Post by Chatsy on May 18, 2008 20:51:13 GMT -5
-=Your Information=-
Name/Nickname: Robin
Age: 21
IM/Email: AIM: FroggieAvenger
MSNM: ravencorbeau@hotmail.com
Yahoo: ravencdoom
E-MAIL: dickmanr1@nku.edu
RP Experience: Five yearsish
-=Character Information=-
Name: Jebediah Guthrie
Code Name: Jolt
Affiliation: X-Men
Age: 14
Height: 5’5
Weight: 130
Hair color: Brown naturally, dyed red
Eye color: Brown
General Appearance: Jeb has the thin, delicate frame of a boy who is growing in height but has yet to fill out. He doesn’t have much muscle or fat, and what fat he does have is just enough to keep him from looking overly bony. He is also small in stature, but not uncommonly so for his age. Jeb’s hair is naturally brown, though he dyes it red, and is cut frequently by his mother, who keeps it fairly short. It lays fairly straight, curling out only slightly at the ends, with his long bangs combed to the side. His skin is pale, but solid in color, lacking any freckles. His smooth skin is only marred by one mark, a scar on his left shoulder from where he was shot in an incident where he used his powers to harass one of the Cabots. He tends to stand fairly straight, though he slouches from time to time. He also talks with his hands.
His somewhat rectangular face is very narrow, the features soft and delicate, his nose rounded and slightly upturned. His lips are thin and small, and he has straight eyebrows that are neither low nor high. With his lack of a visible Adam’s apple and smooth features, Jeb could be regarded as cute or pretty. Typically, he wears t-shirts and jeans, plain attire typical to a boy his age that wouldn’t stand out nor be typically noticed. Most of these clothes are hand me downs from his brothers, kept in the attic until he was big enough to wear them. However, in the privacy of his own room with the doors and windows locked, as well as covered and sufficiently blocked, Jeb will wear cute sundresses and make-up. As a girl, her style is subdued, but pretty. A farm girl look. This is, in part, because her clothes are stolen from her sister, Melody, but also due to personal taste. Complementing the farm girl look is the strong southern accent that is always present, whether as a girl or as a boy.
Personality: Jeb, like many people, has two sides to his personality, the side he wants the world to see, an image he would like to present, and a side he feels is the true self underneath that image. Unlike most people, however, this split is between male and female. There is the side of Jeb that everyone sees, whose personality, dress and behavior seem to match his birth gender. Then there’s Jessica. As Jessica, most of Jeb’s likes, dislikes, and general attitudes stay the same, but she is far happier and freer to express who she is than Jeb. However, due to general attitudes about that sort of thing in his home town, and never having anyone to show him it was okay like with his mutation, Jeb feels self-conscious and sometimes even guilty about his feminine side. As Jeb, he doesn’t feel quite right, and is more prone to anger and self consciousness.
As Jessica, she becomes so worried about how people will react and about disappointing her family that she remains confined in her room. While she believes they would love her no matter what, she is afraid that they might not be happy with her and want her to be Jeb again. Besides, she has so many siblings that someone’s reaction is bound to be bad, and she’d rather not deal with that…or risk the Cabots finding out and doing something to her. Even in the school, she’d rather not have word getting out. Despite this, she is quite happy when she sees herself in a dress that’s particularly flattering, hiding what few masculine features she has.
Despite tensions due to the conflict between what Jeb thinks he has to be and what the hidden part of his nature, he’s a good kid…sometimes. He’s generally friendly toward strangers, and always eager to meet new people. He can be rather curious when it comes to those who are different from what he used to see in Cumberland, like when he sees people with multicolored hair, but he’s rather open minded and even enjoys seeing all the differences in different people. The only prejudice he holds is against Cabots. He hates them all, as they were responsible for not only his father’s death, but beating him up all the time at school. He can be rather vengeful and spiteful as well, and is not above plotting revenge.
