#( the tycoon - modern verse )

[fatehbaz]

In February 2024, creature enthusiasts and popular media outlets celebrated what has been described as the 200-year anniversary of the formal naming of the "first" dinosaur, Megalosaurus.

There are political implications of Megalosaurus and the creature's presentation to the public.

In 1824, the creature was named (Megalosaurus bucklandii, for Buckland, whose work had also helped popularize knowledge of the "Ice Ages"). In 1842, the creature was used as a reference when Owen first formally coined the term "Dinosauria". And in 1854, models of Megalosaurus and Iguanodon were famously displayed in exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London. (The Crystal Palace was regarded as a sort of central focal point to celebrate the power of the Empire by displaying industrial technology and environmental and cultural "riches" acquired from the colonies. It was built to house the spectacle of the "Great Exhibition" in 1851, attended by millions.)

The fame of Megalosaurus and the popularization of dinosaurs coincided at a time when Europe was contemplating new revelations and understandings of geological "deep time" and the vast scale of the distant past, learning that both humans and the planet were much older than previously known, which influenced narrativizing and historicity. (Is time linear, progressing until the Empire is at this current pinnacle, implying justified dominance over other more "primitive" people? Will Britain fall like Rome? What are the limits of the Empire in the face of vast time scales and environmental forces?) The formal disciplines of geology, paleontology, anthropology, and other sciences were being professionalized and institutionalized at this time (as Britain cemented global power, surveyed and catalogued ecosystems for administration, and interacted with perceived "primitive" peoples of India, Africa, and Australia; the mutiny against British rule in India would happen in 1857). Simultaneously, media periodicals and printed texts were becoming widely available to popular audiences. For Victorian-era Britain, stories and press reflected this anxiety about extinction, the intimidating scale of time, interaction with people of the colonies, and encounters with "beasts" and "monsters" at both the spatial and temporal edges of Empire.

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Some stuff:

"Shaping the beast: the nineteenth-century poetics of palaeontology" (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas in European Journal of English Studies, 2013).

Fairy Tales, Natural History and Victorian Culture (Laurence Talairach-Vielmas, 2014).

"Literary Megatheriums and Loose Baggy Monsters: Paleontology and the Victorian Novel" (Gowan Dawson in Victorian Studies, 2011).

Bursting the Limits of Time: The Reconstruction of Geohistory in the Age of Revolution (Martin J.S. Rudwick, 2010).

Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle (Lukas Rieppel, 2019).

Inscriptions of Nature: Geology and the Naturalization of Antiquity (Pratik Chakrabarti, 2020).

"Making Historicity: Paleontology and the Proximity of the Past in Germany, 1775-1825" (Patrick Anthony in Journal of the History of Ideas, 2021).

'"A Dim World, Where Monsters Dwell": The Spatial Time of the Sydenham Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park' (Nancy Rose Marshall in Victorian Studies, 2007).

Articulating Dinosaurs: A Political Anthropology (Brian Noble, 2016).

The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802-1856 (Ralph O'Connor, 2007).

"Victorian Saurians: The Linguistic Prehistory of the Modern Dinosaur" (O'Connor in Journal of Victorian Culture, 2012).

"Hyena-Hunting and Byron-Bashing in the Old North: William Buckland, Geological Verse and the Radical Threat" (O'Connor in Uncommon Contexts: Encounters between Science and Literature, 1800-1914, 2013).

And some excerpts:

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When the Crystal Palace at Sydenham opened in 1854, the extinct animal models and geological strata exhibited in its park grounds offered Victorians access to a reconstructed past - modelled there for the first time - and drastically transformed how they understood and engaged with the history of the Earth. The geological section, developed by British naturalists and modelled after and with local resources was, like the rest of the Crystal Palace, governed by a historical perspective meant to communicate the glory of Victorian Britain. The guidebook authored by Richard Owen, Geology and Inhabitants of the Ancient World, illustrates how Victorian naturalists placed nature in the service of the nation - even if those elements of nature, like the Iguanodon or the Megalosaurus, lived and died long before such human categories were established. The geological section of the Crystal Palace at Sydenham, which educated the public about the past while celebrating the scale and might of modernity, was a discursive site of exchange between past and present, but one that favoured the human present by intimating that deep time had been domesticated, corralled and commoditised by the nation’s naturalists.

Text by: Alison Laurence. "A discourse with deep time: the extinct animals of Crystal Palace Park as heritage artefacts". Science Museum Group Journal (Spring 2019). Published 1 May 2019. [All text from the article's abstract.]

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[There was a] fundamental European 'time revolution' of the nineteenth century [...]. In the late 1850s and 1860s, Europeans are said to have experienced ‘the bottom falling out of history’, when geologists confirmed that humanity had existed for far, far longer than the approximately 6,000 years previously believed to represent the entire history [...]. ‘[S]ecular time’ became for many ‘just time, period’: the ‘empty time’ of Walter Benjamin. […] The European discovery of ‘deep time’ hastened this shift. [....] Historicism views the past as developments, trends, eras and epochs. [...] Victorians were intensely aware of ‘historical time’, experiencing themselves as inhabiting a new age of civilization. They were obsessed with history and its apparent power to explain the present […].

Text by: Laura Rademaker. “60,000 Years is not forever: ‘time revolutions’ and Indigenous pasts.” Postcolonial Studies. September 2021.

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At the time when geology and paleontology emerged as new scientific disciplines, [...] [g]oing back to the 1802 exhibition of the first Mastodon exhibited in London’s Pall Mall, […] showmanship ruled geology and ensured its popularity and public appeal [...]. Throughout the Victorian period, [...] geology was as much - if not more - sensational than the popular romances and sensation novels of the time [...]. [T]he "rhetoric of spectacular display" (26) before the 1830s [was] developed by geological writers (James Parkinson, John Playfair, William Buckland, Gideon Mantell, Robert Blakewell), "borrowing techniques from [...] commercial exhibition" [...]. The discovery of Kirkdale Cave in December 1821 where fossils of [extinct] hyena bones were discovered along with other species (elephant, mouse, hippopotamus) led Buckland to posit that the exotic animals [...] had lived in England [...]. Thus, the year 1822 was significant as Buckland’s hyena den theory gave a glimpse of the world before the Flood. [...] [G]eology became a market in its own right, in particular with the explosion of cheaper forms of printed science [...] in cheap miscellanies and fictional miscellanies, with geological romances [...] [...] or [fantastical] tropes pervading [...], "leading to a considerable degree of conservatism in the imagery of the ancient earth" (196). By 1846 the geological romances were often reminiscent of the narrative strategies found in Arabian Nights [...].

Text by: Laurence Talairach-Vielmas. A book review published as: “Ralph O’Connor, The Earth on Show: Fossils and the Poetics of Popular Science, 1802 - 1856.” Review published by journal Miranda. Online since July 2010.

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Dinosaurs, then, are malleable beasts. [...] [T]he constant reshaping of these popular animals has also been driven by cultural and political trends. [...] One of Britain’s first palaeontologists, Richard Owen, coined the term “Dinosauria” in 1842. The Victorians were relatively familiar with reptile fossils [...] [b]ut Owen's coinage brought a group of the most mysterious discoveries under one umbrella. [...] When attempting to rise to the top of British science, it helped to have the media on your side. Owen’s friendship with both Charles Dickens and William Makepeace Thackeray led to fond name-dropping by both novelists. Dickens’s Bleak House famously begins by imagining a Megalosaurus, one of Owen’s original dinosaurs. Both novelists even compared their own writing process to Owen’s palaeontological techniques. In the scientific community, Owen’s dinosaur research was first [criticized] by his [...] rival, Gideon Mantell, a surgeon and the describer of the Iguanodon. [...] Naming dinosaurs was a powerful way of claiming ownership [...]. Owen [...] knew the power of the press [...]. [M]useum exhibits [often] [...] flattered white patrons [...] by placing them at the apex of modernity. [...] Owen would not have been surprised to learn that the reconstruction of dinosaur bones is still an act that is entangled in politics.

Text by: Richard Fallon. "Our image of dinosaurs was shaped by Victorian popularity contests". The Conversation. 31 January 2020.

[carnaxe]

VERSES .

✠ verse — parents are the bones on which children cut their teeth

canon . Odessa is born in one of the remote corners of the Outback, the first of six children, their home huddled among solar farms. Until the government gifts the omnium to the omnics, until the land their family has lived on for generations is taken from them. Unlawfully, they deem. The Stone family bare their teeth and fight back, lending their strength to the Australian Liberation Front. Until the rebels sabotaged the omnium’s fusion core, resulting in an explosion that destroyed the facility and irradiated the region. They shelter in omnium’s shell, now repurposed as a settlement for the survivors. It was home only for a short time, before King Mason Howl – former comrade of Odessa’s father – banished the Stone family to the Wasteland.

✠ verse — my body’s just a body and my name’s just a name

canon . Odessa learns, quickly, how to survive in the Wasteland. For those who live in the Outback, the Omnics Crisis never ended – the survivors are locked in an endless conflict with the local omnic population, fighting for land and resources. Odessa works alone, and sometimes as part of a posse, to hunt omnics, selling scrap and scouting the region for supplies. During this time, she dabbles in mechanics, forging her weapons and developing her unique electromagnetic gauntlet.

✠ verse — you cannot strike fear into stone

canon . While it may not be internationally recognised, Junkertown identifies and operates as its own sovereign state, and is generally hostile to outsiders. During the gladiatorial-inspired Reckoning, Odessa challenges and defeats King Howl, taking her place as Junker Queen. Under her rule, she maintains control across several surviving splinter groups, and works to expand Junkertown, to improve the lives of its citizens. As King Howl did before her, Odessa periodically hosts the Reckoning. The only way she will ever relinquish the crown is through defeat in combat, through the blood-slick violence that is broadcast across the Outback.

✠ verse — a glorious lo-fi live sound

modern . Odessa is lead singer and guitarist in a high octane band that straddles the garage rock, punk rock and pub rock genres. A true-to-her-roots punk, she isn’t in it for the money or the fame. Music for her is a way of expressing her anti-establishment, anti-materialistic, anti-sexist and anti-capitalist values.

✠ verse — go bush

exclusive to @handtame . Similar to the above, but the band doesn’t get far. Odessa lives in a sparse Outback settlement, and follows her father into the mining industry. The work is hard, and it isn’t easy being the only punk dyke in town – but having a needy, cryptid-coded girlfriend makes life a little sweeter.

