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madnessr · 10 months

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Vagabond

Vagabond — wandering from place to place without any settled home

Poly Lost Boys x GN Reader Synopsis: Forgiveness is a fickle thing. When four souls find each other, the world finds its equilibrium once more; until the absence of another tips the scale forever. What happens when a familiar face shows itself back at the boardwalk after twenty years of absence?

Warnings: slight angst, lots of historical information in the beginning

Word Count: 3k

By issuing the Declaration of Independence, adopted by the Continental Congress on July 4th, 1776, the 13 American colonies severed their political connections to Great Britain.

You had been ten during the conflicts between America and Great Britain, young and impressionable. Your family came with Puritans, who set sail to America back in 1630. Unlike the Pilgrims, who had left ten years earlier, the Puritans did not break with the Church of England but sought to reform it. All that happened before you were born; your ancestors had settled down and spread their roots into American soil.

You recalled little of the American Revolution; after all, you were very young back then, but you remember December 15th, 1791, vividly. Your mother couldn't stop crying that day, and your father had pulled out the oldest whiskey they had that day. America was finally severed from the tyrannical rule of George III.

You came to understand the significance of those dates more as you aged, growing into a strong individual as you helped your family on their farm. You never intended to marry; it wasn't something you had ever desired or looked forward to. The same year you had gotten married was the day you lost your immortality; both events are related but not necessarily connected. You were introduced to the vampiric community in New Orleans, a city that used the day to sleep off the mistakes you made throughout the rambunctious night.

You had lived through the formation of the Constitution of the United States of America in 1787 when the founding fathers sought to implement more structure into the now independent country.

The infamous whiskey rebellion. American drunks apparently were not too keen about Alexander Hamilton implementing a liquor tax to try and raise money for the national debt; asserting the federal government's power back in 1794.

Only nine years later, the Louisiana Purchase happened in 1803. The small land purchase for only $27 million created room for the states of Louisiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Oklahoma, along with most of Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Minnesota.

Throughout the 1810s and 1830s, you had moved on from New Orleans and left for New York, seeking human connections and reconnecting with the younger generations. During that time, the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and the Monroe Doctrine in 1823 seemed to fly past you.

Then, signed on February 2nd, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo finally brought closure to the Mexican-American war. At this time, you were no stranger to political conflicts anymore, and the stench of blood and sweat staining battlefields was, unfortunately, no stranger.

Life moved on regardless, no matter the horrid realities life provided. For a short while, life had finally come to a stand-still, guns tucked away as the world in America resumed its development. Until April 12th, 1861, Confederate troops fired on Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor at 4:30 A.M., A day that changed America forever, the beginning of the American Civil War.

The Emancipation Proclamation, The First Conscription Act, The Battle of Chancellorsville, The Vicksburg Campaign, The Gettysburg Campaign, The Battle of Chickamauga, The Battle of Chattanooga, The Siege of Knoxville. The list continued, and the coppery smell of wasted humanity tainted the air, the wind carrying the cries of victims throughout the nation.

The war ended in the Spring of 1865. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse on April 9th, 1865.

The number of soldiers who died throughout those four years eventually got estimated to be around 620,000.

Only 47 years later, on July 28th, 1914, the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, beginning the cruel trench warfare of World War I. In early April 1917, America aided the effort to join a war to end all wars. You had entered the war effort, like everyone capable at the time; from soldiers to nurses, everyone gave aid.

On November 11th, 1918, the war ended. Although the Allies won, you found no reason to celebrate. Not when mothers sold their homes since there wasn't a reason to have a multiple-bedroom house anymore, when graveyards overflowed with the dead, when people mourned their losses, when mothers' only answer to their missing sons was a notice declaring their child missing in action.

The stock market crashed in 1929, kicking off the Great Depression that would last for more than a decade.

On September 1st, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Kicking off World War II and beginning one of the most brutal warfare's, Blitzkrieg. On May 8th, 1945, Germany surrendered. After the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan surrendered on September 2nd, 1945, and the Second World War came to an end.

The war ended, and the surviving soldiers returned with missing limbs and broken spirits. You were a firm believer that humans were not meant to witness so much death; it tainted them; it dulled them. Although you were a vampire, a creature supposedly made for horror, you could not forget what you had witnessed in only the span of 21 years.

You were 201 years old now, relatively young in the grand scheme of time, but you had lived through a few of the greatest horrors the world had ever seen.

189 years of traversing the lands, you watched grow in a desperate search to find one of your own. Since you were turned and left New Orleans, you had not met a single vampire. You watched with sorrowful wisdom in your eyes as the world passed through you, virginity in people's expressions you wish you had. A gaze untainted by warfare, civil unrest, and brutality.

Although you have met the occasional human to brighten your own world, it did not cure you. Your search was desolate—fruitless.

Your feet had carried you to Santa Carla, the year now being 1963, and just as the five stages of grief had settled on acceptance. You bumped into a group of four rambunctious bikers that would change your life forever. That had been the first time you had met, and you had continued to live together, going on to live through the Civil Rights movement and grieving the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

But on August 12th, 1967, you left Santa Carla. Your absence is only justified by a delicately written letter standing in your place. You had grown to love the boys, but you had lived differently compared to them.

Marko and Paul were younger vampires than you, having been turned while The Great Depression was bulldozing America. Dwanye had been older, abandoning his immortality in the 18th century along with David. All of them possessed the innate ability to move on from the past, a talent you, unfortunately, did not possess.

No matter how hard you tried, you could not find peace or excitement in the future. The uncertainty corrupted you, tormented you and your experiences, so you left. Not with the intent to abandon but to sort out whatever you had to sort out. Away from the prying eyes of those you loved, those who you did not want—couldn't disappoint.

Santa Carla, the town you had never been able to forget. It was 1987 now; twenty years had passed since you had seen the four vampires. You had missed them—a melancholic weight having nestled its way into your heart ever since you left. You regretted the way you had left through a simple letter. A cowardly move; you were wise enough to understand that. But at the time, you couldn't bring yourself to say it to them. How could you? Look someone in the eyes, someone like you—your own pack that never did anything but love you—and tell them you were leaving?

You didn't have the heart, and if you were a little more honest, you didn't have it now, either. But you missed them more than your hurt pride by walking what felt like a walk of shame as you wandered around the busy boardwalk. One thing you never could get used to was the constant shift in fashion, it felt like the ins became the outs overnight, and you never were able to keep up with it.

Bright colors were the most fashionable now, with teased hair and loud makeup. You enjoyed it, your knowing eyes watching over the crowd. The smell of hairspray permeated the air, wafting towards you as you passed people. Bulky and oversized clothes were spotted throughout the crowds, some men and women wearing specific member-only jackets. Ah, it seems the surfer nazis still haven't given up on Santa Carla yet.

The amusement park was new; back in 1867, the boardwalk had small shops littered around—like a market. Originally it mostly sold food and groceries, fish caught fresh from the sea, and farmers selling their produce.

How has the pier changed so significantly? If it wasn't for the bold, attention-seeking sign that said Santa Carla Boardwalk; you would've thought you were at the wrong address. But stepping on those old wooden floorboards of the pier that occasionally creaked or sunk under your feet was an all too familiar feeling. The smell of salt, rotting seaweed that had washed onto the shore, and the fresh street food made you feel all too at home.

It felt like you had never really left.

Your appearance had changed quite a bit since you left Santa Carla, so you didn't expect either the boys or Max to really recognize you. But although you were willing to stay under the radar for the boys, Max was another story. He was a head vampire, a coven leader, and therefore needed to be notified of your presence.

Entering Max's video store made you feel nostalgic, the same old grimy bell still hanging atop the doorframe signaling your arrival; you had been the one to put that there to originally annoy Max. You were surprised he kept it. The wooden floorboards and furniture gave off a distinct, homey smell. You had been there when the store was built, and the shiny coating across the floors now had grown mat, occasional wood panels brighter in color than before.

"I never thought I'd meet the day I saw you walk through those doors again."

Turning around, you met the stern gaze of Max. His outfit made you smile, a desperate attempt at blending in with the crowd. Max was always a stickler for blending in; if he had no intention of turning you; you had no business knowing who; or rather what, he was.

"It's good to see you."

"I'm flattered, but I doubt that I am the sole reason you returned." Max always carried that knowing tone, as if he's watched out every move you'd make before you made them. It reminded you that Max had a coven before the boys and you, one he rarely conversed about. Perhaps Max really had seen this turn out before, but analyzing that surprised expression, you could only assume who had left never did come back.

"How right you are," You sighed, shoulders dropping as you hopped onto the cashier counter. It was before opening, meaning you and Max had some time to chat privately.

"Twenty years is a long time," Max hummed, a low and almost chiding tone. "What made you come back?"

"To us, it isn't," You weakly argued back. The cumbersome feeling, or rather an awareness that you were in the wrong, was nearly unbearable. You were smart enough to understand that denial was a fruitless endeavor, and yet you couldn't help but let those desperate attempts escape you.

"For people waiting for you, it's an eternity." Max sighed in a calm but chiding tone. Although Max never did have to scold you the way he did with the boys, from not committing arson to preventing fights. Max instead focused his guidance towards you on a more emotional level, the morality; a bit ironic being taught by a vampire—but he did his best.

You glanced outside, through the glass walls of Max's shop, watching the bustling crowd pass you. Twenty years to a vampire was nothing, but somehow the short span of time felt arduous. Why did you come back?

"I never intended on staying away forever. I knew that when the time was right, I'd return." You explained, stealing a quick glance at Max. The older man had a frown etched onto his face, eyebrows furrowed as his own gaze lingered on the rambunctious humans outside. So unaware of the constant and unrelenting passage of time. It was cruel to be immortal; the passage of time no longer hindered you. But emotions are bendable and are the only aspect of ourselves that remains from who we were. Emotions were mortal.

"Santa Carla has changed, Y/N. It is not what you left behind; they are not the same as they were alongside you." Max recalled, his voice disapproving.

You knew Max was correct; you knew deep in your wrenching and twisting gut. You jumped off the counter, your feet hitting the floor like gravity had shifted around you, sinking your body into the floor. "I know," you knew; perhaps the boys didn't even want to see you; they could curse you out and send your name to hell for all eternity. They deserved to do it too.

But they loved you once, and perhaps you can't help shake the feeling that they might love you again this time too.

Max sighed, walking over to his front door and twisting the closed sign around, and pronouncing the store now open. Each tap of his foot, synced with his steps, was like a thundering echo inside you. It prompted you to get up and to provide closure for the others. You reach the door, opening midway before Max leaves you with some parting advice.

"I hope you find what you came here for, Y/N. But the time might be right for you now, but it might not be for them."

You nodded, not looking back as you walked out of the store. The air was warmer, humid from the ocean breeze mixing into the air, the notorious assassin for any styled and teased hair due.

Laughter was one of your favorite sounds. As cliche as that might sound, it felt rejuvenating to hear. Whether it was a loud cackle mimicking the call of a hyena or a high-pitched wheeze or whistle. There was a beauty in people's expressions, how their noses tended to scrunch up, or how others held their stomachs and nearly doubled over. Laughter was infectious, and you loved observing the dopamine spread to others. Strangers connecting over a similar sense of joy; there was a beauty in it.

The boardwalk was filled with it, people brushing shoulders against shoulders as they walked. Groups cackling and shoving each other as they enjoyed the youngness of the evening. Music booming from different directions, punks blasting the newest rap or metal music, hippies tuning out to a gentle jam, but the loudest seemed to be a distant concert down the boardwalk and closer to the pier. Like a bee sensing some honey, you followed. Dodging the occasional passerby, ducking out of the way from shop owners lugging their merchandise around.

The music got louder, and a small thread of excitement seemed to push you further, faster. Your small stroll transformed into a quickened step, your ears guiding you and your eyes following the crowd. The music was loud; a tight smosh-like pit had formed before the stage where people grind and brushed against each other to the beat of the music.

Looking around, you scanned the faces of teenagers and young adults. There was an eager but dreaded nervousness to your gaze at the thought of seeing a face that looked familiar. But it wasn't your eyes that caught their presence, but rather your sense of smell.

Copper.

