#karl anders

I started this damn thing in MARCH. And then I didn’t work on it for WEEKS.

So for some reason it took ages to finish, I am not sure why, but now it’s done: The Anders Family Portrait.

@hadestentia

I’m done with your birthday present! It’s not that spectacular, but oh well, you just wanted something that was scary in a way...

Neues Deutsches Orchester; ca. 1899 Gefunden im Nachlass von Frau Anna Sofia Falk

@hadestentia A group picture of the most important people of the orchestra! Finally! 

I didn’t know whether I should post it with or without the writing, so I did both. The writing is in hell cursive Kurrent, so it may be hard to read.

I guess the writing was done by either Gustav or Albert a few years after the picture was taken.

Oh wow, uh, thank you! I don’t usually get asks about them, so I am really excited now :D

Sooooo I guess I’ll write a quick introduction of my four main OCs and the general setting!

The actual plot starts in Autumn of 1892 in a small (fictional) town called Aarensburg. Aarensburg has an orchestra which just can’t catch a break. They are running late on schedule for their rendition of Mozart’s magic flute, they get less and less funding, and, to top it all off, their conductor gets murdered.

This cutie here is Anna, the main character. Anna is trying her best to be a perfect lady and she certainly looks the part. She is polite, musically talented, well-spoken, and knows her way around literature. On the other hand, she is also a very active person with an affinity for detective stories and all kinds of sports. Ever since she was blinded in an accident at age ten, her parents have been treating her like a porcelain doll which infuriates her to no end.

Anna is very independent in nature and would like to have a career as a violinist, however, since she is both a woman and blind in 1892, her parents don’t really want to let her leave before she gets married. Which she is not really interested in either. At some point she does manage to convince her parents to let her move to Aarensburg, where she applied to the orchestra which is willing to give her a try. However, they say she must have a male butler/bodyguard with her, since her maid alone could probably not protect her too well (her maid definitely could, but Mr and Mrs Falk don’t believe that).

In comes:

Albert von Mahren (whom I don’t draw enough, gosh, this picture is REALLY old...), son of noble parents, who dropped out (or was possibly kicked out) of the Prussian army and now leads a life of seducing people, maybe stealing their money and travelling Europe by train. Why would anyone pick him as a butler? Well, he has a way with words, Anna wants to somewhat piss off her parents and the parents are reassured by the noble name. 

Albert only wanted an honest job for a short while before leaving the city again, however, he actually gets along with Anna and her Maid quite well and ends up staying. He did try to seduce Anna in the beginning, but she’s not into that, so he leaves her alone and they become great friends. To his surprise, they share a sense of humor.

At the orchestra they meet:

Karl Anders, who is a great pianist, a wonderful conductor, and passable at playing the french horn. He is also NOT the actual conductor (yet) but more of an assistant to the actual conductor and future murder victim. This position makes him a suspect in the investigation. Karl has already met Albert years ago while studying in Leipzig, where he was one of the people who got seduced. Needless to say he is somewhat pissed at Albert whom he had a serious crush on after they hooked up and who disappeared after a month or so. Together with his savings, which he needed for rent. 

While he was rather lonely and quiet in Leipzig, Karl has blossomed into a social butterfly in Aarensburg. He plays the organ at church, teaches kids how to play the piano and is generally very involved and well liked in the local community. Most of the money he earns he sends to his parents, who live back in rural Austria and to whom he is eternally grateful for letting him get a higher education instead of taking on the small family bakery. Karl is a gentle soul and a bit of a pushover with a tendency to bottle up negative emotions. The only person he can truly get mad at is Albert.

The person constantly attached to him would be:

Johann Galler, violinist and the last offspring of one of the oldest families of Aarensburg. Being very insecure about his own skills and standing in the orchestra, he is rather cold towards Anna in the beginning and gives off an aloof kind of aura, making him one of the suspects in the murder case. 

Johann has problems with trusting people and tends to be very quiet and polite with the townsfolk. With his colleagues at the orchestra Johann is more vocal about his feelings or at least his criticisms. He has a sharp tongue and is not afraid to use it. The person he is closest to is Karl whom he loves dearly and whom he wants to protect at all costs. They spend a lot of time at Johann’s secluded house in the woods, reading and playing music together, living a couple’s life in private while being friends on the outside. 

“You do know that you own multiple sofas in this room alone, right?”

“Lying around among piles of sheet music somehow has the effect of making one look like a musical genius, don’t judge me.”

Karl Josef Anders *1866 in Aussee, Austrian Empire  † 1905 in Aarensburg, Saxony

Sweet, darling Karl. Finally, he has a decent reference image again.

@hadestentia  Instead of being productive and drawing the Meme asks I got (one week ago? Two weeks ago?!) I doodled my self made OTP: Johann and Karl. 

@hadestentia I know I know. But this was the actual reason I drew the portrait yesterday. A doodle-comic about Johann and Karl.