✠ verse — a bloody mess in the wild west

red dead redemption . Based out of an abandoned mine in West Elizabeth, Odessa leads a gang of outlaws, roving afield to scavenge and raid. The group walks a fine line between banditry and rebellion, primarily targeting wealthy tycoons, corrupt lawmen and large ranch owners, while offering protection to smaller communities. Folk heroes or criminals? It depends on who you ask.

✠ verse — i rebel / therefore i exist

cyberpunk 2077 . The cybernetically-enhanced leader of a nomad gang, Odessa and her crew scavenge the Badlands. She rebels against the megacorporations and battles for dominance in the Night City streets.

✠ verse — the axe forgets / the tree remembers

stardew valley . Lumberjane Odessa runs a forestry farm on the edge of Cindersap, selling hardwood, softwood, pine tar and oak resin. Experienced in combat, she is no stranger to the local mines, and is capable of clearing out monsters and gathering loot. The Stardrop Saloon is like a second home to her, and her assistance can be secured on the promise of a pint or ten. This verse can be tweaked to suit a real-world rural setting.

✠ verse — the mad exultation of battle

fantasy . A barbarian chieftain, Odessa leads a nomadic tribe. Curious about the world beyond her clan, she sometimes ventures out on her own to take contracts as a mercenary.

✠ verse — when we get down to basics / humans are just big bags of irradiated chemicals

fallout . Tales of the raider queen, of a woman standing over most men. Her gang of raiders live off the remnants of pre-war civilization, taking what they need from the irradiated wastelands, triumphing through brute force and cunning. Axe-wielding Odessa is a picture of survival.

✠ verse — i will show you fear in a handful of dust

mad max . Odessa rules over the Junkers, a ragtag group of raiders and scavengers based out of an abandoned power plant. They are a relatively small faction, but vicious, and creative. By their hands, weapons and vehicles are crafted – then used to ambush travelling convoys.

✠ verse — the shadow of the axe hangs over every joy

bloodborne . TBC.

✠ verse — but the good name never dies of one who has done well

viking era . A verse inspired by but not limited to Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. Odessa is an intimidating and powerful shieldmaiden. She leads a raiding party, sacking monasteries and settlements.

✠ verse — falling down is how we grow / staying down is how we die

ancient greece . A verse inspired by but not limited to Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey. OPTION 1: Odessa is captain of The Scourge, a pirate ship that plunders coastal settlements and terrorises the trade routes of the Aegean Sea. She recognises no rule but her own. OPTION 2: Odessa is a former champion of the arena on Pephka, her prowess and showmanship making her a fan favourite. Now she travels as a mercenary, her axe available to hire.

[pagetreader]

"fuckin' hell, if i knew i'd get this reaction, i would've shaved the bloody thing off years ago," he rolled his eyes, rooting around his bag; the one neat briefcase a disorganized mess in a matter of seconds left in the care of one jackson lamb. "i thought you were supposed to be a field joe." (from lamb to clara in their modern ship verse / this can be them first going undercover ???)

Schmoozing a target incognito at tonight's gala wasn't going to be an easy feat. Everything had to be perfect. Fortunately, the guise of a high profile business tycoon and his trophy wife was so common at such an event that no one would bother to give a sideways glance.

"Is it so difficult to believe you could be considered handsome with a clean face?" she asked, wiggling into her dress.

[therichantsim]

This question is for any of your OCs that didn’t grow up with fame and or fortune.

Which lunch table would they have sat at? Also feel free to expound a little or give a brief backstory.

A. Too cool to sit with us 

B. Performance Arts

C. Geek Squad (science and Tech)

D. Language Arts (literature and History)

E. Gamers and Nerds (all things gaming and comics)

F. Loner

Thanks for the ask!

A. Trinity, stuck up, best dressed and only hung out with other kids like her. She did grow up higher middle class (before her father became the tycoon he is now)

B. Octavia, went to a performing arts high school were she majored visual arts and modern dance.

C. Quinton, alongside his best friend Joey which lead him to his career in the military.

D. Rashad, growing up with immigrants as parents being well versed was very important so, reading was a household requirement.

F. Isaiah. Grew up poor, just lost his father, had to take care of his mom and didn’t get along with his brother.

[vastiitas]

NPC RELATIONS: ASHE & DEADLOCK.

A base outline of events I go off of when i'm not interacting with other Ashes and/or characters with plotted-out affiliations with any Ashes; this also applies to Gabriel's - an NPC agent can be substituted in. I am always willing to explore different takes and relationships, so please don't let this dissuade you if you had other ideas in mind. This includes what also goes down in his Modern Verse, and it can be found at the end. A tldr is located in the tags.

for the most part, i'll play it as it occurred in the book, though i'm more than willing to plot out a different development in accordance to other ashe's.

So what this entails is that he meets 17 yr old ashe at 15 in a county jail cell after being picked up from a scrap with the boys at a mega farm, and proceeding to lose said job after being released. She offers a proposition to run heists on her parents' firearm business; intercept the deliveries and turn around and sell them to other distributors.

I keep this relation vague for plotting, but for the most part i will write him with a love for Ashe that can be either romantic or entirely platonic.

In the two years following the book, DL gets a little wilder, gets a little bigger, gets prone to more troubles than it'd originally set out to be. They expand past just the interceptions of Ashe's parents' goods, teetering into gunrunning military-grade weapons, and it starts feeling a little greedy, a little too ambitious for all the trouble they're causing as reckless teens. there's shoot-offs not with just rival gangs, but also local law enforcement and just plain regular folk with an investment in the 2nd amendment.

People get hurt on both sides of the conflict. Jesse eats a bullet once. He also eats car windshield and asphalt at another point that leaves him in a medically induced coma along with broken ribs. The danger doesn't bother him too much, he's lived it too many times that it's a norm and he'd be lying if there wasn't a certain thrill to it. Sometimes you have to be a little bit of an asshole to bait a chase with the cops, just to play that game of outmaneuvering them in turn. It's the unfortunate part of him that enables this, this wind-swept glory that dulls the vision of just how much things get out of hand. The little blindfold that says "us against the world" doesn't help too much either.

For him, it's never been about the money. As much as Jesse enjoys the fat load of cash, he's never wanted more than he needed.

Ashe's head, on the other hand, is naturally business oriented, looking for bigger and better things; it's a birthright, almost. There's an ambition seeded in her to show that she's more than just a disowned rich kid and she's more than capable of being independent from her parents' reputation as tycoons - that she's far beyond and better than their neglect and lack of love. Whether she realizes it or not.

The pathway to causing harm unto others comes in small steps, missteps, and Jesse starts feeling a sort of suffocation and claustrophobia as they go deeper down the path of it; a sort of alienation from the self. Cognitive Dissonance.

There are arguments that are tentatively bridged over but never quite resolved. There's a fuck-up down the line; this isn't any art you just pick up one day and become a master at. There's more than a fair share of shit going off the handle by a hair-brained panic, frazzled nerves and itchy trigger fingers.

All these firearms aren't just for show anymore and while Jesse will never have scruples about defending somebody with the discharge of a bullet, there's something souring in the mouth about its frequency; there's a certain part of it that's growing into throwing their weight around for the sake of throwing their weight around. Deadlock is gaining notoriety. They're starting to show more than just on the local news. People are watching. Your instincts are telling you that you are hurtling towards something terrible.

And it's hard, because sometimes their arguments devolve to 'you can just leave if you don't like this' and he doesn't want to because, fuck, for once in his life since the War, you've got some place you want to be and people that are willing to stick you out. And it's hard, because why the hell don't you trust her enough to pull this off, to carry them through. Much of this becomes a mutual feeling of, "don't i matter enough for you to listen/put your faith in me/put your scruples/ambition aside/etc."

The crux of the issue is that they have different visions and wants for DL and their downfall is in their similarities, in what lets them get along so well; they're both too obstinate about the things they care about. There's enough of an overlap in their mentalities/personalities that allows them to make temporary truces, but their priorities differ. Jesse is more oriented towards DL as a community and doesn't much care for the expansion; Ashe loves the dopamine hit of success, the act of 'conquering'. But Ashe also believes in this family element enough that it's not entirely lost -- though this definition of family may not be the best; even if she finds what she never found from her parents, her closest family is arguably a butler and there is a subservient relationship to this that may inform her schema with how she relates to the 'family' she makes. She may have the best intentions, but there may be some subconscious faults to how she treats them; re: her mentality that it's her way or the highway. On the flip side, jesse also enjoys celebrating DL; he likes winning - so if Ashe throws in a little ego in some of their actions, or if it's about responding to a slight against them or one of its members, jesse's right there with her and not exactly innocent in all this either.

that isnt to say all of it was bad. The kids got into stupid shenanigans, they got high off the adrenaline, shared the celebration of a good success w heavy drinking and off-key group singing. There was love, but the love wouldn't save anybody.

Jesse starts withdrawing. Starts feeling itchy inside himself that he dismisses for that part of him that's always been prone to roaming.

It starts getting sus, how distant he's acting. People start whispering that they don't know where he's gone, where he's fucked off to while they're busy trying to haul goods in, while they're being chased by law enforcement. Wasn't he the one that was friends with the guy that betrayed you at the very beginning? How much do you really trust him?

In reality, jesse's just off by himself. Takes to shooting, takes to wandering off to remote parts of town and the nearby red rocks. Finds himself this elderly amputee woman on the outskirts; lost more than just her arm in the war, lost all her family too. He helps fund her a new prosthetic with his share of the blood money, helps her out with the chores. She teaches him to crochet. He sucks at it, but he sticks around cos he can tell she's lonely. They start talking. He never tells her about the gang, but she comments on how all these waves of violence are all the same when it comes up on the news. He changes the channel. They talk about other things.

(When the violence starts culminating to a peak, starts coming closer, jesse places the weight of a gun into her palms. Self defense, he says. She shakes her head and pushes it back into his hands, I don't want it. Please, he murmurs, por favor. She looks at him, then, like she's realized something. Her eyes flick to the inside of his left arm, ink poking through a chewed up sleeve. Jesse sees the movement. No, she says. He wonder how long she's known, how much she's been indulging him as he has with her. She invites him inside for dinner, feeds him a recipe of her's she'd promised to show him over one of their talks on spices and groceries.

It's the last time he sees her.)

Jesse doesn't talk too much about the causes of his distant behavior cos they've argued themselves in circles so many times before and by now he's learned it's never gotten anywhere. The kid starts defaulting to spinning any and all conversations in routes of deflection that it starts to paint him dodgey. He doesn't want to tell them about his new friend, the alcoves he'll sometimes set camping trips to. They feel like secrets. They feel like his and they're untouched by the growing muck of shit that's staining Deadlock's actions. It's Reprieve. Fresh air that doesn't feel like scum making home in the lungs.

