Adele Hertz

From Bitter Season

Contents 1 Information 1.1 → stats 1.2 → in-depth 1.2.1 personality 1.2.2 background 2 Social 2.1 → relationships 2.1.1 family 2.1.2 friends 2.1.3 ex-lovers 2.2 co-workers 2.2.1 enemies 2.2.2 others 3 Miscellaneous 3.1 → random facts

adele HERTZ
CLEVER TRICK

it's plain to see it's trying to speak
cherished dreams forever asleep

Information

→ stats

• Name: Adele Hertz
• Nickname(s): Ada, D
• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Ability: Empathy
• Age: 26
• Sexual Orientation: Heterosexual
• Height: 5'9
• Weight: 117lbs
• Hair Colour: Brown
• Eye Colour: Blue
• Spoken Language(s): French (Native), German (Native), English (Fluent), Hungarian (Fluent), Spanish (Conversational)
• AIM Screen Name: begintomakeit
• Image Song(s): Coming Soon!

→ in-depth

personality

Adele is hardly in touch with her own feelings and hides this behind a perfectly crafed air of confidence, smirks and witty comebacks. Having any real emotional support while she grew up, she is very self-sufficient in all aspects and any personal problem she may have, she is more than happy dealing with it on her own. While she is independent, her usual method of dealing with things is immersing herself in her work. She knows that if she is considered a weakling, it would be harder to hold a semi-satisfying, reputable job to drown herself in. If she can’t drown her troubles in work or alcohol, she does everything in her power to ignore them.

Her usual façade of an over confident working woman is used unknown to her, to mask her own insecurities about never liking the job she gave up her dreams for. She won’t admit it because she probably doesn’t even know it herself, but she cannot recall a truly happy memory after graduating from high school.

Despite all the power she has to understand what people are feeling, she still has little clue what to do with it or how to interact from time to time. The few meaningful relationships that she had were slightly strained at first because of the tough front she tries to put up. Adele is confident that if she keeps most people at arms length, she is less likely to be disappointed, overwhelmed or distracted. Since she has no difficulty tapping into other’s feelings, she finds herself easily attached to people that she has no intention of speaking with.

background

As far as the system was concerned, Ada was abandoned. No one tells a five year old girl to wait in the back of a run-down bus outside the city limits, with any intention of returning two days after their departure. It was more surprising that the toddler waited in the empty bus for that long, rather than her being alive when black suits that were sweeping the outskirts found her. Despite how weak the child was, she went into hysterics when she had to be physically removed from the bus. When the child who only once referred to herself as ‘Ada’ was rested, she insisted that she needed to get back to the bus, or her mom and dad would never find her. There was little the World Government could do with such a case. The inconsolable little girl was sent to the nearest orphanage in Paris.

Five years later, the little girl was as reserved as ever. She rarely spoke and seemed to put all of her attention towards her studies rather than her peers. The only two things the girl had acted warmly towards were music and the staff member who taught her how to play the cello. Nothing was really wrong with her, most of the faculty believed that the abandonment was so traumatizing that Ada was still having difficulty recovering. While everyone at the orphanage considered Ada’s behavior concerning and sad, her calm, studious mannerisms caught the eye of an influential World Government official and his wife, who were looking for more of a protégée rather than a daughter. All they really did was speak with her briefly, listen to her play the cello, looked at her grades and signed the adoption papers. They didn’t even wait for her to take the train to their home in Berlin. As far as Ada was concerned, it didn’t matter. She knew she’d miss the orphanage and her teacher, but there was something satisfying about finally having a full name. She had an identity. After having the most emotional moment of her life when she said her goodbyes to her cello teacher, from then on, Ada was Adele Hertz, daughter of one of the most privileged families in Europe.

