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Talent: Aerial Hoop

Details: Though Katarina studied several aerial practices, the only one that she was ever taught in detail was the aerial hoop. Her mentor did not use silks (He regarded them as being far too feminine, you see.), and the Spanish web was not something that she had much affinity with due to her small hands. For whatever reason, Katarina moved far more gracefully on the hoop than she did on anything else. Working with her sister, they would turn and bend over each other to make beautiful shapes with their bodies back in Germany. Separate, they could only perform spins and other basic moves, but together, they could pool their strength and perform much more advanced stunts. As she continues to grow, Katarina will get stronger, which will allow her to perform more impressive feats on her own. She is used to being a back-up performer though and will likely need far more training if she is to ever assume a headlining role.

Strengths: Katarina is much more flexible than she is strong so the beginning of her act tends to involve a lot of acrobatics on the floor that lead up to her finally getting into the aerial hoop. At first, she is only capable of certain hangs and spins on the hoop, and she finds a lot of trouble when hanging by one hand. To fix this, Katarina tries to stick to foot hangs or one-legged spins to keep the pressure off of her arms. Throughout her time at Cirque du coeur torve, she will struggle with this issue, and ideally, she will begin to overcome it little by little. For the meantime, she will rely on her showmanship to get the sparkle in the eyes of the audience.

Weaknesses: Katarina has taken a lot of falls from the aerial hoop because she tries to execute moves that she has seen others do on a regular basis. Still, she doesn't seem to be any more afraid of a fall each time it happens. She is driven to no longer be a "novelty" act; she wants to mystify the crowd with her feats of strength and flexibility instead. The stationary hoop is far easier for her to work on, but the act that draws crowds involves a quickly moving hoop, one that turns and sways as she moves on it. That is always her goal, and Katarina will not stop pushing herself until she gets it, which could eventually lead to a very serious injury or even death.

Example: The aerial hoop in motion!, Simpler depiction of the hoop!, and Yet another aerial hoop artist!



Stage One: Carnie

Katarina will likely accept a small carnie role in the circus enthusiastically... at first. Chances are she will constantly be seeking opportunities to get up on the hoop and give it a spin, but in the mean time, her jobs around the circus will be anything that she can do to win favor. Though she is not a people-pleaser necessarily, Katarina can work a crowd when necessary, and in that same sense, she knows when she needs to work an employer as well. Having her mother as a costumer, Katarina could help with mending costumes though she is not quite good enough to make one on her own. She also would be willing to help hand out flyers or sell tickets, anything that will show her bosses what a willing and able member of the team she is.

Stage Two: Castmember

Katarina will be eager to find a mentor to help her improve her craft. She is in love with the idea of being on stage, but truth be told, she worries that she will fall behind her sister in skill level with the aerial hoop. Her sister seems to have more of a natural affinity for it so Katarina must work harder to keep up, and that is a constant source of insecurity for her. At first, her tricks will only be minimal, but the gimick that she and her sister have of being these adorable little girls doing these impressive feats on a high flying hoop seems to keep them in the hearts of their fans. At the beginning of their status, Katarina and Annaliesa will have to rely on their charm to help make up for what they lack in impressive skill at this point. One trick they have to dress up like dolls when the perform their act; it seems to go over well with the crowd with its cutesy facade. As Katarina continues to develop in this position though, her act will become more and more difficult as she asserts her talent and skill.

Stage Three: Headliner

Finally! As a headliner, Katarina will seek to spice up her act more and more each time. It will quite likely get to a very dangerous point as she tries to top herself again and again. Also, the fighting between her and her sister at this point could potentially cause a rift with the twins. Separate acts? Perhaps! A new partner? It's possible! This stage is one that will change very drastically if I get the chance to RP Katarina out as one never knows what could happen as her character develops.

Greta Eberhardt was not ready for a child.

Working as a seamstress in a factory while Germany fought to throw itself into an industrial revolution, the woman barely had enough time for herself as it was. She was only 17, nearly a child herself, and yet, her father had grown increasingly displeased at her inability to find a suitable husband. So, when a visiting soldier showed her the slightest bit of attention, Greta fell for him instantly, giving herself to him fully and expecting to be given the same in return. She thought they would be wed soon so, upon realizing her pregnancy, she was fool enough to tell him. Greta never saw that soldier again.

Thrown out of her house as soon as her pregnancy began to show, Greta roamed the streets looking for any kind of work she could manage, and after days of fruitless searching, she finally found it in the most unlikely of places. A visiting circus was making its rounds through her hometown of Hamburg, Germany, and in a fit of desperation, the financially strapped girl promised to work for free as a costume mistress and make-up artist; all she asked for was a place to live and support for her child. The ringleader accepted her offer and immediately sent her off to work on a costume for their newest headliner, a Russian aerialist.

Greta Eberhardt had not been ready for a child. Yet, she had two.

After three months with the circus, Greta gave birth to twin baby girls as she lay in a hayloft beside the animal tamer and two clowns. She named the first Annaliesa after her favorite singer, and the second she named Katarina, the name of her dead mother. Greta swore to herself that these girls would have a good life just as soon as she could afford to leave the circus and send them to school.

But that day would never come.

The girls grew up around the circus, finding themselves the “kids” of an entire troupe of performers. They lacked the structure of a school or any kind of realistic training. While other children learned to play nicely, the twins learned how to tie the proper knot to hold the safety net in place for the tightrope walker. While their peers were practicing mathematics, Katarina and Annaliesa were practicing somersaults and cartwheels. All the while, Greta tried to sway the ringmaster to give her a proper salary so that she might save up money, but he continuously refused her, reminding her of the deal they had made. Besides, he saw in her girls a great opportunity.