Ashe tries to defend him here and there, but it gets harder and harder when he's pulling more away. Sometimes people try to follow him. Ashe does, too. Jesse takes obfuscating routes, though; knows how to lose tails. It's not intentional - more subconscious habit dating back to a 12 year old dodging other outlaws. For what it's worth, when he's not skirting off, she likes him when he's there, by her side, and it almost feels like the good old times when they first started, but it's only lasts for when he's around. Other times talk feels strained - it's cue to give each other space. She tells him she misses him. They don't see each other anymore. He tells her that he misses her too. She's getting busier with managing more people. Wryly muses that maybe he'll write to her since they're missing each other all the time. It breaks into comfortable banter. She makes him promise: Write me. You have to.

Tentative truce.

When Overwatch starts digging their nose into Deadlock, the response times following up on their heists gets too quick. The law is doggedly on their heels. The news talks about Deadlock more frequently than ever and while the greener folk seems to puff their chests out as though it were a badge of honor, there's a paranoia that starts welling; there's apprehension slithering in the air.

Ashe tip-toes a conversation about this with jesse; tries to get her own read on him, on this. Jesse muses it's been awhile since she's asked him his thoughts on anything, tells her it's the speed of which they're getting bigger. They're doing more shit than ever that's taking blatant shits on people's door steps; they've graduated and escalated from their smaller scale robberies. Small towns board up windows when they hear the roar of hoverbikes. They're scared.

And it's not just that - they've been recruiting other orphaned kids that got nowhere else to go and it's like they're discount Peter Pan and Deadlock's some fucked up Neverland. (There's some other folk edging in their 20's here and there, not-so-weirded-out on following some 19 year old girl who's proven her plans in her weight in gold. they try their hand with some folk in their 30's; never turned out well - always turned into some pissing contest or another; one man turned out gross. Was always better terms when they were left as business partners. DL makes some enemies by letting omnics join - but they see BOB and they see a crew who aren't going to treat them like scrap metal cos some of these towns have war scars that just run too deep to see a face plate without seeing blood.)

More people, more moving parts.

Sure, they've started investing in quieter schemes, seeding loans amongst businesses aching a little too much for money, still caught in the fall-out of war-salted fields and economic dry spells, but DL is still Very Loud. Haven't the appetite to out-grow their roots, though they might be branching. Jesse trawls his eyes over to the expanse of desert and sage bush, to memories of running from bandits. He says, we lay low. No more military train hits, no train hits at all; heat's boiling the high waters. Best to let it die off. Infamy is one thing, having the arrogance to declare everyone your enemy another - he won't deny the appeal - but there's a time for playing it careful. His eyes flit up to the sun, he extends a shadow puppet of his hand towards it. Wax wings, he thinks. He thinks of his mother: If you are going to cause trouble, mijo, you must be clever.

His gaze falls askance to the grown crew milling around and, jesus, he wants to laugh because it looks so familiar, like those orphan homes all those years ago, weaponized to some rag-tag team of gunhands in their teenage years and there's a sudden coming-of-to and a still frame of self-awareness of what this looks like in all the technicolor motion blur of chasing all that adrenaline. A dark weight sinks the stomach and he feels the bile press thick against his throat. Wax wings, he thinks, and river routes drying up. Just a buncha fucking kids with a buncha fucking guns shoving barrels into the chests of folk they don't fucking like.

How the fuck, he thinks, did we get here?

They were just supposed to just be a group of forgotten kids outwitting the fucking law. Now they're on the news just as much as the goddamn politics. They're a posterchild of the boogeymen, turned into one, anyway, for everything that's gone wrong with this part of the US since the war decimated the infrastructure and let crime fester unchecked. They become a calling for reform. The Dragon to be slain. Every suit-wearing candidate calls for their heads to be made an Example.

We have lost civility, somebody laments. Deadlock is everything that's gone wrong.

And Jesse ain't so sure. Deadlock's more a festering wound of a symptom of everybody's who's ever been displaced. The epidemic of orphaned kids never got better after the war; those kids just grew up and they grew up angry and they funneled their fates to this. Bellicose clawing at whatever they can get their hands on to spite the hand that's been dealt. Deadlock felt like an open-hand for the lonely and hateful; wearing their regalia made them feel all these burs a little less, empowered them to spill the storms thats been choking up in their chests for so long. Hell, you could even say snagging their teeth on military-grade weaponry's just paying the government back for their failures, a giant middle finger to the systems that let folk slip through to dust in the desert. (It's ego, too. Vanity. Kids hopped up on pushing envelopes to the brim and seeing how much further they could push. Making names for themselves while showboating and claiming a resource no other gang's dared to hoist. Well, they've pushed. And clever isn't going to do much for an oncoming dead-end tomb clickity-clackitying its way down the railroad tracks.)

They've been spawning copy-cats, on top of that, trying to claim their name after pulling two-bit robberies that are too damn messy, too half-thought-out and sloppy. Despite the little hiccups defining their first months, there's a reason Deadlock hasn't been caught. Jesse and Ashe know how to stake out their marks, they plot out their escapes; Ashe covers contingencies when shit hits sideways and covers contingencies over those for when shit continues to hit sideways into a capsize. Jesse is better at reading rooms, navigating hostages to directives and knowing just when someone's itching to play hero; he's better at improvising when none of those contingencies covers the human irrationale.

Overwatch approaches different folk in the gang trying to worm their way in. They try different tactics, trying to set up disguised arms deals and catch em in the act, trying to plant candidates who could act as moles. Reyes ends up approaching jesse as a false civilian. Jesse tells him, ultimately, nothing, weaving circumventing answers that he's grown to be too good at to his own unfortunate detriment; but somebody sees them conversing and the rumors sprawls - bursting open like a ruined flood gate when a bust actually manages to go through and a familiar Commander is spear-heading the sting.

Reyes approaches Jesse once more after that; jesse tells him to cut the bullshit. They talk, seated on the opposite ends of a diner table, later to be emulated in an interrogation room, to be relived in many diners-to-come. Jesse tells him he knows who Reyes is. Reyes points to jesse's inner arm where the DL tattoo is inked, and tells him he knows about DL, too. He doesn't try to leverage information from jesse, only tells him that there's a way out. Kid's baffled, "Why the hell would I want a way out?" "Then why're you here, kid? You sure as hell aren't with those amigos of your's. You know who I am." A back and forth. Stalemate. Jesse tries his best to fish out information from Reyes, Reyes just fans out a deal of cards in front of him. "You help us and this doesn't have to go down dangerously. No one needs to get hurt." Last part gives him pause. Reyes sees it. Jesse knows he does - squares his jaw and shifts his gaze to the hands he's got fisted into each other on the table, clenched against each other in some sort of white knuckled prayer. He shoves himself up and out of the booth. Takes two steps then pauses. Scuffs his boot against linoleum, scraping at a scratch mark glinting dim from the kitchen light, "There's a woman. Up in the hills. She ain't got nothin' to do with none of this, but I'm worried for her."

"Negotiation usually means you give something in return, kid."

Jesse huffs, brows knit, shoots him a wary look, "She a civilian, ain't she? Ain't that your job? Protectin' folk like her?"

Reyes doesn't answer. Crossed arms and a rigid posture that's impossible to get a real read off from. Jesse scoffs, turns, and leaves.

It blows up; another successful bust against DL followed up with another. They might be trying to be quieter, but someone's tracking their caches being moved in the dead of night. Panic starts to set in, palpable and pulpy.

Ashe has Jesse join her and a handful of gunhands to personally oversee a cache being moved. Best to see it to themselves this time, but it's really a guise for confrontation. She doesn't kill him, but she thinks about it, hovers the barrel of her rifle over him after they knock the wind from his lungs with fractured ribs and leave him discombobulated with a split head wound. Tries to demand the truth. Tells him she had Frankie track his location and they saw him talkin to Reyes. That they got grasps of their conversation. That where you've been disappearing off to all this time?

Jesse just manages to croak, head spinning in the free-fall vortex of it all, "you fucking bugged me?"

Not much room to give an answer after that. Alarm goes off. People are approaching, people they don't know. A decision is made, he sees it in her eyes through the haze. There's a stark clarity to them he's never going to forget, or the way his stomach bottoms out to it. His words come out sluggish, he has a protest that's too heavy on the tongue to come out coherent. Wait presses out on a wheeze, but there's no fucking waiting for this. Someone else takes a shot that Ashe hesitated a beat too long on. Kid sees stars and warehouse ceiling on a blurry vision going black; red spilling out on concrete floor. Flourescent lights halo, but you sure as hell know those aren't fucking angels. There's yelling, fighting, but it grows distant and swallowed by panicked footsteps dimming in the volumes of retreat.

Combat boots flood his vision and some distant part of him is still screaming fight. There's a palm against his shoulder as he's levelled up; Jesse smears blood over tactical gear as he tries to steady himself against it, other hand making a last ditch effort for a knife he sees strapped to the vest. Doesn't make it. Guy catches him by the wrist, tells him, "Stop fighting, kid."

He chokes up blood, slurs on copper tasting slurry, "Guess somebody got hurt after all, huh?"

Reyes doesn't say anything. Not for a beat. Looks at him, eyes bearing down on unfocused ones.

"There's a price to pay for living like this. Did you really think you were above all of it?"

And, maybe. Blinded by the bellied arrogance of youth, feeling invincible when you've got the people you loved right there hurtling onwards into the void, drunk on narrow escapes. Hell, maybe you did. Who the hell knows. Deep down, though, maybe you'd also known it'd end like this. You've lived out there on your own much longer than you'd spent your time with Deadlock, seen plenty of untimely ends. Memento Mori. You are not so naive, but you sure did buy into hope and let it roll into a fantasy. Caught up in it all - you lost sight.

Yeah, you lost sight.

"Fuck."

All you make is a choked noise, strangled on a blood clot. Something wrenched between a sob and a laugh as you slump against this asshole of a stranger. This is the deathrattle of a dream vanishing into the dark.

They thought you were a traitor.

DL goes into hiding aftet that. Waiting for the fallout of rats to start talking. There's a few, from the busts that they'd successfully made prior. Jesse doesn't talk. Thinks to; never does.