However, wanting the approval of his family comes out in that he will try to plan the revenge so that he doesn’t get into any trouble. Even if he starts a fight, he’ll do so in a way that the other person will get into more trouble, such as by verbally antagonizing someone until they hit the first punch, then using his electricity to deal with him so that he doesn’t actually have to be able to fight. Despite his best efforts, sometimes he’ll get into trouble anyway, and when he does, Jeb lie or leave out information to keep from getting into more trouble than necessary, only saying what he thinks will help his case. He is also quite stubborn, refusing to give in when determined to state his point. Instead, he will repeat the same thing again and again, even when a gun is pointed at him. There are a few exceptions, such as when his mother or older sibling scolds him, or someone he respects, but it’s more about whether the person deserves to tell him what to do, rather than feeling a need to give. Another exception would be blackmail. If someone threatened to tell his family something that he feared would make them like him less, he will give in, though even then will have a breaking point where he will lash back.
Like most of the people where he’s from, Jeb isn’t afraid to get dirty. Dust from the mines and dirt from the fields is simply a part of life, and the clothes Jeb prefers as either a boy or a girl are relatively easy to wash anyway. Jeb is never prissy or high maintenance, and can grow quickly irritated with those who are. Nice dresses and perfect make-up may be great and all, but some things are just more important. Besides, like it or not, everyone has to do their fair share of the work in the Guthrie house, and there’s no use whining and bellyaching about it.
While being the stubborn sort who doesn’t give in easily once he puts his mind to something, Jeb isn’t a natural leader. He might come up with a plan to keep out of trouble or for something to do with a friend, but he hates organizing a large amount of information or coming up with ideas on how to do things that don’t directly pertain to himself. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about those things, he wants things like mutant rights to go well, but he feels that by not really fully understanding how something works, he can’t really come up with a decision on how it should be dealt with.
X-Factor: Jeb has the ability to shoot electricity out of his eyes.
Power Details: Jeb has the ability to amplify and discharge his body’s naturally generated electricity in the form of beams out of his eyes. He is capable of varying the voltage of his blasts, capable of only creating enough electricity to give a slight tingling sensation to being able to use it in an attack that would be capable of killing someone or causing an explosion if he were to hit a car. Thankfully, by practicing with his powers when he was on his own, Jeb has learned to control them fairly well and is unlikely to kill someone when he only intends to hurt them. It is also unlikely that he would blast without meaning to. He can also retain these, to make them more like a steady beam, rather than a short jolt. However, doing this will drain his abilities quicker. The length of time he can hold this is dependent on the number of electrolytes in his body at that time. Due to this, he needs to eat foods higher in salt, potassium and chloride than most people, and will frequently crave them after using his abilities for an extended period of time.
That said, while he can control if he shoots beams out of his eyes and how high the voltage is, he cannot control the beams once they leave his eyes, nor can he control their size. They will continue to go in a straight line until they either hit something or dissipate naturally. The distance the beam will go before dissipation depends on the voltage put into the beam to begin with, varying between three yards to the length of a football field.
Due to this dissipation, even if a person is hit with his electricity, the further they are away from Jeb, the weaker the blast will be. The size of his blasts matches the size of his eyes, though sparks fly off from the initial beam in every direction. Once they hit a conductive object, however, the electricity flows through that object and be seen crackling around it for as long as his beams last. This crackling energy can look like blue flames, though at the levels he usually uses, does far less damage.
For Jeb to fire his beams, he must build the electricity up in his eyes first. While this is happening, his eyes begin to spark, throwing off bits of energy. This only needs to happen for a second. However, when prepared for a possible need to use his electric beams, he can charge his eyes and keep them like that, sparking with energy, until the need to fire them comes. He can also lose this built up energy by allowing it to release in the sparks without firing, which lasts a few seconds and causes no visible change. This automatically happens if he is rendered unconscious.
It also seems that the electricity stored in his eyes has repaired his previously nearsighted vision, and he now has 20/20.
In the future, Jeb may develop his skills so that the charge he shoots out of his eyes will be able to go further without dissipating, doubling the distance, as well as being able to have a higher voltage. This would allow him to do serious damage at a further distance, rather than having his beam be too dissipated by the time it hits someone far away to do anything.
His abilities can be blocked by rubber or any like material. Also, Jeb is not resistant to electrocution himself, and if what he is blasting is connected to him by a conductor, he will shock himself as well.
General Skills: Jeb is good at dealing with children, having three younger siblings himself. He is also good at English, as it’s one of his best classes, has an eye for color, and a penchant for lying. The latter he has used frequently, not only when it comes to his cross dressing tendencies, but also to keep himself out of trouble.