Although it was harder to pick up when the wind stills its prancing, the occasional breeze led you further towards the pier. Away from the smosh pit, and where people stood to enjoy the music but not risk getting mulled over by a hormonal teenager.

There they stood, strikingly familiar. Although some of the fashion had changed, most of their originality stayed intact. That tiny red flag tied around Dwayne's waist was something the two of you had stolen from a stingy bar owner back in 1964; Markos jacket still had all too familiar patches sewn into its denim fabric; Paul still wore those bracelets you gave him, and David wore the most prominent reminder of you, his oversized coat.

The wind picked up around you, a cold and mocking breeze flowing through your hair and betraying your presence to the four men you had left behind all those years ago. One by one, heads lifted, smiling ceased, and laughter died. Although you had spent years preparing yourself for this moment, nothing felt so gut-wrenchingly real than standing before them.

How do you look someone in the eyes after you've abandoned them?

How do you move past that moment when the world around you stills and halts. When you lose yourself in the blear of the world when mortality reaches its hand around your heart and squeezes. A vice-like grip, a feeling blooming within your chest so heavy–so unspeakable. When you see those eyes, recognize the sorrow behind them and realize you were the perpetrator. You were the one who put that agony, that sadness there.

The burden of your actions ties itself around your throat like a noose, tight and unyielding, as you realize the cruelty was done by none other than yourself. And there is no way, in any shape or form, you could reverse the damage you've done. Pain is immortal, it might yield to its throbbing, but it never forgets.

A world with your boys back in 1967 exists now only in your memory. The four men, cold as the autumn waters, were your reality now.

"Hello, boys."

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perotovar · 4 months

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ásjá - a winter solstice story

Ásjá by Heilung (i highly recommend listening to this while reading)

Our second single release is a love song. Maria sings to the listener of love, recovery and prosperity, chasing away evil and welcoming love. The piece contains a quotation of some lines of “Hávamál”, combined with a selection of blessing words meant to provide help to the listener in a troubled time. Kai brought his vocal part of 'Asja' back to us after a month of isolation, fasting and meditation in nature. Only the spirits know the full meaning, but we do know that the context is love, prosperity and protection.

pairing: pero tovar/ofc!helga (but this is mostly a character study) rating: T word count: 7.4k (idk what happened here) warnings: minor swearing, google translated spanish (sorry), historical inaccuracies in favor of fantasy/magic, my american norse pagan perspective of these practices, if i missed anything else lemme know! dividers by @saradika-graphics beta and norwegian translations by the lovely @chloeangelic thank you, honey ♥

summary: Pero picks up a contract that leads him "somewhere up North", but what he finds instead is unlike anything he imagined for himself. Or, what would happen if Pero encountered the Vikings during their winter celebration?

this is apart of @hellishjoel's 12 days of pedro. thank you for including me, kylee, and make sure you all read the other presents!

god jól, everyone🌲❄️🌙🐺

It was fucking cold.

With shaking hands and numb limbs, Pero made his way further up the hill. The wind picked up the further he went into the trees.

The contract he’d taken up was for a man by the name of Ingvar. A strange name to Pero’s ears, but that hardly mattered to him. This Ingvar was to be taken care of, and Pero had to show proof.

Not a problem.

The problem, at least for the moment, was the fucking weather and his own lack of foresight. He was told that Ingvar was “somewhere up North”, and that was it. He didn’t exactly plan for just how cold it would be. His fingers were going numb and red, and he saw every breath that left his lungs. If William were here, he’d tell Pero to quit his “bitching” and to make camp.

The camp, he could do. The bitching? Unlikely.

Pero and William separated after the… events in China. They stayed together to do a few jobs together, but William decided to make his way back to China and meet up with Lin Mae again, possibly even settle down. Pero didn’t fancy seeing the people that had arrested and almost killed him, and black powder wasn’t worth the trouble anymore. At least not to him. He rather liked the uncertainty of his job. Found comfort in it, in fact. His future was set for him in this line of work. He would live doing the things he loved most; fighting, fucking, and drinking. And the ending was always the same. At least, that’s what he told himself.

A low whisper brought Pero out of his thoughts. He snapped his head towards the direction of the sound and furrowed his already heavy brow. The sound of a raven cawing caught his attention, making him hum skeptically to himself before deciding this was as good a spot as any for a fire.

Once settled on a fallen tree and attempting to warm his hands with his meager fire, Pero dug into his travel pack. He grumbled at the pitiful excuse for food he had left. He grabbed a piece of thick, dry bread and started ripping off chunks and eating that. Perhaps he could hunt? Find a rabbit, or something a little bigger. He remembered to make a bow this time. Swallowing the last chunk of the bread, he picked up his bow and arrows, and threw his cloak-slash-blanket over his shoulders. It was going to be dark soon, and he didn’t like the idea of starving his first night in this frozen Northern hell.

Another whisper.

Pero’s body went taut. He looked between the tall trees and the endless sea of white ahead of him. Nothing. A rabbit hopped by, distracting him. Before he could think too hard, he knocked an arrow and let fly. The arrow landed in the snow just after the rabbit hopped away.

“Mierda,” he grumbled. (Shit.)

He crouched low and slowly followed after the rabbit. He made his way toward a small clearing, which seemed to be in the center of the forest, if his tracking skills were getting any better.

There was a large stone in the middle, towards the top of the clearing. There looked to be a large blood stain in the center of it. Pero raised a brow and grunted quietly. This was none of his business, clearly.

Suddenly, the rabbit made its way to the middle of the clearing, next to the large stone. Pero sighed and lined up a shot, hoping for the best. He released a breath at the same time that the arrow left his fingers, and another whisper passed through his ears.

He gasped quietly and time seemed to stop as the arrow traveled through the cold air. A shiver ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the weather. He closed his eyes and let out a heavy breath, trying to make himself as still as possible.

The sound of the arrow piercing the rabbit startled him out of his frozen state. He blinked a few times, the white forest coming back into view as he looked down at the dead rabbit in the clearing. He exhaled and slowly stood, settling his bow on his shoulder. He looked around again, and when he saw nothing, slowly made his way down the hill and towards the center of the clearing.

He picked up the dead rabbit and removed the arrow, tucking it into his belt to clean and use again later. Standing in the center of the clearing, he looked over at the bloodstained stone and felt that shiver go down his spine again. He looked up at the gray sky and decided it was time to go back to his camp. He hooked the rabbit’s carcass onto his belt, pulled the cloak over his shoulders tighter, and shoved his hands inside the fabric.

“Maldita nieve,” he grumbled to himself. (Fucking snow.) As he climbed back up the hill, he felt a sharp pain in his foot and lost his balance, catching himself with his hands in the snow. He hissed loudly and looked down at his boot. A small spike was poking out through the top, meaning the sharp rock was piercing through his foot. He groaned and leaned against the hill, steadying his breathing. He counted to three in his head and yanked the rock from his foot. “Fuck,” he exhaled loudly, a few drops of his own blood covering his palm as he looked at the rock. A small symbol was carved into it, making him squint his eyes, trying to decipher what it was. Pero shook his head and sighed, pocketing the strange rock to inspect later.

On his way back to his little camp, limping the whole way to not put too much pressure on his foot, he grabbed some branches to make the fire last a little longer. Once the meager fire came into view, he swore he saw someone sitting on the log he was using before. He froze in place, heavy boots landing in the snow abruptly. He squinted his eyes and grew confused. An old man? What would he be doing out here?

Pero looked around the frozen forest to see if there was anyone that could be with the old man. When he didn’t see anyone, he looked back at the campfire, and the old man was gone. He’d completely vanished. Pero grunted quietly and rubbed his eyes with frozen fingers. He shook his head to snap himself out of it and made his way over to the campfire.

After putting the rabbit on the spit and it started to cook, Pero made his bed for the night. He’d do his best to sleep, but didn’t have high hopes. Once the rabbit was cooked, he stabbed it with his knife and started eating it messily. He groaned at the taste of fresh, hot, cooked meat and enjoyed it, even if it was pretty bland. It warmed his bones a little and made him more comfortable, pulling the cloak tighter around his shoulders.

The sound of a branch snapping behind him went unnoticed by Pero’s ears, too focused on the food. He hadn’t eaten in days. The second snap, however, was heard, and it made him drop the rabbit onto the ground and grab his sword, brandishing it in front of him as he stood.

“¿Dónde estás, bastardo?” He grumbled under his breath, his heavy breaths puffing out into smoke. (Where are you, bastard?)

He sighed in frustration when he didn’t see anything. He was seriously starting to consider if this contract was even worth it. And if it wasn’t, would he be able to make it back without dying? Either from the cold, or whatever it was that was playing with him. He mumbled obscenities to himself and sat back down on his fallen tree.

He picked up the rabbit and groaned at the dirt now covering it. He blew off what he could and decided to continue eating it, dirt be damned. He was hungry.

Once full, he looked up at the moon in the sky, trying to figure out how late it was. He rubbed his hands over his arms to keep warm and added a branch or two to his fire. He grabbed a piece of spare cloth from his travel pack and quickly wrapped his foot. He laid down next to the fire and pulled the cloak up over his shoulders and shut his eyes. He didn’t feel tired, but he couldn’t help closing his eyes. He tried to fight it, to keep his guard up, but it was useless.

He started to feel lightheaded and turned onto his back, looking up at the moon again. The moon and the stars, so bright he almost didn’t need the campfire, were swirling around and moving in close and further away. The trees surrounding him looked to be moving side to side.

What was happening? Did the old man poison him somehow? Who was that old man?

His vision went blurry and he felt like he was spinning in place despite laying on the ground, completely still. He let out a weak groan and tried to move, reaching for his sword.

The last thing he saw before his vision went black, was the silhouette of a large dog, or perhaps a wolf, in the distance hidden behind the trees.

Warmth. He felt warm. And a pounding headache.

Pero slowly blinked awake and groaned at the light that hit his eyes. The smell of cooked meat and root vegetables hit his nostrils. His stomach whined in protest.

“For en merkelig fyr…” An older male voice said, somewhere behind him. (He is a strange one…)

“Kjekk, da,” A younger, female voice replied. (Handsome, though.)

He didn’t understand any of it. It wasn’t a language he’d heard before. Eyelids fluttering, he slowly opened his eyes to a small gathering of people all looking down at him. He startled and reached for his knife, and grunted when he didn’t feel it.

“Vi har våpnene dine. De er trygge.” (We have your weapons. They’re safe.)

Pero turned his head in the direction of the voice and squinted his eyes at the woman. She looked to be in her 30s, with a baby attached to her breast and drinking.

“No entiendo,” he grumbled, voice hoarse from lack of use. “¿Dónde estoy?” (I do not understand. Where am I?)

He took in his surroundings, now sitting up, and saw that he looked to be in a small room cut off from a much larger group of people. He heard laughter and song outside the cloth separating the, assumed, larger hall from where he was now. He furrowed his brows. A celebration? What for?

“¿Dónde estoy?” He repeated, voice slightly harsher. (Where am I?)

“Har ikke hørt det språket før,” one of the men said. (Haven’t heard that tongue before.) Pero looked up at him and squinted his eyes slightly. The man was large, with a full beard, and an even fuller middle. But there was no denying his strength; age hadn’t stopped this man from doing well in a fight, Pero assumed. Not that he couldn’t take him, of course. He looked at the man’s belt and saw a one-handed axe attached to his belt and thought better of it, especially without his own weapons.

Suddenly a small sting came from his foot and he snapped his head down at the young woman tending to the wound he’d gotten on his way back from the clearing. He’d almost completely forgotten about it, too cold to even really feel it. The young woman startled and blushed, keeping her head down as she cleaned the cut.

“Det er et vakkert språk, da, er det ikke?” The first younger woman’s voice came through, a slightly entranced tone to it. (It is a beautiful tongue, though, no?) He looked to his left and saw her batting her eyelashes at him. He huffed a breath in amusement. He’d had his fair share of women giving him looks like that, almost always with a payment in mind, but his thoughts were elsewhere, even if it did feel nice. And she was a tad too skinny for his own tastes.

Pero exhaled. This was clearly getting nowhere. Fine. “Where am I? You know English, yes?” He asked, exasperated, in the general direction of anyone who might be able to answer him.

