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• current timeframe: 1925, Aarhus, Denmark
• born February 1897 as the oldest daughter to an organist father who worked at the church and a mother who was very religious, heralding from Western Jutland
• Karen sang in the church choir while growing up and developed her love of singing from her exposure to liturgical music
• has a ten-year younger sister, Kirstine, whose birth was so traumatic that her mother only survived a couple of months after, leaving Karen motherless and their father a widower when she was ten years old • her father never remarried, but instead Karen took over many of her mother’s practical chores and the rest, the local laundrywoman helped with for a little extra pay
• was taught the piano by her father and kept taking lessons from him, showing some talent for it, so when she turned twenty, he contacted a piano teacher in Paris on her behalf and asked to have the man accept Karen as his pupil
• when M. Renaud did get back to them a year later, it was with a note of acceptance and on her 21st birthday, Karen headed for Paris to be further schooled in the piano
• she lived in Paris between the age of 21 and 25, her father dutifully paying for her lessons and her living expenses every month
• it’s while living in Paris that Karen experiences jazz music for the first time and falls in love with it
• she begins frequenting a jazz club called “Folle Nuit” where she meets the expat American singer, Dory Tarner, a black woman, and the two fall in love and initiate a relationship
• it's also Dory who urges her to start singing herself and the two begin regularly performing together at “Folle Nuit”, Karen slowly becoming a well-known name in those circles
• then, a month before her 25th birthday, right after New Year, she receives a telegram that her father is gravely ill and most likely won’t survive
• although she hurries home, he has already died when she arrives and in a state of shock, she arranges for the funeral along with her fifteen-year-old sister whose guardian she now is
• to be able to provide for her sister who’s still in school, she takes a job as a help at the local hotel, “Hotel Ferdinand”, which doubles as the only jazz club in town on the weekends
• when the owner discovers that Karen can sing, he pairs her up with the trumpet player and the pianist already working at the establishment and begins advertising for their music, nicknaming Karen "the French Sparrow"
• in the meantime, she keeps corresponding with Dory back in Paris, although by now all her things have been sent back to Denmark and her move is official
• she doesn’t get involved with anyone new in Aarhus, but stays faithful to her past lover, even if they should never meet again
• her sister hopes to marry the merchant son, Peter, so that she may be able to take care of Karen when she decides not to work anymore and finally pursue music full-time once more, which is what Kirstine wants for her
• her father had no family and her mother’s distant family lives out west; in Aarhus, they are only the two of them left
• doesn't play the piano after her father's death, having had to give up her lessons and sell the piano at her childhood home to pay expenses; her voice is now her main instrument
• backtagging is good
• no ooc triggers or warnings
• warning for possible period-typical homophobia, sexism etc. will be avoided in casual interaction and will never be sprung on people.
• open to timey-whimey jamjar interaction, historical scenarios and, to some degree, straight-up modern au
• shipping is f/f pref; furthermore, i love gen interaction and especially friendship!
• pm for contact, cest/cet time zone
WIP.
Responsible, quiet, demure, gentle, mild-mannered, accommodating, selfless, musical, polite, introvert, considerate, careful(...)
no subject