Brief History: Jeb was the seventh child born into the Guthrie household. While life in such a populated home could be a bit chaotic at times, Jeb did not lack love or attention. This was aided by the fact that some of his older siblings were mature enough to help out around the house, decreasing rather increasing the burden. Also, when the curious infant got a bit out of hand, his brothers and sisters were frequently delighted to play with the baby and keep him busy for a bit.
Only a couple years later, however, twins were born. This created twice as much hassle than they were used to getting at once with a new kid, and the toddler Jeb was still young enough that he was more of a burden than a help. For this reason, he began to compete with them for the attention of both their mother and older siblings. He tried various antics, from throwing temper tantrums and screaming to being good and helping out as best a little kid of his age could. His family, knowing quite well how to deal with this sort of thing, rewarded the good with the sort of attention he sought and made it quite clear that the bad was not acceptable.
Another issue came up a few years later. Jeb began to grow jealous of Melody, insisting that their parents were getting her nicer things. While everyone else in the family, or at least everyone else who was old enough to worry about it, insisted that Jeb’s toys were only different in that they were boy toys instead of girl toys, he didn’t seem satisfied by this explanation and began to pilfer his sister’s belongings. Clearly, this behavior had to stop. Lucinda and Thomas talked with their child, but he insisted that if Melody’s toys were truly not any better, they could get him some like hers and it wouldn’t make any difference to them.
Again they tried to explain that boys and girls were different, and so their toys had to be different, because they didn’t enjoy the same things. Jeb pointed out that he enjoyed playing with Melody’s toys more, but Lucinda refuted this, saying, as she believed, that Jeb only liked Melody’s things because they weren’t his. Jeb wasn’t convinced. His father showed him his truck, then, and how Jeb’s toy truck was just a little version of his. He explained that with toys like that, Jeb would be just like him, and didn’t he want that?
Jeb didn’t, really.
If he wanted to be like anyone, it was Melody, or even his mother. Jeb loved his father, though, and thought he was a great person and a wonderful role model…for his brothers. However, he knew what answer his father wanted, and said that he’d love to be just like his father. Seeing how happy that made his dad, Jeb decided from then on he would try and enjoy his own toys, only taking a doll from Melody occasionally and always putting it back before anyone found out it was missing. It was around this time he found video games, which he mostly played at arcades since it was cheaper than getting his own system. They were something he enjoyed that didn’t bother his parents.
Oh, they’d only let him go once all his chores were done, but they didn’t feel the need to sit him down and have a talk about it or anything. Not like with Melody’s dolls. Of course, these video games didn’t take up all of his time. Jeb still loved his brothers and sisters, of which he had nine now, and would play with them frequently. By this point, he’d even gotten used to his younger siblings, and enjoyed playing with them and helping take care of the younger ones, no longer feeling like they were blocking him from getting attention. Besides, even if they were, it was probably better to win it back by being good rather than by making more trouble.
Unfortunately, soon after this his father died. Jeb was six years old at this point. For a while, Jeb stopped taking Melody’s things entirely. He felt guilty, knowing that his father wouldn’t have approved.
Another issue that arose as the years went on was with the Cabots. More specifically, Abe Cabot. While only being a couple years older than the Guthrie boy, Abe was always quite a bit larger and stronger, and he took advantage of this fact every chance he got, beating Jeb up after and sometimes during school. Of course, he wasn’t stupid, either, and was always careful to wait until he could get the smaller boy alone, or at least away from anyone he’d consider a threat. Jeb’s friend, Ray Jr., sometimes was around to see it, but being as scrawny as Jeb, there was little he could do about it.
When Jeb was ten, he began worrying less and less if his father would be ashamed of him for taking his sister’s things, and from time to time would ‘borrow’ her belongings. This time, however, it centered more around her clothes, which he would try on when locked in his room or shut in his closet. During these times, she would think of herself as Jessica, twirling and modeling the outfits in front of the mirror, or just enjoying feeling like a girl for a few minutes a month. As time continued, the frequency of these activities increased, but his caution did not, and Jessica went undiscovered. Of course, the fear of being caught also was no longer solely centered on the desire to please his parents, but also the knowledge of what kind of trouble he could get into if word got out, particularly with the Cabots.