They crop up again some years later, bold and steadfast. Turns out their seedling investments managed to keep em floating through the tight years and Ashe's business acuity got them sorted well, plunging fingers in the pies of white-collared crime as a passive sort of income. Expansion, truces, and conquest over rival gangs becomes a large part of their activity as their gunrunning starts to wake up again. Despite everything, they'd taken to his suggestion. The hiatus gives them enough time and space to ditch their stupid ass status as the posterchild of young folk crime; the strangled chokehold of attention on them fading into myth. Ashe learns from this, doesn't let it happen again. Talk on hunting Deadlock always comes with retaliation, insinuated threats on the status and position of everyone close to you.

They prosper without him.

the modern verse:

cole joins the gang sometime in his 20's after losing his arm to some heavy farm machinery falling on top of him. he still maintains his string of shit luck to shit luck of being unable to get and keep a job - except this time it's 10x harder where he can't always even get his front foot through the door to be considered and keeping it doesn't even manage to last 6 months to when he used to be able to at least manage to average a job for 9 months to 1.5 years.

Way he gets in contact with the gang is that he outshoots a loud-mouthed loser; leverages a bet cos he's running low on funds again. Shit nearly flings into an outright brawl. Woman with white hair tracks him down to a diner some days later: "Grady tells me you put my shootist to shame. Y'got a name?" They talk. She feels him out for his appetite for law-breaking. Tells him, "Might have a job offer for you."

Unsurprisingly, he gets along with her all too quick. Whatever professional veneer dissolves quick to friendships to fooling around. It's a fledgling gang, same origin story just that Cole comes in a little later after they've established. There's some politics with the kid he'd out-shot - comes to bite them in the ass later when that kid pulls a judas to a rival gang.

Cole's muti-faceted in the roles he plays, has to be when the gang starts out so small. Not too different from wearing different hats in a small business. Getaway driver, bodyguard, gun-runner, etc. He doesn't do wet work, but has shot down the people he needed to in an active shoot out. Most of the time he plays one hell of an enforcer.

the way it falls apart: deadlock begins to expand territorially. ashe negotiates trades, truces, and bullies/leverages other gangs via extortion and intimidation (talk soft, carry a big stick.) cole doesn't agree w deadlock expanding sm - but is relatively convinced to go along with it with the argument that if they can expand their territories/create a monopoly, they can control the gang violence that occurs there and minimize it; no competition fighting over shit, no collateral damage caught in the cross-fire, etc etc. but the expansion sets him off; they start getting involved in things that gives him pause. it gets bigger than their original small group of splitting the earnings amongst each other. it's not about the cut being made smaller (and boy do some folk try their damnest to misconstrue it that way), but the type of folk who are being brought in; the type of work they get involved in (some from a background of trafficking.)

cole speaks up, as he's prone to do, as he's always done, as he's been doomed to do, and most of them don't like that. because what they originally had was a sort of round table, a set up of equals, and you're trying to feed him this idea that they want to be on level with wolves? to traffickers? and to be amongst wolves who are always sniffing out weakness, cole throwing concerns out into the wind starts bringing questions to ashe's authority, her grip of power - and, it becomes apparent, at some point, that to wrangle with these wolves, she needs to be on top as a leader and not someone on the same level as a grunt. whatever illusion of a round table has been dissolved, bearing mostly the leaders of the gangs that they've absorbed to maintain pre-existing hierarchies and placate them in their merging.

it's easy to set him up for failure, eventually convince ashe that he's a rat in the midst with so many dissenting opinions.

The day he gets arrested is the day they disown him; left in the belly of a carcass of a warehouse with broken bones, bruised organs, and internal bleeding.

[odatodeath]

[ text to @tsushima-no-onryo: ] there’s someone here trying to take my money

He couldn’t say much else, because he was in the middle of being intimidated by a particularly-gruff, though a little on the shorter side, old gentleman. All he could do was slip his phone back into his pocket and hope Jin would get the message and... rush over to save him, or something.

Nobunaga had hubris, but he was aware of when things were starting to look tense. As a businessman, he really couldn’t go around with ties to every yakuza in the area, and the danger of being in this place would only rise the more he brushed them off.

So, to mitigate that, he’d have Sakai-san come and stake his claim to scare away this money-shark. 

It’d become a problem between those two organisations, and hopefully the pressure would be alleviated from him and the poor workers he left alone here for months at a time.

If Jin was going to come to the rescue, he would show-up right in the middle of their discussion; allowed by timid desk staff into the hallway that Mr. Oda’s office was attached to, where the door was surprisingly (and luckily) unlocked.

Maybe he’d even catch the look of relief in Nobunaga’s eyes when he pushed the door open.

The older yakuza in the room, however, wouldn’t turn to face him at all. Maybe he was patiently waiting for the rude interruption to be over? 

   “-- Sakai-sama,” Started Nobunaga (how polite he could be when he needed something,) “This is Ozaki-sama.” ... Of the Namikawa, no doubt. 

[the-rich-and-the-famous]

            GV. LIFE OF THE RICH AND FAMOUS  

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭ ℂ

            — everybody believes they’re destined for GREATNESS, don’t we?

well that's just as true here in Aurodon, where the elite rules all they touch or at least that's what they think. they send their children to the finest preparatory schools just so they can end up in the prestigious Aurodon College for the gifted. every one percenter in the world dreams of sending their sons and daughters there, royalties and business tycoons alike, but so do the commoners of the world.

they put their childrens names on the waitlist for the same schools that the rich and famous kids get into by batting their eyes and said children work twice as hard just to go to the same type of college as their "superiorly bred" classmates. then again, no matter how small someone is in the eyes of those on top they can still rise up higher than ever believed and those already on top? they can fall further than they would ever imagine,just because of a well placed rumor whispered into the right ear.

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭ ℂ

             &&. THE LAW FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME

— This is an ALL HUMAN verse that takes place in a modern Aurodon (aka no fairytale characters, in this verse everyone is human and while we do have the class system nothing is the exact same as the original Aurodon i just used that name to have a place that is neutral) collegiate setting in the year 2031. There is of course room for older muses as well, as we need the world to be full of characters that aren't in college as well, but we do have a College built up for the characters in those ages.

— Muses must be at least 18 year's old and Mun must be 21+, this verse is supposed to be easygoing and fun so we just think that this would be the best way to do this. If your muse has younger siblings under said age you may mention them but we don't want threads with minors in this verse, for ours and your comfort.

— Muses don’t all have to be highborn (socialites,royalty,business tycoons,presidents and their children etc.) in fact we want people from all classes in society. If your muse has a background that's less glamorous than other muses, great! We want both characters with poor and rich backgrounds so don't feel like you have to make a muse into something they're not just to join in.

— This group will have a discord server, but if you don't have discord or you don't want to join there you don't have to, it's just easier to have the choice as tumblr sometimes acts up or people might not always have the mentality to log on tumblr. We're just doing this so everyone has options.

— Any LGTBQ+ relationships are completely ALLOWED and LEGALISED in all countries.

— Duplicate face claims are not accepted unless they are twins, or discussed with the other mun who currently has that face claim to have a logical reason as to why they have the same face claim.

— PLEASE DON’T MAKE EVERY MUSE A HIGHBORN. This is just for diversity, considering there are so many other roles a character can have, really the sky's the limit.

— Send in any gossip about the characters (for a fun gossip girl twist) to us anonymously and it'll get posted under our gossip tag

— NO TOLERANCE OF OOC DRAMA OR HATE AT ALL. This is a safe place, guys.

— As this is supposed to be a safe place to have fun, we won't force everybody to have a consistent activity in this group. Post whenever you can, we don't want this verse to be any stress for you guys!

— All fandoms, original characters, and canon muses are accepted. Multi-muses too!

— Tag all posts and threads related to the group verse with gv. life of the rich and famous

— One mun can have as many muses as they’d like in this group verse as long as they send an application for each of them.

— You have to send in an application and get accepted before participating. Please don’t write threads in this group verse with anyone outside it.

— After being accepted, please post a bio of your muse in this verse within a week or so. It doesn’t have to be really long, but with all the needed information there.

— SEND ALL OF YOUR APPLICATIONS HERE! (If for some unknown reason it wont work you can send it as an i.m. to @mxnstersarereal or on discord @ mxnstersarereal#0194)

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭ ℂ

             &&. APPLICATIONS

Mun name:

Muse name:

Muse Age:

Title (if you have one): ( royalty, nobility,socialite, businessperson, commoner,president, etc. )

Occupation:(either college student or something else)

Faceclaim:

Gender & pronouns:

Family / Lineage: ( some background of their father, mother, siblings, etc. )

3 surface level traits:

3 additional traits:

Dormitory wishes: (already know someone in the group? Want your character to room with them? No problem just write it here and if the room isn't full ,3/3 people , then you may room with them otherwise we'll take your choice into consideration)

Major/minor: (if your character is a student you can put any of the classes here , if your character is a teacher or alumni this would be where to put their degree and major )

Country they're from: (can be literally anything)

Amount of time that they've been in Aurodon:

Backstory: ( doesn’t have to be super long )

Discord: ( if you have one, but we’ll remove it when we post it )

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。..·。.·゜✭ ℂ

             &&. MEMBERS

@mxnstersarereal (emma) - erica mikaelson,

@thegoldenheiress (gwendolyn) - hope mikaelson, hayley marshall kenner

@backbitches (phantom) - madison montgomery

@bloomedcage (sam) - grey royce

@elitemikaelsonheiressqueen (amelia) - faith marshall mikaelson

[earnestly-endlessly]

Could you please rec cherik fics where they still have powers but being mutant is well accepted? (Kind of like the Daycare Verse by brillingspoons) THANK U SO MUCH YOURE INCREDIBLE

Hi anon, of course I have a list for you. I am so sorry for the delay. I have been super busy lately with work and home renovations, but I’m back and I have a looong list for you. Now, the nature of x-men as a parallel of the very real fight of minority groups for civil rights makes it pretty hard to find fics where everyone accepts mutants.That’s actually why I love the x-men, because they represent the fight of those who are ostracised. So, some of these might have some social commentary, but the main focus does not lie there. Also, if you love the Daycare Verse check out pocky_slash’s fics (who actually wrote the majority of the Daycare Verse). 

------

Cherik ´Still Have Powers Modern AU´ Fic Recs

irreconcilable differences (make for surprisingly good bedfellows) – pocky_slash

Summary: Tonight on The Evening Report with Malcolm Stevens, noted geneticist and mutant equality proponent Dr. Charles Xavier faces off with the infamous mutant rights activist Magneto in a live televised debate over the Genetic Nondiscrimination Act.

(At least, if they can stop flirting long enough to stay on topic.)

Words and Pictures – pocky_slash

Summary: When Lorna's powers manifest early, Charles Xavier's mutant picture books are the perfect teaching tool. Erik just hadn't expected the author to be so young. Or attractive. Or available.