The shy girl cleaning his wound lifted her head and smiled softly at him. “I know a little,” she said quietly, her voice heavily accented.

“Finally,” he sighed. “What is going on?”

“A few of our men found you in the forest, passed out. Your lips were blue.” She won’t make eye contact with him, bur her brows furrowed like she was worried for him. “We have lost some of our own men in a similar way before. It is not pretty.”

Pero hummed softly and nodded his thanks. “Did any of them see an old man? In the woods?”

The girl tilted her head and asked the man next to him, the one with the axe in his belt, if any of them had seen such a man. The man raised a brow and shook his head, looking at Pero skeptically.

“Ingvar says–”

“Yes, I understood, thank you–” Pero cut himself off and looked back at the man with the axe. This was Ingvar? Pero looked back at the girl and nodded his head as she bandaged his wound, his own cloth wrapped around his ankle. He would have to be careful if he was to carry out this contract. “Thank you,” he repeated, the words foreign on his tongue.

The girl nodded, cheeks pink, and stood to leave. As she left, the cloth covering them moved to show a large fire in the middle of the hall with an even larger feast around it. The girl came back with a tankard of something for him and he took it gratefully. As the sweet liquid hit his tongue, he coughed slightly.

“What is this?” He wheezed a little, looking at the cup like it slapped his mother.

The girl giggled before saying, “Mead. It is honey wine.”

Pero rolled the words around his tongue for a moment. “Interesante,” he hummed to himself. (Interesting.)

“Vel, han er våken. Tilby ham noe å spise, men hold øye på ham. Han ser ut som en leiesoldat, og jeg stoler ikke på ham,” Ingvar grunted, leaving the room and rejoining the festivities. (Well, he is up. Invite him to eat, but keep an eye on him. He looks like a mercenary and I do not trust him.)

Pero watched him closely as he left, and took another drink of his mead, eyes hard.

“Would you like some food, mister-”

“Tovar,” Pero grunted. “Yes. I am very hungry.” He turned on the cot and got to his feet quickly, but quickly lost his balance, a couple of the women catching him as he stood on shaky legs. He sighed in frustration and stood on his own, shrugging off their help. The girl held her arm out to him, and didn’t seem too offended when he just stared at it.

“Tovar. This way,” she smiled, her face a little pinched.

“What are you celebrating?” He asked, looking around at all the food. His stomach roared at the smells.

“It is the third night of Jól. You have heard of Jól?” She asked excitedly, turning to him as she found a place for him to sit. He slowly made his way down at a long table nearby where Ingvar sat at the head of the table. A leader. This contract was getting more difficult by the second.

“I have not,” he grumbled. “What is this… Yool?”

The girl giggled again, this time at his attempt at the word. “Jól is the celebration that welcomes back the sun from the harsh Winter. Our crops start growing as the sun comes back, and the snow melts away.”

Pero hummed as he listened, nodding his thanks when she handed him a full plate of different meats, root vegetables, bread, and cheese. “You are farmers?”

The girl nods. “Most of us. Some are warriors.”

Pero hummed again, chewing on a piece of meat. “How did you learn English?”

The girl turned a little sad, but smiled anyway. “We used to have a man that came from… Eng-land? He died last year,” she sighed. “He taught me and a few of the children how to read and speak English. How did you learn?”

Pero frowned around his food and sighed.

“I am sorry, forget–” Pero held up a hand to stop her. “Apologies. I am… unused to kindness from strangers,” he grunted, not meeting her eyes. “A dear friend of mine is from Scotland. We have separated so he could be with his woman. He taught me.”

“Scotland?”

“It is near England.”

She nodded, slowly picking at her own food. The two of them grew quiet and just ate for a while. The celebrations continued around them, and it gave Pero a chance to take it all in.

In the center of the hall was a large hearth, with an even larger tree in the middle, lighting up the hall. It looked like the one he was using earlier as a bench, so they must have gotten it from the same forest. He can’t be too far from there, then. There were candles and flames everywhere, lighting up the hall brightly, but warmly.

He looked back at the girl and found her already staring at him. She startled, cheeks going pink again, and looked down at her food. He smirked a little, but hid it well. She was amusing.

“What is your name?” He asked.

“Sigrid,” she said softly.

“It sounds strong.”

“Yes. I am more drawn to medicine, so I suppose the name is ironic.”

Pero chuckled. “Hardly.”

Sigrid smiled up at him. “Thank you.”

A comfortable silence fell over the two of them again before Pero asked, “Who is Ingvar? He seems like a powerful man.”

“He is our Jarl. Our leader.”

“Is this like a king?” Pero furrowed his brows. He didn’t think this contract would be finished.

“Not exactly. But no less powerful.”

“I see,” Pero grunted. As if on cue, Ingvar stood from his seat at the head of the table, a large grin on his bearded face.

“Venner! Kvelden er ung, og festen er rik. Vær så snill, nyt, for mine gamle beindekk. Jeg ser dere alle i morgen tidlig.” Everyone raised their drinks and shouted… something, but Pero didn’t catch it. Sigrid leaned over and translated what Ingvar said for him. He nodded his thanks, but he was skeptical at best. Ingvar left through a door behind the throne that sat in the center of the hall. (Friends! The night is young, and the feast bountiful. Please, enjoy, for my old bones tire. I will see you all in the morning.)

“He cannot be that old, no?”

“He has been around much longer than I,” Sigrid shrugged. Pero laughed softly, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You are a child, of course he has.”

Sigrid rolled her eyes, but didn’t deny it. “If seventeen winters makes me a child, then yes.”

Pero choked on his mead and hit his chest to keep from coughing too hard. “Yes, it does,” he wheezed, laughing quietly. Sigrid laughed, too, eating some bread and cheese. A small child ran up to Sigrid and asked her a question as he tugged on her dress. Sigrid looked back at Pero apologetically and he waved her off, eating some more meat.

This was hardly the setting he expected for himself when he took the contract, but he couldn’t deny it, it was a pleasant one. The food was good, and the people seemed friendly enough. He couldn’t help but be confused by the contract; who was dumb enough to put a hit out on a powerful leader like Ingvar?

Sigrid mentioned that some of them were warriors. That didn’t surprise him at all. Just by looking at the people around the table, men and women alike, he could’ve figured that out on his own.

He sighed to himself and chewed thoughtfully. Suddenly, he remembered the small stone that pierced his foot. He looked around at the people around him to be sure no one was watching before he felt around his pocket for the stone. When he didn’t feel anything, his body went taut and he froze. Shit. They probably found it when they grabbed his weapons. Where were his weapons?

Sigrid came up to his side with the small child from before holding her hand and looking at him from behind her. “Tovar?” She asked softly. He looked up at her, heavy brow still pulled down. She gave him a quick once-over before clearing her throat. “We have sleeping quarters for you, but Lord Ingvar wishes to speak with you first.”

Pero chuckled humorlessly around his food before putting it down on his plate. He grabbed the mead and took a drink, making a face at the taste. He wasn’t sure he’d get used to that anytime soon. “Of course he does,” he sighed. “You will translate for me?”

Sigrid nodded, braided blonde hair swinging with the movement, and looked like she was trying to steel herself. He admired her mettle.

Pero followed after her, keeping light pressure on his foot as they went through that door Ingvar went through before. It led down a short hallway and ended up in a large bedroom. Ingvar was sitting on the edge of the bed before standing tall and fixing Pero with a hard look. Pero grunted and rested a hand on his hip as he leaned on the uninjured foot, waiting to get this over with.

“Hva heter du?” Ingvar grunted. (What is your name?)

“He asked your name,” Sigrid said softly.

“Tovar,” Pero narrowed his eyes.

“Hvorfor er du her?” (Why are you here?)

Sigrid translated quietly.

“Your people brought me here. I was wondering the same thing,” Pero shrugged with an attitude. Ingvar gave him a look, clearly unimpressed. Pero rolled his eyes.

Ingvar looked at Sigrid and she blushed, nodding. “He didn’t mean–”

“Yes, I know what he meant,” Pero sighed. “I had a contract. I came to fulfill that contract.”

Sigrid spoke quietly and Ingvar seemed tired as he nodded.

“Var navnet mitt på denne kontrakten?” Ingvar sighed. Pero gave Sigrid a look as she quickly translated. (Did this contract have my name on it?)

“It did…” Pero raised a brow, crossing his arms over his chest. Ingvar nodded again, but Pero spoke up before he could say anything. “I decided not to complete the contract when I saw your celebration and… status. I may be a mercenary, but I am no fool. I do not go after lords or kings.”

Ingvar raised a brow and chuckled quietly before letting out a loud, hearty laugh. “Jeg vet ikke om du er smart eller dum,” Ingvar smiled, cheeks flushed with mirth. “Jeg takker deg, men tilgi meg for at jeg ikke stoler på deg helt, Tovar.” (I do not know if you are smart or stupid. I thank you. But you will forgive me for not completely trusting you, Tovar.)

Pero nodded and shrugged. “I understand.”

Sigrid looked between the two of them, looking much less nervous. She quickly spoke to Ingvar quietly, asking him a question. Ingvar nodded, a small smile on his lips.

“Nyt festen, Tovar. Vi diskuterer hva vi skal gjøre med deg om morgenen.” (Enjoy the festivities, Tovar. We will discuss what to do with you in the morning.)

“I wish to leave,” Pero grunted, looking between Sigrid and the Jarl. Sigrid looked a little crestfallen, but took one more look at Ingvar before he waved them off. She pushed Pero out of the Jarl’s quarters and back out into the celebration. “Sigrid?” Pero asked, confused.

She sighed before looking up at him. “The Jarl wishes to keep you here until Jól ends. To keep an eye on you, make sure you keep your word.” She started wringing her hands together and bit her lip.

“How much longer is Yool?”

Sigrid went quiet.

“Sigrid.”

“Nine more days,” she sighed, looking down.

Pero’s eyes went wide before he shut them and sighed heavily. He looked up at the ceiling and mumbled, “Joder yo,” under his breath. (Fuck me.) “Fine. Nine more days and I will leave.”

Over the course of the first four days, Pero was treated like he belonged with these people. He still didn’t quite know where he was. If someone were to give him a map, he couldn’t tell them, but he knew he was probably at the top somewhere. He was shocked at how much he liked it there despite the bitter cold.

He felt eyes on him the whole time and he didn’t like the feeling, but he understood it.

He taught Sigrid and some of the children some Spanish words and in turn he was taught some words in their tongue. Norse, he was told.

Pero also found himself helping the warriors Sigrid mentioned before, called Vikingr. Their job was to sail to faraway lands, raid strangers of their belongings, and bring it back home. He didn’t judge. He’d done worse, and frankly, it sounded like something right up his alley. He mostly helped with keeping their longships cleaned for their next raid when the snow thawed.

And he ate. He ate a lot. There was so much food at the feasts in the evenings. He tried to eat as much as he could in the hopes that it would carry him on his journey home. Wherever that was. Every feast started with a chant and “offerings” to their Gods. Some of these “offerings” came in the form of the mead Pero had - reluctantly - grown to like, and other times it came in the form of one of the farmer’s poor goats.

While he didn’t understand a lot of these people’s customs, he couldn’t deny it, they were a hearty people.

He’d also caught the eye of some of the women there, too, but he mostly ignored them. They were all too young for him, and he was too busy not getting killed. He still wasn’t given back his weapons. Or the strange stone. His wound would take a while to heal yet, but he could put pressure on it again.

On the fifth day, he was helping chop wood for people’s homes. During the feast, everyone in the village congregated in the Jarl’s home to be surrounded by the fire given by the Jól Log and enjoy the food, but they all needed wood for their own homes as well.

He stopped to take a break and wiped the sweat from his brow as a cool chill blew past him. Pero looked to his left, the feeling of someone looking at him catching his attention. When he saw it wasn’t one of Ingvar’s men, he startled a little. It was a woman. Older than the ones that mostly watched him, and far more… Interesting. To him, at least. He raised a brow as she turned and left, clutching her basket closer to her body. He’d seen her around during his time there and she seemed to keep mostly to herself. She was unattached from what he could tell, and wondered why. She was beautiful.