The trouble between the families was escalating, too, leading to an incident where the Cabots attempted to kill Josh, his older brother. This resulted only in the death of Julia, however, as she and Josh were secretly lovers, and having believed he’d been killed, she committed suicide. After this, Josh became intensely depressed, attempting suicide several times. Jeb was worried for his brother, but was unable to help. Nothing he could do could bring Julia back, and it seemed that nothing short of that would help him. Perhaps the end to the rivalry between the families would have been something, but due to Jeb’s continued bullying at school, Jeb refused to drop this.
Eventually, their mother sent Jay away to a school for mutants. While Jeb missed his brother, he hoped the school would be able to help him. Maybe he’d meet someone new there and he wouldn’t want to hurt himself anymore.
During the time while Jay was away, Jeb gained his own powers. When they first emerged, he was frightened, having accidentally started an electrical fire in the yard. He wanted to put it out, but in his panic he only made it worse. Eventually, however, his siblings and mother, who had rushed out of the house upon hearing his screams, calmed Jeb and put out the fire. In the following months, Jeb would find a place that would be fairly safe to practice his abilities. Originally, his intent was merely to get them under control so he wouldn’t be a risk to his family, but as he learned how to control the intensity of the electricity, another idea came in mind. He realized he was no longer helpless. He didn’t have to be as big or strong as Abe to deal with him, not with these powers, and with the new control, he wouldn’t even have to worry about hurting him. However, he might be able to scare Abe enough to keep him from picking on him ever again.
Of course, Jeb didn’t want to get in trouble for attacking the other boy, but he figured if he could get Abe to attack him, which shouldn’t be hard, he could always say it was self defense. Excited about his idea, Jeb went to tell Ray about it, and the two set out to try it. It wasn’t terribly hard to find Abe, and it was even easier to get him to fight them. It was after that the trouble started. Though Jeb wasn’t really hurting Abe that bad, Abe drew the attention of a mechanic as well as the local sheriff by yelling that Jeb was burning him. While Jeb was explaining that he wasn’t really burning Abe, the mechanic came up behind him, hitting him over the head.
The fight escalated, and Jeb, in a panic, began to fire his eyes, accidentally hitting the police car and making it explode when he saw the crow bar being thrown at him. His eyes continued to spark, and the sheriff told him to turn off his powers and lay face down on the ground. He was in trouble. Going into a panic, Jeb began to point out that Abe attacked him, not the other way around. He shouldn’t be in trouble when he was only defending himself. The sheriff didn’t care. He kept telling him to turn off his eyes, and Jeb kept trying to explain why he was the victim there until…a shot fired, and Jeb fell to the ground, eyes finally deactivating. After a short trip to the hospital, he was then taken to his home, where he was thoroughly scolded.
After this incident, Jeb was sent to the mansion to stay with his brother, his family hoping that the distance from the Cabots would keep him from causing further trouble.
Sample Post: His shoulder hurt, but he tried to pretend it didn’t. Jeb didn’t want Jay to notice, after all, and he’d be meeting him at the school. If Jay noticed, he’d ask questions, and Jeb simply couldn’t give him answers, not with what the answers were. He could always spin it so it was the Cabots’ fault, which it was, but Jay might be a bit upset since his girlfriend had been a part of that family, and was killed by the feud. It wouldn’t do any good to let him know that those troubles were still going on. However, there was no way he was going to admit any of his own fault in the incident. That would only direct Jay’s anger at him.
No, it was best that he didn’t know. There was no reason to upset his brother.
Walking up to the gates, Jeb pressed a button that looked like it was probably a doorbell of some sort and waited. Before long, there was a voice that crackled over a speaker.
“Welcome to the Xavier’s Institute, who is this?”
“Jebediah Guthrie,” he said, feeling like he should use his full first name considering the formality of the greeting, “Ah’m supposed to be meeting my brother here.”
“Hold on one moment please.”
And so he did, sitting on one of his bags. He only had a couple, but when he could only take them out of the taxi one at a time without hurting his left arm, it was certainly a hindrance. He didn’t know what he’d do when Jay came down. Well, in a big fancy place like this, maybe they had a butler or something that would carry his bags for him, though it would feel funny having someone else doing that like they were his servant. Jay would wonder about it, though, if Jeb was only using one arm when he brought little enough that he could go up in one trip if he was in full health.
