Henrietta

If you have comments on the way I'm playing Henrietta, please let me know. Constructive criticism is always appreciated. Comments are screened.

☆ Threadhopping with this character - yes/no/maybe so?: Sure, within reason, as usual. If you aren't sure, ask first. Actually I would prefer you ask first anyway. BUT I'm typically fine with it!

☆ Backtagging with this character - yes/no/maybe so?: Definitely!

☆ Hugging this character?: Sure! She will be surprised, and if she doesn't know your character may react as though threatened, so be prepared for that.

☆ Giving this character a kiss?: She will go O.O. And same as above.

☆ Punching this character: ...she will fight back full force, and full force she can be pretty deadly. BASICALLY JUST ICA = ICC.

☆ Is there anything ought not be mentioned near this character?: Hmmm. Nothing that I can think of offhand. If you try to tell her to act like a normal human girl, or try to help her do that and tell her you're doing so, she will probably get upset.

☆ Is there anything you need us to know about interacting with this character? Special physical features, fighting abilities, STUFF: She has, to sum up, superhuman strength, is an excellent marksman, and has enhanced hearing and vision, as well as far superior reaction time. Of course, the latter three only work if she is focusing; catch her off guard, and she can be wounded/killed as easily as anyone else.

☆ Anything else, please mention here:

Character: Henrietta
Series/Fandom: Gunslinger Girl
Variation/AU: Blend of the manga and the anime; using details from the anime to flesh out certain events addressed only peripherally in the manga. Also, rooming arrangement is the same as in the anime--dunno why, but the way they had it set up there always made more sense to me.

Age: Probably between ten and twelve.
Gender: Female
Species: Enhanced Human/Cyborg

Canon Used: Anime - Gunslinger Girl season one; Manga to fill in/extend events

Appearance: Short brown hair, brown eyes, pale skin. She usually wears a school uniform and a red overcoat when it's cold, though she does have other clothes, mostly formal or dressy with skirts. (Reference image: http://bp2.blogger.com/_ExIpDGM6Mp4/Rpx7bF7w8nI/AAAAAAAAAKc/iTDXjL-cYC4/s1600-h/gunslinger%20girl_106_1024.jpg (foreground) ; http://www.therunagatesclub.com/blogimages/henriettagun.jpg )

Psychology: Despite the brainwashing that removed all conscious memory of her past, she still suffers from PTSD, which--given her enhanced abilities--makes her extremely dangerous. If someone she cares about--namely Jose--is threatened in any way, she won't hesitate to attack the threat full-force. For example, in one of the first episodes Jose takes her out to dinner. When the waiter picks up the silverware--including a steak knife--and starts to take them away from the table, the steak knife passes in front of Jose's throat. It's nowhere near actually damaging him--but the simple act of imposing a weapon between her and her guardian nearly makes her kill the man. Jose's demand for her to stop is the only thing that saves him; if the person she is trying to protect orders her to stop, she'll do so instantly. She's been conditioned to accept the orders of her superiors and most importantly her handler without question or hesitation.

She's innocent and eager to please, going entire nights without sleep to try and perfect some new task or skill she's been assigned. She "keeps a count of the bodies she creates" for Jose, going so far as to write down in a little journal what they looked like, what they were wearing, and how many bullets she used to take them down. She loves him; he's pretty much her whole world. As such, she's extremely jealous when he pays attention to other women, even other girls at the Agency. She's protective of him to a dangerous degree, and is happy just being with him--for Christmas, all she wanted was his company, and she took up the violin at his recommendation and plays it because it makes him happy to listen.

Her jealousy would likely carry over to other relationships formed, though to a lesser degree, and again, if told to stop or instructed on how to change her reactions she will adjust instantly. Her emotions may not change (at least not immediately) but her responses will.

She enjoys simple, domestic tasks--sewing, laundry, etcetera. She likes fairy tale books, Audrey Hepburn movies, loves stargazing (Jose introduced her to it. The first constellation she learned about was Orion), laying in the sun on the grass with the other Agency girls, and visiting with them in their rooms.

She has no moral qualms when it comes to killing, no understanding of why some people might consider what she does horrific. She's young enough, however, to learn these things, and the fact that she has only the lowest level of conditioning (at Jose's insistence) means that gradual rebellion against her handlers is possible--though her adoration of Jose makes it extremely unlikely. It is often difficult for Agency girls to tell the difference between the requirements of conditioning and their own emotions; they are programmed to protect their handler first and foremost, but sometimes affection extends beyond that or stems from it.

She softspoken and extremely well-mannered, and though she can be enthusiastic about a given subject it takes a lot of coaxing to get her to come out of her shell. She doesn't, however, have many things that she cares a great deal about, because she doesn't know a great deal about anything. When Jose took her stargazing the first time, she said "I've never seen the stars." Thanks to conditioning, though she may have knowledge of what a thing is, it's as though she's never experienced it herself before. The world is, quite literally, new to her.