Pero snapped himself out of it and shook his head, going back to chopping the wood.

On the sixth day, he saw her again. He’d asked Sigrid what her name was as he saw her making her way through the market, and she said it was Helga.

Helga.

He liked the name.

Helga was a thread-weaver. She made blankets, scarves, anything to keep one warm and covered. Pero was given clothing that suited the temperature better, and he felt strange without his armor, but he was never given a scarf. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted one before now.

He asked Sigrid if she could ask Helga for him for a scarf, and the girl giggled, pushing him toward the woman. He sighed and walked over to her, looking at the weapons and tools surrounding them at the market. He tried not to make himself too obvious, and it mostly worked, he thought. He was genuinely impressed with the craftsmanship of the weapons.

Pero sidled up to Helga’s side, but before he could say anything, she stepped away from the stand and walked back to her house. He watched her go and frowned.

This was going to be tougher than he thought.

The seventh day was much like the day before, but instead of chopping wood, Pero was asked to help around the Jarl’s home. He noticed a lot of the young women that stared at him worked there, so he tried to keep mostly to himself. He’d never cleaned linens or blankets before, but found it to be quite relaxing. There was a rhythm to it, and he could do it without much help.

“Tovar,” a young voice asked from his left. He looked up, finishing the fold of the blanket he was holding. He grunted in acknowledgement. “Jeg og noen av kvinnene har lurt på noe,” the girl was blushing hard up to her ears and biting her lip. (Some of the women and I have been wondering something.)

Pero smirked a little and nodded for her to continue. He picked up on the gist of what she was saying, thanks to Sigrid’s teachings of Norse.

“Hvor fikk du arret fra?” she asked meekly. (Where did you get your scar?)

Pero’s face pinched slightly and he shook his head. “I do not wish to talk about it.” The girl’s eyes went wide and she started scrambling out apologies, her hand pressed to her chest. A sad smile crossed his features before he shook his head. “It is okay,” he said quietly.

The girl frowned, cheeks bright red, but nodded as she turned and left. Pero exhaled quietly and looked down at the linens he was folding.

“I do not believe she meant any harm,” a low, feminine voice said to his left. He hummed in acknowledgement before he froze, realizing that she spoke perfect English. He turned his head and nearly jumped out of his boots when he saw Helga standing there. She smiled and started helping him with the linens. “Tovar, yes?”

Pero huffed a laugh and nodded.

“I have noticed you watching me.” She had a soft smile on her lips, brown hair pulled away from her face in a braid. She turned to look at him, blue eyes full of heat as she looked over his face and chest.

Pero blinked, eyes slightly wider. He went to speak, but all that came out was a croak, making him cough. “Apologies,” he wheezed, the side of his fist pressed to his chest. “I am sorry for staring,” he mumbled, turning back to his own linens as his cheeks flushed. “I am still getting used to the customs here. There are two days left of your celebration, and I will be gone.”

Helga hummed noncommittally and pushed her small stack of folded linens toward him to add to his pile. “That would be a shame.”

Pero furrowed his brows and added her stack to his. He looked at her incredulously, but her head was faced down as she continued folding. He didn’t say anything and continued as well, his thoughts running a mile a minute.

“I thought only Sigrid and a few of the children spoke English,” he said after a few moments of silence.

“They are not the only ones.”

Pero snorted and shook his head. “Clearly not,” he hummed to himself. He cleared his throat and glanced at her before continuing. “When I arrived at this place, I was in the forest. I am not sure how far it is from here, but I saw an old man,” he started, keeping his eyes downward. “I was hoping I would see him here in the village, but I have not.”

Helga hummed a noise for him to continue.

“He wore a cloak, the hood covering his head. He sat in front of my campfire, but I only saw one of his eyes,” Pero’s brows furrowed further, confusion filling his head. “I am not sure if he was missing one or if it was covered.”

Helga stopped folding and looked at him, a small smirk on her lips. “Did he have a long beard?”

Pero looked up and blinked. “Y-yes. You have seen this man?”

“Once or twice,” she said. “He is a wanderer. He does not stay in one place for very long.”

“Who is he?”

Helga bit her lip and shrugged. “He has many names. We cannot be certain which he likes best.”

Pero sighed in frustration. “Why was he at my camp?”

Helga smirked again and finished folding her linens. “Perhaps he was looking out for you,” she shrugged again, leaning over to pick up her basket of fabrics. “Enjoy the feast tonight.” She grinned and left the Jarl’s home, leaving Pero quiet and watching her retreating form.

Pero exhaled and looked up at the ceiling, shaking his head. When he looked down, there was a scarf folded on top of her pile of linens.

“Du får tingene dine i morgen, etter den siste festen,” Ingvar grumbled. (You will receive your belongings after tomorrow’s final feast.)

“Must I stay the whole time? I wish to return home,” Pero growled, crossing his arms over his chest. Not that he had a home to return to.

Ingvar rolled his eyes and waved him off. Sigrid grabbed his elbow and pulled him out of the Jarl’s bedroom. Pero grumbled obscenities in Spanish to himself until he was sat at a table in the hall. It was the eighth night, and he was getting tired of being watched constantly. He had no intention of hurting anyone here. He might if they didn’t give him his things, though. The people around him continued to have the same energy this night that they always seemed to. He supposed that came from actually understanding what you were celebrating, and not having to worry about death or arrest at every corner.

“You leave tomorrow evening, yes?”

Pero startled and looked to his right. Helga sat next to him, a plate of food in front of her. She smiled warmly at him and he softened. “How do you do that?” He huffed a laugh and shook his head before grabbing a piece of meat and eating it.

“You do not pay attention,” she said simply.

He squinted his eyes at her and grumbled around his food that he did too pay attention, thank you very much. She laughed softly and it made him bite his tongue. She had been nothing but kind to him while he was there and she didn’t deserve the frustration he felt to be forced on her.

“Where do you live?” Helga asked softly. “Where will you go?”

Pero bit his lip as he tore a piece of bread in two. “Nowhere. I am a mercenary. I go where the work is,” he shrugged, shoving the bread in his mouth.

“You enjoy this?”

Pero raised a brow as he chewed.

“You like not having anywhere to call home? You do not have to leave,” she hummed around her own food, taking a drink of some mead.

“What do you mean? Of course I do,” he scoffed. “Ingvar wants me dead. His men are constantly watching me.”

Helga rolled her eyes. “You really do not pay attention,” she sighed, setting down her cup and turning to face him. “You have not heard how people talk about you?”

“I am still learning the language,” he frowned, chewing messily and lips greasy.

“Why are you learning the language if you want to leave?”

Pero blinked and looked down at his plate. He frowned, thinking about it. Why was he learning the language?

“Because you like it here, Tovar,” she said softly. “We like you.” It went unsaid, but he got the feeling that she liked him, too.

“Pero.”

“What?”

“My name is Pero.”

Helga smiled, pink dusting her cheeks. “I do not think you will have many people protesting if you stay. The children love you. And I think you would make an excellent Viking.”

Pero raised a brow and exhaled, thinking about it. Having a place to call his own would be nice. And he was familiar with the kind of work the warriors did, from what he’d heard.

“You do not have long to think about it, Pero,” Helga hummed. She picked up her plate and stood before leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “I would like it if you stayed,” she whispered into his ear. He looked up at her with soft eyes and she smiled down at him with her hand on his shoulder before turning and leaving.

Pero shut his eyes and exhaled once again, then looked in the direction of the Jarl’s personal quarters.

Would it be such a terrible thing to stay?

On the ninth day, Pero woke with a startle. He thought he’d heard a whisper next to his ear again. He’d been mostly dreamless while he was in the village. Last night, after his talk with Helga, he dreamt about the old man and the wolf in the woods. He didn’t understand any of it, and he barely remembered what the dream actually entailed, but he remembered the feeling. He felt… odd. Not bad or wrong. Just… different. Comforting.

As he got dressed in the clothes that were given to him, he looked over at the scarf Helga gave him. It was a brown color and the material was rough, but also thick and soft. It kept his ears warm. He wrapped it around his neck before slipping his feet into his boots, making sure to be careful of his injured one. He made his way over to the Jarl’s quarters and knocked on the door.

“Er du sikker?” (Are you sure?)

Pero nodded, arms crossed over his chest. “Yes.”

Ingvar sighed and crossed his arms, too. “Du forvirrer meg, Tovar. Men hvis dette virkelig er det du vil, tror jeg ikke at jeg ser noe problem med det.” He shrugged and looked at Sigrid’s smiling face. “Gå og hent tingene hans.” (You confuse me, Tovar. But if this is truly what you want, I don’t suppose I see a problem with it. Go get his things.)

Sigrid nodded happily and ran from the room. Pero and Ingvar awkwardly avoided eye contact. Even if neither of them were enemies, the circumstances of their acquaintanceship were less than ideal. When Sigrid returned, she was carrying Pero’s weapons in both arms and looked to be struggling to do so.

Pero furrowed his brows and gently took the weapons from her. She sighed in relief, but smiled shyly up at him. “I am happy you decided to stay,” she giggled.

Pero smiled down at her, then gave a grateful nod to Ingvar before leaving the room. Sigrid walked next to him while he attached his sword and hunting knife to his belt. He carried the armor under his left arm. “Me too,” he grunted awkwardly. “I am unsure how I will fit in, but…” He shrugged, scratching the back of his neck.

“I think you will be fine,” she nodded, sure of herself. One of the small children, a younger brother of hers he found out, came up to her and tugged on her dress. He mumbled something Pero didn’t quite catch. Sigrid tapped on his shoulder to get Pero’s attention, making him look down at the two of them, dark eyes intimidating, but soft. “She lives at the end of the village,” Sigrid winked, then took off with her younger brother.

Pero’s cheeks flushed, but he chuckled to himself. He made his way through the village, waving or nodding to people as he saw them. It was strange, being accepted as he was. He wasn’t the only gruff and hardened warrior here, and no one seemed scared of him for his scars or his accent. The feeling was so foreign to him.

As he walked up a small hill toward the end of the village, he heard a quiet thud against the grass. He looked down and saw the strange stone from the forest laying there. Right, he’d completely forgotten. It must’ve fallen from his belongings. He picked it up and looked at it, thumbs running over the strange markings. It was almost shaped like a fork, but with three prongs. Maybe Helga would know what it meant.

When he made his way in front of the door of the last house in the village, he hesitated before knocking. The sun was slowly setting and it was getting a tad colder, so he eventually knocked.

“Et øyeblikk!” (One moment!)

Pero smiled to himself as he heard her voice behind the door. Once the door opened, he raised his head and smiled sheepishly, the shape on his face still foreign to him.

Helga’s face softened as she saw him and rested a hand on her hip. “Well, come on in, then,” she grinned, opening the door wider for him. He nodded gratefully and stepped inside her home, the smells of burnt leaves and the feeling of a warm fire engulfing his body.

“I will find my own home, you need not keep me here if–”

“Hush,” she chuckled softly, taking his armor from his arms and putting it in her bedroom for cleaning later. “You are more than welcome to stay here,” she looked up at him with a bit of shyness. The first time she’d ever looked at him like that. “If you want to, that is.”

Pero took two steps closer to her until his face was mere inches from her own. “I want nothing more,” he said softly, rubbing the knuckle of his index finger against her cheek. She shut her eyes and exhaled softly, nodding.

“I was just getting ready to go to the feast,” Helga smiled, looking up at him. “Would you like to join me?”

Pero’s lips quirked up into a soft smile of his own before he remembered the stone he was holding. “Yes, but first,” his brows furrowed in thought. “It is silly, but… I found this strange stone while I was in the forest.”

Helga hummed and tilted her head to the side, letting him continue.

“It has a marking I have never seen before. Do you know what it means?” He asked, showing her the stone lying in the palm of his hand. She picked it up and rubbed her thumb over the marking like he had before.

“Where did you find this?” Helga asked, face pinched in confusion.

“In the forest. There was a small clearing with a bloodstained stone, and–”

“The ritual site,” she smiled up at him, clutching the stone in her hand. “We sacrificed one of the cows on the first day of Jól there.”