Maybe he should try despite the pain. It would really hurt, though, and be obvious, but he didn’t want to explain to Jay what happened. Well, he’d do his best to cover it up, and if he had to he had to. Of course, he’d make it clear that it was entirely the Cabots’ fault. If Jay absolutely had to be upset by something, at least he could not be upset at Jeb.
Then, seeing a familiar form coming out of the mansion and walking toward the gate, Jeb temporarily forgot his thoughts, jumping up off of his bag and hurrying over to the gate.
“Jay!”
Name/Nickname: Robin
Age: 21
IM/Email: AIM: FroggieAvenger
MSNM: ravencorbeau@hotmail.com
Yahoo: ravencdoom
E-MAIL: dickmanr1@nku.edu
RP Experience: Five yearsish
-=Character Information=-
Name: Jebediah Guthrie
Code Name: Jolt
Affiliation: X-Men
Age: 14
Height: 5’5
Weight: 130
Hair color: Brown naturally, dyed red
Eye color: Brown
General Appearance: Jeb has the thin, delicate frame of a boy who is growing in height but has yet to fill out. He doesn’t have much muscle or fat, and what fat he does have is just enough to keep him from looking overly bony. He is also small in stature, but not uncommonly so for his age. Jeb’s hair is naturally brown, though he dyes it red, and is cut frequently by his mother, who keeps it fairly short. It lays fairly straight, curling out only slightly at the ends, with his long bangs combed to the side. His skin is pale, but solid in color, lacking any freckles. His smooth skin is only marred by one mark, a scar on his left shoulder from where he was shot in an incident where he used his powers to harass one of the Cabots. He tends to stand fairly straight, though he slouches from time to time. He also talks with his hands.
His somewhat rectangular face is very narrow, the features soft and delicate, his nose rounded and slightly upturned. His lips are thin and small, and he has straight eyebrows that are neither low nor high. With his lack of a visible Adam’s apple and smooth features, Jeb could be regarded as cute or pretty. Typically, he wears t-shirts and jeans, plain attire typical to a boy his age that wouldn’t stand out nor be typically noticed. Most of these clothes are hand me downs from his brothers, kept in the attic until he was big enough to wear them. However, in the privacy of his own room with the doors and windows locked, as well as covered and sufficiently blocked, Jeb will wear cute sundresses and make-up. As a girl, her style is subdued, but pretty. A farm girl look. This is, in part, because her clothes are stolen from her sister, Melody, but also due to personal taste. Complementing the farm girl look is the strong southern accent that is always present, whether as a girl or as a boy.
Personality: Jeb, like many people, has two sides to his personality, the side he wants the world to see, an image he would like to present, and a side he feels is the true self underneath that image. Unlike most people, however, this split is between male and female. There is the side of Jeb that everyone sees, whose personality, dress and behavior seem to match his birth gender. Then there’s Jessica. As Jessica, most of Jeb’s likes, dislikes, and general attitudes stay the same, but she is far happier and freer to express who she is than Jeb. However, due to general attitudes about that sort of thing in his home town, and never having anyone to show him it was okay like with his mutation, Jeb feels self-conscious and sometimes even guilty about his feminine side. As Jeb, he doesn’t feel quite right, and is more prone to anger and self consciousness.
As Jessica, she becomes so worried about how people will react and about disappointing her family that she remains confined in her room. While she believes they would love her no matter what, she is afraid that they might not be happy with her and want her to be Jeb again. Besides, she has so many siblings that someone’s reaction is bound to be bad, and she’d rather not deal with that…or risk the Cabots finding out and doing something to her. Even in the school, she’d rather not have word getting out. Despite this, she is quite happy when she sees herself in a dress that’s particularly flattering, hiding what few masculine features she has.
Despite tensions due to the conflict between what Jeb thinks he has to be and what the hidden part of his nature, he’s a good kid…sometimes. He’s generally friendly toward strangers, and always eager to meet new people. He can be rather curious when it comes to those who are different from what he used to see in Cumberland, like when he sees people with multicolored hair, but he’s rather open minded and even enjoys seeing all the differences in different people. The only prejudice he holds is against Cabots. He hates them all, as they were responsible for not only his father’s death, but beating him up all the time at school. He can be rather vengeful and spiteful as well, and is not above plotting revenge.
