Romy Hoffmann

**Rosemarie Ingrid Hoffmann**, commonly known as "Romy", is a fellow skater and friend of Selected Clemence Westley in the Sixth Selection OC. She is related to the German royal family through her marriage to Prince Frederick Alvensleben-Batten.

She was used as a throwaway character from the province of Dominica in the Seventh Selection OC and Bonita in the Eigth Selection OC.

## Personality and Skills

Rosemarie is an introverted woman, who likes quietness and calm. She easily lets people take over in conversations, preferring listening over participating. She rarely feels comfortable in public settings. Though she was never diagnosed, she shows signs of suffering from an anxiety disorder, getting stressed and nervous easily, prone to overthinking, fidgeting or fumbling with her hands when she gets anxious. She grounds herself in routine for reassurance, always planning ahead, to the point of deciding on her exact retirement date at only seventeen. She is extremely career-focused, having pretty much no life outside of figure skating and not really allowing herself to. She is usually not particularly stubborn, but can be pretty resistant when people try to push her to come out of her shell. Even if she herself knows she needs to learn to live out of her routine and enjoy the unexpected, fear usually keeps her from it. She however has a bolder side that is only waiting to come out.

Though her passion for figure skating and the attention it brings might seem paradoxical to her shy nature, Rosemarie enjoys the artistic aspect of the sport, and expressing herself through it.

Rosemarie is kind, soft-spoken and rarely speaks ill of people, yet can secretly be quite opinionated. Her siblings aside, she has a very small circle of friends that she is extremely loyal to. She is the kind you call for help knowing she won't ask questions.

## Appearance and Face Claim

Romy is 5'2.5" tall, slim, with an athletic build.

## History

Rosemarie was born on January 17, 2067 in Rostock, a port city in the north-east of the German Federation, to Kristine Hofmann, a part-time kindergarten assistant, and Sascha Hoffmann, a ferryman, who had been together since secondary school. Third child out of six, Rosemarie is quickly shadowed by her elder, more extraverted sisters (Hannelore and Angelika), and the arrival of her brother, Sebastian, barely ten months after her birth. Growing up, Rosemarie was closer to her two youngest brothers, Immanuel and Jeremias, the three of them sharing the same quiet and sensitive nature. Their father also never hid his preference for Sebastian over any of his other children, as he saw him as the only one who carried ‘masculine’ qualities and interests.

Rosemarie was never an excelling student, even as a child, but she's always shown an inclination for sports. At the age of eight, her mother encouraged her to try out figure skating, a sport she liked watching and had always wished to practice herself. Despite being much older than most future athletes when they first start training, Rosemarie's talent enabled her to quickly catch up, and her potential to be noticed by coaches, which was when her father stepped in to get her to quit, considering figure skating to be an expensive sport that was not worth the investment. Rosemarie was able to continue thanks to her mother's support, who also accompanied her to her first worldwide competitions in her teenage years. Their shared love for the sport brought them closer together and Kristine’s support made up for the lack of attention Rosemarie received in her earlier childhood.

Her childhood was mostly peaceful, but things started taking a turn for the worse as Rosemarie entered her teenage years. The family’s schedule and life began revolving around her training and later on competitions, to her father’s increasing displeasure, as he only ever considered figure skating a girl’s sport not worthy of merit - a waste of time and money, that could not lead to a real job. Finances had always been an issue in this working-class family, and despite the skating being funded by the German state, it was not always enough to cover the loss of income created by Kristine’s absences and the overall costs that came with such a sport. As soon as each of the children reached legal age, they began working in the summer, usually at the seaside resort of Warnemünde, that borders Rostock.

In 2079, Rosemarie’s second eldest sister, Angelika, came out to her family as transgender, an announcement their father didn’t take to well, but which received too much of the rest of the family’s support, especially from Kristine, for him to be able to do anything. He never fully warmed up to it, but over time accepted her as his daughter.

Between finances and their disagreements over Rosemarie and Angelika, Sascha and Kristine's relationship greatly suffered, not helped by Sascha's drinking and Kristine feeling locked into their marriage, not able to leave him with six mouths to feed. While the children were not aware of everything,

In 2082, the year Rosemarie went on her first international competitions (still competing at the Junior level), Kristine was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer. Her fight against the disease lasted for two years, during which she still tried to support her daughter as much as it was possible for her. Against her doctors’ recommendations, but already knowing she was dying, she followed Rosemarie in Sofia, Bulgaria for the 2084 Youth Olympic Games, after having missed her daughter’s second place at the Junior World Championships and Junion Grand Prix Final.

Kristine passed away less than two months later after seeing her daughter win her first gold medal at a worldwide competition. Following her death, Sascha’s alcoholism heavily worsened. He told Angelika, who was about to move to Berlin for university, that he would not financially help her, as he did not agree with her choice to pursue higher education instead of doing an apprenticeship like Hannelore and Sebastian. Her interest in journalism and communications felt particularly idiotic to him. If she had to go to university, she might as well do something that guarantees a high-paying job (or any job at all).

