&&. announcing his royal highness, ( johannes von grünenberg ), the ( 31) year old ( prince ) of ( switzerland ). he is often confused with ( jannis niewöhner ). some say that he is (fatalistic, aimless), but he is actually ( steadfast, magnanimous ).
{ what a lonely way to lie - a tragic tracklist for a wanderer }
All I Need - Daniel Blake || Hymn for the Weekend - Coldplay || How Do You Feel? - The Maine || After You’ve Gone - Judy Garland || Taker - K.I.D || Aristocrats - Raleigh Ritchie || Treacherous Doctor - Wallows || Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus || Fragile State of Mind - The 1975 || Feelings - Lennon Stella || Hit My Line - Logic || India - Alexandra Stan (ft. Kent Archie) || Box in a Heart - The Maine & renforshort ||
Name: Johannes Fredrick Elias Von Grunenberg
Birthday: Thursday, June 27, 1991
Age: 31
Astro Sign: Cancer
Station: Prince of Swizterland, Duke of Bern
Marital Status: Married
Fun facts: (TW: Depression, OCD)
Hans has a diagnosis of clinical depression and OCD. This doesn’t define his life but it definitely throws a kink in his ability to cope with the loss of his father and his exile. He is currently in online therapy. He prefers it this way because he finds talking to someone that close (in the same room) would be too intimate an act.
Hans is a jokester within his family who uses humor as a way to mask his sorrows. He is very kind and loving but has since closed himself off to the world.
If he doesn’t know you, he is very standoffish and often very aloof. Painfully quiet when he is upset or unsure of a situation.
The best way to keep his mind busy is to be physical. He likes to work out in the gym, go skiing, and spar with Klaus for funsies.
Hans can speak five languages fluently: French, German, English, Italian, and Japanese. He went through an anime phase back in Uni and picked it up as a side hobby. He knows a few others but not in the sense of speaking comfortably for long periods of time.
Hans and Ren are very much like irish twins (born so close in age) the two basically bonded like twins. Ren is the only sibling who Hans feels like he can pour all of his feelings into without being a burden. The only secret he has ever kept from Ren was the subject of his exile.
During his exile in Paris, Hans had thoughts of following in his uncle’s footsteps as a disruptor and potentially lay claim to the throne but that withered with time.
One of the better memories from Paris, Hans was able to be an adjunct professor in one of the smaller educational institutions and he loved every second of it.
Hans attended Oxford but isn’t as forthcoming in flaunting the fact that he followed in Max’s footsteps.
Hans is riddled in tattoos, all in places that you can’t see unless he shows you. He considered getting a neck tattoo but knew it would send his mother into an early grave.
Biography
Johannes “Hans” Von Grunenberg can be called many things: Prince of Switzerland, duke of bern, black sheep; more notably: second born and first scorned. Born under the luminescent glow of a penumbral lunar eclipse, he has been steeped in the inky darkness of the unknown before the light trickled back along the rolling horizon in Geneva. Johannes, the second born son, sat as a failsafe and a replacement if anything were to go awry with the rearing of the next heir to the Swiss throne. His father never stated that precedent but the world had always brandished Hans position as such; his uncle only played on this notion throughout his childhood. Hans didn’t mind much that he was predestined to follow the tails of Max’s coat because he simply wished to be included in the grand adventure played out in the deep reds and gold. For the most part, Max had been the best big brother one could be before the walls came crashing in. Their father’s death marked a shift in the family dynamic that never quite set correctly; a broken bond riddled with weakness and doubt.
Hans’s sense of camaraderie had been turned on him with Max’s departure. Both young men needed to reflect the values of their country with the crown shaping their futures. Hans comfortably skated on following the framework laid out by Max. Whatever he did, Hans strived to do better. The fires of competition fanned for the greater part of their adolescents and into young adulthood. There was no reaching Max on an emotional level but he obtained some form of reaction by vexing the young man. Unbeknownst to him, at the time, this need to one up Max came from the belly of their uncle who wished to obtain power through him. The voyeurism and greed set Hans on a course that would alter the very fabric of his being and the relationship between brothers. His unlikely kinship with their uncle and the overcasting doubt of a secret discovered but never professed forced Hans into exile on Max’s order. Despite their unspoken competition, Hans faithfully hung off his brother’s word and would never stray from his loyalty. If he played his cards right, maybe just maybe, Max would join hands with him once more and they’d be brothers instead of rivals.
Hans excelled in school. It had been the only place he ever felt seen. His brilliance came from the vast words written by dead poets and scholars who came before him. Much to no one’s surprise, he followed Max’s footsteps in attending Oxford and obtained his Juris Doctor in Law. Hans knew he would never see inside of a courtroom in his lifetime, the limits of being a prince, but he loved the order of law. He desired being able to teach it to University students looking to make a change in the world. He felt the most at home behind the field of browning pages. He could escape himself in there and be whomever he wished to be.
Unfortunately, that was a latent dream smothered out under the guise of a “greater” Switzerland. An unrivaled ascension to power that couldn’t be tainted by Hans presence in the country. Taking his leave, Hans found himself in the pleated folds of silk and tulle in the heart of the Parisian experience. Paris opened a new world to a woeful man and garnered love that always seemed out of reach from his mother and older brother. Hans became a bit of a recluse diving into his only safe space, academia, while flirting with danger. Manon marked the start and end of an emotional expansion within the stoic young man. He loved her with every inch of him, despite the holes in his fortitude, only to be denied the same love back. Manon broke him into frayed pieces and cemented that sense of listlessness. He couldn’t even keep it together in a new city with people who didn’t know him as a younger man. Hans left Paris to return to Geneva. He resigned himself to the whims of the crown, waiting for the next string of directives while keeping an eye on the younger ones. The spaces where Max couldn’t connect, Hans happily filled the void. He fielded every issue, woe, and growing pain each one had experienced with a smile. He was the brother that one would call from a jail cell to discreetly bail them out; big brother was a job he took very seriously.
Acting dutifully, Hans made the decision to marry. He grew tired of the mindless matchmaking and conversations about when he would be next to follow Max’s footsteps. He wasn’t getting any younger but his heart didn’t seem interested in loving anyone else. The welsh princess kicked through his chest and left him hollow. By an act of God or cosmic humor, Hans drank himself into a stupor once night and stumbled into the throes of a majestic woman serving out her own personal exile. Enthralled by her charisma and the prospect of a mutually beneficial courtship, Hans proposed to her on the promise that he would allow her to continue to live how she wished with all of the protections of his station. Ascending to Duke of Bern, Hans hopes to be able to provide shelter for his wife’s own plans to overthrow the opposition in her own family and regain her place in line for power. Hans is well aware that when this happens, their marriage will dissolve but he doesn’t mind it.