However, wanting the approval of his family comes out in that he will try to plan the revenge so that he doesn’t get into any trouble. Even if he starts a fight, he’ll do so in a way that the other person will get into more trouble, such as by verbally antagonizing someone until they hit the first punch, then using his electricity to deal with him so that he doesn’t actually have to be able to fight. Despite his best efforts, sometimes he’ll get into trouble anyway, and when he does, Jeb lie or leave out information to keep from getting into more trouble than necessary, only saying what he thinks will help his case. He is also quite stubborn, refusing to give in when determined to state his point. Instead, he will repeat the same thing again and again, even when a gun is pointed at him. There are a few exceptions, such as when his mother or older sibling scolds him, or someone he respects, but it’s more about whether the person deserves to tell him what to do, rather than feeling a need to give. Another exception would be blackmail. If someone threatened to tell his family something that he feared would make them like him less, he will give in, though even then will have a breaking point where he will lash back.
Like most of the people where he’s from, Jeb isn’t afraid to get dirty. Dust from the mines and dirt from the fields is simply a part of life, and the clothes Jeb prefers as either a boy or a girl are relatively easy to wash anyway. Jeb is never prissy or high maintenance, and can grow quickly irritated with those who are. Nice dresses and perfect make-up may be great and all, but some things are just more important. Besides, like it or not, everyone has to do their fair share of the work in the Guthrie house, and there’s no use whining and bellyaching about it.
While being the stubborn sort who doesn’t give in easily once he puts his mind to something, Jeb isn’t a natural leader. He might come up with a plan to keep out of trouble or for something to do with a friend, but he hates organizing a large amount of information or coming up with ideas on how to do things that don’t directly pertain to himself. It isn’t that he doesn’t care about those things, he wants things like mutant rights to go well, but he feels that by not really fully understanding how something works, he can’t really come up with a decision on how it should be dealt with.
X-Factor: Jeb has the ability to shoot electricity out of his eyes.
Power Details: Jeb has the ability to amplify and discharge his body’s naturally generated electricity in the form of beams out of his eyes. He is capable of varying the voltage of his blasts, capable of only creating enough electricity to give a slight tingling sensation to being able to use it in an attack that would be capable of killing someone or causing an explosion if he were to hit a car. Thankfully, by practicing with his powers when he was on his own, Jeb has learned to control them fairly well and is unlikely to kill someone when he only intends to hurt them. It is also unlikely that he would blast without meaning to. He can also retain these, to make them more like a steady beam, rather than a short jolt. However, doing this will drain his abilities quicker. The length of time he can hold this is dependent on the number of electrolytes in his body at that time. Due to this, he needs to eat foods higher in salt, potassium and chloride than most people, and will frequently crave them after using his abilities for an extended period of time.
That said, while he can control if he shoots beams out of his eyes and how high the voltage is, he cannot control the beams once they leave his eyes, nor can he control their size. They will continue to go in a straight line until they either hit something or dissipate naturally. The distance the beam will go before dissipation depends on the voltage put into the beam to begin with, varying between three yards to the length of a football field.
Due to this dissipation, even if a person is hit with his electricity, the further they are away from Jeb, the weaker the blast will be. The size of his blasts matches the size of his eyes, though sparks fly off from the initial beam in every direction. Once they hit a conductive object, however, the electricity flows through that object and be seen crackling around it for as long as his beams last. This crackling energy can look like blue flames, though at the levels he usually uses, does far less damage.
For Jeb to fire his beams, he must build the electricity up in his eyes first. While this is happening, his eyes begin to spark, throwing off bits of energy. This only needs to happen for a second. However, when prepared for a possible need to use his electric beams, he can charge his eyes and keep them like that, sparking with energy, until the need to fire them comes. He can also lose this built up energy by allowing it to release in the sparks without firing, which lasts a few seconds and causes no visible change. This automatically happens if he is rendered unconscious.
It also seems that the electricity stored in his eyes has repaired his previously nearsighted vision, and he now has 20/20.
In the future, Jeb may develop his skills so that the charge he shoots out of his eyes will be able to go further without dissipating, doubling the distance, as well as being able to have a higher voltage. This would allow him to do serious damage at a further distance, rather than having his beam be too dissipated by the time it hits someone far away to do anything.
