traumatic), she was getting used to the freedom that those costumes gave her and the positivity with which people reacted when they saw their favorite character there, in living color. This attention was sometimes frustrating, with boys (and some girls) devouring her with hungry eyes when she wore something more revleaing, but nothing that she couldn't learn how to deal with in time.
What some well informed people might find out, but that she prefers to hide whenever possible, is how filthy rich her family is. After some very bad experiences she discovered that this information practically destroys any hope of making good friends, at the same time intimidating people with the right intentions and attracting only the wrong kind of company. What she always looks for is that people know her for who she is, rather then the content of her father's pocket. She never saw herself as part of that world filled with elegance and superiority, só she doesn't feel obliged or interested in talking about it, but with some insistence, some soft words, she'll end up talking, even if reluctantly at first.
Living the childhood she lived, surrounded by bodyguards and prevented from living as a normal chidren, Brigitta became too naive for her own good. With some cunning and fake smiles it's easy to convince her of your good intentions. She has been misled by several people who posed as friends before, who were only interested in her financial status. Not knowing how exactly to recognize these people, the best solution she came up with was to avoid the subject and only give out information that wouldn't reveal much.Convincing hes father to let her study in a regular high school was a formidable undertaking, she can't afford screwing things up by getting in trouble simply because she doesn't know how to judge people's character as well as she should.
And out of sight of everyone, in a well hiden place of her heart, Brigitta nurtures severe feelings about herself. Hes self-criticism is barely visible externally, like when she makes negative comments about herself when praised, and the modesty that she keeps even when she does something clearly excellent. Things go way beyond that though, her self-image is horrible and she spent so many nights reliving the stupid things she did during the day. These feelings corrode her heart and make it hard for her to believe any compliment directed at her. She often rationalize that they are just being very gentle, and rather not tell her the blunt truth.
Despite all her frailty, when her tears dry out, Brigitta changes into a different creature. She encloses her emotions in a little cocoon, her smile dissapears, her speech looses its colors, and she begins to deal with everything and everyone with cold rationality. The pain reaches a level where it fuels a thick emotional shielding and she temporarily loses the ability to feel, making her apatethical. It's hard to leave this state and she always lacked friends who could help her. The relationship with her parents isn't close enough for her to come to them for advice or just a nurturing touch. Her only option is to wait and recover alone, slowly finding her way out of the dark. After some time she gradually returns to her gentle and energetic way, a little wiser and a little more scarred by life.
◈◈◈◈Appearance
U/C
◈◈◈◈History
In Sao Paulo, Brazil, a young man began his first steps toward what he hoped was a successful career. Erhard Hertzbrandt, coming from a traditional German family that had settled several generations in sao paulo, graduated in engineering from the USP (São Paulo University), completed his master's degree in nanotechnology and prepared for an academic career as a teacher at the same university where he graduated. Smart and tenacious, passed the tests required and was convened the following year as a teacher.
His youthful looks hid a rare genius, and the older teachers took time to get used to his presence, they made a hell of his life in the first year. However, not everything was so difficult for Erhard, the fallowing year he met another new teacher, just like him. Isadora Batista Neto was a humble girl and from an even humbler family, dark-skinned, black haired and sporting the most amazing teal eyes, she swoop him like a hurricane. Her family was from Minas Gerais, and she was living in Sao Paulo since she had been summoned as a teacher, assigned to teach astrophysics.
The two met daily, and quickly grew fond of each other. It was amazing how two sharp minds could get completely lost in each other's presence. Their romance hurt their career a bit in the first year, especially for being the perfect source of complaint for others teachers, but they soon adapted and started living together. That's when the unexpected happened, Brigitta. A few months living together Isadora discovered she was pregnant and panicked, though when she finally broke the news to Erhard, he did not react as she feared. Instead he knelt down, took a box from his pocket and asked her hand in marriage. He said that he was taking the courage to eventually do it and that day he had finally bought a ring, so it was all very natural. Yes, the baby was unexpected and it would be difficult to raise without anything planned, but they had each other and the faith that they would find a way. As well as Erhard's family, who, not without some severe initial judgement, offered all the help they could give.
In two months they married, and five more Brigitta was born, preterm, with a total of seven months. Small and delicate as a mouse, she almost fit in Erhard palm. Doctors feared for her life and both families eagerly hoped for her survival. Three months in the hospital, Brigitta slowly gained strength and started to gain some health. Her parents could not describe the joy it was to finally have a daughter in their arms, safe and sound. They gave her long ago the name Erhard's grandmother, who passed away a year before the news of Isadora's pregnancy. It meant “power”, “value”, and that little girl, however fragile, deserved the name having survived.
In the following years Brigitta grew up under the watchful care of their parents. She was an energetic girl, but a little sick in his first year, easily hurt and vulnerable to getting sicknessess from the other children. Because of that, her parents, almost unconsciously, kept her inside as much as they could. Over the years both the parents' overprotection and the natural rigidity of the Erhard's German family raised Brigitta to be very timid, but she was still very kind and outgoing with who she knew well enough. She used to play with her parents, aunts and uncles, people always older than her, or play by herself. When it came time to start school her parents hesitated, but they knew the time would come eventually. The first year was a sad story, Brigitta stayed in a corner for the first days, silent and afraid of that new place, but in the weeks following she took the courage to make some friends. Before she could take the initiative though, a group of girls approached, asked about her, her name, which she answered, even if shyly.
