#chris pine fc

CANON SPOTLIGHT: reed richards (mr. fantastic) 

face suggestions: chris pine, joseph gordon-levitt, john krasinski

CAROLINE RHODES (Jana Kramer) is looking for her HUSBAND. Please contact Maddie here in regards to this connection.

Five families locked in a bloody battle spanning centuries...

Their power struggle predates history books and lines were drawn long ago. By day, everyone carries on as the socialites and city slickers they pretend to be. By night? No one is safe. The streets are rife with betrayal and danger, unexplained animal attacks and mysterious injuries; all for control of one of the most powerful cities on earth. No one is who they say. Nothing is as it seems.

                                                    Welcome to the Empire State.

                                                    Welcome to New York City.

                                                                                                HOME || PLOT || LORE || APPLICATION

LIEUTENANT CHARLES “GHOST” ROBERTS · 35 · SNIPER · SHADOWED COMMANDO · TAKEN

" Life isn’t fair, it’s just fairer than death, that’s all. "

ORIGIN:

London, England

TRAITS:

+ Dedicated, Protective, Adaptable

- Reckless, Bitter, Insecure

BIOGRAPHY:

THERE IS A WAR OUTSIDE, COME SEE THE BULLETS FLY.

Charles didn’t know happiness for the first decade of his life. The eldest of three children, Charles only knew that his mother had died giving birth to his sister, and that his father hated Annie for it. Too many times, he heard his father curse Annie for being the reason he was stuck with three selfish, greedy brats to deal with alone. Charles took over the role of caring for them, and it was a common sight in their street to see Charles with his arms full of Annie, and Henry hanging onto his threadbare jacket so he wouldn’t fall behind.

It was also a common sight to see Charles senior drunk. He’d gamble what little money he earned, or waste it on the next drink, until his vices lost him his job. His temper grew worse, and the younger Charles started acting as a shield to protect his siblings from their father’s wrath. Even at such a young age, he knew he couldn’t rely on others to protect them. They had to work for everything. His father often complained that everything cost something, a lesson the younger Charles took to heart.

It was when he was 8 they had something of a reprieve. For most, the Great War was a tragedy, but for Charles, it became a form of freedom. Charles senior decided to fight, or was made to fight. Charles never knew what motivated his father, but it meant the children no longer had to worry about the next slap.

Their life didn’t get much easier though. Without no one else, they ended up homeless, forced to beg or steal. Whenever possible, Charles tried to find work, but he was only young, and no one trusted a child that looked like they hadn’t bathed in months. Whatever he earned or stole was spent on food, and Charles would often go without to make sure his siblings had enough. After a while, they joined up with a couple other homeless children, and they’d all share what little they had. Sometimes, a child would never come back to the little camp they made, and they’d never know why. Charles had gotten used to not getting answers, preferring to focus on the moment.

Although he wasn’t the eldest, Charles was easily the most charismatic. Whenever he could clean up properly, he’d manage to talk adults into trusting him with work, which always meant more food.

They never got word their father was dead, but when the war ended and he still hadn’t come back, 11-year-old Charles knew he had to keep being the responsible one. He didn’t know anything else anyway.

A year after the war, Charles heard some former soldiers giving an old lady trouble. He never found out what brought Liesel from Germany, never found out her story, but the first day he met her changed everything for him. Although he wasn’t anywhere near the size of the three soldiers, it didn’t stop him from walking up and punching one in the stomach for telling the lady she deserved to die. Liesel took him home after the men left him with several bruises, and when he panicked his siblings wouldn’t have anything to eat that night, she told him to fetch them.

Every night after that, he told himself to prepare for her to kick them out in the morning. Having a safe place was something he couldn’t understand, so he didn’t trust the happiness he felt. It wasn’t until he’d grown up and left that he realised what it’d been. It wasn’t just a sanctuary; it was a home. His siblings were safe, and he had the chance to make something of his life.