Pero blinked down at her, hands holding her arms and rubbing softly. “I see…”

Helga laughed softly. “You’ll get used to it,” she winked. “This is one of the runes. It seems we forgot one.”

“What does it mean?” He hummed, cupping her face in his large hand. He rubbed his thumb against her cheek.

“Protection,” she said softly. She looked at his lips, then looked back up at his eyes. He did the same and leaned forward, pressing a soft kiss to her lips. They stayed there for a few moments before he released her and pressed his forehead against hers.

“Surely the feast can wait a few moments,” he growled into her neck, kissing against the soft skin there. Helga bit her lip and smiled, fingers tangling into the thick curls at the back of his head.

“It can,” she gasped, startled by the small nip he left against her shoulder. Pero slowly walked them toward her bedroom and laid her on top of the bed. The curtains in front of the window were drawn. Something caught his eye in the window and he looked out, hovering over Helga’s body.

In the distance, on top of a hill, was a large black wolf. It seemed to make eye contact with him before it turned and left.

A chill ran down Pero’s spine.

a/n: if you're at all curious, here's a decent idea of what i imagined the stone to look like 🥰

#pero tovar #pero tovar fanfiction #pero tovar fic #pero tovar x ofc #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #ppcu fanfiction #12 days of pedro #12dop #oaksfics

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bfpnola · 8 months

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definitely a longer piece so these excerpts are far from showcasing everything this piece has to offer! read the whole thing on your own time, and in general, just check out jewish currents, an educational, leftist, anti-zionist jewish magazine!

Every August, the township of Edison, New Jersey—where one in five residents is of Indian origin—holds a parade to celebrate India’s Independence Day. In 2022, a long line of floats rolled through the streets, decked out in images of Hindu deities and colorful advertisements for local businesses. People cheered from the sidelines or joined the cavalcade, dancing to pulsing Bollywood music. In the middle of the procession came another kind of vehicle: A wheel loader, which looks like a small bulldozer, rumbled along the route bearing an image of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi aloft in its bucket. For South Asian Muslims, the meaning of the addition was hard to miss. A few months earlier, during the month of Ramadan, Indian government officials had sent bulldozers into Delhi’s Muslim neighborhoods, where they damaged a mosque and leveled homes and storefronts. The Washington Post called the bulldozer “a polarizing symbol of state power under Narendra Modi,” whose ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is increasingly enacting a program of Hindu supremacy and Muslim subjugation. In the weeks after the parade, one Muslim resident of Edison, who is of Indian origin, told The New York Times that he understood the bulldozer much as Jews would a swastika or Black Americans would a Klansman’s hood. Its inclusion underscored the parade’s other nods to the ideology known as Hindutva, which seeks to transform India into an ethnonationalist Hindu state. The event’s grand marshal was the BJP’s national spokesperson, Sambit Patra, who flew in from India. Other invitees were affiliated with the Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh (HSS), the international arm of the Hindu nationalist paramilitary force Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of which Modi is a longtime member.

...

On December 6th, 1992, a mob of 150,000 Hindus, many of whom were affiliated with the paramilitary group the RSS, gathered at the Babri Masjid, a centuries-old mosque that is one of the most contested sacred sites in the world. Over the preceding century, far-right Hindus had claimed that the mosque, located in the North Indian city of Ayodhya, was built not only upon the site where the Hindu deity Ram was born but atop the foundations of a demolished Hindu temple. The RSS and its affiliates had been campaigning to, in the words of a BJP minister, correct the “historical mistake” of the mosque’s existence, a task the mob completed that December afternoon. “They climbed on top of the domes and tombs,” one witness told NPR. “They were carrying hammers and these three-pronged spears from Hindu scripture. They started hacking at the mosque. By night, it was destroyed.” The demolition sparked riots that lasted months and killed an estimated 2,000 people across the country.

The destruction of the Babri Masjid was arguably Hindu nationalism’s greatest triumph to date. Since its establishment in 1925, the RSS—whose founders sought what one of them called a “military regeneration of the Hindus,” inspired by Mussolini’s Black Shirts and Nazi “race pride”—had been a marginal presence in India: Its members held no elected office, and it was temporarily designated a terrorist organization after one of its affiliates shot and killed Mohandas Gandhi in 1948. But the leveling of the Babri Masjid activated a virulently ethnonationalist base and paved the way for three decades of Hindutva ascendance. In 1998, the BJP formed a government for the first time; in 2014, it returned to power, winning a staggering 282 out of 543 seats in parliament and propelling Modi into India’s highest office. Since then, journalist Samanth Subramanian notes, all of the country’s governmental and civil society institutions “have been pressured to fall in line” with a Hindutva agenda—a phenomenon on full display in 2019, when the Supreme Court of India awarded the land where the Babri Masjid once stood to a government run by the very Hindu nationalists who illegally destroyed it. (Modi has since laid a foundation stone for a new Ram temple in Ayodhya, an event that a prominent RSS activist celebrated with a billboard in Times Square.) The Ayodhya verdict came in the same year that Modi stripped constitutional protections from residents of the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir and passed a law that creates a fast track to citizenship for non-Muslim immigrants, laying the groundwork for a religious test for Indian nationality. Under Modi, “the Hinduization of India is almost complete,” as journalist Yasmeen Serhan has written in The Atlantic.

To achieve its goals, the RSS has worked via a dense network of organizations that call themselves the “Sangh Parivar” (“joint family”) of Hindu nationalism. The BJP, which holds more seats in the Indian parliament than every other party combined, is the Sangh’s electoral face. The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) is the movement’s cultural wing, responsible for “Hinduizing” Indian society at the grassroots level. The Bajrang Dal is the project’s militant arm, which enforces Hindu supremacy through violence. Dozens of other organizations contribute money and platforms to the Sangh. The sheer number of groups affords the Sangh what human rights activist Pranay Somayajula has referred to as a “tactical politics of plausible deniability,” in which the many degrees of separation between the governing elements and their vigilante partners shields the former from backlash. This explains how, until 2018, the CIA could describe the VHP and Bajrang Dal as “militant religious organizations”—a designation that applies to non-electoral groups exerting political pressure—even as successive US governments have maintained a warm relationship with their parliamentary counterpart, the BJP.

...

The most extreme figures in the Hindu nationalist and Zionist movements were especially frank about the nature of their partnership: “Whether you call them Palestinians, Afghans, or Pakistanis, the root of the problem for Hindus and Jews is Islam,” Bajrang Dal affiliate Rohit Vyasmaan told The New York Times of his friendly relationship with Mike Guzofsky, a member of a violent militant group connected to the infamous Jewish supremacist Meir Kahane’s Kach Party.

...

In 2003, Gary Ackerman—a Jewish former congressman who was awarded India’s third-highest civilian honor for helping to found the Congressional Caucus on India—told a gathering of AJC and AIPAC representatives and their Indian counterparts that “Israel [is] surrounded by 120 million Muslims,” while “India has 120 million [within].” Tom Lantos, another Jewish member of the caucus, likewise enjoined the two communities to collaborate: “We are drawn together by mindless, vicious, fanatic, Islamic terrorism.”

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calmwaterstarot · 4 months

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What can we expect from 2024 dear!?? 😌

2024 has a lot going on; there are so many astrological transits happening that have a huge impact on all of us.

January 1, 2024: Mercury went direct after being in retrograde for several weeks. This means communication gets better, legal documents can be signed without issues, and anything related to speech is cleared up.

January 20 - September 1, 2024: Pluto enters Aquarius. This is going to be a wild ride. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius was around the late 1700's, and during that time, the world underwent MASSIVE change. Both the American and French Revolutions occurred, coups happened with governments, royalty was dethroned, battles and wars were fought, the first wave of feminism began, etc. There's so much more than this. You should see the list. I'll include it here--start around 1777 and go through 1798. Pluto represents death, rebirth, and transformation, while Aquarius represents humanity and technology. When you pair these two, you're looking at major transformation socially, politically, economically, and technologically. There's a brief retrograde into Capricorn for one last time during our lifetime, and then Pluto will return to Aquarius for another 20 years. It's interesting to note that the rise and fall of empires throughout history is around 250 years. The cycle for Pluto is 245 years. Coincidence? I think not.

February 16, 2024: A stellium in Aquarius. A stellium occurs when three or more planets are in the same house/sign in an astrological chart. This Aquarius stellium will feature Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, and Pluto. The last time this occurred was in February, 1962, and was commonly referred to as the "Age of Aquarius." This time period brought about major changes in the fields of technology, science, and aerospace. I'm afraid that during this time, though, there will be a strong focus on AI and its advancement. Pay attention to headlines regarding an upgrade in technology.

March 25, 2024: Lunar eclipse in Libra. Major historical events typically coincide with lunar eclipses, and since this one will be in Libra, I foresee society wishing for balance, harmony, peace, and justice. I believe this will be a time that humanity will call for us to take a deeper look at how we can end strife and get along with each other. Be ready for major calls for wars and upheaval to end (even though it's happening now, this will be on a much larger scale with this eclipse).

April 8, 2024: Solar eclipse in Aries. On the flip side of the lunar eclipse, we have the solar eclipse in Aries. This will be a time where we start anew and are ready to charge down a new path. Mars' energy represents war, destruction, violence, revenge, but also strength. This particular eclipse is warning us about war and destruction on a collective level because it'll be conjunct the North Node (the direction we're all going). I believe we're headed into a total collapse and rebirth when we add in the Pluto in Aquarius energy, but it's something that needs to happen for us to evolve as a civilization.

May 25, 2024: Jupiter in Gemini, which is actually in detriment. This means the energy is weaker in this sign for the planet. Expect changes in telecommunications (voice, data, and video) and social media, since Gemini is ruled by Mercury, the planet of communication.

June 2, 2024: Neptune is anaretic. Anaretic means that a planet has entered the 29th degree, which holds a sense of finality because this planet has transited all 30 degrees (starting at 0). It's ready to move on and cut ties. What does this mean for Neptune? Well, the planet of illusions will lift its veil and a lot of what we've held onto in our beliefs will die out. Some people will still try to hold on (sunk-cost fallacy) because they're stubborn, but the majority of people will release, mourn, and deal with the fallout that's going to be super messy. Imagine the feeling of being betrayed by someone you love. That's what Neptune lifting it's veil is going to feel like for most. Again, collectively, we NEED this energy for healing and spiritual growth.

July 21, 2024: Full Moon in Capricorn. Most of the time, nothing major happens on full moons, but this one is interesting because it falls on an anaretic degree, just like Neptune. Capricorn represents structure, discipline, rigidity, and order (its ruler is Saturn), so we're going to see some upheaval in regards to these issues. The old way of doing things will no longer serve the same purpose. This is the equivalent of saying, "Out with the old, in with the new."

August 5, 2024 – August 28, 2024: Mercury Retrograde in Virgo and Leo. With Mercury rx in Virgo, this might be a time where you lose or misplace documents, feel irritated, have constant miscommunication, or face scrutiny from the general public. Remember to write down important deadlines and keep everything organized so you don't lose anything. With Mercury rx in Leo, I'm fully expecting some celebrity scandals during this time. Otherwise, it'll be a time of thinking about trying something new or wanting to get out and do something fun.

September 17, 2024: Lunar Eclipse in Pisces. This will happen in the 25th degree (an Aries degree), so anyone with heavy Pisces placements will have creative breakthroughs during this time. We'll see a rise in great music, art, poetry and literature, as well as film and visual arts. This time period might feel very dreamy and whimsical on the art scene.

October 2, 2024: Solar Eclipse in Libra. We had the lunar eclipse in Libra in March, so now, the solar eclipse will bring justice and balance. Anyone with Libra placements in early degrees will feel the need to purge what's not working. Even though most Librans are peaceful, this will be a time of upheaval. Expect people to help the oppressed even more (seeking justice) in a world that needs to be more fair and balanced (Libra energy).

November 19, 2024: Pluto goes direct in Aquarius for twenty years, until March 8, 2043. Buckle up! It's going to be a bumpy-but-necessary ride.

