#valkrya

valkrya.   art deco buildings.  jazz bands playing in hidden speakeasies.  the glint of gun metal.  fresh heartbreak.  fur coats and high heels.  coming of age.  a belief in true love.  the grey between good and bad.  sky blue eyes.  running across empty fields.  snowfall on a winter’s night.  fast cars and motorbikes.

cursed queen.   dark forests filled with secrets.  escaping from your past.  finding a magic within yourself.  beauty in wisdom.  thoughtful eyes watching the world go by.  learning to be loved.  light winning over dark.  recovering from a wound in your past.  rushing rivers and mountain ranges.  true tranquillity.

deus.   hidden magic. thunderstorms and lightning. the love of a family. loyalty above all. the power of youth. discovering your destiny.  prayers to dead gods.  blooming roses in the winter.  safety among friends.  defiance of the odds.  a wicked smile. mysterious dreams. everything is clearer in the eye of the storm.

where foxes say goodnight.   ancient cities.  grey skies and rainy days.  an obsession with times long gone.  the mystery of the past.  being a part of something greater than yourself.  refusing to take orders.  science on the mind.  dark masks and unbreathable air.  the freedom in being lost.  quick and cunning.

rules: pick a character from your wip and have them answer these 15 questions and then tag 15 people 

tagged by @liiwet. i’ll be doing this for avery williamson who appears in valkrya but features more prominently in deus as a sort of mentor figure to helen just because i haven’t talked much about them before. (the tag game is written in a interview format so that’s what I’m going with. also there aren’t actually 15 questions but i don’t think that matters much).

rules: list your wips and explain how you came up with their names. if your wip is unnamed, what are you thinking of calling it? then tag some people ✨

DEUS = it literally just means “god” in latin. ignoring the fact it makes no sense as latin doesn’t even exist in my fantasy world, I maybe wouldn’t have chosen this name if I knew it was also the name of a popular clothing brand.

VALKRYA = when I made this wip as an edgy 11-year-old I just thought valkyries were cool and ended up naming half the main characters and the setting after them. it doesn’t really mean much now, it just sounds cool.

CURSED QUEEN = I named this wip before I drastically changed pretty much everything about it. the main character used to be an actual queen with a curse on her, but no longer. I am now desperately trying to cram some sort of queen who is cursed into the story.

oh!! I love this question especially seeing as I’ve been writing a sort of modern au for some of the characters recently!! thanks so much for asking it :)

luna would run the family company (that does something… business-y) after her mother steps down and meets maria through the professional world because she works as a finance/banking lawyer. their relationship is as rocky as it is in valkrya and isn’t helped the homophobia of our world, but they make it there in the end. 

nicolai also works at luna’s company, which is how they become friends and how angelica and nicolai meet. I’m not totally sure on what angelica’s modern career would be? in valkrya she’s obviously a soldier, except that doesn’t translate well to our world seeing as she only joins the army due to war going on (I don’t think she’s the sort of person to become a soldier… just cause. it’s not like she enjoyed fighting at all). for some reason artist is coming into mind? or author? she’s a creative type, I think. when she and nicolai move in together they live in the most beautifully-decorated flat and have the entire cast around for dinner at least once every two weeks. 

nerism and marise are both journalists (the dying trade, but it’s what they’ve chosen), working at the same company. inferna is in entertainment somehow, I imagine? an actress maybe, I feel like that would suit her. anyway, she and nerism meet the first time in one of those classic romance film moments where they just run into each other on the street and it’s really cute, but of course they don’t know each other’s names and they don’t think they’ll ever meet again. but then nerism is given the job of interviewing her (because like I said she’s some sort of entertainment personality) and their relationship develops from there. 

aquilla is a scientist, I feel like? even though in valkrya she’s a war nurse, I don’t think without those circumstances she’d choose to go into medicine because she is not a fan of  blood or y’know, doctor stuff. I can imagine her as a biologist or a neuroscientist or any other science-y thing. she meets marise through inferna and nerism’s relationship. 

luna is pro airpods and doesn’t get why maria keeps telling her to not use them (“but they’re far more practical!” “please lu I’m begging you”). inferna would not be caught dead using airpods and struggles greatly with the fact that nerism uses them. she and marise band together in this and are somewhat successful in getting him to get rid of them (“nerism for once I agree with your girlfriend and if you don’t take them out right this instant I will be forced to take physical action”). aquilla has an android. neither angelica or nicolai are particularly opinionated about airpods and they are not about to try arguing about something technological they don’t quite understand with the younger ones (most inferna, queen of style and social sense that she is). 

Thank you!

The Countries of Valkrya

The first side is Valkrya, ofc, which isn’t a huge country (probably about the size of France or similar). They’re in the central continent of this fantasy world (which is sort of connected to the eastern continent, but only by unlivable tundra), which is known as a pretty cool mix of cultures from all the surrounding places. Valkrya is the most powerful country on that continent, mostly because of resources and historically they were the first established country. They have alliances with the other country on the continent Papillia, a smaller country (there is another “country” on that continent - Aysgarth - but it’s sort of similar to the idea of the Vatican City, it’s just a very small religious territory). They also have an alliance with Terra (that’s the Palpryan (Papillian-Valkryan) name, locals there call it something different) which is the largest country on the western continent. By the beginning of the novel though, Valkrya has begun to lose much of its power due to poor economic decisions and is much weaker than it was before.

The other country, the one who actually started the war, is Impes. Impes is generally viewed as “the bad country” by a lot of the world’s population after a history of violence and has no alliances because of it. Nearly 200 years before the events of Valkrya, Impes invaded Terra (from the western side, travelling across the mostly empty sea there and avoiding the Valkrya/Papillia continent). This was nothing but a territory and power grab, done so at that time because Terra had a newly formed parliament and was still getting its footing. Luckily they were able to beat back their invaders, with some help ultimately for the (then) Palpryan Allied Forces who were able to make it across the ocean in time for the final fighting. After returning home the losers, Impes was hit with severe political repercussions such as the ending on trade and so on. For nearly 200 years they struggled on, with some efforts made by other countries to help the lower classes there (who were generally screwed over for the sake of the nobility) that rarely succeeded. At the beginning of Valkrya, the king of Impes recognises the political strife Valkrya is in and decides that after years of spending nearly all the government’s money on military they are ready to try invasion again. Most of Impes’ nobility are greedy opportunists and supported this move. Impes does not actually enforce conscription in most areas but there is a lot of anger among the public who don’t really realise that their own government is the cause of their problems due to propaganda. When Impes declares war on Valkrya, Terra, now thriving, agrees to help them fight. They are met with some resistance from Papillia however, as they are recovering from disease and are indecisive about entering a war. I should mention that Impes’ government is just the king and the nobles, whereas the other countries all have parliaments and sometimes monarchs.