#gisla and rollo

[theancientwise]

On second thoughts, it's better that they ended Valhalla by season 3...

Because without these two, their interactions verbal and non verbal, their glances of love, understandment and complicity, it wouldn't be worth it.

[incorrectvikings]

Gisla: My standards are very high.

Ragnar, looking at Rollo: I doubt that.

[gudvina]

normans + the crown of ceasar

[bouncehousedemons]

Writhing Bloom

My entry for day three of @vikingsevents Valentine's week prompts. Day three is first date.

Pairing: Rollo x Gisla Warnings: None, unless you count fluff. Word count: ~500

Rollo paces the length of the dining hall nervously. He has faced countless warriors fearlessly on the battlefield and yet this, this moment strikes genuine fear into his heart. What if Gisla does not like it? What if she laughs and all of this has been for naught?

Fresh cut wildflowers adorn the table, their aroma made headier by the candles that flicker beside them. He has ordered the finest of wine to be pulled from the cellars. His cup sits half empty already, a much needed elixir to soothe his nerves.

He knows that Gisla did not get a say in their marriage, she was treated as a mere prize for his cooperation with Francia. Such a large part of their union has been strained under the weight of her unhappiness, she had despised him. He has worked hard to earn her affections, changed every part of himself, even given up his sacred arm ring. 

Their first kiss was a more satisfying victory than any battle he’d ever won. Rollo’s history with the fairer sex was not an admirable one. His heart twists painfully when he thinks back on Siggy. She had died not knowing how he truly felt for her, because had never shown her, let alone told her. He would not make the same mistake with Gisla. Their coupling may not have had a happy beginning, but he would make sure she never doubted his feelings for her.

As she sweeps into the room, long dark hair flowing in soft waves past her shoulders, his breath is taken away; just the same as it was the day they first locked eyes over the ramparts during the attack on Paris. However, this time when Gisla looks at him her gaze does not burn with contempt, there is something softer in her expression. If Rollo did not know any better he would mistake it for love.

She smiles as she takes in the scene before her, gratefully accepting the wine cup that Rollo offers to her. “What is all this?” She asks softly.

Rollo has never been one to be bashful and yet he finds himself nervous. Gods, Rollo, you’ve fucked her already. Why is this so difficult?!

He averts his gaze, clearing his throat, before looking back to her. “Before you, I was with a woman.” He says, green eyes looking earnestly into her brown ones. “I did not treat her well. And I know you did not choose to marry me, but I wanted, no, needed to let you know that I…Gisla, I love you.”

The words tumble out inelegantly. This is the most vulnerable Rollo has ever allowed himself to be with anyone and there is a part of him that hates how he looks to her like a lost dog seeking the approval of its master. He holds his breath, awaiting her response. The silence feels like it stretches for an eternity, surely his heart will hammer its way out of his chest before she responds. Words are not needed though; as she reaches up and presses her lips softly to his, he knows all he needs to know and it calms the tempest in his chest. She loves him too.

[whatintheope]

Livin for the fact that I just realized we are related to the person that “Rollo” from the tv show. Vikings, is based off of……and then, if you move shows, we’re also linked to Mary, Queen of Scots, from Reign.

[theancientwise]

When history repeats itself <3.

Vikings | Vikings: Valhalla Parallels Rollo & Gisla | King Canute & Queen Emma

[procrastinatingsoicanreadfanfics]

Vikings and their eras

Summary: what era would vikigns be in if they weren't in their own

Notes: I did a lot of text for this one, bc I loved thinking about this!! There are some pretty popular characters missing (Ragnar, Sigurd, Athelstan) where I just couldn’t imagine a certain era for them. Thank you so much for your request :)))))) Some of these eras aren’t wonderful or filled with positivity but that doesn’t mean these characters wouldn’t thrive.

tagged: @majesticwren @obsessiveformiyatwins @leithdragon @demon-of-the-ancient-world @alicedopey, @ivarlover @levithestripper @batmandallyboy @akayxo09 @vrtualfairy (hmu to be added!)

based on this request | masterlist | requests are OPEN!