For the Record – endingthemes

Summary: As prominent figures in the mutant rights movement, activists Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are pretty much household names. When a romance scandal between them breaks, their celebrity reaches new heights, and though the increased exposure is great, there’s a big problem -- the two of them are just friends.

Too bad no one believes them.

Runs in the Family – Anonysquirrel (chibirisuchan)

Summary: Alex knew his own reputation. Hell, he'd started some of his own reputation, because it kept some of the smarter thugs off his back. Everyone knew Alex's reputation. There was no way Hank didn't know his reputation, but he'd brought Alex into a house with some really expensive things and a lot of innocent little kids and his too-friendly, too-harmless dad.

But clearly Hank hadn't told his family anything about Alex, just like he hadn't told Alex anything about his family. At least, not about the brain-breaking parts of his family.

"I didn't know where to start," Hank said, for the dozenth time.

Featuring mpreg!Charles in a Kiss The Cook apron, overprotective!Erik in wet black leather, and baked goods. Lots and lots of baked goods.

(Another segment of this series is posted under the Cookie Cutter fic collection - thanks again, Takmarierah!)

Impulse Decisions – listerinezero

Summary: Erik wakes up in Las Vegas with a hell of a hangover, a telepath in his bed, and a ring on his finger. Now what?

You Show Me Yours - endingthemes

Summary: When Erik receives nudes in the middle of the night from an unknown number, he's confused and mildly amused. He doesn't expect it to turn into an actual conversation...with feelings.

As if that's not baffling enough, his friend's brother ends up crashing at his place, further complicating everything.

Some Such Place (The Big Screen Classics Remix) - Pocky_Slash

Summary: Erik's spent the last eighteen months having lengthy socio-political conversations and casual sex with Charles Xavier after seeing Monday matinees at a dingy little independent movie theatre in the Village. That doesn't mean they're friends. Or that Erik should have any say in what Charles is going to do with his future.

(At least, that's what Erik keeps telling himself.)

Into Your Tar, Honey  - tomato_greens

Summary: Really, Alex doesn’t know why he’s in the damn class.

(Or, the one in which Charles teaches an online Introduction to Biology course, and Alex reads more than he expected to.)

Heli Cases - Black_Betty

Summary: "Heli Cases" is a program on PBS whose aim is to educate on the rapidly increasing occurrence of genetic mutation in the general populous by breaking the complex science down into palatable, easy to digest pieces.

It is also the only thing that helps Erik get his fussy daughter to fall asleep.

(Featuring Dadneto, baby Lorna and the struggles of single fatherhood, and Charles as the host of a late night show about genetics.)

Bound - FuryRed

Summary: Is there anything worse than someone else’s wedding? Well, perhaps your sister’s wedding- where the groom just has to invite his boss and that man just happens to be your ex-boyfriend; a person you had an extremely passionate and tumultuous relationship with that ended badly.

Charles hadn’t seen Erik for a year by the time Raven had told him about the wedding. He wasn’t looking forward to the occasion, particularly when Raven explained that they would be celebrating the event with a two-week extravaganza at a luxury hotel, meaning that Charles would be forced to spend a whole fortnight with the man who he’d given everything to; the man who had ultimately broken his heart…

An Exercise in Frustration – ikeracity

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr's latest critically-acclaimed film Shame features a full-frontal nudity scene. His long-suffering husband Charles is really very peeved about it.

Eyes on Fire - Black_Betty

Summary: Every once in a while, fashion tycoon Emma Frost invites her favourite male models over to entertain her. And by "entertain", I mean she makes them have kinky consensual sex in front of her....Emma never touches herself when she watches, but she always has a glass of wine with her. Emma likes it best when they eventually forget that she's watching.

Charles and Erik meet each other through Emma...

(I've taken some liberties with the prompt, but all the sex is still there, and it's wholly consensual...and gradually, becomes more than just sex...)

Order Up - ikeracity

Summary: Charles has a terrible habit of multitasking, and that is probably why he absentmindedly tells the pizza man that he loves him when hanging up.

Then the pizza man says it back. And Charles is pretty much smitten from there.

Some Assembly Required - manic_intent

Summary: "Alex and Hank were two teenagers who frequently fight in school. One fight got so bad that the principal called in their fathers (as both came from single-parent families)/ guardians for a conference. This was how Charles and Erik meet."

Limited Release - rageprufrock

Summary: When Alex Summers broke out of supermax to rescue his stupid kid brother, he had no idea it was going to be so fucking complicated.

Math Reasons – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: "Mom says Erik always knows what he wants, it just sometimes takes him a little while to actually realize it," Ruth said.

Charles fell in love with Erik the first night they met, the first week of freshman year. Two years of friendship, adventures, arguments, hijinks, secrets, and summer visits later, Erik is starting to catch up.

It’s kind of our whole thing – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: After two years of best friendship, Charles and Erik thought they knew everything there was to know about each other. They're surprised, then, when their first summer as a couple reveals that they have a lot to learn about each other and themselves.

PART 2 of Math Reasons

A Nice Boy (The Family Matters Edition) – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik's not sure whether the problem is that he doesn't want his parents to meet Charles or that he doesn't want Charles to meet his parents. Either way, he never invites Charles to brunch. Why should he? It's not like they're dating.

apple season – pocky_slash

Summary: "You know," Charles says while they're sitting around the kitchen table reading the paper, "You should take Anya apple picking."

"Don't you mean 'we?'" Erik responds. The silence that follows is enough to make him re-examine his own apple picking memories a little more closely. Uneven ground littered with apples, tree roots, holes, and narrow passage between rows of orchard trees. "Oh," he says.

rooms/shares – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik is single, working a cube job he hates, letting his master's degree in mutant studies collect dust, and living on his best friend's couch. When she kicks him out, he's forced to trawl Craigslist for the least-offensive rooming option within his meagre budget. He never expects a response from the persnickety, high maintenance ad he replies to as a joke, but it's possible this too-nice apartment and mysteriously absent roommate might be the answer to all four of his problems.

Continue firm and constant – aesc

Summary: Moira hasn't seen her old partner in saving the world from threats human and intergalactic, Erik Lehnsherr, for a few years. When she finally does see him again, she finds a man different from the one who's been with her down in the dark and the dirt and the blood... or maybe he isn't so different after all.

Tough little baby telepath – aesc, pearl_o

Five Part Series

Summary: Teenage telepath Charles Xavier takes a job as a consultant, working with prickly police detective Erik Lehnsherr. Charles is used to being on his own and taking care of himself; he has no reason to think that his relationship with this stern, icy man is going to change any of that.

Frosted hearts – aesc, palalife

Summary: Emma Frost has 99 problems, but a date ain't one. Specifically, she has no time to play the dating game--which is fine with her, because she'd much rather run it instead. From a set of sleek, silver and white offices on Fifth Avenue and with her trusty, stylish, and silent partner Janos Quested, Emma has built Frosted Hearts into New York City's premiere dating service, built on the principle that money, and a sufficiently rigorous psionic scan, can, in fact, buy you love.

Somewhere in Frosted Hearts's server is one Charles Xavier, genius and geneticist, with the kind of nicely-starched good looks that sell well on brochures for New England prep schools. He's also a telepath who's decided to give up pursuing serious relationships and instead spend his thirties doing what he should have done as a teenager: have a lot of sex with random people. Fortunately for him, Erik Lehnsherr, metallokinetic and engineering executive, has absolutely no time in his heart or his schedule for anything more serious than... well, absolutely nothing romantic at all.

Mercy of the Fallen (the AirDrop Security Update 2.0) – pocky_slash

Summary: Erik Lehnsherr feels defined by his past sins and after years of acting against his own moral compass, he's finally struck out on his own. He's his own boss now, and determined to work hard to help the mutant community and make up for years of doing someone else's dirty work.

Complicating this is Charles Xavier, mutant advocate, genetics professor, unfairly attractive telepath, and owner of the coffee shop below Erik's office. Erik may not think he deserves to be a part of the community he's thrown himself into helping, but Charles has other ideas on the matter, and he's determined to do everything in his power to make Erik see himself as a force for good.

you follow and i’ll lead – pearl_o, pocky_slash

Summary: When Charles discovers how frustrated and self-conscious his best friend Erik is about his ignorance about sex, he's eager to volunteer to help teach him and practice. Charles might not have any more direct experience than Erik, but he does have a telepath's mind full of accidentally picked-up fantasies and memories, as well as knowledge of a few dirty books - and more importantly, he's been madly in love with Erik for years. This seems like a brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that he can't pass up.

Now he just needs to manage to keep his feelings in check, and not ruin their friendship forever.

Snail Mail – pocky_slash

Summary: Alex isn't thrilled when his boss, Erik, starts sending him to hand deliver notes to Erik's husband up at the university--that is, until he sees the Professor's hot new TA, and suddenly, the notes can't come fast enough. If only Alex could work up the guts to ask him out....

this is life (and everything’s all right) – pocky_slash

Summary: Edie Lehnsherr came into Charles' life long before he ever heard Erik Lehnsherr's name, and her death left a gaping hole in the lives of everyone in Charles' family. As the first Purim without her approaches, he begins to get creative in his efforts to bring everyone out of their grief. Kitchen creativity, however, is not quite his strength....

Watching the Detectives – Clocks

Summary: Detectives Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr are good friends and colleagues. However, when they go undercover at a Christmas party to nab a prime suspect, Erik keeps reminding himself to stay professional and ignore feelings of unexpected jealousy.

Student/Teacher Relations – PoorMedea

Summary: As a TA, Charles knows he can't get involved in all his students' lives. He needs to keep professional boundaries, to make sure that he's an authority figure. But when he accidentally finds out how complicated Erik Lehnsherr's home life is, he suddenly finds that distance hard to maintain.

Fill for the prompt: Erik is the teen dad of adorable baby!Lorna. I just want teen!Erik being a dad, with adorable interactions between him and his baby. Angst is good too since there's always going to be some in such situations, but mainly I want to see teen dad Erik being an awesome dad who loves the hell out of his daughter despite whatever else may be going on.

Conspiracy of Kisses – Alaceron

Summary: Seven-year-old Erik needs to keep his telepathic best friend Charles from finding out that he wants to kiss him. But that's okay, because he has a plan - he'll put on a tinfoil hat.

Favorite Mistake – endingthemes

Summary: Charles Xavier doesn’t think anything of it when he sneaks out without even saying goodbye to his latest one-night stand. What he doesn’t expect is to walk into his new position in the Xavier Industries marketing department and find that his latest hook-up is now his new boss.