Although his encounters with soldiers were all terrible, he still believed in what they did, the good they could do, so he signed up at 18. He found he was good at being a soldier, those skills at adapting he’d learnt living on the streets helping him adjust easily to all situations. He eventually found he was particularly good at shooting, and although there seemed something wrong with killing someone from a distance, he made sniper and moved up the ranks, making friends easily wherever he was sent.

DO YOU HEAR THE BATTLE CRY?

The war changed things for most, but not him. Charles already had his place. Sure, knowing they were at war with the country Liesel came from was horrible, and he knew better than to admit that he spoke German at the only home he’d ever known. But he knew things were never black and white. Not all soldiers were like the ones he’d known as a boy, and not all Germans could be as loving as his surrogate mother. He could fight without hatred - he thought too many people hated too easily anyway.

It became a little more concerning when Annie became a nurse, but to his relief, she was assigned to a London hospital. She was safe, the only thing he’d ever wanted for his family. However, she wrote to him, saying his brother wasn’t quite so safe. Henry had taken after their father, falling in with gamblers. Charles managed to get leave, returning home to pay off his brother’s debts, and managed to convince him to volunteer. The army had done so much for him, he was sure it’d be just as good for Henry.

It was a year later, 1941, the war became too personal for him. He could live through killing people, as much as he hated it. He could survive people trying to kill him, he’d lived through more than that already.

The death of his brother destroyed him. It was his fault for making him sign up, and the guilt and grief twisted the one thing he’d never lost - his brave face. His actions grew more and more reckless every day. Charles didn’t want Annie and Liesel to lose him too, but he couldn’t seem to do anything except watch himself go off the rails. One night, he got so drunk he stole two bottles of whiskey and got so drunk he still doesn’t remember how he got on the roof. It resulted in a demotion, but it and the lecture barely registered. He’d been given word that Annie was leaving the safety of the hospital to be a true army nurse, and he felt he had to be there to protect her. He’d failed Henry, he couldn’t fail her. She ignored his concerns, and told him that until he cleaned up his act, she wouldn’t even try get home. When he was given the chance to join this new team, he did so, only because it seemed like the perfect way to agree to Annie’s terms and still be in danger. If his life is the cost of saving even one other man, Charles would not hesitate to pay that cost.

IN FAIR VERONA, OUR TALE BEGINS WITH FARON VASILIEV, WHO IS THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD. HE IS OFTEN CALLED FORTINBRAS BY THE SPADES AND WORKS AS THEIR BOSS.

Kings are born in one of two ways: the excess of money and the arrogance that inevitably comes of it, or the lack of money and the desperation it inexplicably cultivates. Faron Vasiliev was bred of the latter, of the worry lines and sleepless nights that come from not knowing if your next meal will be your last, though the way he was taught to carry himself often led his peers to believe otherwise. His mother and father wanted better for their son, wanted more for him than a dead-end job and the hopeless snare of barely comfortable mediocrity, and rationed paycheck by rationed paycheck, they bought it for him. He was enrolled in the best all-boys preparatory school they could afford, was brought up and educated alongside merchants’ sons and lawyers-to-be. A pauper among princes in all but his intellect, he matched his fellow students stride for stride—both in the classroom and on the track—in hand-me-down ties and shoes that had seen better days and richer owners, fooling many and hanging his head before none. The pampered boys of the fashionable part of town couldn’t bear the thought of a rat two steps from the slums calling their alma mater his, so they sought first to run him out and then to make him one of their own when he didn’t budge.

But a boy raised to never forget where he came from so that he might better remember where he’s trying to go bought into none of their antics. Instead, in the months following graduation and his father’s untimely death, he put his meager inheritance into stocks, learning—through trial and error and countless nights spent poring over records and borrowed journals—how to play the market like a fiddle. It was slow-going at first, as most great endeavors are, but within a few short years, the lone Vasiliev heir had increased his inheritance tenfold, a rags to riches story no one ever imagined they’d read but weren’t particularly surprised when they did. He became a force to be reckoned with, a man to seek out for a taste of prosperity, a bit of help—with a price. It is the nature of man to want more, to reach for it until his arms tire and then reach further still, and even the best among men bow to one sovereign and one sovereign alone: greed. It’s the flicker in the dark, the ember in the ashes, the force that drives a man to walk through a fire of his own making; it’s an emperor’s coronation—it’s his. He learned how to make greed his weapon instead of becoming a weapon of greed, and thus began his ascent to a throne lusted after by many but sat by none.