Lagertha

Lagertha would thrive well in times of crises and war (lmao). The black death, WW1 or 2, or long periods of war/famine/sickness is where Lagertha does well. Think about her what you will, but she brings people together, manages them, and takes care of them. She’s a natural leader, and a fighter, so she’s able to protect her community.

We’ve seen examples of this in the series, think during the sickness in Kattegat, or when she takes over and completely builds up Hedeby. People tend to trust her, and especially women look up to/feel safe around her. When disaster strikes, she would be able to save/take care of them.

Aslaug

I had to think about this for a really long time because I think that Aslaug fits so well into the era the show is set in, however, I finally decided on the 1920s. Even as a feminine woman in Viking Scandinavia, she had a lot of authority over herself and knew how to grow a business (Kattegat) when Hirst wasn’t feeling sexist.

In the 1920s, she’d live in a big city, maybe Berlin or New York, and she’d own some sort of speakeasy. I’d love to think that her speakeasy would be a place for the very few pagans of the city to meet up in secret, and she herself would still be a norse pagan, völva, etc. Also, she’d dip her toes into wild jewellery design (think Schiaparelli). Definitely someone who attracts artists and would be considered a muse.

Rollo

Middle Medieval Ages for sure. He thrives being a knight because he’s a manipulative little hoe that I can’t stand. Gets to do his performative heroism during tourneys and woo women only to leave them all alone.

Rollo is not a good person, esp. towards women. He constantly gets into trouble with the church and with fathers whose daughters he ‘dishonors’. Definitely needs a wife like Gisla to slap some sense into him. I think that eventually (mid forties) he’d start to mature. Also, having children would help him become a better person (I think they should have put that into a show).

Bjorn

Bjorn thrives well in the late 2000s to early 2010s, when travel blogs were on the rise. He’s one of the early influencers, and travels the world together with Halfdan. This only works bc cancel culture isn’t real yet. Bjorn would say some stupid shit and get hounded for it let’s be real. Nonetheless, there is always some rumour about him and Halfdan being a thing (they would be if they both didn’t constantly say ‘that’s gay’).

Alternatively, Bjorn might make a good colonizer (can I say that?), but it’s not like he isn’t that already.

Ubbe

Ubbe would thrive during the late medieval ages (defo not the Renaissance though). He’s the type of man who would enjoy the idea of the charming knight. I think Ubbe would definitely enjoy the idea of quests/saving damsels in distress/having the arranged-marriage-turned-lovestory (he’s a booktok girly tbh).

This doesn’t mean that all of this is totally pure. Ubbe gets some shit twisted in canon as well (ESPECIALLY concerning Margrethe). Maybe his first war was something crusade-like, and he went into it thinking of heroic acts and blabla and then got fucked up by battle and gore. Also has a religion and Madonna/whore complex problem.

Hvitserk

In the show, Hvitserk was always seeking sense/purpose while also struggling with balance, which is why I think he would thrive in the 1970s. This is THE era for protests and social change. Climate change, feminism and sexuality all became important topics. Going to protests would be able to give him a sense of change, and I think it would be liberating for him as well, to be able to free himself of his restraints by changing something.

I’ll go into communes a little more for Helga, but I think Hvitserk would thrive in an early commune a lot. He needs to have people around him taking care of his mental health, and this would be great for his mental health. Yes, therapy helps a lot of people, but I think if Hvitserk lived in our time, he would think that talk therapy is stupid, and completely close himself off to it. This guy just needs a lot of love, okay?

Also, he needs to smoke some 70s weed every once in a while.

Ivar

Just like Hvitserk, Ivar would thrive during the 1970s. However, this is for completely different reasons and also means that no one else gets to thrive. I chose the 1970s because it’s THE serial killer decade.