As soon as they were old enough to walk, the Austerlitz twins were put to work. Hearing of the quick profit there was to be had from a sideshow spectacle, the ringmaster dressed the girls in a single costume and coined them as Siamese twins. They filled this role for much of their younger years, smiling and waving at gawking sightseers, until the girls grew old enough to make their own demands. During one performance, Katarina refused to participate in the charade, and in front of a crowd of onlookers, she pulled herself free from the costume and marched out of her stall. Furious though he was, the ringleader knew he could no longer claim to have a set of Siamese twins as word spread about the lie.

So, he moved them to a new act. Around the birth of the twins, a Russian aerialist by the same of “The Soaring Sven” joined the circus. His act, impressive as it was, had remained unchanged for a long time. Hoping to add a much-needed fresh element to his act, the ringmaster dropped the Austerlitz twins in Sven’s lap, telling him that these would be his new assistants. Over the next ten years, the girls would become his prodigies, dangling on twin aerial hoops behind him, but Sven would always be the star. As he flew through the air executing acrobatic stunts with ease, the girls were told to look cute doing simple lifts and spins behind him. He used them to bring props to him, to get the crowd excited for him, and sometimes, to get his dinner for him.

Then one day, he was found dead in his trailer. He had been poisoned. A murmur filled the circus for weeks surrounding his death. Who would kill him? Why would they want him dead? The source of his poison had been his nightly cup of coffee, and every night, it was brought to him by the same two people: the Austerlitz twins. The other performers screamed outrage to the ringmaster, but he was powerless to do anything that night. In the morning, the circus was set to perform for a group of Nazi soldiers, and nothing could go wrong. The twins were rarely seen in the days leading up to the performance. They kept in their trailer together, though they could sometimes be heard arguing with each other late into the night. Their mother, too, seemed deathly out of sorts. She moved around like a ghost, speaking to no one and refusing to answer any questions. Greta would only turn her head mournfully, clutching a cheap tin ring in her palm.

The circus practiced all day in preparation for their powerful audience, and this was all the more hastened as the headlining act had to be changed. “The Soaring Sven” had been replaced by “The Amazing Airborne Austerlitz Twins”, much to the whispering of the rest of the troupe. The girls took the stage in matching platinum blonde ringlets, twirling and spinning on hoops before their militant audience. They received a standing ovation from their crowd who looked at the bright blue-eyed girls as if they were some beacon of innocence in the grey of the city.

Then, that night, it all fell to pieces. It was found that the ringmaster had been harboring Jewish families in the circus tent, helping them escape out of the country as the circus moved from town to town. The Nazi soldiers returned with torches and guns that night, demanding that the entire troupe be seized and the tent burned. Many of the performers resisted, but the soldiers were not patient. They attacked any one who proved to be a problem, killing when necessary. The Austerlitz twins, hearing the commotion, ran to their mother, begging for her to hide them. Greta looked coldly at her children, telling them not to move. She promised to return with their belongings so that they could escape.

She did not come back.

As the soldiers were burning the trailers, one kicked open the door to the small room where the twins were waiting. He glared for a moment, but his eyes softened when he saw them in the light. The two were the picture of perfection of the Aryan race, and having seen the performance the night before, the soldier knew they simply could not be responsible for the treachery that the others had allegedly taken part in at the circus. Stepping aside, he pointed out the door, telling the girls that they had to leave now before he changed his mind. Katarina and Annaliesa immediately ran for the door, sneaking around to the front of what had once been the main circus tent. Their bright blue eyes poured across the rest of the performers who had been lined up out front to be taken away by the Nazi soldier, and then suddenly, they realized something.

Their mother was not there. In fact, she wasn’t anywhere in or around the circus. Greta wasn’t at any tavern or shop in the whole town. She had left them there, all alone, and had left to save herself. Katarina cursed into the cold night air as the twins finally gave up the search in Munich, dragging Annaliesa by the hand as far as they could go. What were they to do now? Their livelihood had been in that circus, and now, it was gone. For the next two years, the girls traveled as far as they could to get out of Germany. Annaliesa had suggested they go to London or Russia where they could find another circus to join, but travel was hard on the two girls. They had no income to speak of, and with the war raging around them, life was becoming more and more dangerous for the pair.

Upon finally making it to London, the girls found themselves in the thick of war, and their German accents did little to help them in their plight. It was there in London that they caught wind of another circus, one that could whisk them away to someplace free of war where their reputation would not follow them. So, having no other option, Katarina and Annaliesa came to Cirque de coeur torve, ready to audition and start over in a new place with a new life.

Art/Images

These are some images of acts on the aerial hoop similiar to what Katarina would be performing.





My lovely cohort sketched out this concept art. ^_^ Woo hoo!


[This section is reserved for any pictures I manage to get to help illustrate Katarina and her concept better. I'd like to get a concept sketch of her up, but as I lack artistic ability, I will have to find an artist.]

Links and such?

I hereby give this quest thread Silverah's personal approval. (Though you still need cirque approval. I don't count for that.)

Everything looks good, except for your usage of "Idiopathic" in explaining why she looks like a teenager. Idiopathic is a word used to describe a disorder with no apparent cause. It doesn't work as the name of the disorder itself. So while it makes sense that she would look younger if she spent her whole life in gymnastics training (They have to be very light, which keeps their BMI down, some of the stretches can mess up growth plates, both of these would delay the onset of puberty, etc,) using idiopathic as the name is not the right word.

(Sorry. I nitpick.)

Would it be clearer if I said "an idiopathic disease"? I could also add a bit on how it was perpetuated by her intense gymnastics training since she was a child.

I basically want her to have a growth problem, but it is unknown was it the actual cause of it. She was not in a time where lots of medical treatment was readily available to the masses, and since she really had no money, she just accepted it as fate.