He built his empire on the one thing so many others crumbled beneath: debts. Careful enough to get most of his money back but bold enough to lend to men he knew could never repay him in order to buy their loyalty, Faron became something akin to a king on the streets of St. Petersburg, ruling with an iron fist and a silver tongue. A Hades of the new age, he drew disciples in with promises of greatness and wealth and bid them stay by tasting the pomegranate seeds of unrivaled ambition, and his circle—once small—grew bigger still. He’d learned something at that academy, you see, something politicians so love to teach their sons: how to make believers of men who worship no gods but themselves. And worship him they did, in their own crude way—with sweat and blood and fear-soaked devotion; there had never been a more ruthless band of ruffians than the Spades, aptly named for their sharp edges and willingness to dig, and there never would be again. But tempted though he was to run with the wolves that hailed from Moscow, to try his hand at an even bigger crown, he led his pride to the west—to Verona, the land of gods and fools.

When the new age dawns, they’ll write in their books that time felled the kings with reigns that grew too heavy to carry, that man can only rule so long before he breaks, but the truth of it all is damnably simple. The conquerors of old did greed’s bidding—let themselves become slaves to the will of avarice—but the world has learned from its mistakes, and the product of this rather tiring lesson is him: half a man, half a mystery. Few can fathom how a man who’s climbed so high can see as clearly as he did when he had next to nothing, but the glory of it all is that they don’t need to. They need only to watch—as he lays waste to their kingdoms, as he makes them his own.

Calina Sokolova: Adviser. He’s told her on many an occasion that she’s the best investment he’s ever made—money well-spent, but she’s more than that, far more, a rich sort of knowledge imparted in the way he looks at her, the way he listens to her. He makes it no secret that he values her and her opinions, that if he thinks to crown himself king, she’ll surely sit the throne at his right, and it’s an odd sort of clarity, a transparency unexpected from a man like him, but genuine nonetheless. She’s the closest thing to an equal he’s ever had, this woman who came from even less than him, and for that reason, he’ll share the empire they’ve built together, if she’ll have it. This is their rags to riches story, written in blood—that of their enemies and their own.

Boris Kovrov: Distrust. Every great king needs his general, his right hand, and he’s certainly found that and more in Kovrov—a snake of a man who’d had his fill of Verona and found his way into the lion’s den. Faron saw something in his eyes—a lust for power not unlike his own and the willingness to get it through any means, a quality as admirable as it is damning. He’s already forsaken one sovereign in the name of his own desires, and his new sovereign isn’t foolish or merciful enough to think he won’t do it again. Let him be Judas; let him preach in the name of his lord and do his lord’s bidding, and let him kiss the cheek of his king when the traitorous hour comes—let him pay homage to the last.

Alva Gwon & Trinity Cruyssen: Assets. The Spades have always been a motley bunch, a collection of discarded chess pieces plucked from obscurity and polished into something shining and deadly, and though he strives to be impartial for the appearances’ sake, the boss does have his favorite pieces. His sharp-shooter is little more than a slip of a thing, soft and gentle and lethal, and though he sorely wishes the kid would harden up a bit—make it a bit harder for him to look at them like one might regard a piece of porcelain waiting to crack—but as long as they’re still able to shoot a cigarette from behind a man’s ear without drawing a drop of blood, he supposes he can tolerate them. Where Alva trembles with an unsung melody, however, Trinity quakes with an insatiable hunger. She’s ravenous, never satisfied—not with any of her victims and certainly not with the bits and pieces she’s had of him, and he thinks to keep her that way. There are few things more dangerous than a lioness deprived, after all.

REBEKAH DANVERS (Sophia Bush) is looking for her OLDER BROTHER. Please contact Jewels here in regards to this connection.