That honestly sounds terrible but we all know it’s true.

Ivar would be bitter about being discriminated/not being able to fully take part in society/not getting any women and that would turn him homicidal. He definitely overcomplicated his killings and does shitty bloodeagles to get some cool name but all he gets is like “the Viking killer” or something and he’s so mad about that he reveals himself on his deathbed to change his title. It doesn’t work.

Floki

Floki just wants to be where Helga is, but he would not thrive in the 2020s. I think he’d get in arguments with Helga about vaccinations. However, I want Floki to be in the 2010s/2020s with Helga. He definitely has some kind of hallucination-related mental illness at the least. I think that especially the season where he acted out against Helga (season 4?) shows that his mental health was making him harmful towards others and probably towards himself.

I can’t diagnose Floki, but I think we can all see that he might have some kind of bipolar disorder/mania disorder on top of a schizophrenia. He needs some kind of meds, and he needs someone to help him taking them.

Helga

This is very specific, but Helga would do AMAZING during the early era of Covid (like March 2020). Yes, she’s a very social person, but I do believe that Helga would be part of a quite isolated commune if she lived during modern times, and even during that time be isolated with Floki.

I would like to think that the commune could be self-sufficient and Helga just gets to go ham making banana bread and care packages. She thrives in this time where she doesn’t really have to go to work (even though she loves being a kindergartener too) and gets to take care of the people in her commune, and even further than that from the comfort of her own home.

Astrid

This woman thrives where no one else does, and that is toxic 2020s twitter. All she does is tweet, get cancelled, tweet, get popular, repeat. She’s so so annoying and bullies a bunch of people who don’t deserve to be bullied. Is most definitely blocked by trump, hailey Bieber and the Kardashians at least.

Makes a living by selling feetpics.

Ecbert

Ecbert thrives in the 1980s. Now. Hear me out. Ecbert in neon Zumba clothes. There, that’s my reason.

I’m just kidding, there’s more. I’m not old enough to fully understand most of the decades I’m talking about in here but the 1980s, it seems, were this extremely colorful and wild decade. Literally everywhere, color just kind of seemed to explode, and I think Ecbert would thrive in this kind of chaotic atmosphere.

(are there people in their forties or older on this post that can verify?)

Aelswith

I’m really sad that we didn’t go into Aelswith more in the show, but I firmly believe that Aelswith would make an amazing Sufragette. Thinking back to her time on the show, she was always very firm in standing her ground, more so than Judith or even Lagertha in some ways (especially in the sense that she was SO YOUNG). She directed and strengthened Alfred, and I think during season 6, she used a beartrap to defend her baby?

Anyway, I imagine her as a rich/aristocratic lady in London who definitely steers the household while Alfred brings the money in (he likes art) and she decides that, if she puts in the work in the house, she should be able to decide over the country that house is in as well.

[seersaw]

So after a mere *checks watch* 8 years I finally have an update for this fic.

I’m not sure if anyone is still interested but I realized a lot of this story is already complete, and stories should be told and not trapped on a hard drive.

Aesthetics for @seersaw‘s new fanfic  The Things that Bind Us

[knight-of-flowerss]

vikings

navigation | requests open!

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tags - @thethreeeyed-raven , @lost-in-fiction-like-ur-mom

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aslaug

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astrid

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freydis

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gunnhild

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helga

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ingrid

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judith

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katia

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lagertha

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siggy

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torvi

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men

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athelstan

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björn

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floki

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halfdan

🍂 halfdan smut

harald

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heahmund

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hvitserk

full length fics

she-bear [in progress]

characters | chapter one | chapter two

ivar

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ragnar

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rollo

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sigurd

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ubbe

🍂flings of war

[gudvina]

As I am writing The Sea Fig i am thinking of rewriting and continuing my first original Rollo x Gisla fanfiction that I thought i had deleted, but is actually still on fanfiction.net.

