InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "In time passion dies."

Elsa (_white_noise) wrote,
@ 2011-06-22 00:40:00

application for X-Men: First Class

Elsa Krauss

Basic Information

FULL NAME: Elsa Krauss
CODENAME/ALIAS: White Noise
NICKNAMES: None, as of yet
DATE OF BIRTH: February 15th, 1945
ALIGNMENT: Unknown, as of yet

PARENTS: Eleanor Krauss (The Tattooed Lady), Bodo Krauss (The Giant Man)
SIBLINGS: None
FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS: Elsa and her parents were part of a traveling show and were together nearly every hour of the day. Because of the situation they became extremely close and also very fond of each other. Though they were not blood relatives, Elsa considered other performers from the show to be her family, as well.
MARITAL STATUS: Single

SEXUALITY: Heterosexual

Appearance

Elsa inherited her height from her father who was the ‘Giant Man’ in a traveling freak show. She is not the seven feet tall he was, but taller than many girls at five foot nine inches. This is often not apparent because of the way Elsa carries herself. Unless she is totally at ease in a situation she has a tendency to slouch and appears relatively unassuming. Elsa fits the ectomorph body type, willowy and slender all over. She has a serene kind of aura that has a kind of calming affect on those she interacts with. Her eyes are a mossy green hue, the same as her mother’s, and her hair is slightly wavy and a deep shade of chocolate brown, falling to the middle of her back. Emotions always appear sincere with Elsa. When she smiles you don’t just see it in her smile, but also in her eyes and the way she moves. Because of her expressions, it is often difficult for her to mask happiness or sadness. It shows in her face without her willing it to do so.

Personality

A product of her environment, Elsa’s personality was shaped a great deal by the lifestyle she lived growing up. She was lucky enough to be surrounded by people who loved her most of the time. Her parents and the other performers in the show made her feel loved and appreciated. Growing up, Elsa always felt as if she was one of the crowd with her parents and the other performers. She always felt at ease and had no problems with expressing how she felt in front of them. Because of her family, Elsa never thought of the various quirks she possessed as being flaws but instead as the things that made her special and unique.

At the same time, Elsa was influenced by those who thought negatively of mutated human beings. There was always someone in the crowds who visited the show who had something mean and negative to say. She learned that, while there was not necessarily anything to be ashamed of as a mutant, there were always people who would think of mutations as shameful things.

Elsa was never as comfortable with outsiders as she was with her family of ‘freaks’. With them she felt free and usually quite happy. Without them she was somewhat introverted, sometimes afraid to speak. It is for that reason that she is always seeking out other gifted individuals.

History

Eighteen years ago, give or take a month or two, Elsa Krauss was lucky enough to be born to two loving parents. Her living situation, though, was to be quite far from what most of society considered ideal at that time. Elsa’s mother and father were, respectively, the Tattooed Lady and Giant Man for the Mathers Brothers’ Fantastic and Bizarre Traveling Freak Show. Both of her parents were mutated human beings, her father’s mutation being his obvious, extreme height of over seven feet and her mother’s being the more subtle accelerated healing and immunity to pain. Though Elsa never developed any visible mutation, she always felt a kinship to the show’s other features. For some reason she was always closer to the ‘freaks’ than she was to the ordinary humans running the attraction.

When you think about skills learned during childhood, images of riding bicycles and learning how to skip rope come to mind. Elsa gleaned plenty of skills from those she grew up with, some of them a little more on the odd side. She learned basic flips from acrobats and had all but perfected her method of ‘breathing’ fire. She might have refined these skills to the point of being able to perform them for shows, but her parents were always insistent that she stay out of the public’s eye. They didn’t want their child to have their life, being gawked at by people who simply didn’t understand that ‘freaks’ still had emotions just as any other person did. Instead, Elsa made herself useful taking care of and cleaning up after the deformed animals the show sometimes featured.

Elsa was fourteen years old when her mutation first presented. On the road, the only connection those in the show had with the outside world was their radio. It was no rare thing for her family to sit together, eating their dinner around the radio listening to the news or the music of the time. One night she hopped to her feet with a friend and, laughing all the while, began to dance to an upbeat tune. The day had gone marvelously and she was in a particularly good mood. As she carried on with her laughter it seemed that the radio signal was interrupted by white noise. It took several other instances for her to finally make the connection. It was Elsa who was interfering with the signal. Sometimes it was bliss and other times it was unhappiness, but when she was in a particularly intense mood she found that she could create a disturbance.

This particular development thrilled Elsa. While she’d always been content with her lot in life, she often found herself wishing that she could do something unique like her friends in the show could. When she found herself idle, Elsa would devote the time to getting a better handle on her power. She would sit in front of the radio and figure out how she could create and diminish white noise, always very pleased with herself when something came of her work.

All of this came in time for someone to take notice. Elsa was somewhat surprised when she was paid a kind of visit from Charles Xavier and the man he introduced as his friend Erik Lensherr. They were recruiting, it seemed, and Elsa was extremely flattered to be sought out. Her parents were less than thrilled and did not want to see their daughter placed in the way of harm especially when she was so young and did not yet have a handle on her mutant ability. She understood, of course, as she agreed with her parents on this particular point. Instead of joining the CIA, Elsa chose to keep to her current occupation of caring for the animals in the show.