Jose does all he can to give her a relatively 'normal' life, and tries to get her to act like an ordinary adolescent girl in spite of everything, not allowing her to carry her gun on vacation, etc. Ironically this care causes an extreme mental crisis for Henrietta; he wants her to be normal, she thinks, but she also sees normality as uselessness, and her her entire conditioned purpose is to be useful to her handler and the Agency. The divide between her desire to please Jose and her conditioning leads to symptoms of major depression; this comes to a head near the end of the series when one of the other girls, Elsa, snaps and kills her handler and herself when the man dismisses her as useless. Despite the attempt at a cover-up, Henrietta and Jose both realize exactly what happened; when a pair of investigators from Section 1 show up trying to find out the truth, Henrietta 're-enacts' the event for them, making an unconscious threat against Jose--if he ever abandons her in that way, she will do the same as Elsa.

Other Skills/Abilities: She has superhuman strength, though the degree of her strength is never really distinctly outlined in canon. During the first episode, when someone tries to shove a giant wardrobe over on top of her, she stops it and shoves it back into place easily with one hand. I doubt that she could, say, lift a car over her head, but she could probably move it on the ground or lift one end a foot or two. She is faster than the average human, can jump farther, can process, analyze and generally think faster, and has enhanced hearing and eyesight.

She's learning target practice, like all the other girls, though her inexperience compared to them leads to a certain amount of inconsistency; she hits her targets every time, but whether she hits them in the head or chest is more a matter of luck than aim. She can also play violin, though she is learning that as well, and can "only play etudes". She speaks three languages with some degree of proficiency and is learning advanced science and mathematics.

Other Weaknesses: Too much conditioning could kill her; each time she has to undergo the brainwashing procedure, her lifespan is shortened to some degree, which corresponds directly to the amount of her "story" that they "rewrite". Also, thanks to the cybernetic advancements they gave her, her body has a great deal of difficulty healing on its own; she has to have surgery every time to get the damage to her artificial muscles and skin repaired. Conditioning is maintained through regular doses of medication; Henrietta is on the bare minimum dose. One of the other side effects of conditioning is random memory loss; it can be as insignificant as what she had for breakfast or as important as the knife fight she stopped a month before, but every so often, some little snippet will simply vanish. In addition, when she is injured, as her body has been altered so much, the only sedative that works during surgery is the brainwashing agent; the longer the patient is under, the more of their memory they lose.

Since most of her body is artificial, it takes a great deal of damage to keep her down, let alone kill her. Cyborgs have been known to use their arms to block bullets; though they are wounded, the bullets don't go through. Even her skulls are enhanced for extra durability, capable of stopping a bullet before it reaches their brain; the only truly vulnerable spot on their bodies is their eyes. Shoot one of them through the eye and hit the brain and they will die almost instantly.

History: She doesn't remember her life before the Social Welfare Agency, which, most of the handlers agree, is just as well. All we are told is that her entire family was slaughtered by a serial killer; her survival was a fluke, and she was so close to death that (had Jose and the SWA chosen not to take her on) she wouldn't have stood a chance of survival. Her uterus was removed due to damage caused by the serial killer's molestation, which she also has no memory of.

Since coming to the Social Welfare Agency, she's performed a number of small assassinations and has undergone intense physical and mental training, as well as attending regular classes, classes on tactics and strategy, effective cover-up, and naturally care of weaponry, etc. She rooms with Rico and is sort of like a little sister to Triela, who counsels and comforts all of the girls, except perhaps her own roommate Claes. The girls are friends, but at the same time, any one of them if threatened by another would attack to kill--in fact, Claes and Henrietta nearly did attack each other, each in defense of their own handler.

Henrietta has, due to her outbursts of protectiveness, been out of the rotation of usable assassins for a little while; her first job back in rotation, she is supposed to go in with Jose to an apartment building and locate a witness who has been captured by part of the group he was going to testify against. She is ordered not to attack until they have confirmed the presence of the witness; however, when one of the men inside threatens Jose's life, she begins to attack viciously, annihilating the men inside the apartment. Jose declares the mission a failure, but the witness is found hiding on the roof, so it isn't a complete loss. However, her outburst has Agency members worried.was

She's been conditioned to follow the orders of those she sees as superiors without question or hesitation. Her berserker moments are a matter of serious concern for the Agency at large, and a point of contention between Jose and his brother--who also works at the agency--Jean. Jean continues to insist that Jose increase Henrietta's level of conditioning, and Jose continues to refuse.