At the same time, the German Olympic Committee offered to sponsor Rosemarie to attend an elite sports school in Berlin, so she could receive high-quality training in Olympic facilities while finishing high school. Not only was Sascha opposed to figure skating as a career, he did not see the point of Romy finishing high school. What would she do with an Abitur? Unlike Angelika, Immanuel and Jeremias, she wasn't smart enough for university. He thus offered 17-year-old Rosemarie a choice - quit figure skating and stay under his roof to pursue an apprenticeship, or leave. Rosemarie was scared enough to almost give in, but Angelika convinced her to follow her to Berlin.

Their elder sister Hannelore had already moved out to Salzburg for culinary school, and so Sascha remained with his sons, while his daughters essentially cut all contact with him. The two youngest, Immanuel and Jeremias, followed in their sisters’ footsteps and left Rostock as soon as they finished Gymnasium, while Sebastian remained in their hometown, later accusing his siblings of selfishly abandoning their father to his grief.

In Berlin, Romy started attending *SLZB* (literally School and Competitive Sports Center Berlin) as a boarder. This is where she met track and field athlete Cathrin Bödigheimer, and Clemence Westley, an Illéan figure skater, who despite being her age, was already competing at senior level and had won gold at the Olympic Games. Through them, she was introduced to the German elite, where she always felt she didn’t fit in, which was partially true as a working-class girl, but also called back to her own struggles in social settings.

She obtained her Abitur at 19, and had chosen the subjects of biology, sports (both advanced), ethics, art, and mathematics. She was the only one of her friends from SLZB who was able to balance higher education and competitive sport. While the others quickly abandoned either one or the other, she was awarded a bachelor’s degree in Sports Science from Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin five and a half years after she started her 6-semester programme.

Around 2087, there was an attempt at reconciliation with her father after he was laid off due to his alcoholism. It was the last time they talked. She however never fails to send him a part of the prize money she receives when she wins competitions, though most of it goes to her siblings and charities. As an athlete, she is not sponsored and is not looking for the publicity that it would bring, and therefore only relies on two sources of income - the Deutsche Sporthilfe, which arguably isn’t high enough for an athlete of her rank, and potential prize money from competing. She usually tries her best not to be in the public eye, even though she is among the Federation's best athletes, but is nonetheless involved in breast cancer charities.

The early 2090s mark the peak of Rosemarie’s skating career. Contrary to most world-ranked women’s single skaters, she was already almost nineteen when she entered the senior stage, allowing her to mature into an adult athlete, who might not be able to execute as many series of quadruples as her younger counterparts, but who has been perfecting her technique and skating style well into her mid-twenties. Her consistency and longevity, rare in a sport where female athletes shine young and can be forced to retire early due to irreparable damage to their bodies (Clemence Westley being a prime example), have made her a brand name in the field, especially as her talent only improved over the years. As she gets closer to expected retirement age, it however gets harder and harder for her to hold on against the yearly batches of teenage newcomers, and she consistently has to up her game. Despite this, she isn't sure she wants to quit after the upcoming 2094 Olympic season, after which she will be 27, nor does she know what she will do after her career ends.

## Competitive Highlights

Two-time Olympic champion (2090, 2094), two-time World champion (2092, 2094), four-time European champion (2090-92, 2094), two-time Grand Prix Final champion (2093-94), five-time national champion (2090-2094).

## Relationships

### Family

* Mother: Kristine Hofmann (b. 2028 d. 2084)
* Father: Sascha Hoffmann (b. 2028)
* Sisters:
	+ Hannelore Hoffmann (b. 2063)
		- Niece: Aurora Hoffmann (b. 2090)
	+ Angelika Hoffmann (b. 2065)

* Brothers:
	+ Sebastian Hoffmann (b. 2067)
	+ Immanuel Hoffmann (b. 2069)
	+ Jeremias Hoffmann (b. 2070)

### Friends

* Clemence Westley
* Cathrin Bödigheimer
* Nadja Ogunleye (Cathrin's wife)

### Romantic Interests

* Frederick Alvensleben-Batten
* Before meeting Frederick in April 2091, she had only been in one short-lived relationship. She was barely 19 going on 20, he was 27 going on 28 and worked as a PR consultant for the German Olympic Committee. He often belittled her for her lack of life experience and her social background, and eventually left her for refusing to ‘make the adult choice’ and relocate to Frankfurt to accommodate his own career.

## Trivia and Notes

* Like all of her siblings, her first name is four syllables long.
* She is a rat person.
* She is a Capricorn sun, Aquarius moon, Pisces rising.
* She never obtained her driver's license or even tried to.
* Her planned retirement date is July 15, 2094.
* Disney movies are her comfort movies, particularly the ones featuring princesses.
* She consumes a lot of urban fantasy. Secretly enjoys vampire stories the most.
* She has a strong Mecklenburg accent, that now has features of Berlin German mixed into it. She however speaks Standard High German rather than her native dialect, unless she is with her family.
* Her figure skating style is reminiscent of Evgenia Medvedeva's - very artistic and ethereal but backed up by a stronger technique and elegance only mature athletes can master.
* She has always gone by Romy instead of Rosemarie, even as a baby. Freddie is the only one who calls her by her birth name.
* Her mother named her after actress Romy Schneider, which she had already tried to do with her first daughter Hannelore.
* She and her brother Sebastian are Irish twins.