Never Take Biology for Granite – ikeracity, pangea

Summary: Charles is an internet celebrity who garners his fame from posting educational, in-depth videos about a different animal every week, though for some reason his viewers are always more interested in his sex life with his geologist husband, Erik, who happens to frown heavily upon all living things.

Except for Charles, of course, whom he's missed these past couple days while attending a geologic convention--though considering the subject material of Charles' newest video, he's wishing he would've stayed away longer.

This Is Not Comedy – baehj2915

Summary: Written for amarriageoftrueminds' prompt for a Cherik version of Louis CK's tangent about the fuckability of Ewan McGregor.

Naturally the similarities end there. I made this about Erik's full on public lust-filled gay revelation, and the chaos that spirals from there.

Snowed In – dedkake

Summary: Charles and Erik have a one night stand, but a blizzard traps them in Erik's apartment afterward.

[cascadingsorrows]

Open Verses - For muses that currently has verses    ** - Means it’s possible for tws / blacklist  -> There are more verses not listed and can be found on my muses page, these are the ones that I have most muse for/are new/ etc. -> As I think of more verses I will update this list and their respected pages. -> These are just aus, it doesn't include their Main verses. Main Verses are always open

Wei Wuxian

Yiling Patriarch ** - Dark Wuxian, doesn't fall from cliff but let's his mind be consumed by the resentful spirits. AKA bad ending.

Vampire - Follows the events of CQL up to the point where he's thrown into the Burial Mounds. Instead of Resentful spirits, there are vampires hidden in the darkness and turns him.

Modern - Open for pretty much anything modern related including but not limited to College | Coffee Shop | Idol ( <- this is major **) AUs

Star Wars - A Jedi turned Sith, I do have a whole world created for this, if interested I can send you the docs with the information.

Immortal - Wuxian reached immortality before "canon" and there's the Burial Mound Wei Sect that everyone hates but tolerates.

Mermaid - Who doesn't want a mermaid au?

Incubus / Demon ** - ;)

Jiang Yanli

Vampire - Ties in with Wuxian's Vampire au where Wuxian turns Yanli in Nightless City.

Modern - Open for anything

Forest Spirit - She is a spirit that lives in the forest surrounding Yunmeng, she watches over the animals and trees but as time moves on and cities grow bigger, she's slowly disappearing along with her home.

Xue Yang

Vampire - This takes place during the time he's messing around with the recreation of the Stygian Tiger Amulet, an experiment gone wrong per se.

Modern - Includes -> Idol and College

Xiao Xingcheng

Fae - He was once part of the Northern/Winter Court of Faes but due to his conflicts on the way their queen ran things, he opposed her and resulted in him being blind and exiled from his home. Now he's a wanderer.

Modern - Includes -> College

Outlast ** - Based on the horror game Outlast 1 and Outlast Whistleblower, Xingchen is sent to Mount Massive Asylum (or any other au related place) as an inmate and due to the horrors inflicted, he becomes deranged. I will not go into more details due to the graphic nature of the game itself. But think of this as a Dark Xingchen au.

Nie Mingjue

Modern - Includes -> Professor | Business Man | Idol

Lan Xichen

Modern - Includes -> College | Model

Dragon - The mighty dragons of Gusu lived for thousands of years until a war set their Cloud Recesses ablaze and nearly all of the dragons were slain. Xichen, his brother, and a handful of others survived and are trying to rebuild what was lost.

Elf - Think Lord of the Rings type of elvans, graceful, beautiful.

Dark! - Post-Canon, Xichen spiraling into the darkness and takes Wuxian's manuscripts and well we all know how well that will go.

Lan Wangji

Modern - Open to anything including College | Idol ect

Dragon - Works alongside Xichen's Dragon verse

Elf - Again it's tied to Xichen's Elf verse.

Luo Binghe

Dark! ** - This is the original Binghe route, no Mr.nice guy (unless you were nice to him then he'll be nice to you) and has a deep “hatred” for Shen Qingqiu (Shen Jiu, Shen Yuan he has a tendency to have a change of hearts).

Reverse - Instead of Shen Qingqiu going to the world of Proud Immortal Way, what if Binghe is sent to the modern world?

Hua Cheng

Demon ** - He is the Lord of Purgatory, a kingdom of monsters and all that is lost.

Mafia - He owns an underground club named The Ghost City and deals his business there, above ground no one would think he was one of the four famous bosses.

Chu Wanning

Cat!God - Living in a realm between worlds, Red Lotus Pavillion he once watched over the human race yet, he was slowly forgotten and his home can only be found by those that truly want to see him. ( The lonely and the forgotten). There's a second branch where he ventures out of his realm and gets injured and can't return home/can't shift into his human form.

Zhou Zishu

Modern - He is the sole heir to the Four Seasons Manor, a very famous and powerful tycoon known around the world. (Rivals The H/iltons for example)

Mermaid

- ;)

[leroiloup]

                                       ᴜɴᴇᴀsʏ ʟɪᴇs ᴛʜᴇ ʜᴇᴀᴅ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴡᴇᴀʀs ᴀ ᴄʀᴏᴡɴ

Hades  ◆  god of the dead & riches  ◆  Klaus Mikaelson group verse : the old gods are dead

about :

Hades is the god of the dead, the underworld, and of riches. He’s knowing to be the wealthy god and lives up to that reputation in modern days.

As the gods of the old ways shifted into shadow, Hades adopted the name Klaus Mikaelson, and lives a double life as a multi-billionaire business tycoon –– and the king of the crime underworld.

Klaus doesn’t see himself as the villain, but rather the only one who took the life he’d been given and found a way to find purpose with it. 

He resents the 12 Olympian gods, especially Zeus, for being looked down on and left out. Though he’ll never outwardly attack any one of them, he loves to play mind games and stir shit up for them.

He owns three beloved black dogs that many would assume to be Cerberus. In fact, their names are Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. His “three favorite bitches” he calls them as a joke. 

The real Cerberus is himself. He’s able to transform at will into a large, wolf-like dog with three heads.

He loves to show off his wealth and revel in it as a means to inflate his self-importance.

He’ll be the first to remind people that he only governs the dead ; he’s not the grim reaper.

relationships :

@quinncess - Eris is his best friend, the two creating chaos everywhere they though. They can empathize together with what it’s like to be the black sheep. Hades will often times lay on her couch and rant about his life while she acts as his caring therapist. He’ll always have a soft spot for her.

@daphodils - Aphrodite is a complicated love affair. While there’s no real “love” there, he showers her with gifts and dotes on her as a way to have control in their sexual relationship. Knowing that it never works only makes him eager to try harder.

@sarcasmpersonified181 - Ares is a frienemy of sorts. Hades has hired him for his investigative work, but knows that often times, he’s the one being investigated.

@lannisqueen - Hera is someone that Hades deeply resents, because he knows that she understands better than anyone the cruelty of Zeus, but she continues to take it. Too often he’s tried to help her, and she turns her back on him, choosing Zeus instead. Although she infuriated him, Hades hopes that one day they can band together to take him down.

[strandedhaze]

ONE : MEET NAOMI

FULL NAME: naomi june cheng-bradshaw. PREFERRED NAME: naomi. NICKNAME(S): most people call her nomi, noms, nao, nai and similar variations, elijah calls her nana. DATE OF BIRTH: may 3rd, 1994. GENDER: cis female. PREFERRED PRONOUNS: she/her/hers. ORIENTATION: heterosexual. RELATIONSHIP STATUS: single in main verse. RELIGION: she’s not a particularly religious person. OCCUPATION: press manager for honda racing corporation. CURRENT RESIDENCE: madrid, spain ; she owns a house in the prestigious la finca neighbourhood.

TWO : NAOMI’S BACKGROUND

HOMETOWN: marina bay, singapore. NATIONALITY: singaporean. LINGUISTICS: english is her native language but, asides from it, she speaks spanish, portuguese, italian, french, mandarin chinese and japanese. in some languages, she’s more proficient than others. for instance, she speaks spanish just as well as she speaks english. her spoken japanese is nearly flawless and though she can read and comprehend the language, she can’t write. she’s still getting around to dive deeper into mandarin chinese.  EDUCATION: she attended the massachusetts institute of technology - also known as MIT - and she has a double degree in business analytics and management. CRIMINAL RECORD: clean. BIRTH ORDER: first. FATHER: charles bradshaw was born on february 23rd, 1971 in windsor, england. he is an investment banker who resides in between hong kong and dubai.   MOTHER: sonoya cheng was born on july 5th, 1971 in sentosa island, singapore. she is a real estate tycoon who resides in between toronto, abu dhabi and singapore.  SISTER(S): none. BROTHER(S): edward cheng-bradshaw was born on january 15th, 1997 in marina bay, singapore. he is a software developer manager and resides in san francisco, california. OTHER RELEVANT FAMILY: constance mizuno, sister-in-law. SIGNIFICANT OTHER: naomi is single. CHILDREN: none so far. FRIENDS: to be done. EXES: andrea pagani, marco ricci and aleix martin. PETS: none so far.