At first the girls seemed to be nice and kept talking to her from time to time in the playground, but the situation quickly deteriorated. One day she couldn't find her backpack after recess, so she went out to search the school, and even asked the janitor for help, a nice old man known as Mr. André. Not much later they found it on the roof, covered with mud inside out. She had no idea at the time, but the janitor knew what that meant and asked her if she was being bullied. She said no, a little perplexed, and so came home, fearing the yelling she would get from her mom.
The next day the girls asked why she looked sad and she told them her story. They cheered her and said the school would eventually catch the culprit. That same day the same thing happened. The weeks passed and the situation was getting worse, one day she tried to leave the backpack hidden in the janitor's closet, but when she returned not only the bag was full of mud but also the entire closet. She apologized and he did what he could to cheer up the little girl. Week after week she suffered this abuse from a stranger, and the janitor and her friends cheered afterwards. The school didn't do much, since it wasn't the first time, they dissed it for something that children always do.
One day though Brigitta began to gather the facts. She saw Rafaela, one of the girls, with dirty all over her sneakers and some dirt under her fingernails. She looked at her other friends in search of the same signs and some of them had dirt stains over the shoes, but mostly cleaned away. Smart as her parents, she gathered the pieces and had a horrible conclusion. But since she had no way to prove anything, she just waited for their move. She tried catching the culprit before, but he never appeared on those days. Brigitta then understood why she could never get him, her friends invited her for lunch every day and they always knew when she stayted to guard the backpack. Everything made sense. So when they called her for lunch that day she refused and said she had to go see her father and the headmaster. She waited hidden for a while, then made her way through the empty corridors back to her classroom, and saw what she knew she would, but hoped not to see.
The girls were leaving the room all together, and one of them, Rachel, carried Brigitta's backpack like it was hers. They made their way to school's back, where they were constructing a new building. They threw the backpack in the mud and stomped on it repeatedly while laughing, as Brigitta silently cried. She stepped back and knocked a piece of wood, the girls turned around, but saw nothing. Brigitta rushed through the halls, stumbled, hurt her knee, and kept running untill she left the school. She reached home. There she found her father fast asleep on the sofa, with the tv on and a bowl of cereal in his lap. It was his only day off in the last two years, forced by his wife.
Brigitta walked up to her father, her face flushed and wet, took the bowl from his lap, lifted the blanket, and snuggled very careful not to wake him. Wasn't long untill fell as sleep too. Her mother came home at night after a long day and found them like that. She didn't noticed anything wrong, so she proceeded to make dinner and woke the two very gently when it was done. Brigitta tried to hide her face, then noticed she was no longer crying. She didn't say a word about it that night.
The next day they received a call from the school regarding Brigitta's disappearance, her parents said she was home with them the whole time. They turned to their daughter to ask what exactly was going on and she ended up explaining what happened. She was a good daughter and couldn't hide things from her parents for too long, and they would find out eventually. They were obviously concerned and called the school's principal the next day, but had the same success as their daughter.After some discussing they decided transfer her from the school, but she insisted she would stay until the end of the year.Her parents had paid all her books already and there was no other school close by, she knew it would be a big nuisiance for them. Her parents were already up to their necks with responsibilities from work, tp the point where her father was getting sick from stress.They were very well paid, but the job wasn't easy.
It was difficult to spend the next few weeks avoiding her "friends", but not for long. A month later her parents came with unexpected and exciting news. They were invited by the Brazilian embassy in the United States to participate in a scientific exchange program between the two countries. They told her they would move to a modern city called Teufel, California. She was at the same time happy about going to a new school, and an amazing city, and sad that she would be away from family. Her relatives were always very present in her life, grandparents, uncles, cousins, all of them. She didn't see her mother's family so much, but would miss them too. Being in another country was completely different from another state, she knew it would be very difficult to see any of them in the future. Her parents needed it though, the job would pay more and have fewer work hours, they would deserved some rest and peace of mind.
They packed up and went to a new future. Although wounded and worried about being betrayed again by new friends, Brigitta had a sense that not all would be like them, she just had to look carefully and gather courage. She and her parents settled their new home and didn't had much trouble adpting, her parents spoke fluent English and she had enough English classes back in Brazil to get a headstart. It was difficult at first, but soon she only had the accent left and built a nice vocabulary, enough to get by.
Her parents put her in the best school they could find, the Rosaline Academy. They had a myriad of different kids there, some very rich and others closer to her finantial level, but apparently not a single poor kid. In the early days she was terrified, but forced herself to socialize. This time she would decide who she would be friends with, rather than vice versa. To this day it is still hard and she always reacts very timidly with new people, but tries her best to be friendly and inviting. She has no solid idea of how she'll spot bad kids and can sometimes be too trusting, but she tries to be vigilant whenever and however she can.
Addendum: If you read this far please have this cupcake. I made it just for you.
◈◈◈◈Family
◇ Erhard Hertzbrandt - Father
◇ Isadora Batista Neto - Mother
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