November 25, 2024 – December 15, 2024: Mercury Retrograde in Sagittarius. We all know what happens during Mercury rx, but what happens when it's in Sagittarius? Sagittarius represents higher education and learning, all things foreign and travel-related, religion, and spirituality. Expect religious or spiritual leaders, as well as educational leaders at universities, to have private documents leaked, misinformation stemming from foreign countries and media, as well as travel issues (delays, being rerouted, lots of crowds, etc.). This will not be a good time to travel.

December 6, 2024 – February 24, 2025: Mars Retrograde in Cancer and Leo. This is going to be...interesting. Mars hates being in Cancer; it's in detriment. Why? Cancer represents empathy and compassion, while Mars represents a more masculine energy that strives towards war, violence, and destruction. Cancer wants to provide a resolution to all of the conflict occurring, while Mars isn't having it. Expect masculine energies, especially men, to be more irritated and aggressive during this time. This duo can bring about discussion regarding balancing masculine and feminine energy, which we all have. Because Cancer is represented by the Moon, or the "mother" in astrology, expect some discussions about fertility and reproduction, birth rates (especially the low birth rates of some countries), marriage (or lack thereof), and any social dynamics with males and females. These discussions will carry over into 2025.

2024 is going to be a year that'll go down in history, that's for sure. One silver lining in all of this is that Venus does NOT retrograde this year, so we might see or hear about fewer breakups, and we might see or hear about more people entering into relationships and staying together.

#astrology #2024 astrology #2024 transits #mercury retrograde #pluto in aquarius #jupiter in gemini #anaretic neptune #full moon in capricorn #lunar eclipse in pisces #solar eclipse in libra #lunar eclipse in libra #solar eclipse in aries #aquarius stellium #mars retrograde

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eretzyisrael · 6 months

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by Dion J. Pierre

Washington, DC — Hundreds of thousands of Jewish Americans and pro-Israel advocates packed the National Mall in Washington, DC on Tuesday in a historic show of solidarity with the Jewish state amid its war with the Hamas terror group.

US Jewish groups organized the “March for Israel” to demand the release of hostages held captive by Hamas in Gaza and to demonstrate support for both the Jewish state and the Jewish community amid a global surge in antisemitism that has followed the Palestinian terror group’s Oct 7. massacre across southern Israel.

William Daroff — CEO of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, which co-organized the rally along with the Jewish Federations of North America — told The Algemeiner that 290,000 people were at the event, based on tallies according to those who went through the metal detector at the entrance. However, large numbers of attendees did not appear to have the required wristbands to go through security, making the actual totally potentially higher.

Either way, Tuesday’s rally was both the largest ever pro-Israel gathering and the largest Jewish gathering in US history.

Speakers included the famed human rights activist Natan Sharansky, US Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), and Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who appeared via live feed, among many other voices.

“The people of Israel are eternal, and no one will break us,” Herzog said, prompting an eruption of cheers and applause. “From the Jewish symbols of fulfillment of our ancient dreams to the American symbols of freedom, liberty, and democracy, thank you, thank you, the hundreds of thousands who have gathered from all over the United States, all people of good will, friends from different communities, faiths, and denominations who gathered today for this massive show of solidarity.”

The marchers, who traveled from across the US, represented a full spectrum of the Jewish communitiy and its allies. As one participant told The Algemeiner, it was an important display of unity and the peaceful intentions of the Jewish people.

“I think it’s beautiful. It just shows that we are in peace, that we come in peace, and we’re not interested in violence, and on the contrary we’re fighting that in the world and all antisemitism and hatred of all kinds,” said Beverly Mehl, from New York. “It’s very important to show strength, to do something and take action.”

#rally #washington dc #march for israel #national mall

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usafphantom2 · 11 months

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flickr

U1506847-5 by manhhai Via Flickr: 02 Aug 1965, In the Pacific --- Navy Pilots Walking with Fighters in Background --- Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

#Aircraft #Asian historical event #Battle #Historic event #North American historical event #People #United States historical event #Vehicle #Vietnam War #1959-1975 #Vietnamese historical event #War #flickr

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visit-new-york · 1 year

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Meadow near 91st and Central Park West

Central Park West, often abbreviated as CPW, is a prominent and prestigious avenue located along the western edge of Central Park in Manhattan, New York City. It is one of the city's most iconic and sought-after residential addresses, known for its historical significance, architectural grandeur, and cultural importance. Here are some key details about Central Park West:

Location: Central Park West runs parallel to Central Park, starting at 59th Street in the south and extending to 110th Street (also known as Cathedral Parkway) in the north. It forms the western boundary of Central Park and offers stunning views of the park's landscape.

Historical Significance: Central Park West is lined with a diverse array of architectural styles and historic buildings, many of which date back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It is often considered a showcase of New York City's architectural history.

Architectural Diversity: Along Central Park West, you'll find a mix of architectural styles, including Beaux-Arts, Renaissance Revival, Art Deco, and more. Notable buildings include The Dakota, The San Remo, The Eldorado, and The Beresford, all of which are famous for their architectural splendor and the notable residents who have called them home.

Cultural Institutions: Central Park West is home to several renowned cultural institutions, including the American Museum of Natural History, one of the largest and most prestigious natural history museums in the world. The Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) and the New-York Historical Society are also located along this avenue.

Residential Prestige: Central Park West has long been associated with luxury living. The buildings along this avenue often feature spacious apartments with park views, elegant pre-war details, and a high level of service. Many notable individuals, including celebrities and business moguls, have chosen to reside in this area.

Transportation: Central Park West is well-connected to the rest of Manhattan via public transportation. It is served by several subway lines, including the A, B, C, D, and 1 trains, making it relatively easy to access other parts of the city.

Scenic Beauty: Residents and visitors of Central Park West enjoy breathtaking views of Central Park, with its lush greenery, serene lakes, and iconic landmarks. The proximity to the park provides a sense of tranquility and natural beauty amidst the bustling city.

Cultural and Entertainment Events: Due to its proximity to Central Park and its cultural institutions, Central Park West is often a focal point for cultural and entertainment events, including parades, concerts, and film screenings.

Real Estate: Real estate along Central Park West is highly sought after and can command some of the highest prices in the city. The area is known for its co-op and condominium buildings, each with its own unique character and charm.

Historic Preservation: Many of the buildings along Central Park West are designated as New York City landmarks or are part of historic districts, ensuring their preservation and protection. This commitment to preserving the architectural heritage of the avenue contributes to its enduring charm.

Cultural Impact: Central Park West has been featured prominently in literature, film, and television, further cementing its status as an iconic New York City location. The Dakota, in particular, gained worldwide fame as the residence of John Lennon and Yoko Ono and was the site of Lennon's tragic shooting in 1980.

Parks and Recreation: In addition to Central Park itself, the avenue offers access to several smaller parks and green spaces, making it a desirable place for residents who value outdoor activities and leisure.

Educational Institutions: Central Park West is also home to some educational institutions, including the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts, renowned for its performing arts programs.

Shopping and Dining: The avenue features a mix of upscale shops, restaurants, and cafes, offering residents and visitors a range of dining and shopping options within walking distance.

Central Park West Parades: Central Park West is a popular route for parades and processions in New York City. One of the most famous parades is the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, which passes through this avenue on its way to Herald Square.

Transportation Hub: Central Park West provides convenient access to various transportation options, making it easy for residents to explore other parts of Manhattan and beyond. It's also a popular location for taxi and rideshare pick-ups.

Community and Neighborhood: The avenue is surrounded by vibrant neighborhoods, including the Upper West Side and Morningside Heights. These neighborhoods offer a mix of cultural attractions, dining, and shopping options that enhance the quality of life for those living on or near Central Park West.

In summary, Central Park West is a quintessential New York City avenue known for its historical significance, architectural beauty, cultural institutions, and luxurious residential offerings. It provides residents and visitors with a unique blend of urban living and access to the natural beauty and cultural richness of Central Park.

Central Park West remains a symbol of New York City's cultural and architectural richness, offering a blend of history, luxury, and natural beauty. Whether you're strolling along the avenue, enjoying the views of Central Park, or exploring the cultural institutions and dining options, Central Park West provides a unique and enriching experience in the heart of Manhattan.

#Meadow #Central Park #Central Park West #New York City #new york #newyork #New-York #nyc #NY #manhattan #urban #city #USA #buildings #visit-new-york.tumblr.com

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d-criss-news · 3 months

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Video: Little Shop of Horrors' Darren Criss on How Howard Ashman Is His 'Roman Empire'

youtube

Following his first week of performances as Seymour in Little Shop of Horrors Off-Broadway, Darren Criss (sporting perfectly thematic lime green nail polish) took the time to chat with Playbill about his endless enthusiasm about the role—plus, his musings on the brilliance of the academic undertones of the show's story being set to a timelessly catchy score.

"I'm just pleased as punch to be part of the legacy that is this show, not just this production, but the legacy that everybody [has] known since the 1980s," Criss shared in his interview with Playbill.

Prior to his breakout role on the musical television series Glee, Criss was known by his fans not only for his part in pioneering the viral theatre company StarKid Productions, but his YouTube covers of Alan Menken-Howard Ashman standards. For nearly two decades, Criss' deep admiration for the Ashman-Menken theatrical canon has been evident. "It's a very special show because of Howard Ashman. His fingerprint is such a huge part of my own relationship to creativity and he's been a north star in my life for as long as I can remember. As the kids say, he's my Roman Empire," Criss says, referring to a viral TikTok trend where users share the historical event they contemplate at least once a day. And now Criss is singing Menken and Ashman's songs eight times a week at the Westside Theatre, opposite longtime friend Evan Rachel Wood as Audrey.

While the Emmy winner, in some ways, admits that this long-awaited opportunity feels surreal, he is also confident in his ability to handle the material. "As a lover and ravenous consumer of the Ashman-Menken legacy, I have put in the hours of absolutely loving and being invigorated by this stuff stuff that it stands to reason that I could be here. It is surreal, but it also makes perfect sense," he shares.

With such a long-established and beloved role, countless performers have had the opportunity to leave their mark on the role of Seymour, and each interpretation offers infinite possibilities within the larger mold of the character. For Criss, his take on the character is rooted in theatre history.

"In the past few years—I don't know if it's a coincidence, and I don't know what it says about me—I seem to have played a lot of guys that are willing to do anything for greatness," muses Criss. "This is an ancient tale. I think people forget that Little Shop, for all its fun and catchiness, is a Faustian tale. All that very academic stuff is baked into this cake and I think that's why Howard Ashman was a genius. He could really toe that line between academia and accessibility...It is very smart, as fun as it is."

To see Criss' full interview with Playbill's Jeffrey Vizcaíno, watch the video above.

Criss joined the hit Off-Broadway production of Little Shop of Horrors at the Westside Theatre January 30. Wood and Criss succeeds Constance Wu and Corbin Bleu, who played their final performances in the long-running revival January 28.

Criss came to global fame on the Ryan Murphy musical television series Glee, and since appeared on Broadway in How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and most recently, American Buffalo. He is an Emmy winner and Golden Globe winner for portraying murderer Andrew Cunanan in The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story.

#darren criss #playbill #little shop of horrors bway #little shop of horrors #press #video #feb 2024

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ladyandthewalrus · 1 year

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IDV Characters and Their Birthplaces

A reasonable number of people seem to have liked my previous chart of IDV characters and their social classes/income levels, so I thought I’d whip up another charting where the characters were born.

This chart operates on a combination of canon information and reasonable speculation including historical precedent and additional info from characters’ birthday art and the real people they are based on. It is not meant to crap on headcanons in any way, just chart the likely makeup of the cast as written (also! The United Kingdom and especially England and Scotland have lots of immigrant populations from across the world, but especially other parts of Europe, Asia and Africa).

Feel free to consult the list of everyone’s class backgrounds here, keeping in mind that we are taking for granted travel across the Atlantic was out of reach for members of the lower class and we are assuming that while IDV does have fantastical elements, given the heavy focus on class differences, money (and the need/desire for it) and the desperation created by poverty in many characters’ backstories, it is taking into consideration how expensive it would be for characters to get around. So we see more characters from North America and continental Europe who are from middle and upper classes make it to the manor, with a few exceptions like, Helena.

