| Introduction
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xxxxxOne god, no masters.
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| Description
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xxxxxThick straight hair, often dyed brilliantly unnatural colours, falls shaggy-floppy to frame graceful features: eyebrows arch dark against extraordinarily pale skin, lips full, cheekbones set high, thick dark lashes around one startlingly vivid blue eye; there is a sunken empty socket where the other should be, though this is often hidden beneath eyepatches in a variety of colours, or mirrored dark glasses. Clean-shaven, his face also sports a wealth of metal, a generous number of piercings over most places that can hold them. Much of his skin neck-down plays host to tattoos in bright colours. His right hand has four fingers, only scar tissue remaining where the pinky should be. He stands average height at just a hair shy of 5'10", with a trim swimmer's body; lithe, lean musculature is carried with a dancer's easy grace.
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| Reputation
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xxxxxWidely known around the country by name and often face to anyone who follows the news even a little bit, following his very publicized arrest and terrorism charges after news broke of the Prometheus Project, a research program that has been experimenting on mutants for many years -- Jackson was accused of terrorism for leading a team that for over a decade has been working to attack and break in to these facilities and free the mutants inside them. Jax did not deny any of the charges but claimed only that the facilities were a gross violation of human rights, that his team never killed a single person in the course of their actions, and that freeing the prisoners inside from nonconsensual experimentation was a necessary moral duty. The subsequent campaign to release him from jail and drop his charges was a deeply politicized and highly visible nationwide topic.
xxxxxAround Xavier's, known for being obnoxiously COLOURFUL, obnoxiously cheerful, and a constantly reliable source of delicious desserts. Art teacher/baking teacher/sex ed teacher at XS. Known to be highly averse to giving homework, but with high expectations of Not Slacking Off in his actual classroom. Is a bit of a wildcard in terms of faculty/administrative relations; he's an unswervingly polite presence on the faculty but his outspoken anarchism (including frequent run-ins with the law and highly notorious terrorism charges), and his fiercely anti-assimilation views cause a bit of a headache for the administration and other faculty who maaaay not always be his biggest fan. Additionally his sex ed class earns more complaints from parents than probably any other class in the course catalog -- though this may have as much to do with Xavier's appointing their first openly queer teacher to teach a very radical sex ed curriculum as it does with any geniune problems with his teaching. No end of stirred feathers among the administration on his behalf means that he has often rocky relations with other teachers and admin as a coworker, no matter how much they might (or might not) like him as an individual.
xxxxxAmong mutants coming out of Prometheus, known for helping organize the team that keeps breaking people out of the labs (and subsequently finding people medical care, shelter, etc.) Practically a mythical figure among who have been in the labs in the past years as the raid team's reputation has grown, and with it no end of stories about the more prominent figures among them; among the rescuees out in the world generally known to be a patient ear to listen and a source of constant food.
xxxxxAn active and familiar face among far-left activists in general (the anarchist community isn't that big); the kind to turn up with food or offer childcare at meetings, a longterm member of New York City Action Medical and frequent face medicking at protests.
xxxxxHe also not-infrequently shows up in celebrity gossip pages -- even before his notoriety he had been well as the be the BFF/partner-in-crime of his extremely famous BFF, queer mutant celebrity Ryan Black. Plenty of gossip pages frequently try to romantically link them (they're both queer! Obv they must have dated!), a phenomenon that only got more salacious ever since Jax began dating Captain America -- Ryan's ex.
