Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot. Please don't sue me I'm poor.
Everyone in the board room was tried and frustrated. They had been arguing about the future of Valhalla magazine for hours. Everyone had different opinions and ideas and each one kept getting rejected by Haraldson. It was if he wanted his magazine to go out of business.
"What about a body secrets edition?" said Leif
"No we've already done that" Haraldson rejected
"How about a sports edition?" suggested Rollo
"We've done that as well" Haraldson said rubbing his forehead in frustration "Can't anyone come up with a unique or at the very least a good idea?"
Everyone at the table stayed quiet. Nobody wanted or would admit that they were out of ideas and without any new idea's the magazine would fail.
Ragnar was the one who finally spoke up "Haraldson we're all tried and frustrated maybe we should take a break to clear our minds"
Haraldson thought for a moment before agreeing. He let everybody go and told them to be back first thing tomorrow morning. Everybody grumbled in annoyance something needed to be done and soon or else.
When Ragnar returned home he flopped down on the sofa and covered his face with a pillow. What should he do? He needed to find away to save the magazine. Saving the magazine meant saving his and everyone else's jobs.
"Rough day?" Lagertha asked as she walked in
Ragnar mumbled something into the pillow. She guessed it was something along the lines of 'Haraldson was an arse' she rolled her eyes at her him but couldn't really blame him. He was under so much stress.
"Are you hungry?" she asked
Ragnar peeked from under his cushion and smiled "Hungry for you"
Lagertha chuckled at him. No matter how tired he seemed to be his libido always seemed to be awake. She pulled the cushion away from his face and kissed his lips.
It was three in the morning and Ragnar was still awake. He tried to fall asleep next to his wife but he was too worried about his career. It was becoming normal for him to stay awake almost every night and he was sick of it. He wanted a good night sleep. He wanted his and everyone else's worries to be over already. He got up and turned on his computer.
While he was browsing the internet he decided to take a look back at his career. He looked through all his old photo shoots and the cover of every magazine he ever did. He wished he could back to his old self. He looked so young and full of hope for the future and wow he'd only just noticed how skinny he was. Looking at himself now he'd defiantly put on a lot of muscle mass.
As he looked though the pictures he'd noticed how much everyone else had changed. They all got tall, broader, masculine, hairier and...and...wait a minute?...That was it! That was the problem! Ragnar quickly pulled up a photo from their very first magazine shoot and then pulled one picture from every year onwards and arranged them like a time line.
That was it! Their problems were solved. Ragnar had finally found the solution. He quickly printed off the pictures and put them in a folder. He jumped into bed with a smile on his face, confident that he would be able to sleep tonight. He wrapped his arm around Lagertha, closed his eyes and soon drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
The next morning Ragnar woke up to the smell of bacon and eggs. He got up, got dressed and sang his way into the kitchen.
"How do you like your toast in morning? I like mine with a hug" he sang and swung Lagertha around the kitchen.
She laughed at his sudden change in attitude "What's made you so happy?"
"I have solved are problem and by the end of the day everyone is going to be as happy as I am" Ragnar boasted
Lagertha didn't share in his enthusiasm just yet "What about Haraldson?"
"Don't worry I've thought of that too"
"What's the plan?"
"Simple. He does what I say or he lets his magazine go out of business" Ragnar beamed
Lagertha had to admit he had a good point. Haraldson was getting desperate. Probably desperate enough to do whatever Ragnar had planned.
She placed her hands on Ragnar cheeks and looked him in the eyes "Whatever your planning be careful how you present it if you want Haraldson to go along with it. Ok?"
"I understand. I have everything planned out. Don't worry about it"
Lagertha believed him, she only hoped Haraldson would as well.
After breakfast Ragnar got into his car and drove to the meeting. He greeted his friends and took a seat. His brother seemed to notice his good mood.
"You look happy this morning. What's got you in such a good mood?" he asked
Ragnar smiled back, put the folder on the table and pointed to it "This has"
"And that is?"
"This is going to solve all are problems"
Rollo snorted in disbelief "And what's inside that?"
"You'll just have to wait and see"
Half an hour later Haraldson and his wife Siggy entered the meeting room. Haraldson looked as sour as ever.
"Good morning and I use that term loosely. Let's get right to the point did anyone think of any good ideas?" Haraldson asked
"Apparently Ragnar has an idea that will solve everything" Rollo said
Haraldson looked at Ragnar sceptically and said "Well do you?"
"Yes I do" he replied and flashed the folder "I just need to set this up and then I will explain"
Haraldson reluctantly let Ragnar set up whatever he was planning and waited patiently. When it looked like he was done, Haraldson was confused. He wasn't sure what he was looking at. He knew it was pictures from old Valhalla magazines, but how would they solve their problems?
"What exactly am I looking?" Haraldson asked
"What you are looking at is twelve years of work. Twelve years of progress. Twelve years of us" Ragnar explained
"Yes I can see that. But how is this going to help the magazine?" Haraldson interrupted in a huff
'Impatient as always' Ragnar thought "I'm getting to that. If I don't explain you won't understand. Now what you can also is six years of change...Only six years of change" he points to the first photo "In this photo we are young and new to the fashion scene" he points to the second photo "Here we are just achieving celebrity status" he points to the third photo "Here we have earned our first million and started to act like celebrities" he points to the forth photo "Here is when we really began to work hard. We started to diet and exercise" he points to the fifth photo "And here we have the result of our hard work. Are bodies are in better shape and we were happy" he points to the fourth photo "And here we worked on our image. We got our signature looks that people would recognize. I mean are hair and our clothing. And again we were happy with it"
Ragnar noticed his friends smiling as they remembered the good old days.