THREE : GET UP CLOSE & PERSONAL

HEIGHT: 5′7″ ( 174 cm ). WEIGHT: her weight oscillates between 127 lbs ( 57.6 kg ) and 134 lbs ( 61 kg ). BODY TYPE AND BUILD: she is naturally slim - courtesy of genetics and her fast metabolism - but, despite that fact, she still has a willowy frame. by no means, does she have a hourglass shape with a big bust, tiny waist and thick thighs but with a good, healthy diet and a workout plan ( that she, often, forgets to follow ) consisting of some weight training and fun classes, naomi has still managed to achieve a shape she’s comfortable with. she has particularly long legs and, thanks to all the hot yoga and pilates classes, she holds a rather toned overall body. EYE COLOR: brown. EYESIGHT: she has perfect eyesight though when the work load increases, you’ll find her reaching for her glasses in order to give her eyes a break. she also wears blue light blocking glasses whenever she’s working on a computer. HAIR COLOR: dark brown. HAIR STYLE: her hair is, has always been - and will always be, according to her - long, hitting the middle of her back, at worst, when she goes for a trim to keep its healthy condition and it has a natural wavy texture which naomi has learned to love. styling wise, it rarely gets too eventful... during the season, she’ll throw it on a ponytail or a bun for the race weekends and allow it to dry into its natural texture on the remaining work days. if she’s attending an event of sorts or going out to celebrate, she’ll straighten it or go for a nice blowout. DOMINANT HAND: right. NOTABLE PHYSICAL TRAITS: her lips or, possibly, their plumpness, her legs that often seem endless, her tan complexion and how it makes her dark eyes and hair standout, and for the rare occasions when it makes an appearance, her smile. SCARS AND MARKS: nothing outstanding - she has your average scars and marks here and there. TATTOOS: she has a lotus mandala on the inside of her right wrist, a symbol of enlightenment for her, as well as a way to symbolize all the growth she achieved throughout her life.  PIERCINGS: regular lobes. VOICECLAIM: nicole elise. ACCENT AND INTENSITY: having moved out and grown up in london, naomi developed a thick london accent which she never knew how intense it was up until she found herself in massachusetts. the four years spent there, softened the intensity of the british accent and the nearly six years in spain also played a part when washing away what once was a proper londoner accent so, these days, it’s hard to identify what accent she has exactly. it’s more of a mixture than anything specific.  ALLERGIES: cherries and insect stings, particularly bee stings. PHOBIAS AND FEARS: extremely deep waters and though it’s not a phobia, she gets really nervous when she’s driving over bridges. MENTAL ILLNESSES: none so far. PHYSICAL ILLNESSES: none so far. SCENT THEY WEAR: it varies depending on a lot of factors, such as season of the year, time of the day, occasion and, above all, her personal mood. during summer, you’ll often catch her wearing soleil blanc by tom ford or replica beach walk by maison margiela, and during summer nights, she'll wear sundaze by byredo. for fancy events, her go-to is bewitching yasmine by penhaligon’s, same way her go-to for nights out with friends is slow dance by byredo. whenever she has an important business meeting, she’ll wear cuir celeste by ex nihilo, simply because in naomi’s opinion, the scent is the definition of boss bitch and throughout race weekends, she’ll go for rose of no man’s land by byredo. le labo’s patchouli 24 and maison margiela’s replica by the fireplace are generally the scents she wears through winter. for date nights where she actually cares to put some effort in and is actually interested in the person, she’ll specifically wear reine de nuit by byredo or santal 33 by le labo. ALCOHOL USE: socially, she does. SMOKING: she doesn’t smoke. OTHER NARCOTICS USE: no. INDULGENT FOOD: she prefers to eat healthy but there’s no denying that every once in a while, she needs to indulge in some soul food.  SPLURGE SPENDING: it happens every now and again, but she’s mostly a responsible buyer. GAMBLING: no. ADDICTIONS AND VICES: none.

FOUR : DIG DEEPER

CAN THEY DRIVE? yes, she can drive. CAN THEY COOK AND BAKE? yes and yes. CAN THEY CHANGE A FLAT TIRE? yes. CAN THEY TIE A TIE? yes. CAN THEY SWIM? yes. CAN THEY RIDE A BICYCLE? yes. CAN THEY JUMP START A CAR? yes. CAN THEY BRAID HAIR? yes. CAN THEY PICK A LOCK? yes. EXTROVERTED OR INTROVERTED? extroverted. DISORGANIZED OR ORGANIZED? organized, and she hates when things get messy. CLOSE OR OPEN MINDED? open minded. CALM OR ANXIOUS? calm. PATIENT OR IMPATIENT? healthy in-between and always depends on the situation. OUTSPOKEN OR RESERVED? outspoken. LEADER OR FOLLOWER? she's a leader, all through and through. OPTIMISTIC OR PESSIMISTIC? optimistic, mostly. TRADITIONAL OR MODERN? modern. HARD-WORKING OR LAZY? hard-working. CULTURED OR UNCULTURED? cultured. LOYAL OR DISLOYAL? loyal. FAITHFUL OR UNFAITHFUL? faithful. NIGHT OWL OR EARLY BIRD? honestly, it all depends on the time of the year. HEAVY OR LIGHT SLEEPER? light sleeper. COFFEE OR TEA? tea over coffee, these days. DAY OR NIGHT? night. TAKING BATHS OR SHOWERS? baths. COCA COLA OR PEPSI? none. CATS OR DOGS? both. NETFLIX OR CINEMA? netflix. SHOWS OR MOVIES? both. LAPTOP OR GAMING CONSOLE? laptop. HEALTHY OR JUNK FOOD? healthy. ICE CREAM OR FROZEN YOGURT? ice cream. PIZZA OR HAMBURGER? pizza. LOLLIPOPS OR GUMMY WORMS? gummy worms. BEACH OR POOL? beach. SNOWBALLS FIGHTING OR ICESKATING? iceskating. LITERATURE OR SCIENCE? science. HISTORY OR ART? art. CHOCOLATE BARS OR COTTON CANDY? chocolate bars. XBOX OR PLAYSTATION? playstation. FACE-TO-FACE OR PHONE INTERACTIONS? face-to-face interactions. DRAMA OR SCI-FI? sci-fi. HORROR OR COMEDY? horror.

FIVE : NAOMI’S LIKES & DISLIKES

FAVORITE ACTIVITY: yoga. FAVORITE ANIMAL: giraffe. FAVORITE BOOK: everything i know about love by dolly alderton. FAVORITE QUOTE: ❝ when you’re tired, go slowly. go quietly. go timidly. but do not stop. ❞ — heidi priebe. FAVORITE COLOR(S): it’s a very specific beige/tan colour, a champagne type of shade.  FAVORITE DESIGNER: maison christian dior and acne studios. FAVORITE CUISINE: singaporean cuisine, all through and through. there are little things she’s more passionate about than her national cuisine, she often says no one does food like singapore.  FAVORITE DISH(ES): hainanese chicken rice, laksa, hokkien fried mee and dumplings. FAVORITE DRINK: matcha ginger latte and bubble tea.  FAVORITE FLOWER(S): lotus flower. FAVORITE GEM: diamond. FAVORITE HOLIDAY: new years. FAVORITE MOVIE: currently, it must be parasite by bong joon-ho.  FAVORITE MUSIC GENRE: she doesn’t have a favorite music genre. naomi listens to a little bit of everything because for her, it’s more about the songs and artists than the genre itself. FAVORITE SONG(S): xo by beyoncé. GO TO KARAOKE SONG: kiss it better by rihanna. FAVORITE SCENT(S): the scent of gasoline, melting chocolate and freshly baked goods. FAVORITE TELEVISION SHOW(S): la casa de papel. FAVORITE SPORTS: motogp, formula1 and football. SPORTS TEAM THEY SUPPORT: real madrid. FAVORITE EMOJI: probably the 💅🏽 though it’s not what she uses the most. FAVORITE WEATHER: she likes that type of weather at the end of a summer day, when it’s warm but not too much and you walk around the beach feeling that soft breeze of air hitting you, and the day is settling down and all that remains is a wash of what the weather was throughout the day. FAVORITE SEASON OF THE YEAR: summer. FAVORITE PLACE(S): a close tie between her childhood home in marina bay, singapore and her current home in madrid. she loves the memories and how much singapore grounds her, how it freshens up her ties to the culture and reminds her of better days. at the same time, she also loves madrid. the people, the culture and everything in between. both bring her a sense of peace she’s very fond of. SUPERPOWER THEY WISH THEY HAD: teleportation.  VACATION DESTINATION: if she was forced to choose, coppenhagen or amsterdam for a solo, self-reflection trip and anywhere in japan or thailand just to unwind.

[mysticandskepticmuses]

BASICS.

name:  isaac edward bancroft. nickname(s):  none in particular. alias(es):  …. laurens bancroft. age: 64 birthday:  july 17 species: human, methuselah. heritage: english, welsh, swedish, russian. gender:  male. romantic orientation: homoromantic. sexual orientation:  homosexual. religion: not applicable. current residence: suntouch house, the aerium, bay city, earth.

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE. ( PRIMARY SLEEVE. )

eyes:  steel blue. hair: dark brown, curly, bordering on wildly so. skin:  lightly bronzed. height:  5′9″ build: slightly built, wiry. scars: few, and not often for long. tattoos and piercings: none. distinguishing features: none in particular. faceclaim: antonio marziale.

LAYER ONE.

occupation:  an acute businessman with a head for infrastructure and rebuilding a business / corporation from the inside out to make it more streamlined and efficient, increasing profit margins as a whole.  very limited options to show this as his father restricts his actual influence in bancroft industries and is typically confined to smaller, more pr related or busy work around the offices.

education: a masters in business and finance, and has continued to attend school at collegiate levels, one or two classes a semester, almost his entire adult life in every topic imaginable in an attempt to become well rounded and to continue to add to his repertoire and portfolio.  current focus is both corporate structure, with a more recent interest in engineering and architecture.

languages spoken:  english, russian, japanese, mandarin, arabic and spanish.

skill sets:  finance, corporate structure, management skills, a broad knowledge of history, art, religion, some base knowledge of anatomy, botany, some knowledge of astrology and cartography.  mathematics and logic skills and games such as chess and go.  football, lacrosse, tennis, etc.  excellent shot with ranged weapons including modern lasers, firearms, bow and arrow and crossbow.  

abilities/modifications:  subvocal communicator, subdermal tracker, corneal implant for his ONI, skill modifications for logic and memory enhancement, some minor muscle memory mods for athletic abilities and enhanced hand-eye coordination.

PHYSICAL STATISTICS.

★★☆☆  — physical strength ★★☆☆☆  — offense ★★☆☆☆  — defense ★★★☆☆  — speed ★★★★☆  — accuracy ★★★☆☆  — agility ★★★☆☆  — stamina ★★☆☆☆  — stealth

MENTAL / SOCIAL STATISTICS.

★★★★☆  — intelligence ★★★☆☆  — empathy ★★☆☆☆  — manipulation ★★☆☆☆  — intuition   ★★★☆☆  — deception ★★★★☆  — verbal communication ★★★☆☆  — self control ★★★★☆  — teamwork

STATUS / INFLUENCE STATISTICS.

★★★★☆  — financial ★★★★☆  — social ★★☆☆☆  — political ★☆☆☆☆  — military* ★☆☆☆☆ — police force* ☆☆☆☆☆  — religious* ★★★☆☆  — media   ★★☆☆☆  — field of study or work / expertise

LAYER TWO.

mental / psychiatric disorders: mild dysphoria.   physical ailments: none. drugs / alcohol / nicotine: occasional use of all. myer-briggs:   introvert(16%)  iNtuitive(22%)  thinking(6%)  judging(31%) positive:  ambitious, earnest, loyal, personable, crafty, studious. negative: rebellious, daring to a fault, ambitious, driven, desperate. moral alignment: neutral good.

CONNECTIONS.

laurens bancroft, father, methuselah, business tycoon miriam bancroft, mother, methuselah. naomi bancroft & 20 other siblings. sergei brevlov, 114, lover. tbd.

