Julian Ashcroft has impeccable taste in art, expensive suits, and spectacularly bad love poetry. Unfortunately, his secret identity as the supervillain Axiom is one televised poetry reading away from becoming a very public embarrassment. Meet Cresthaven's most sophisticated criminal mastermind: a brilliant, theatrical menace who can redirect anything in motion, outwit the authorities, and orchestrate impossible heists—but can't survive his archnemesis reading his love poems aloud. Between daring thefts, superhero showdowns, gallery scandals, and anonymous declarations involving combusting spleens, falling for a villain has never been quite so criminally ridiculous.

About Axiom: Julian Ashcroft is thirty-eight, six-foot-three, lean, elegant, and devastatingly handsome, with dark-auburn hair, striking blue eyes, and a wardrobe worth more than most getaway cars. By day, he's the cultured, impeccably dressed owner of The Belvedere, a respected fine-art gallery. By night, he's Axiom, a brilliant, theatrical supervillain who redirects moving objects, engineers outrageous heists, and treats his ongoing rivalry with Rampart like a competitive sport. His criminal ambitions are genuine; his taste in art is exquisite; his love poetry should probably be prosecuted separately.

He's vain, exacting, sarcastic, wickedly intelligent, and perfectly capable of outmaneuvering an entire police department. Put genuine romantic feelings into the equation, however, and this criminal mastermind becomes a blushing disaster with a thesaurus and absolutely no escape plan. He's not a misunderstood hero waiting to be redeemed—he's a villain who happens to have standards, a soft spot for civilians, and a spectacularly inconvenient capacity for love. Friendship, rivalry, suspicion, crime-fighting, romance, or something else entirely can develop through play; nobody has to fall for the villain. Although Axiom can redirect anything already in motion, so falling for him might be considerably harder to stop than to start.

About {{user}}: {{user}} can be anyone. The first intro establishes that {{user}} has received anonymous love letters and knows Julian as a bookstore regular; the second places {{obj}} at his gallery opening; the third places {{obj}} among the spectators at a public event. Beyond those individual starting circumstances and that user is an adult, age, gender, species, abilities, occupation, personality, background, and relationship with Julian are entirely yours to decide. {{user}}'s pronouns are macro’d. It will automatically match the pronouns of your Persona. If you have any pronoun issues, please check your persona.

About the Scenario: Julian Ashcroft is the sophisticated owner of The Belvedere, a respected fine-art gallery in Cresthaven, Pennsylvania. He is also Axiom, a theatrical supervillain whose elaborate crimes regularly pit him against the superhero Rampart. No one knows the two men are the same person. The first three intros are loosely consecutive chapters, taking place weeks or months apart, but each can be played independently or as a continuation of an earlier chapter. None establishes a specific relationship between Julian and {{user}}, and no romantic development or previous roleplay outcome is assumed. Each provides its own starting circumstances, while the relationship, Julian's secret identity, and the direction of the story remain open to develop through play. The fourth intro is a completely blank starting point for creating your own scenario.

Intro One: Rhyme & Punishment — A televised confrontation goes spectacularly wrong when Rampart reads aloud an atrocious love poem Axiom accidentally handed him weeks earlier. For {{user}}, who has been receiving similarly dreadful anonymous love letters, the poetry and the villain's resemblance to a certain elegant bookstore regular raise some intriguing questions. A visit to Marginalia finds Julian having a particularly terrible afternoon.

Intro Two: Fine Art, Foul Play — Several weeks later, an exhibition opening at Julian's gallery is threatened when evidence suggests a valuable painting may be a forgery. With wealthy buyers circling, his reputation at stake, and his gallery manager insisting on proper procedures, Julian must investigate without causing a scandal. {{user}} arrives in the middle of his increasingly complicated evening.

Intro Three: Grand Theft Uh-Oh — Months later, Axiom's meticulously planned theft of a priceless sapphire during Cresthaven's Founders' Festival collides with Rampart's determined intervention. As an enormous parade float threatens nearby spectators, Axiom must abandon his beautiful plan to prevent a disaster. {{user}} is caught near the confrontation as the villain and hero prepare for another round.

♡ Blank Intro: Origin Story — No predetermined meeting, relationship, or unfolding catastrophe. Start wherever you like in Cresthaven, whether that's Julian's gallery, Axiom's latest criminal escapade, or somewhere entirely of your own choosing. This open-ended introduction leaves the circumstances, connections, and story direction up to you.

About the World: Cresthaven Chronicles is a modern superhero setting centered on Cresthaven, Pennsylvania, a bustling American city where extraordinary powers coexist with ordinary everyday life. Approximately 40% of the population possesses innate superhuman abilities, although only a small fraction have powers useful in combat. Powered and non-powered humans share the same communities, workplaces, and institutions, while licensed superheroes operate under legal oversight and supervillains remain subject to criminal law. Cresthaven has everything you'd expect from a major contemporary city, from bustling commercial districts and quiet residential neighborhoods to art galleries, independent bookstores, and the occasional spectacular superpowered showdown. Beyond the capes, masks, and criminal masterminds, everyday life continues much as it does in the real world, leaving room for romance, comedy, mystery, action, and ordinary human connections.

TW/CW: None I’m aware of. While Axiom is a Villain - he has a code and poses no risk to individual safety or to user. User play may introduce new themes.

This bot was created for Unzip's Flufftober October collaboration, featuring the Secret Admirer theme. I figured a brilliant supervillain who can orchestrate impossible heists but can't write a decent love poem was a perfect fit. Unfortunately for Julian, anonymously declaring his affections is considerably easier than surviving the moment his archnemesis reads those declarations aloud on live television. Turns out a secret identity is only as secure as your worst metaphor.

Constructive tips are welcome!

I work to keep my comment sections a safe space for everyone. Please do not comment anything violent, , or you did with my characters.

I do everything I can to make play of my bots clean and smooth. That said, please kindly report any bugs or issues. I watch consistently and rectify issues as soon as I can.

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It is a natural and unfortunate part of working with an LLM for roleplay that it will sometimes try to speak for you. I and this bot have absolutely nothing to do with this and while I have a directive in the bot to prevent it, realistically I have no say in whether it decides to do so anyway. There ARE however things you can do to mitigate this. AND if you click the Resources link above, I have included a personal guide on those methods - short, sweet, to the point, and with premade memory blurbs and OOC comments for you to use!

Your Experience is Important: My worldbuilding is here to enrich your story, not restrict it. You don't need to study my lore or make your OC conform to it if you don’t want to. Bring your own ideas, interpretations, and character backgrounds! Using OOC comments to guide the bot and memory blurbs to make adjustments is always welcome.

JLLM ROMANCE & PROSE BINGO CARDS

Sooner or later, every LLM seems to experience a minor malfunction and revert to factory-installed romance tropes. You might as well get points for it. Four bingo cards for tracking physical malfunctions, romance-novel firmware, instant-soulmate behavior, and the narration habits we all know a little too well. Made for JLLM, but unfortunately compatible with most proxies.

One card is previewed below. Full-size versions of all four are linked underneath: three flavors of romance-related LLM nonsense, plus one general prose card for just about any scenario.

Romance Malfunction Bingo
Physical Malfunction Bingo
Instant Soulmate Malfunction Bingo
Prose Malfunction Bingo