"Now taking in everything I've just said what do you understand so far?" Ragnar asked everyone
Everyone appeared to think on what he had said before Erik spoke up "We were happy?" he said
"Yes, we were. What else?"
"We were younger?" Floki added
"Yes, yes but what else? It's right here, in front of you"
They looked at the photo's but none of them seemed to understand what he was trying to say, so he continued his explanation.
"We were different. The answer I was looking for was we were different. In the first six photo's there is six years of us changing and then after that, these other six years there is nothing. There's no change. It's us staying the same way and that's the problem"
"I don't understand what you mean. Maybe you should explain more clearly" Haraldson taunted slightly
"I'm saying that people are not buying the magazine anymore because it's boring. It's got nothing to do with how the magazine looks or what clothing we are wearing, the problem is us. We have become boring to look at. Because we haven't changed in six years. Think about it"
And they did. Looking at the photo's they saw exactly what Ragnar was saying. For six years they have had the same hair style and colour, the same facial hair and the same style of fashion. They were boring.
"But it's not just how we haven't changed, there is also another problem. We almost all look the same" he grabbed a marker pen and wrote down what he meant on the white board "We all have large builds, large muscles, broad shoulders and are very hard men. We are tall, confident, loud and proud. We are the very definition and masculine. Those two problems are what's making sales drop. People are board with looking at us because we look the same"
Ragnar could see the looks on his friends faces and they said 'He was right' even Haraldson's face seemed to mimic the look.
"In conclusion my idea is that we reinvent ourselves"
"You must be mad!" Haraldson interjected "Change your image? That would take time. Time we do not have. We only have a few months until the fashion exchange. There is not enough time to change how you look"
"I've thought of that. If we can't change ourselves then what if we found someone new. A new unknown model that will contrast us in every way. Someone that will be the complete opposite to us" he picked up the marker and went back to the board where he wrote down all the points he had made before "He would have to have a small build, skinny and maybe a bit feminine. He would be small, shy, quiet and introverted. The very opposite of us"
"You expect me to hire new people? I will not waste time or money on a ridiculous idea that will most likely fail" Haraldson was intent on dropping Ragnar's idea all together.
"We don't have to hire a lot of people maybe just the one. Just one new person to contrast us. The least we could is hold auditions for..." then Ragnar had a better idea "Wait I've got a better idea! What if we held a competition. We could use that as an excuse to hold auditions to find someone new and because it's a competition it would be free"
"Oh I get it! The so called winner of the competition would pose with us in the magazine to test your theory" Arne shouted
"Exactly. We could find someone, have them pose in the magazine and see if what I said was true"
Ragnar knew his friend's were getting excited about the idea but Haraldson was not looking impressed.
"I will not waste my time looking for someone who could ruin my magazine"
"But they won't. We'll look for someone who has the potential and qualities to be a star"
Haraldson looked like he was going to reject the idea again but then he smiled. Ragnar wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
"Alright. Do this competition of yours. I however will have no part in it. If you want to find someone to pose in the magazine then you may do it all by yourself. You will be in charge of everything and you will not skip out on the work you already have. And even if you do find this person I still may not allow them to pose in the magazine at all" Haraldson said and smiled when Ragnar faltered "This meeting is over, everyone go home. We're done here" and with those parting words he and his wife left.
Ragnar threw the marker in a fit. He had gotten what he had wanted but not in the way he had planned. He couldn't do all the work and Haraldson knew it. Damn him.
"Don't worry Ragnar we'll help you" Leif said
"You will?" Ragnar asked
"Of course we know what Haraldson's planning. He wants you to fail but we won't let that happen. Right everyone?"
Everyone cheered and agreed to help their friend. But Ragnar had his doubts.
"Let's think about what we are getting are selves into. We need to find just one person in a crowd of millions, we need to make sure we get everything prepared, we need to continue working our normal jobs and we need to find a way to convince Haraldson to let the person pose in the magazine. No matter how you look at it, Haraldson has set us up for failure" Ragnar explained
Floki was a very sneaky man and he was usually the one who could bypass Haraldson's rules "I have an idea. What if we found this person, have him pose with us, publish the magazine and not tell Haraldson"
"How can we do that?" Rollo asked "It's impossible to publish a magazine without Haraldson's written permission. When he sees this person with us in the magazine he we reject it"
"Not if we don't tell him. What we could do is find the person but tell Haraldson we failed to find someone. Then we continue our work with Haraldson and work on our own magazine in secret with this person. When we have finished our magazine with Haraldson he will sign the form to release it. However we use that permission to release the secret magazine we worked on. And Haraldson can do nothing about it" Floki cackled at his own genius, he knew his plan was flawless.
The others thought about Floki's plan and wondered if it would work. In the end they came to the agreement that they would do the plan and keep Haraldson in the dark.
They worked late into the night making all the posters and flyers and even web advertisements for the so called 'competition' for one lucky reader to meet and pose with them. They all went home confident that there advertisements would attract a lot of attention soon.
Over the next week they continued to gather information on people who wanted to win the competition and meet their idols. Their advertisements were a huge success and they were proud that they had irked Haraldson. Their work load had doubled and they almost quit on several occasions but they wanted to win, they we determined to win and tomorrow they would.
The next day...
Today was the day. The day the competition started. Thousands of people had turned up and were waiting for the doors to open.
Ragnar took a deep breath as he looked out the window and saw all the people who showed up. He was thinking how tough it might be to just pick one person and how the future of the magazine depended on them. A sudden hand on his shoulder jolted him out of his thoughts.
"Ready to go?" Torstein asked
Ragnar looked out the window once more before nodding his head. They walked away and now stood in front of a set of doors. Ragnar unlocked the door and looked to his friends, who smiled and gave him a thumbs up. Ragnar opened the doors and was greeted by the sound of screaming fans.
'Well...Here we go'