I wrote it when i was 15/16, then abandoned it because at the time i was going through a hard time + I lost chapter 5 and 6.

also I will definitely rename it lmao

[bouncehousedemons]

Valentine's Week Prompts Masterlist

In February 2023 I participated in the @vikingsevents Valentine's weel prompts event. Below you will find all the pieces I submitted.

Red Rose (Aslaug x Yidu)

Wine (Ragnar & Floki)

First Date (Rollo x Gisla)

Misunderstanding (Hvitserk x OFC)

Best Friend (Ubbe x OFC)

Hand Holding (Gunnhild x Ingrid)

Cuddles (Floki x Helga)

[theancientwise]

They're so soft together ❤.

But something bad is happening to Canute😨😰😱😭

I can't handle it... Dammit, i can't handle it 😭💔

BRADLEY FREEGARD as King Canute LAURA BERLIN as Queen Emma VIKINGS: VALHALLA | SEASON THREE

You have brought me much joy, Emma of Normandy. And you me, my Emperor of the Great Northern Empire.

[ptsilencedhill]

Gisla was a bitch but she doesn’t deserve to be forced into a marriage especially not with rollo’s freaky ass

[mermaidsirennikita]

I'm only halfway through s2 of vikings: valhalla but I'm so glad they separated harald and freydis because these 2 didn't have any chemistry, anytime they were together on screen it was always boring land to me. And I could say the same for leif and his dead girlfriend from season 1 that they tried to convince me he was super in love with when she was so forgettable I couldn't even remember her name

Lol her name was Liv and I liked her just fine but she definitely didn’t do anything especially exceptional. I think that you could make an argument for her representing like…. Leif feeling like he’s a flop pagan Viking, which he kind of is, but yeah she was not this grand love.

The thing that has always been an issue with this franchise is building love stories over time. Even when they have pairings with a compelling hook and chemistry between the actors, they don't allocate a lot of story time to them, and the actors have to fill in the gaps--which means that when the writers take sudden turns, it's even more jarring. Take Rollo and Gisla, a ship I think was fairly popular, that actually did have a multi-episode "falling in love" arc that most of the show's ships didn't get, with actors that had chemistry. She basically hated him until suddenly she didn't and they fucked like bunnies, and it was fine because a lot of people, myself included, liked them--but then a time jump happened and they had huge issues and it was like "oh, this is sudden".

Now, Michael Hirst (who I think...... is prone to this kind of relationship writing or lack thereof) is not as directly involved in the new show. I think he's largely involved in a capacity wherein he came up with the concept, but it's not really something he guides; at least, that was the case last I checked. But I think you see his fingertips in the relationship writing. When you've got a good hook and chemistry, you can make it work--Leif and Mariam, I found really charming because of chemistry, and because I liked Leif, who seems to be very torn about his place in the world and his relationships with people who have big ambitions and opposing religious stances (Freydis as a pagan and Harald as a Christian), forming this romance with this learned woman who helped him grow. Even if it's like, oh wow, Leif, who is mourning a woman, is now falling in love with a woman who's dying from the outset lol. It's Vikings. Women Big Dying.

And I think this approach also works pretty well with Emma and Canute, who really don't have a lot of screentime together... But the actors have chemistry and their entire bond is really compelling. They're both plotters and schemers and politicians, and he's super into her big brain while having a different approach to governing.

I actuallllly really like the romantic alternative they set up for Harald in season 2, even though there was way less screentime devoted to development than I'd like. I loved where it ended in the season (what a hook) and it made way more sense for him, imo, than Harald and Freydis.

Like, I have no idea why Harald is into Freydis. She really doesn't seem to align with his vision (and at the end of the day, Harald is all self-centered ambition and we love that for him) and she has like... zero respect for his religion. And don't get me wrong, I am not saying "Christians good", but the show's huge "pagans good, Christians bad" thing is.... boring lol. Like, Freydis really hates Christians, Harald is a Christian, and like. She's right in the premiere. They should just stop.