Also important is that on a grand scale, a lot of the events in IDV intertwine extremely closely. It is a small world full of fuckery, bad science, and occultism that seems to mostly be happening centered in one area, with Oletus Manor, Lakeside, White Sand Street Asylum, the Arms Factory, and Scared Heart Hospital all located within the bounds of one unnamed county/shire in England. Baron DeRoss definitely has an extensive information network that spans continents, but plenty of the characters in the story are locally sourced, as it were.

Let’s get going!

Born in England:

♡Margaretha/Natalie/Natasha: Likely born in England. She was raised in Lakeside Village, which is a stone’s throw from Oletus Manor based on this map from one of the art books. Although here referred to as LakeView, I think it is very fair to assume the name was changed in translation or slightly altered, but is meant to be understood as the same place, as many important in-game locations are in close proximity to each other and the water from Lakeside has unusual properties used in experiments by various parties at other lore-significant locations. Her uncle’s family is poor, so she was probably not born far from Lakeside. In terms of her ethnic background, her deductions mention her family eating borscht, so they probably hail from Eastern Europe originally. Her uncle’s surname, Hayward is English, and her adopted surname Zelle is Dutch and German.

♡Freddy: Freddy was present at Emma/Lisa’s first birthday party, suggesting a long friendship with Leo and having lived in the unnamed shire/town a long time too. He also makes several classist and xenophobic comments throughout the diaries of his manor group and is noted by the experimenters in his recent birthday letter to buy into Victorian England’s stratified class system and contempt for the poor. The Riley surname originates specifically from Yorkshire and Lancashire in England.

♡Memory/ Alice: Born in England to a noble father. Although the accents of the characters as portrayed by voice actors in English are really inconsistent, with the English Emma having an American accent, it is worth noting that both Memory’s narration in the Season 19, Essence 1 trailer, Alice’s words to Orpheus in Time of Reunion, and the off-screen voice of her mother in-game during Time of Reunion all make use of upper-class English accents. The surname DeRoss is an anglicized version of a Dutch surname.

♡Emily/Lydia: Emily is partially based on the English serial killer of infants, Amelia Dyer. She also worked early in her career at several locations on the map attached above, making it likely she was born somewhere not too far away. Her family is middle class, meaning she could reasonably be from anywhere in the United Kingdom as members of the middle class could move around within adjoining countries with relative ease. The surnames Jones and Dyer are both English.

♡Robbie: As an orphan taken to what became White Sand Asylum, he would have been from the surrounding area. His surname White is either English, Scottish, or Irish in origin.

♡Emma/Lisa+Leo: Leo’s ill-fated factory was located in the town directly by Oletus Manor. Given the timeline of events, with him burning the factory down when Emma was 10-11, Emma at least was probably born in this English town. The Beck surname is common in English and Slavic-speaking countries, and Woods is an English surname.

♡William: he is based off the real life Englishman William Ellis who is credited, perhaps erroneously, with creating Rugby, which did at least originate in England in 1845. The surname Ellis is Welsh and English.

♡Kreacher: as an impoverished orphan, Kreacher would not have traveled much, and there is almost no way he was born somewhere other than the contagious United Kingdom in terms of logistics. His surname Pierson is also English.

♡Tracy: If her father Mark’s clock shop being included/ referenced in the Chinatown map is anything to go off of, Tracy was probably born in England, as many major cities in the United Kingdom have Chinatowns but most are in England. Her surname, Reznik is Czech.

♡Grace: She's a foundling that washed into Lakeside, so must have originated in the surrounding area to an extent. Her surname is unknown, both in terms of her birth and adoptive parents.

♡Kurt: Explicitly stated to have been born in Yorkshire, England. Frank is a German surname.

Born in Scotland:

♡Norton: Campbell is one of the most common surnames in Scotland, originating in the borderlands between England and Scotland. Two interesting things of note about the name 1) it means crooked-mouth, and Norton’s official art features him with a half-smile, half-frown, and 2) Clan Campbell is, to this day, not well thought of and considered to be full of violent backstabbers, which is also apt seeing as he is willing to resort to violence and trickery to get ahead in life. Norton’s skin Stray Poet/Troubadour also has him sporting the Clan Campbell Tartan (thank you @tallemy in the IDV lore discord for pointing that out). His birthday art from 2022 also features a map of the Scottish Highlands, and Scotland is known to be rich in mineral wealth, and thus, mining operations.

♡Percy: based on the character of Victor Frankenstein, who while Swiss in the novel, was based on the real-life Scottish scientists Andrew Ure and James Lind. For Percy to be getting corpses from Andrew, who is snatching them from an United Kingdom cemetery, it’s reasonable to think he is in the United Kingdom too, and he is a colleague of Burke, who is has been woking in England for decades..

Born in Wales:

♡Eli: His deductions and letters mention the character of Brooke Rose, a mistranslation of the name Blodeuwedd, a famous character from Welsh mythology, which tends to be fairly obscure. His surname, Clark, is generic and found throughout the United Kingdom.

Born in Ireland:

♡Keigan: The Clerk is partially based on the unpopular Irish judge and politician William Keogh. Again, although the accents employed in video materials are inconsistent, she clearly has an Irish accent in her English character trailer. Her surname Keogh is Irish through and through.

Born somewhere in the United Kingdom or British Isles:

♡Martha: Or at least “Martha” is passing herself off as the British Martha. The ideal of the “angel in the house” and Victorian womanhood Martha Behamfil fought against is inexorably tied to British class and gender values. Behamfil is likely a bastardization of Beham, which is an English surname by way of the Normans.

♡Fiona: Very little is known about Fiona’s background, but her given name is Celtic. The surname Gilman is also English with Norman origins.

♡Melly: She stared as a domestic servant at a manor, likely somewhere in the United Kingdom. As such, she was probably born in the United Kingdom, as the pitifully low wages of housemaids would make international travel legitimately impossible. Her surname before marriage, Ndlovu, suggests her father’s family hails from South Africa or Zimbabwe.

♡ Ann: she comes from a wealthy family that falls within the geographical range of influence of the cat cult. Her family own pastoral land where sheep graze, and sheep are in many ways the stereotypical livestock of the United Kingdom. Her surname is not known.

♡Bane: if he's working as a gamekeeper, he’s likely from the area around Oletus and knows the land well. Perez is a Spanish surname extremely common in the United States and Mexico, but also sometimes in Peru and even France.

♡Mike: A circus foundling and adoptee, he was probably locally sourced by Bernard. Morton is an English and Scottish surname.

♡Emil: Another character who would not have ranged far due to his extreme poverty, who was found near White Sand Asylum in a delirious state. His family surname is unknown, and the name Emil itself is popular broadly across continental Europe, and offers no clues.

♡Violetta: a circus foundling, based on a German performer, Violetta Wagner but probably abandoned somewhere in the United Kingdom unless the Hullabaloo and her prior employer/foster father/owner Max had international reach. The actual historical Violetta had living relatives and traveled with them.

♡Aesop: His given name is Greek (and honestly a very unique choice on the part of his mum). His Once skin previously including the Italian word for shame/disgrace, vergogna, is probably a reference to him going to an elite academy in that timeline, as many upper-class British boy’s schools included Latin, Italian, Greek etc in their curriculums. His letters to his teammates during his manor game are impeccably written, suggesting English is his first language. The surname of his foster father, Carl, is German, but the surnames of his birth parents are unknown.

♡Andrew: Scottish Andrew theory here, and more broadly, Laz/Luz/Lutz Cemetery is within train ride distance from Oletus Manor, making it in England, Scotland or Wales. Given his childhood landlord is buried in that cemetery, he has to have been born in one of these countries too. His German surname, Kreiss, makes plenty of sense, as Germans are one of the largest ethnic groups in the United Kingdom.

♡Orpheus: His parents were park rangers/ groundskeepers employed by the English DeRoss family. We do no know his given name and surname, as Orpheus is a nickname/alias.

♡Ada: Ada and her father are based on the German doctor and scientist Franz Mesmer. It is highly likely Ada was born in England, given her father practiced there, and she came across Emil begging on the street when they were both children in the vicinity of the unarmed town so discussed in this post. The surname Mesmer is German.

♡Murro: A circus foundling and adoptee, he was probably locally sourced by Bernard. Morton is an English and Scottish surname.

♡Luca: 100% ethnically Serbian, based on his being heavily based on Nikola Tesla, and his favorite dish, ajvar, coming from the Balkans. Active in the United Kingdom during his time working with Alva, who in turn knew his father as a young man, since the cat cult is linked to the events around the manor, Lakeside, and Golden Cave, all of which are in England. His surname, which is translated as Balsa but probably meant to be Balzer or Balzac, is Austrian.

♡Weepy/Joker: another circus foundling. He has no known surname and no proper first name either.

♡Alva: based on Thomas Alva Edison, an American with Dutch heritage. Alva and Herman, and then Luca, were working on their invention somewhere in the United Kingdom given that the cat cult got their hands so easily on Alva’s corpse. Lorenz is a German, Dutch and Spanish surname.

♡Will Brothers: orphans and circus foundlings. Their surname is German, and they don't possess given first names.

♡Luchino: fluent enough in English to conduct lectures at a college in England, and able to get to the manor by train. The surname Diruse is a nonsense name like Behamfil, but is probably a corruption of DeRossi, which, like his given name, is Italian. It is a given thing in IDV that to be Italian is to be cursed by a supernatural entity.

♡Burke: I think I’ve heard speculation that Burke is based on the Canadian architect Edmund Burke, but there aren’t many definitive pieces of evidence pointing to this besides the name Burke and a connection with architecture; the connection is a lot weaker than with other characters inspires by real people. Lapadura is allegedly (?) Sicilian, but a very rare surname.

♡Victor: His family seems to have been poor based on his dialogue in the Autumn Letter event. His favorite dish (and Luchino’s too) is Steak Diane, which was invented in London anachronistically in the 1930s. Grantz is a German surname

♡Edgar: One of the few characters I can only tentatively guess about, falling into this category simply because so many of the characters are British. One of the artists Edgar is based on, Edouard Manet, was French. The surname Valden is apparently Russian, though very rare. Perhaps, perhaps, he is indeed French, and as none of the other participants of his game (José, Vera, Kevin, and Patricia) are British, they’d all be outsiders, in a sense.

♡Lucky: he is just some poor guy dressed like a 90′s kids sitcom character. I don't know. Also probably from Britain because almost everyone is.

♡BonBon: honorary inclusion. He is whatever his dad Burke is. A little Sicilian-British robot?

♡Galatea: Galatea is partially based on Camille Claudel, who was French, but she was likely born in Britain. She and her family are in the same social circles as the British Baron DeRoss, and she is mentioned to be considering traveling to Florence and Paris, which would be viable given her family’s wealth and not worthy of note if she did live in France already.

Born in Belgium:

♡Servais: Based on the real magician Servais LeRoy, who did spend a good part of his career in Britain. LeRoy is a surname specifically from northern France.

Born in Spain:

♡José Baden: He has a surpassingly common Spanish name and his favorite food is Paella. His family’s shipping activities saw them sailing frequently through the Mediterranean Sea. The surname Baden has Danish origins.

Born in Germany:

♡Jack: IDV’s version of Jack is heavily based on one of the candidates for Jack the Ripper’s identity, the artist Walter Sickert, who was born in Germany but grew up in England from the age of 8 onwards. Sickert is a fairly uncommon German surname.

Born in Austria:

♡Frederick: A HUGE number of composers and musicians were active in Austria, and specifically Vienna, in the 19th century. Frederick is mentioned in his deceptions as departing from Vienna for Paris, making it likely he and his family lived there, given his father was a famous musician. Many of them were from Polish or Hungarian families. Kreiberg appears to be German, as there’s a very similar German surname Kreisberg.

♡Marie Antoinette/Maria Antonia/Mary: This applies more to the historical Marie, as canon material suggests Hunter Mary is a woman experiencing delusions of being Marie Antoinette. Although Queen of France, she was born in Austria and lived there for the first 14 years of her life.

Born in France:

♡Joseph: fled France with his family. Joseph is confirmed to be largely based on the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, who even had a brother named Claude. Desauliners is a French surname that is much more common in Canada than France.