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| History
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xxxxxBorn the only child to farming parents in a tiny town nestled in at the base of Appalachia, Jax's early life was a pleasant enough one. Sheltered, for sure, a combination of living in a tiny backwater Georgia town and growing up with very conservative parents who were rather overprotective of their only child. Devout Catholics, they passed their faith on to him from early on. His life was simple, but full. Church, school, learning how to take care of the farm, these were foundations; on top of which there was swim team, dance lessons, and above all art, for which he showed a great aptitude from an early age.
xxxxxThough in classes he tended to do reasonably well, out of classes things were harder; being a somewhat flamboyant boy in a highly conservative town did not go over well, and even less so once his mutation manifested. It was a blessing the day that a Xavier's representative found him and brought him to New York to be able to continue his schooling normally. In the new environment he thrived, once he got over homesickness, learning to control his powers and applying himself to practice with the same diligence he gave the rest of his schoolwork.
xxxxxThough always politically bent and heavily involved in activism (focused around environmental justice and animal rights, largely) it was his abduction by Prometheus that focused this activism in more aggressive ways. In the wake of his rescue from there, he and some of the other rescuees have attempted hunting down other similar facilities and liberating their occupants.
xxxxxOutside of being a vigilante he keeps busy. Between work -- part-time as a tattoo artist and body piercer, part-time as a teacher at Xavier's; between life as an X-Man and the various activist groups he's involved in, he doesn't find much time for sleep. Single fatherhood doesn't help with that either; he's raised a pair of twins and a younger son rescued from Prometheus and subsequently adopted.
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| Powers
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xxxxxPhotokinetic. Eats light, turns it into art. Has a small star burning inside him; would rather nobody find out what that might really mean.
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| Art Crime!
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Together with Tag, Jax has been painting a series of intricate murals around the city, focusing on New York's mutant community -- their lives, their deaths, their joys and their struggles.
- August 2020 -- Manhattan, Corner of Duane & Hudson, formerly Happy Cakes Bakery, TriBeCa; the site where seven years ago a young mutant was killed by a police officer. The entire mural is enclosed in an immense scroll that contains mountains (low, familiar upstate mountains) in the background and a wooded riverbend in the foreground where a freckle-faced sandy-haired young man is sitting in a bed of moss with a a quill in his hand, its nib dipped in glimmering white ink. Alanna is draped across his shoulders like a living stole, and he's smiling up at the inscription across the sky in wisps of glimmering high cloud that reads "Roll for initiative, party mine!"
- October 2020 -- Manhattan, 6th St. Between A & B, several stories up on a brick face across from the Creative Little Garden. A dark-haired young man with twisting scars down his face and a prosthetic arm intricately painted in a lifelike birdfeather pattern, beige with black speckles and a bright flash of yellow feathering on the underside. The man has kneeling, halfway through the process of constructing a beehive box, glancing up with a delighted expression as a northern flicker crosses the sky overhead, a flash of yellow bright underwing. There's a handful of honeybees, dotting a winding path from background to foreground, tracing a visual line from the bird to where the man is kneeling.
- April, 2021 -- Brooklyn, 46th & 5th, across the wall of a daycare. A small sailboat out on a rough sea; Leonid Concepcion is very recognizable where he sits within it, head slightly bowed to clasped hands and a jade rosary held loose between his fingers.
- June, 2021 -- Manhattan, Suffolk St, between Grand & Broome, on the side of a taqueria just across from Evolve Cafe. Evolve's many (many!) armed barista leaning across the counter to hand a slice of pie to a customer, several tentacles still at work making drinks behind him
- July, 2021 -- The Bronx, Alexander Ave & 138th, the wall of an apartment building opposite the 40th Precinct. A middle-aged Latina woman with large black-feathered wings sits perched on the back of a park bench beside a younger Latina girl, both looking up towards the clouds; the older woman is pointing up, one of the fluffy clouds above shaped almost like an orchid overhead.
- September, 2021 -- Brooklyn, Van Siclen Ave, along the wall of a food bank across from Henrix Creek Park. A man with broad grin and Mutant Mongrels cut, distributing school supplies out of the large saddlebags of a black and silver chopper to a cluster of waiting children and parents.
- October, 2021 -- The Bronx, Independece Ave & W 246th St, a large wall just outside a farmer's market opposite the boundary between Freaktown and Not Freaktown. [[Dusk|A man with large dark bat wings and a sharply fanged smile, haloed in soft multicolored light by a backdrop of erratically strung fairy lights. He is standing at the edge of a small cluster of people who have not been drawn in detail, turned to a smaller woman with yellow-green scales along her skin. She is watching him intently, his hands raised -- those versed in American Sign Language might recognize the shape and direction of his current handshape: revolution.
