Lukas Lindqvist

"Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Lukas Lindqvist, emissary of the Swedish king, company to the dukes and duchesses of Stockholm, and ambassador to Gothenburg, Malmö, Lund, Uppsala, and beyond... hm? Am I lying to you? Ah, well... perhaps it was true, in another life. But I confess, I’m nothing more than a humble schoolteacher."
—Lukas Lindqvist

An eccentric, garrulous Swedish expatriate who hails from the island of Styrsö off the western coast of Gothenburg, Lukas is Greta's main love interest and one of her closest confidants. Despite his outward sociability and belief in the innate goodness of humanity, he sometimes says things that reflect a deeper loneliness, and he's oddly evasive when it comes to details about his personal life...

Appearance

At 188 cm, Lukas is the tallest member of the core cast, though the impression of his full height is somewhat obscured by his deep, potentially medically concerning, slouch. With his wan complexion, dark circles under his eyes, and spindly frame, Lukas can appear sickly, even when in relatively good health. His appearance is further washed out by his pale blond hair and light blue eyes, and his wardrobe consists of stereotypically academic clothing, including shabby three-piece wool or linen suits, neckwear, and loafers, typically in shades of brown, grey, or blue. Lukas wears a gold wedding ring that changes position between his left and right ring fingers. However, additional novelty accessories make their appearance on occasion, such as a fez or souvenir lapel pins.

Personality

Of the core cast, Lukas is the most intellectual, both in terms of how he approaches the world and where his (many) interests lie. Deeply engrossed in history, culture, language, anthropology, spirituality, literature, and philology (particularly as it relates to his favourite subject, the Ottoman Empire), he strives to learn, not just from books and other written sources, but from the living, breathing people around him, wherever he happens to be. Good-natured, compassionate, and humorous at heart, Lukas uses his breadth of knowledge and wide net of interests to entertain, educate, and engage those who are as curious as he is, and he approaches everything with an open-minded (not to say totally nonjudgemental) attitude that allows him to take most situations in stride. However, he sometimes appears to suffer from bouts of melancholy whose origins are unclear to the average observer, and he minimises the extent of his moodiness to those who are brave enough to ask.

NOTICE: Spoilers below.

Much of this melancholy is related to Lukas's immense feelings of shame, guilt, disgust, and alienation — for being exclusively attracted to young girls, for failing to contact his parents after leaving Sweden, for coming back to news that they had died in his absence, and for abandoning friends and romantic relationships once it became clear that a higher level of commitment would be asked of him the longer he stayed in the community. An insightful and contemplative man, Lukas understands the flaws in his own character and some of the ways he's sabotaged his own life. Yet, at the same time, he feels that he cannot be understood by others, reflecting his insecurities about belonging and sensitivities about rejection. To cope, Lukas plays up his intellectual detachment and personal quirks, embellishing details of his encounters and fabricating tall tales so that his listeners can never tell whether he is serious or not. If they cannot tell what is sincerity and what is sarcasm, he feels safe.

All this in mind, Lukas is, like every other member of the core cast, deeply lonely; he yearns for warmth, companionship, and understanding, even if he's long accepted that he will never have any of those things. While he doesn't experience a constant baseline suffering the same way that Greta, Florian, or Johannes do, he tends to minimise his needs because he sees them as unique and unfulfillable, only feeling his grief fully when triggered or when he feels safe, as Greta sometimes gives him space to. At the same time, he has a deep well of love for humanity and everything human beings are capable of, and he holds on to the hope that no matter what the day brings, the dawn of tomorrow is as inevitable as the cold of night — and that he, too, may one day see the sun rise.

Relationships

Name

History

History info here

Origin
History info here

Arc Name
History info here

Arc Name
History info here

Other Settings

AU

Trivia

Lukas's birthday is 18 June.
His favourite dessert is pepparkakor, a kind of Swedish ginger cookie, while his favourite food is any cultural variation on "meat and other fillings inside a fried dough wrapper."
His favourite variety of wine is Cabernet Sauvignon.
In addition to his native Swedish, Lukas can speak, read, and write in English, Arabic, and Classical Latin. He has varying levels of familiarity with many other languages, but some of them have fallen into disuse.

Gallery

Click for fullbody.