♡Vera/Chloe: Vera hails from the French town of Grasse, a hotspot in the perfume industry. Nair is apparently (?) a Scottish surname, of all things.

♡Philippe: he is based on Philippe Curtis, a surgeon and wax artist. In his debut trailer, the map projected behind his sister shows his voyage beginning in what is either Eastern France or the Western edge of Switzerland. Surname unknown.

Born in Italy:

♡Antonio: he is based on the Italian violinist Niccolò Paganini. A celebrity musician would be internationally mobile and welcome at courts across Europe. His 2022 letter speaks of his lover, Andrea, who also has an Italian given name. His actual surname is unknown, as he is never referred to as Paganini in canon materials.

Born in Czechoslovakia/ The Czech Republic:

♡Annie: her mother was a British socialite, and her father a Czech painter. Her favoring of unconventional traditional dress despite being part of the upper class indicates she feels closer to her Czech, rather than British heritage, and as such likely grew up in proximity to other ethnically Czech people, as I doubt she would have access to that side of her culture as much had she grown up in the United Kingdom. Her 2022 birthday letter also lists her inheritance from her mother in British pounds, which would be odd to do when writing to someone who was also in Britain, as it could be assumed that was the currency in question. Her favorite food is Czech sausage. Lester is an English, not Czech surname, and it’s possible Annie identifies by her mother’s maiden name as a fuck you to her dreadful father.

Born in the United States:

♡Helena Adams: Based on the American activist and scholar Helen Keller. Her international travel was likely facilitated by Sullivan, as her family is not wealthy. The Adams surname is Scottish and English.

♡Patricia: abandoned as a baby in New Orleans, Patricia was technically born at sea and could count as being from Haiti as much as the United States. She is very loosely inspired by Voodoo practitioner and herbalist Marie Laveau, who was of French, Black and Native American heritage. The surname she shares with her adoptive mother, Dorval, is French.

♡Kevin: his friend childhood Angelica was a member of the Great Sioux Nation, who since the 19th century have lived for the most part in the Midwestern states of North and South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and Nebraska. His Spanish surname indicates Spanish and possibly Mexican heritage as well, given many cowboys and farmers were mestizo.

♡Demi: Demi’s birthday materials include a ferry ticket for a vessel traveling from New York, suggesting she lives in the United States. In terms of gameplay, she doesn't give drinks to underage characters due to strict censorship, but as a lore explanation, it would make sense that (although anachronistic by a good few decades) a European would not have any problem with giving someone under the age of 21 alcohol, but an American character may be stricter about drinking age. The surname Bourbon is French.

Born in India:

♡Ganji: explicitly confirmed to have been born in India. The Gupta surname comes from Northern India.

Born in Nepal:

♡Naib: again, explicitly confirmed. The great question is how a mercenary from the Himalayas wound up in England carrying out assassinations. We only know him by his alias, and have no idea what his given and family names might be.

Born in China:

♡ Shiyi/Yao: the daughter of a Chinese noble. Given that Shiyi came to Oletus to find her partner, Si, I also wonder how Si wound up involved in the dealings of an English manor in the first place and how the pair came to Baron DeRoss’ attention given the vast distance. The Xiao surname is ancient, originating between 770 to 476 BC, and is very common today in China.

♡ Bi’an + Wujiu: based on Heibai Wuchang, Chinese folk deities. Their in-game lore has them as two former government officers. Fan is a very common surname in China and Vietnam, and Xie ie even more common.

Born in Japan:

♡Michiko: Born in Japan, and moved to England with Miles Donnelly. His surname is Irish, but given that Michiko’s corpse was disposed of by the Female Dancer’s uncle Eugene Hayward at Lakeside, she must have lived nearby with Miles.

🌙🌙They Came from Space 🌙🌙

♡Yidhra: an Outer God, a being in the Lovecraftian mythos defined as originating from outside our solar system. She has been on earth a long, long time, however.

♡Hastur: a Great Old One, a deity that is based on Earth but, according to his original lore, has been active on other plantets, as the work he is most closely associated with, the King in Yellow, features mentions of the city Carcosa, an extraterrestrial location associated with Hastur.

TLDR: almost everything is happening in one little area! Almost all of these people got rained on a lot and are serious about tea time. I regret using the heart symbol as a bullet point because truly there are some characters on this list I would not piss on if they were on fire, but I value aesthetic consistency and there are a few individuals on this list I would cook a four-course meal for (It’s Andrew. I want to feed him. I want him to eat a lot and then take a really quality nap). I hope all my links work. Thank you for taking the time to read this far. ♡♡♡

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thatscarletflycatcher · 5 months

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I am extremely interested in your draft/post about Downton Abbey and the timeline 👀

Important disclaimer: I was never in the fandom of the series, so I'm completely ignorant as to word of god and fanon, and might have forgotten some details of the plot as the years have passed since I watched.

*video essay voice* (bear with me) in 1980, British playwright Peter Flannery, while watching rehearsals for Henry IV, felt inspired to write his own historical epic, a Shakespearean sort of short History of his native Newcastle from the 60s to the present, interweaving the personal History of 4 "friends" with the big historical events of Britain through those years, to create a strong political narrative through them, but that was life-like enough in its everyday life details and turns as to feel real. The characters deal with their desire to change the world, achieve success, recognition, or even just survive, and experience hope and hopelessness by turns*

This theater play, called Our Friends in the North, caught the eye of the BBC, and after several back-and-forths it was adapted into 9 episodes in 1996. It was a big bet (it cost 8 million pounds to produce) and a big hit, and I do get the gut feeling that in some corner, the first season of Downton is inspired in OFITN as a concept, a sort of Our Freenemies in Yorkshire, but that its own success derailed it into a different direction, and made it Edwardian-Roaring 20s Aristofairytaleland, the same way Regency Romance tends to take place on a Regency Fairytale land full of dukes and none of the social, economical and political problems of the time.

S1 of DA hinges around the "Death of the old world" theme: it opens with its first marker (the sinking of the Titanic) and closes with the last marker (the beginning of the Great War). The central plot is that of the survival of Downton as a place and an institution -the kickstart is the death of James and Patrick aboard the Titanic, and the next heir presumptive being a middle class lawyer, an outsider to the aristocracy. The old, dying aristocracy, managed to patch up their situation by marrying rich American heiresses, like Cora, but it doesn't have any vitality for the future: the heir (Robert and Cora's son) is born dead. The question then is "can the aristocracy make a bridge with the raising professional middle class, merge with it in order to gain new life?" that's what Matthew's plotline this season is all about, specially in his growing and changing relationship with Robert and Mary (who are the epitome representatives of the aristocracy, with lady Violet): there is a small seed of aspiration that grows through the season, but gets quashed once he realizes that as much as he has grown to care for the Crowleys, they haven't really grown to care for him as anything but an uncomfortable necessity. And so he leaves. And the Great War begins. No compromise can be reached, the old world is dead.

I don't think I say anything controversial when I say that Fellowes and Downton as a series loves Mary with undying devotion; she gets a second chance at Matthew in s2 that she wouldn't have gotten IRL, and she would have kept Matthew forever if the actor didn't want out. And I think Dan Stevens wanting out (and Jessica Brown's to a certain extent), and as much as he can say within the bounds of politeness, has a lot to do with a sense that the series he signed up for was not the series he ended up being in on the follow up seasons. Matthew, who was a central character to the main plot of the series in s1, now gravitates Mary's storylines, because that pressing conflict of the inheritance is solved, and he can be disposed of as soon as he produces a male heir without causing any plot-ripples. A story about Downton the house as anchoring to class conflicts and point of connection with big events becomes a story of Mary and her relatives with Downton as a mainly aesthetic backdrop as s2 progresses (yes, yes, every once in a while some lip service is given to "money troubles" and having to downsize, but it's just... that).

As seasons progress, as well, the historical markers to open and close a season disappear, and so do... general historical events at all. The story gets atomized and more and more separated from History, and "the old world is dying" theme vanishes.

So, now, on this premise (that Downton S1 and Downton s2-6 are different animals, with different core themes and structures) where do I think a true continuation of S1 would have gone?

Mind you, I haven't plotted five series to detail, because I'm not that invested. But also it feels like DA the series itself started running out of plot after s4 anyways, so, in general lines:

The same way OFITN did (episodes were each set on a different year: 64, 66, 67, 70, 74, 79, 84, 87, 95) every series would have a time skip that would tie in with bigger scale events in Britain and the world (the end of the Great War, the Spanish Flu, the crack of 29', etc), and in my mind I would have it cover until the late 1940s: the series begins with a middle aged Robert and Cora, and ends with a middle-aged next generation.

Matthew does actually marry Lavinia, and takes William with him as they bonded in the war, and goes back to his job. They try to keep their distance from Downton, but, of course they keep getting drawn in because of the inheritance.

Matthew's marriage to Lavinia means a vital wake-up call for Mary: she -and by extension the aristocracy- cannot always get what she wants, even though her name and status carry a lot of importance. But she also experiences new freedom because her choice of husband has now no influence on the fate of the estate. I think she'd choose to travel a lot, in ways that would widen her mental horizons and change her feelings and perspective about her family. I even feel like her marrying Henry Talbot in the end makes sense; she remains ever the aristocrat (although I'd think she'd marry later, probably past her mid-30s, a spirit of the new times).

Sybil's storyline remains the same, minus death (in this scheme, the core characters that thread the timeline are the Crawley sisters AND Matthew), but she never returns to Downton to stay, and it is through her and her visits that we do get the perspectives and storylines of the process of independence for Ireland, and her complicated position as wife of an Irish man but daughter of a British earl. You can even get stories in the later years storylines like Marygold trying to run to Ireland and her aunt after WWII breaks.

A similar thing goes for Edith; if Mary is and makes the choice of aristocracy, and Sybil makes the choice of a working class life, then Edith embodies a commercial-professional upper middle class aspiration (in fact, I do think that her punching-bag status in the series has a lot to do with Fellowes derision of that class), so it makes sense for her to do most of the things she does towards her place in life; just cut some of the drama and no sudden marquess nonsense in the end. Edith and Bertie marry and remain successful editors/printers/periodical owners.

As for the house itself, of course Matthew inherits (you could set Robert's death for 1929, and then have a Lavinia inheritance save the estate after Robert's failed investments like it goes in s1). I do think this lends itself to interesting dynamics, specially with the servants, considering the aristocratic head is gone and the Great War significantly changed the self-image of the serving class, plus the return of William now in a much more privileged place; but also with Cora as the new Dowager and Lavinia as the new Lady Grantham. How do the children adapt to their new home and status? How did their parents conduct their upbringing? I think you can do a lot there (I'd assume just two children, a boy and a girl).

I do also think it'd be interesting to contrast the rising tensions in the 30s as Mary perceives them through her continental travels -I can imagine Henry Talbot joining the foreign service and getting at least obliquely involved in spy shenanigans- and Edith through her very localized work.

The Kingsmen movies play with this idea of WWI creating a generation of fathers who buried their sons and had to take their places. The Crawleys escape this by having only daughters, so I think it is fitting for Matthew and Lavinia's son to die in WWII, and for the daughter to become a war bride and move to the US, as the centre of power moves from the UK to the US.

Downton, more and more difficult to maintain as the years pass, cannot survive the economic blow of WWII, and Mathew and Lavinia, now middle aged, don't have the energy and vitality to begin again; and so they make an arrangement with the just-founded National Trust after the war ends: the main part of the house becomes a museum, but they still get a part of it to live in. I think, after a family reunion tea/party to wrap things up, you can have as a symbolic last shot, a close up of Matthew's hand as he turns over the keys to the Downton gates to the National Trust agent, CUT TO BLACK AND THE DOWNTON ABBEY THEME.

So, hm, that's pretty much it. Please do not maul me to death XD

*While I think the series was very well written, I'd hesitate to recommend it here as there was too much explicit nudity and sexual content for my taste and that of many people here. The 2022 radio adaptation seems to be faithful to the original tv series and avoid that problem, but of course you lose on the other visuals that are quite impressive (and believe me, besides some awkward wigs and make up, they really did blow up that 8 million pound budget in many ways).

#ask #dhufflebee #Downton Abbey #Downton Abbey critical #meta

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