Reality Description: Italy, 2003, an unspecified location in the countryside outside of Rome. The Social Welfare Agency is a sprawling complex that resembles a residential school, showing that the Agency plans to expand its activities over time, as there are only five girls in residence now. Most of the facility belongs to Section 2--the group that controls and maintains the cyborgs--though Section 1 of the SWA, in charge of more mundane investigative and enforcement work, has its own set of buildings outside of the school complex. Her world is the world as we know it, with the notable difference that the Italian government (and presumably other govts. as well) have access to advanced cybernetic technology and electronic reconditioning.

The Social Welfare Agency is ostensibly a group that gives mortally wounded children a second chance at life; in reality, it takes them and turns them into killing machines, super-powered assassins to take care of the government's dirty work and do favors for politicians. They use children because the younger a person is, the better they adapt to the enhancements and conditioning; it's implied that they tried with older subjects and that the experiments did not end well.

Social Welfare Agency terms:

fratello: Translates as 'brother'; in canon it is translated as 'siblings'. It's the name given to a handler and his charge.

....that's the only one I can remember at the moment, but I'll add to this if others come up.


The People In Her World:

Welfare Agency girls:

Claes: At the beginning of the series, she has already lost her handler. The man was killed when he tried to expose the SWA to the press, and she was completely rewritten, all her memories of him erased. She retains the influence that her handler had on her personality and interests, however, and is the most standoffish of the girls. She serves now as a test subject, her body being constantly updated and pushed to its literal breaking point to obtain new data and modify the implants. She no longer participates in missions.

Triela: A sort of mentor to the other girls, particularly Rico and Henrietta, she's been with the Agency the longest--approximately seven years. She is mildly rebellious, which makes Henrietta nervous, and protective of the younger girls. She counsels them and encourages them, all while maintaining a painfully realistic view of their position in the Agency.

Rico: The girl with the highest level of conditioning, aside from Claes, she maintains full memory of her life before the Agency. Apparently they didn't see the need to 'rewrite' that part of her life, as they did with Henrietta. She was hospital-bound her entire life, and her parents finally grew weary of her care and signed her over to the Agency. She loves her life there, maintains a positive outlook on pretty much everything, and wakes up every morning with her first thought being does my body still move today? At the discovery that it does, she hugs herself.

Angelica: Henrietta has only ever seen this girl once in passing and knows little about her as yet, save that she was the first girl to come to the Agency (before even Triela) and that her implants to not function well. When she was brought in, the implant and conditioning processes was largely experimental still; in her case they led eventually to muscle deterioration, clumsiness, extreme amnesia and death.

Elsa: Arrived around the same time as Rico; she stays in her own room and barely speaks to the other girls, if at all. She hates them and is utterly devoted to her handler and pleasing him, polishing her skills until she's little more than a walking gun. She is so wound up in adoration for him that an unkind word is emotionally crushing; near the end of the series she ends up killing him and herself.

There are six others living in the cyborg warehouse (IE the dormitory) that have yet to be introduced.

Handlers

Jose (Sometimes Joseph): Henrietta's handler and newcomer to the Agency. He cares about the girl and constantly goes to bat for her, refusing sometimes point blank to increase her level of conditioning despite the constant nagging of his brother. He wants Henrietta to be as normal and happy as a girl in her position can be, but his kindness has created a sort of desperate attachment on Henrietta's part. Should anything ever happen to him, she would be more than devastated.

Jean: Jose's brother, about as different from Jose as he could possibly be. He maintains Rico under a very high level of conditioning, treating her as a tool and little else. He does nothing for her that he is not required to, and is brutally critical, occasionally striking her hard enough to draw blood should she fail him somehow.

Ravalo: Claes's handler, assassinated (called a "hit and run") when he tried to expose the SWA.

Hillshire: Triela's handler. He doesn't quite know what to do about his position; he wants to care for Triela, but he doesn't know how, so he often appears as standoffish and awkward around her. He's learning from Jose (who never had a girl before Henrietta) how to listen and learn what his charge actually likes, and he and Triela are getting to know each other a bit better at long last, though they still have an awkward, very sibling-like relationship.

Marco: The first Handler; Angelica's caretaker. He nearly abandoned her when the side-effects of the conditioning (namely amnesia) continuously destroyed all the work he put in to keeping her happy, healthy and skilled. He is a gentle man, and was a far happier one before joining the Agency--he didn't know what he was getting into, but by the time he realized the extent of the Agency's plans, he was too involved in Angelica's life to consider leaving.

Luaro: A general jackass. Elsa's handler. Ignores her outside of the jobs they are required to do together, treats her as a tool, and only barely pays attention when she speaks to him. She's a cyborg to him, a puppet, nothing more. He gets shot by her. Ha ha, jerk. :|