Real names: Tula (Tu-Lan) Wan and May (Mei) Wan
Condition of twinning: Identical twins, conjoined at the abdomen. Tula (holding hat) had more control over their legs, and May (wearing hat) relied on several of Tula's organs, thus making her the parasitic twin. A third twin, whom the girls called "The one who is inside," never fully formed, and was mostly consumed by May's body in the womb. Except for a small hand and a lump on May's side, all of the third twin was inside her chest cavity, and their hearts were fused. This was very taxing of May's portion of their body, and lead to her deciling health. Tula, having most of the control of their lower half, supported most of their weight, and usually ate more than May, because May's digestive system (as well as the third twin) relied partially on Tuna’s. If Tula was hungry, May was starving. Being situated at an angle from their hips, May required a cane to hold herself up-right.
Place of birth: Unknown, presumably somewhere in Asia. While in the circus, Tula insisted their mother was the empress of China.
History: Sold to a circus owner at approximately two years of age, Tu Lan and Mei traveled for years across Asia and Europe, moving from show to show until they reached France, where their names where changed to Tula and May. In Paris, they received their first singing lessons in French while working in a freak show under the billing "Lin and Lou." There they met Royal de Garces, composer and pianist who worked in the Theatre de Boheme, the beating heart of the city’s artistic world. Royal became a mentor and a love interest to both of them, and gave them the confidence they needed to break away from the sideshow world and pursue greater things. They began singing in cabarets, first as a curiosity, and soon as a main act. They're repertoire included large-scale show tunes, duets, and percussive, bawdy dance numbers that became their trademark, as they became known as the greatest tap dancers in the city. Eventually, Royal de Garces managed to get them a place on the stage at the Theatre de Boheme, where they soon became a headlining act, billed second after Royal and Margareese Vanderborne. For a while, the sisters had a sexual relationship with Royal, who once said he "loved May because she was the most sincere ingénue he had ever met," and he loved Tula "because she lived entirely for the moment, with no sense of consequence." After a couple years, May's health declined rapidly, and for two months the twins were confined to bed. One night, May lost consciousness and the sister's where rushed to the hospital. When it became clear that May was not going to wake up, the doctors performed a grueling twenty-two hour operation to separate the twins. May died during the third hour. Tula survived, and the doctors gave her further surgeries to better align her torso and her hips, but she left the hospital as soon as she could convince Royal to take her away, never forgiving the doctors for electing to remover her sister's body in pieces, as well as removing the third twin from inside May, purely out of medical curiosity. A specialist made Tula a brace to help her center her weight on her hips, and she used May's cane to get from place to place. Not willing to perform without her sister, Tula began working as a model for an Art Nouveau painter. Her relationship with Royal dwindled, as she turned to opium to defuse her pain, and his own fondness for alcohol turned into a bitter addiction to absinthe. At one point after they'd broken off their relationship, Royal blamed Tula for May's death, saying Tula had worked her tp exhaustion to achieve her own ends. The two became bitter rivals in Bohemia. Tula and Margareese had both left the Theatre de Boheme, and it became little more than a brothel. Eventually they were reconciled, though Tula and Royal never rekindled their relationship, Royal having fallen in love with Margareese. Margareese had returned to find her beloved nightclub in ruins and paid out a substantial amount to have it returned to its former glory. Tula returned to the stage for the first time at the re-opening of the Theatre de Boheme, and sang solo for the rest of her life.
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Spent a whole day on this one. Made the base myself, and I won't be doing that again for a long, long time. I'm outragously proud of this one, but I'm also desprate for critique, so give me what ever you got.