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| Body Mods
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xxxxxJackson has become much more colourful over the years; in addition to the vividly coloured hair he sports three seasons out of the year, he has a WEALTH of piercings and tattoos. The current complete list:
Piercings -- Ears (earlobes 0g, 8 up the side of the left ear, 9 on the right; industrials, tragus, daith, rook), eyebrows (3 right, 4 left), teardrop (right). Lip (5 in his lower lip). Labret. Both nipples (twice), tongue (twice), left nostril (twice, one stud, one ring), right nostril (stud), septum, bridge.
Ink:
- Back:
- Most of his back is taken up by a large geometric design resembling the panels of a stained glass window. Most of it is empty, only black and white lines. There are a few panels filled in in full color and detail, though their imagery is eclectic: a hamsa; a pair of knitting kneedles stuck into a ball of rainbow yarn; a red umbrella; a small black cat; a bright-eyed jumping spider; a star of life with a raised fist replacing the center staff; a writing quill that trails a wisp of smoke from its nib; a northern flicker in flight, the flash of color underneath its wings a pink-purple-blue ombre.
- Two stars, the right one a little bigger and brighter, at the base of his neck.
- Front:
- Over his heart: A dove in flight, olive branch in its beak, ringed by an excerpt of the words to the prayer of St. Francis in a spiral of small black print ("Make me an instrument of Your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. Master, grant that I may never seek so much to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love with all my soul.")
- Most of the rest of his chest+the majority of his right side: A large peach tree climbs up his right side, the branches taking up most of the leftover room on his chest; it has both fruit and flowers at once, and there's a small fairy (an elfin humanoid male, with blue hair and large red-and-black butterfly wings) perched on one of the lower limbs.
- Left shoulder: A dragonfly, bright-bright blue with veined very slightly multicoloured wings.
- Right shoulder: The Neverending Story's AURYN.
- Skull: A chimaera. Large bat-wings, black panther body, heads of a goat, a dragon, a raven, a segmented scorpion's tail. Obviously, can only be seen if his head is shaved.
- Arms:
- Right elbow: Two bicoloured stars, red/black (front) and purple/black (back)
- Left elbow: Two bicoloured stars, green/black (front) and pink/black (back) on the left
- Left elbow: Just above the star on the front there is a simple black line segment, one inch long.
- Right inner wrist: A rainbow-colored cross with a circled-A superimposed over it, the letter circled with a crown of thorns
- Left inner wrist: A raised fist in a circle, clutching a carrot.
- Forearms: Paintbrushes on the right side and charcoal drawing pencils on the left, drawn to look like they are worming their way in and out of the skin.
- Right half-sleeve (shoulder to elbow): A lot of medicinal herbs.
- Left half-sleeve (shoulder to elbow): Fruits and veggies! Lots of them.
- Legs:
- Right half-sleeve (knee to ankle): Illustrations from The Lorax
- Left half-sleeve (knee to ankle): CARE BEARS. But only the original characters. Also a large rainbow. For the Care Bears to slide on. And puffy clouds.
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| Connections
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Standbys
- B - Tomato-pesto galette. Most people think sweet when they think of pies, but you'll fall in love with the complex flavors in this one.
- Daiki - Sweet potato bun. Understated, rich with flavor, will carry any meal and then some.
- Dawson - Mexican hot chocolate snickerdoodles. You think you know and love this one already but the burst of spice surprises and delights every time.
- Dusk - Rum raisin bread pudding. Sweet, creamy, just a bit decadent; a delight on your tongue and a warm comfort to cosy up with when the days get rough.
- Hive - Raspberry tiramisu cupcakes. A bitterness here that might not be to everyone's tastes, but I revist this one again and again.