Surprisingly, Adele didn’t take offense to the cordial and detached atmosphere that her ‘parents’ submersed her in, even if she knew she was only adopted to prove what great philanthropists Mr. and Mrs. Hertz were. She wasn’t stupid, just lonely. That’s why she decided that if she wanted her new parents to love her, she needed to earn that right. To this day, Adele isn’t 100% sure if she loved her parents, despite her long struggle to gain their love and approval. Adele quickly adapted to the extravagant but cold life style and all the socialite circles that her parents ran with. She was up to the part of becoming the ideal daughter, even when her parents pressured her into trading her cello in for a lab coat. Adele had particularly excelled in the scientific courses of her schooling, but anyone who even thought they knew Adele knew that music was her one and only passion. Regardless of what she truly wanted, the girl obeyed her family’s wishes and opted for a more ‘sensible’ profession. The new direction in her life only felt worse when her mother began becoming more and more blindly aggressive with pushing and manipulating her into relationships with men, so long they be influential or rich. Adele was suddenly lonelier and more miserable than when she lost her parents.

Claudia had left her husband for a more entertaining and even more lavish lifestyle in Madrid. Finding himself alone, Adam began to see the error of his ways and managed to build a relationship with Adele. They quickly became close and were finally acting like father and daughter. The day after Christmas, Adam suffered from a heart attack and died while Adele was traveling back to Budapest. Adele found herself alone yet again, and not even the respectable name she craved could bring her anything close to comfort. After years of

Social

→ relationships

family

• Adam Hertz — Adoptive Father. Deceased. After Claudia left him, he actually began to be the father that he was never interested in being. His death devastated Adele and the fact that Claudia never even spoke to her at Adam’s funeral crushed her even more. She still misses him very much.
• Claudia Hertz — Adoptive Mother. Claudia never really liked Adele from the start. She was always acting like she was only tolerating her presence. The only time she ever paid much attention to Adele was at social events and when she was shamelessly pressuring her into dating other socialites, even if they were much older than her. She hasn’t spoken to Claudia since before she left Adam. Adele never wants to see her again.

friends

• Henri Michel — When she was 21, Adele went to a party in honor of a new author’s best selling romance novel. She was particularly bored at the party and apparently she wasn’t the only one. Henri and Adele hit it off in the midst of their dislike for such extravagant functions. She had no clue she was speaking with the very author she was supposed to be celebrating. He’s a sweet, caring man who she could tell anything to. Henri seems almost too good to be true, so it’s hard not to tease him from time to time. A part of her is half expecting him to turn out to be a total cretin like some of the other men in her life. None the less, Henri is her best friend and she adores him like no other. She honestly believes he's too good for her in every way.
• Mina Corte-Real — She met Mina through her then boyfriend, Leandro at another high society social function. Adele didn’t mind that Leandro was extremely doting to Mina because she was too busy being occupied with the fact she had encountered a fellow empath. They’ve been friends ever since.

ex-lovers

• Leandro Corte-Real — One of the most pleasant among Adele’s countless exes. They crashed and burned in the end, even if he actually made her happy for a short amount of time. She was even willing to ignore his issues with his sister and her friend, Mina and her mother’s passionate hatred for him. She always adored him, even if he was somewhat callous towards her from time to time. Even though they aren’t together anymore, they are still on good, albeit awkward terms.

co-workers

• Ben Haring — Charming boy. He’s way too darling for his own good and she expects great things from him.
• Benjamin Nooyi — A head researcher that Adele assists frequently. He clearly doesn’t get along with anyone, but when he realized that he didn’t intimidate her, they got along surprisingly well. She looks up to him somewhat and she could almost consider him a friend.
• Hannes Tröger — Another head researcher she works under. He is especially someone who she hides her abilities from. She used to respect him and now he has no clue how much she truly fears him.

enemies

• Filipe Costa — Mina's ex-boyfriend. What a prick.

others

• Wilhelm Tröger — She hopes he’s okay now…

Miscellaneous

→ random facts

• She has been smoking at least a pack a day since her father died.
• Adele was frequently seen in tabloids until her mother moved away. Adele is starting to realize that her mother was the entire cause of her unwilling appearances.
• Has no idea why, but Henri's mother loves her to pieces.
• If she teases you and tries to make you feel uncomfortable, she only does it out of love.
• She plays her cello frequently in her spare time, but never for an audience. It takes a lot of convincing otherwise.
• Even though her house is freakishly huge, she spends most of her time in the backyard on her trampoline. Not that she'll ever tell you that or let you see.