I don't get Freydis as a character at all. The performance doesn't do it for me, to be honest, and she's basically incredibly disconnected from EVERYONE in the main cast. Like, yeah, the England arc is disconnected from the BIG ARC (which is Harald and Leif) but.... There's way less time devoted to it than there is to Freydis, and there are several established mains involved--Emma, Godwin, and to a lesser extent Canute. Whereas Freydis was mostly on her own last season, with characters who really didn't end up carrying over to this one with her, and this season they basically had to make people up to interact with her. And the only one I cared about was Bradley James, who SOLD EVERY DAMN LINE LOL.

And the show did such a NOTICEABLE 180 in s2 (which I definitely enjoyed) versus the end of s1. You end s2 with Leif and Harald split and Harald with Freydis. Suddenly, by the end of the s2 finale, Harald and Freydis are big broken up, and Leif and Harald are back together and have an entire BRO ROAD TRIP the whole season, during which Harald is set up with another woman who I suspect will be pretty important to his ambitions. Yes, Freydis has Harald's baby, but I'm 90% sure that this was largely because the show super wants a kid with Harald and Leif's DNA in it.

Like, clearly Freydis was written to be a Lagertha 2.0, and as much as I hated Lagertha by the end of the original series, she was a very popular character and basically the face of the show for much of its time post-Travis Fimmel. I feeeel like they basically have to have that locked in so that they can promote their "ooh woman roar shield maiden rah rah" bullshit that got them viewers with the first show... But they know Freydis individually didn't play as well for viewers in the first season as Harald and Leif, lol. They know the thing that's most fun about this show is watching This Hot Guy Who Thinks He's Kinda A Big Deal and His Zen Friend Who Somehow Is Going Along With This have zany adventure with wacky hijinks. Like, Leif and Harald will never kiss, because Vikings, but the show is investing more time and development into that relationship than any canonical romantic relationship. Much like... some other... homoerotic relationships... on the original show... pick one of 500.

(Sidebar: I like Emma and Canute together a lot, but I also think that Emma and Godwin have a similar deal going on where they don't canonically have a romantic thing happening, but because they are not romantic the show actually devotes more time to their, in this case contentious relationship, so you wanna see them kiss. And Godwin has fabulous chemistry with Emma AND Canute, and Emma and Canute have chemistry, so it's like whenever they're all together I wait for Canute to be like "you guys fight so much, you know how we can resolve this?" before pushing their faces together. Canute seems like the type of guy who'd initiate a threesome that way.)

Anyway, I really enjoyed s2 but that was something I noticed a lot. Freydis basically having an arc you could totally fast-forward through without missing anything related to the main plot (again)... While Leif and Harald have the meat of the story. She's supposed to be as important as them, but I don't think the writers have their hearts in it with her. So she's basically a total cypher. She's the Keeper of the Faith, and it's like? Cool? Harald is like, going to be an actual king and Leif is gonna discover America, but they need a Strong Viking Woman because they can't let Emma be the Strong Woman rep because she's not a viking and also wears dresses a lot, which means she is not actually strong.

Also, everyone who is against Freydis needs to be a super legit bad person because she gets to be Cool and Good, whereas Emma must be Cool and Treacherous. Because she does not fight with a sword (straightforward and masculine), she fights with politics and her brain, which are bad (subversive and feminine). Though I really had fun with Emma's arc this season and I don't think they were like... trying to make us hate her the way they used to try to make us hate Aslaug, it was kinda funny to watch the contrast.

Anyway. Bring on season 3 and for the love of God, continue to lean in to with Leif and Harald shenanigans versus Freydis like. Midsommar singing.

[witchmd13]

Rollo meeting princess gisla

[theancientwise]

Holy Shit.

First no William the Conqueror.... then this.

I cannot bear it.

I CANNOT BEAR IT!

EMMA OF NORMANDY & KING CANUTE Vikings: Valhalla 3.08