- Ion - Citrus glitter cookies. Bright, refreshing; you'll fall in love with this burst of zest.
- Kyinha - Smoked tahini and dark chocolate chunk cookies. Well worth a second glance to appreciate the rich layers and smokey-sweet goodness of these ones.
- Kitty - Peach-Basil Pie. One of the first I learned and still one of my favourites; that touch of fresh herb really makes it something magical.
- Lucien - Earl Grey cassis macarons. An elegant burst of perfection; well worth the challenge of learning to tackle this batter!
- Matt - Sponge cake with orange blossom curd filling. Don't be fooled by the Twinkie-knockoff appearance; there's a brightness at the center here that you'll want to savor.
- Peter - Triple chocolate chip cookies. Something almost overwhelming about the sweetness here but it works all the same.
- Ryan - Peach bourbon beignets. You don't have to be Southern for this to be a comfort, but for me it's always gonna taste like home.
- Shane - Roasted strawberry thyme shortcake. Homey and sophisticated all at once.
- Spencer - Strawberry-ginger-rhubarb pie. A lot of zing here, and the patience it takes to get a lattice crust set careful is rewarding work.
- Steve - Chai spiced apple pie. Bit of zing in this old classic makes it comforting and fresh all at once.
- Tag - Mango passion fruit custard tart. An absolutely perfect pop of sweetness to bring summer into your life anytime.
- Tian-shin - Apple chamomile tea cake. A little sweet, a little tart, takes a tried-and-true home remedy and spins it into a wonderful pick me up.
Sometimes Food
- Alma - Marionberry lavender scones. Elegant and sensible at once; I've pulled these out several times when I need a little something unexpected to round out a brunch.
- Avi - Funfetti cake. This one's a crowd pleaser but whew! Love it, but even my huge sweet tooth needs small servings here.
- Erik - Peanut butter brownies. Probably get sick if you ate these every day but it's one you should learn early if you're gonna learn anything about baking. Against popular wisdom, still tastes as good now as when I was little.
- Gaétan - Blueberry mint tartlets. I'm not usually one for mint but my kid loves it and it's really grown on me. I know chocolate's usually the go-to for desserts but I feel like mixing it up some gives it a better chance to shine.
- Isra - Halva brownies. Don't overlook these; the depth of flavor here is out of this world.
- Joshua - Pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. I always forget how much I love these until they're in season.
- Lael - Pumpkin cornbread. Folks might think it's simple but it's anything but. Rich and textured, solid enough to hold its own place in a meal.
- Leo - Chocolate babka. Always a little unsure if I'm making this right and make a whole entire mess in the process, but gosh is it a treat once I get there.
- Melinda - Espresso chip muffins. Steady and reliable doesn't have to mean boring; the pop of sweet chocolate and sharp coffee will kick your day into gear.
- Marinov - Fig, chocolate and almond financiers. Sounds like a lot but these blend it all with flair.
- Naomi - Zucchini banana cupcake. I know what everyone says soon as you say zucchini in dessert but trust me on this one. Sweet but not too cloying, got a surprising depth of flavor -- give it a chance and you'll see!
- Rasa - Coconut lime lavender cupcakes. It's a bit of a jumble, but it might surprise you.
- Rasheed - Oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. A classic; delicious and filling, I can almost pretend they're a meal.
- Taylor - Pumpkin pecan pie. If you can't choose between two good things, why not both! Sure to be a hit year round.
Needs Adaptation
- Charles - Peanut butter blondies. So close to being satisfying but it always feels like something's missing.
- DJ - Roasted maple-walnut napoleon. The flavors are familiar but it's been a frustrating challengs getting all those layers right. Gonna have to keep working before I can get these down, but I know they'll be worth it.
- Harm - White chocolate speculoos merveilleux. Still trying to figure this one out.
- Kieow - Pineapple cream cheese bundt cake. A little cloying on the sweetness; doesn't play well with my allergies.
- Lily - Ginger-orange anisette cake. Definitely not the liqueur for me, but this could be fantastic if I find the right combination.