The crowds that frequented the show had never been extraordinarily polite folk. There had always been nasty comments tossed casually at those featured in the show, but the ‘freaks’ involved noticed a distinct change in people once society had become more and more aware of the existence of mutants in the everyday world. Though the hatred not hard at all to notice, nobody could predict what would happen next.

The show was in the fields just outside of a sleepy Ohio town on the night of the attack. The only audience that night that came to see the attractions was a group of men, obviously under the influence alcohol. When one of them crossed a roped off barrier and became rough with a performer the lot of them were promptly ushered away from the show. Everyone was a little riled up from the incident, though incredibly grateful that it was over with and that they would be on the road again come sun-up. They went to bed in their caravan of trucks and vans unaware that the men who had been thrown out were waiting for the right moment to strike.

Fires were started underneath some of the vehicles. The dry straw in the trucks carrying the animals fed a fire that all of the creatures perished in. Most of the human attractions were quick enough to escape the burning trucks, but that was not the end of the incident. The men had come back armed and ready for a fight. With their crow bars, baseball bats, and rifles they had the upper hand over the performers.

Elsa’s parents told her to run and they fled the scene close behind her, though it seemed they were not quite fast enough. Without so much as glancing behind, Elsa kept running until she was a good distance from the campground. She was the first to reach town and alerted people to the fires still raging on in the fields. Two concerned townspeople took her in during the hours police, medics and firemen were busy taking care of the aftermath.

Many of the people involved in the incident suffered injuries that required them to be put up in the town’s hospital, among them was Elsa’s father. Elsa’s mother had not been so lucky, having had the unfortunate fate of being bludgeoned to death. Though the medical professionals did all they could, Elsa’s father’s health waned over the span of a day and he wound up passing due to internal damage from a gunshot wound. Though others had survived, Elsa felt as if everything had been stolen from her. When the hospital phoned the family who had taken her in to deliver the unfortunate news and she caught wind of it something strange happened. Radio and television signals citywide were interrupted for the span of twenty minutes as Elsa wept and grieved for the loss of her parents.

Though they were startled upon finding out the girl they’d taken in was a mutant, the Ohio family offered Elsa a place to stay until things were straightened out. The owners of the show she’d worked for for all of her years offered to take her back, too. Elsa, of course, appreciated everyone’s generosity, but instead of taking either option she gathered her parents’ salaries and set out on her own to find Charles Xavier or possibly his friend Erik Lensherr. It was a bold move for someone who had never been on her own before and possibly even a little foolish, but she felt it was the right decision.

Powers

POWERS:
Elsa can affect and interrupt television and radio frequencies.

EXTENT OF CONTROL: Elsa has never scientifically studied her power and therefore does not know the details regarding how it works or why it presented in her, but does know a few things she’s learned through practice. The power first showed up one night when Elsa was extremely happy, having a fit of laughter. The radio that had been playing music had suddenly begun transmitting nothing but white noise. When her mood subsided, the regular frequency returned, clear as a bell. Through this experience, Elsa discovered that whenever she was very emotional she had an effect on the radio frequency. She spent her free time seated in front of the radio developing tricks that might produce similar results and became able to interrupt radio frequencies at will. When she was grieving the loss of her parents, Elsa involuntarily interrupted radio and television frequencies city-wide, suggesting that she might be more powerful than she realizes and that she has not yet developed her powers to their full extent.

Out-of-Character

NAME: Bridget
AIM: koijamas
EMAIL ADDRESS: koijamas@aol.com
PB: Astrid Berges-Frisbey
AVAILABILITY: I’m EST
WRITING SAMPLE: third person - first person (diary)

Plots

Three plot ideas for the game: these may be personal to your character, focus on the game as a whole, or be applicable to a select few characters.

1: After the death of her parents and the disbanding of the Freak Show, Elsa will be looking for people, probably mutants, that she feels close to. She doesn’t have a family anymore and misses that kind of connection. I’d like her to form some friendships during the course of the game. On a related note, it would be fantastic if she could find a mentor in one of the other characters. While they never discouraged it, Elsa’s parents never helped her refine her power. She’d be looking for someone to help her in that aspect.
2: Elsa was always pretty well kept away from the outside world. She lived in the caravan of trucks and vans like the other Freak Show employees and never got to live life like a normal girl. For the first time in her life, Elsa will be venturing out into the real world and experiencing many things for the first time. This would be an ongoing sort of thing. At times it could be light and in other instances not so much. I think it would be a good thing to write so as to further develop her character.
3: Elsa has been fairly passive for all of her life, but I’d like to see her in action. She shies away from even the most minor argument, so to have her in a situation where there is conflict might prove interesting. I’m not yet sure if this means a battle or just some simple kind of disagreement. I’d like to see how she would handle it and how it would affect her evolution throughout the game.