VERSE DEPENDENT CONNECTIONS.

thomas cromwell. ( @threecardtrick ) gregory cromwell.  lover in the world build with threecardtrick.

WRITTEN BY ME / from my old AC multi. Please do not use or reblog.

[dramaclover]

Ending of Barrack O’Karma

Yuk Fai goes back in time to save Coco, so he could change the fate he has with Alex. Due to this everyone’s fate ended up changing in the future. I loved the ending. It was a happy ending overall for side characters while the main couple had a sort of ‘bittersweet’ ending. It was an open ending, so it depends on how you see it.

Side Characters Ending:

- Mrs. Ho does not end up stealing someone elses baby & family. She ends up owning and raising a dog as replacement. (They didn’t show Wong Man Chi, so I’m gonna assume she’s living happily with her husband & baby?)

- Tung Tung does not get snatched by the Crow. He ends up living happily with both of his parents. (Very happy that this arc gets the happily ever after ending)

- Raj becomes the owner of a restaurant with Ching Ching & her father being regular customers there. (Odd ending & disappointing that the only interracial couple doesn’t end up together. Also Ching Ching had a huge personality change where she’s more tomboyish. Her Dad ends up becoming a security guard?)

- Mia ends up becoming a successful idol. Ka Chun who “guarded” Mia in the previous life, is able to gather the courage to approach her in person and take a photo with her. (A bit sad that Mia never found out that Ka Chun was the one who guided her to achieve her idol dream. And even in this alternate ending, we’re still left in a limbo of “will they get together or not”)

- Kam Fung and Carmen are still a couple and proud owners of a successful bar. (I’m guessing they never broke up in this timeline, so he never ends up becoming a promiscuous playboy)

- Yuki becomes blind, so she no longer obsesses over her beauty. Luckily, Sai Hin is still by her side & is still deeply in love with her. (She has more of a darker ending, with being blind and all. But I love how even in this alternate verse, he still takes care of her)

- Ka Chun and Hei Man are together as well. They both still love playing video games. (Is he still living in the “Twilight Mansion”?)

- Lam Yuk Si ending was pretty vague. It shows him standing on top of a building with his older & younger self looking down on Alex (Some say he becomes a tycoon after taking Yuk Fai’s advice & invested in some properties. And apparently him looking down on Alex is him saying that he will always be her ‘guardian angel’ aka protecting her)

* It didn’t show an alternate ending to the first episode arc. Is that an error on the writers end? Or maybe they didn’t know how to write them in?

Main Characters Ending:

- Alex did die on the plane and what Yuk Fai saw was her ghost

- Due to Yuk Fai travelling back in time for the second time to save Coco. He ends up drowning himself. He sacrificed himself to save Coco. Which was in vain cause Coco died anyways, nonetheless different deaths caused the change in everyone’s fate. This also means in this timeline both Alex & Yuk Fai died. Coco and Ah Siu both died together in the previous life as well

- In a whole new universe that Yuk Fai created with his death. Alex a stewardess does not end up taking the plane that she would’ve disappeared in. And everyone’s lives were changed.

- Yuk Fai, no longer haunted by Coco’s ‘ghost’. Which was probably caused by guilt from his previous life from not being able to save her. He ends up succeeding in life and became a pilot

- They both end up meeting each other at Kam Fung & Carmen’s bar. They pass by each other & slowly turns back and look at each other. Then it shows flashbacks of their previous 60s and modern day lives while they smile at each other. The end.

I really do like the ending. Cause as everyone knows choices you make in life will ultimately determine your fate. Yuk Fai and Alex’s ending was perfect in my eyes. They get a do over and this time I hope it leads to a happy ending. It is open ended so it’s up to us to believe that either Alex or Yuk Fai would make the first move & start dating. And of course hopefully no one dies prematurely this time. The Twilight Mansion is what chained Alex, Yuk Fai & Lam Yuk Si to the building. Other characters went through weird circumstances due to living in the building. So in this timeline since no one (well almost everyone) no longer lives there, they all end up living normal lives. A fitting ending.

[godaime-obito]

How about modern assassins for Kagatobi

I may write more for this verse later; I’m liking it

“Tobirama,” Kagami says brightly, “What a coincidence that we’d be sent off on the same job again! It was just last week we both showed up to assassinate that oil tycoon at the same time.” He’s crouched low on the roof. It’s the perfect vantage spot to shoot the Prime Minister through his hotel window. If Tobirama is working the same job it’s no wonder he’s already assembling his gun in the same stretch of the buildings roof.

“In our profession there’s no such thing as coincidences,” Tobirama deadpans, “You should spend less time making small talk and more wondering who’s setting us up and why.”

“Where’s your since of adventure?” he whines “Besides,” he grins, “as long as I keep getting to see you I don’t mind.”

“It’s hardly the worst type of set up,” he admits, “but we could arrange to meet on our own terms.”

“How about we take out this fuck and split the pay out,” Kagami suggests, “then we could investigate who’s setting us up together.”

“Coffee afterwards?” Tobirama asks.

“We can get coffee whenever you want,” he promises.

“Be the lookout for me while I finish here and it’s a date,” he offers.

“Deal,” he chirps. He slips quietly towards a higher spot on the roof he can keep an eye out from. “My contact information,” he says, throwing a business card towards Tobirama like a shuriken, “in case you ever find yourself missing me.”

He pulls the card from where it’s corner is embedded slightly in the low wall edging the roof as Kagami disappears from sight. It’s a plain black card with red text that reads ‘Mirror’s Pest Extermination Service’ with a phone number listed underneath. When he finishes studying it he carefully tucks the card into a pocket and returns to leveling his sights at the window.

[grandschemed]

about jaime lannister.

name: jaime lannister. age: somewhere in his 30′s. species: asshole. human. gender: he/him. orientation: bisexual. occupation: ex-member of the crownsguard. family: tywin and joanna lannister, cersei and tyrion lannister, joffrey, myrcella and tommen baratheon, brienne of tarth — the woman he loves.

ending.

my jaime happily serves as a knight beside ser brienne of tarth and they get married in king’s landing while dressed in armor.  they do not have children, but they live long, fulfilled lives with podrick to accompany them.  their home is modest and often empty due to the happy couple’s adventures, but it is well-kept by a small staff and well-guarded by a golden little cat that brienne and jaime adopt as per jaime’s insistence more than anything.

much to brienne’s chagrin, jaime names the cat ‘ser prancealot’ and he is a beloved member of their little family.

verses.

post season 8: jaime leaves brienne after the battle of winterfell to rescue cersei, but also to finally bid her farewell and find closure in their storyline.  he has fallen out of love with her a long time ago and he is finally free, but cersei will always be important to jaime because she’s his family as tyrion is his family.  after the destruction of the iron throne, cersei lannister returns to casterly rock to reflect on the recent events that have transpired while tyrion serves as hand of the king to bran stark.

jaime continues to serve as a knight beside ser brienne of tarth, whom he marries in king’s landing and they do not have children, but they live happily ever after with a modest home and a golden cat named ser prancealot.

post season 8 alternate / his lady of tarth: in which the above events are likely the same, but brienne chooses to become lady of tarth as her father’s heir and retains the isle.  she is simultaneously lord, lady and knight and she marries jaime lannister, who serves dutifully at her side.  together, they eventually have two children — the eldest, a girl and the younger, a boy.  being lord, lady, knight and mother isn’t easy, but together with jaime, they make their family flourish and live happy, fulfilled days.

modern assassin: in which jaime used to work for targaryen industries, supporting aerys targaryen who was ceo and company president at the time.  however, a list of aerys’ multiple crimes of fraud, harassment, bribery, abuse and other claims were compiled and leaked by jaime and others in support of speaking up against their corrupt leader, which ultimately ended in the destruction of aerys’ career and bankrupted the legendary targaryen industries.  

as a result, lannister enterprises rises in power, seeking to swallow other companies to grow into an empire or destroy those who will not join them.  jaime is presently tywin lannister’s heir, but he has no desire to run the company, choosing instead to pass the role to his much more qualified sister, cersei lannister.  with prior military experience, jaime prefers to operate as his family’s right hand, carrying out assassinations on their orders — all covered up with money that lannister enterprises does not have.  

after the near destruction of stark co., jaime is kidnapped by robb stark, but ultimately freed by catelyn stark in hopes of winning a trade with her daughters.  catelyn’s bodyguard, brienne, escorts jaime back to the city, but together, they must endure mercenaries who want them both dead.  insert sexy stolen sports cars, dive bars and diners and sleeping in the same bed at a shady motel because it’s the only place to hide.

modern office: in which all of the great houses work for one massive corporation and each house represents a different department, backstabbing each other in order to claw their way to the top.  jaime and brienne have a forbidden office romance and may occasionally hate-flirt in front of the copying machine.

domestic modern: his dad’s a rich business tycoon, his sister’s following in his footsteps and tyrion’s headed towards politics.  jaime though?  he’s the infamous cop who killed aerys targaryen and the city scorns him for it, but after the loss of his dominant hand, slowly, over time, he’s learning to overcome his past failures once he’s inspired by an honorable rookie quickly rising up through the ranks — brienne tarth.  

he lives in a single bedroom apartment on his own and visits joffrey, myrcella and tommen as often as he can.

college: tbd.  i have no ideas yet, but my brand is college au.  jaime’s a rich bitch.

extras.

jaime loves cats, but he’s sadly allergic in modern au, but he pets them anyway.

all i have to say is that jaime’s a switch, but enjoys being bullied in the bedroom.

notes.

i do not ship jaime with cersei and will not be writing them romantically or sexually in any way.

[undxsclosxd-desxres]

[Music Note]

Send “🎵“ and I’ll reply with a song that’s related to my muse and I’ll explain why.

Tears for Fears - Everybody wants to rule the world

This song is one of the oldest songs on mun’s personal playlist dedicated to Blackheart, because it’s just a perfectly fittin song for him. 

Even when Blackheart might have a heart - he’s still a very dangerous demon and always seeks how to gain more power. Plus in the modern verses (e.g. Ex Astris Orior or Archipelago of Evil) he’s a tycoon of nightclubs and casinos - a billionaire who’s got his hands in everything, even in the politics.

Welcome to your lifeThere’s no turning backEven while we sleep We will find You acting on your best behaviorTurn your back on mother natureEverybody wants to rule the world

[…]

There’s a room where the light won’t find youHolding hands while the walls come tumbling downWhen they do, I’ll be right behind youSo glad we’ve almost made itSo sad they had to fade itEverybody wants to rule the world