- Marrow - Pine nut honey anise pie. A very distinctive combination but not sure I want to revisit it.
- Nanami - Brown sugar buttermilk spice tart. A bit sweet and a bit sour; gotta keep working on how this fits into my repertoire.
- Sarah - Strawberry cheesecake. Widespread appeal, but not to my tastes.
Inedible
- Eric - I don't do pig.
- Fury - Brown sugar glazed ham. Look, you can dress it up, but I still don't...
- Malthus - ...doubly not when it's gone spoiled.
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| Trivia
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- Maintains several blogs with varying levels of activity; one focused on sex & relationship education, one focused on teaching & parenting from a non-authoritarian perspective; one focused on mutant-related issues, and one more personal art blog. Used to have an animal rights one but that hasn't been updated regularly in years.
- Also totally keeps a tumblr though this, like many tumblrs, is unfocused and just full of Whatever On Earth He Feels Like. Pretty pictures. Cute puppies. Religious musings. Random banter with his friends. Cooking tips. Whatever is on his mind. Totally also a sprinkling of things found in all four of the above, but in a far less organized fashion.
- Much like half of his friends, his one-eyed beagle was also an ex-labrat; some of his animal lib friends nabbed Obie in a raid on an animal testing lab back in his college days. He had been fostering all the beagles that came out of the raid but for perhaps obvious reasons got extra attached to that one and never rehomed him.
- His advisor in high school was Scott Summers which led to no end of Cyclops jokes when he returned from Prometheus.
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| Gallery
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| Jackson Connor Holland
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| Codename
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Sunshine
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| Birthdate
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June 21, 1992
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| Species
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Mutant
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| Affiliation
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Xavier's
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| Alignment
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Effervescent
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| Powers
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Photokinetic
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| Occupation
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Anarchist
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| Registration Status
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Unregistered
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| RP Hooks
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| Sugarfairy - Tends to bake and bake and BAKE. When class is in session, his desserts can be found almost daily in the XS rec room and Teachers' Lounge. His neighbors are frequently plied with desserts, too.
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| Needlepoint - Will prick you with so many needles. Inks people and does body piercing at Inkline, a studio in the Lower East Side.
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| Artsy - Paints, draws, graffitis. Started an art collective in Brooklyn. Looks like an artist, too. Often lurks the city at night Arting illicitly. Whether you want art lessons or want to do some art crimes (... or want lessons in doing art crimes!) he might be a good person to hook up with.
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| Radical - Anarchist, activist, he's been a vocal and active presence in leftist community for years, whether organizing rallies or teaching workshops or out in the streets during actions as a medic; anyone in anarchist/communist/general leftist community is likely to run into him at Some Point.
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| X-Man - The COLOURFULLEST X-Man. His uniform's bedazzled with a smiling sun. Students at the school probably know the not-so-secret school superheroes; outside the school if you need a rescue or are the kind of person someone might need rescuing from, maybe Your Local Mutant Vigilantes will drop by.
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| THAT teacher - Teaches at XS -- art, baking, and also one of the mandatory Sex Ed classes. Plenty of his students adore him, plenty think he's a total weirdo who should probably be Less Queer, plenty think he is either the most badass or most disturbing teacher at the school since his terrorism arrest. Regardless, he's probably the teacher students have The Most Opinions about.
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| Prometheus Bound - Once a labrat himself, now he spends a good deal of energy trying to find others and free them. On very public record in the news as an ex-labrat and liberator of other labrats. Freedom fighter or terrorist, it is pretty likely folks have some thoughts about him before ever meeting him.
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| Saw you at Mount Sinai - Ex-Catholic, been in the process of converting to Judaism for some years, to the chagrin of some in the local Jewish community and the warm welcome of others. Likely to see you around if you spend time in Jewish circles, especially more radical ones.
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| May I Have This Dance? - When there's time, enjoys social swing & ballroom dance. Whether you're just learning or an experienced dancer, he'd probably love a spin around the floor.
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