His abilities can be blocked by rubber or any like material. Also, Jeb is not resistant to electrocution himself, and if what he is blasting is connected to him by a conductor, he will shock himself as well.
General Skills: Jeb is good at dealing with children, having three younger siblings himself. He is also good at English, as it’s one of his best classes, has an eye for color, and a penchant for lying. The latter he has used frequently, not only when it comes to his cross dressing tendencies, but also to keep himself out of trouble.
Brief History: Jeb was the seventh child born into the Guthrie household. While life in such a populated home could be a bit chaotic at times, Jeb did not lack love or attention. This was aided by the fact that some of his older siblings were mature enough to help out around the house, decreasing rather increasing the burden. Also, when the curious infant got a bit out of hand, his brothers and sisters were frequently delighted to play with the baby and keep him busy for a bit.
Only a couple years later, however, twins were born. This created twice as much hassle than they were used to getting at once with a new kid, and the toddler Jeb was still young enough that he was more of a burden than a help. For this reason, he began to compete with them for the attention of both their mother and older siblings. He tried various antics, from throwing temper tantrums and screaming to being good and helping out as best a little kid of his age could. His family, knowing quite well how to deal with this sort of thing, rewarded the good with the sort of attention he sought and made it quite clear that the bad was not acceptable.
Another issue came up a few years later. Jeb began to grow jealous of Melody, insisting that their parents were getting her nicer things. While everyone else in the family, or at least everyone else who was old enough to worry about it, insisted that Jeb’s toys were only different in that they were boy toys instead of girl toys, he didn’t seem satisfied by this explanation and began to pilfer his sister’s belongings. Clearly, this behavior had to stop. Lucinda and Thomas talked with their child, but he insisted that if Melody’s toys were truly not any better, they could get him some like hers and it wouldn’t make any difference to them.
Again they tried to explain that boys and girls were different, and so their toys had to be different, because they didn’t enjoy the same things. Jeb pointed out that he enjoyed playing with Melody’s toys more, but Lucinda refuted this, saying, as she believed, that Jeb only liked Melody’s things because they weren’t his. Jeb wasn’t convinced. His father showed him his truck, then, and how Jeb’s toy truck was just a little version of his. He explained that with toys like that, Jeb would be just like him, and didn’t he want that?
Jeb didn’t, really.
If he wanted to be like anyone, it was Melody, or even his mother. Jeb loved his father, though, and thought he was a great person and a wonderful role model…for his brothers. However, he knew what answer his father wanted, and said that he’d love to be just like his father. Seeing how happy that made his dad, Jeb decided from then on he would try and enjoy his own toys, only taking a doll from Melody occasionally and always putting it back before anyone found out it was missing. It was around this time he found video games, which he mostly played at arcades since it was cheaper than getting his own system. They were something he enjoyed that didn’t bother his parents.
Oh, they’d only let him go once all his chores were done, but they didn’t feel the need to sit him down and have a talk about it or anything. Not like with Melody’s dolls. Of course, these video games didn’t take up all of his time. Jeb still loved his brothers and sisters, of which he had nine now, and would play with them frequently. By this point, he’d even gotten used to his younger siblings, and enjoyed playing with them and helping take care of the younger ones, no longer feeling like they were blocking him from getting attention. Besides, even if they were, it was probably better to win it back by being good rather than by making more trouble.
Unfortunately, soon after this his father died. Jeb was six years old at this point. For a while, Jeb stopped taking Melody’s things entirely. He felt guilty, knowing that his father wouldn’t have approved.
Another issue that arose as the years went on was with the Cabots. More specifically, Abe Cabot. While only being a couple years older than the Guthrie boy, Abe was always quite a bit larger and stronger, and he took advantage of this fact every chance he got, beating Jeb up after and sometimes during school. Of course, he wasn’t stupid, either, and was always careful to wait until he could get the smaller boy alone, or at least away from anyone he’d consider a threat. Jeb’s friend, Ray Jr., sometimes was around to see it, but being as scrawny as Jeb, there was little he could do about it.
When Jeb was ten, he began worrying less and less if his father would be ashamed of him for taking his sister’s things, and from time to time would ‘borrow’ her belongings. This time, however, it centered more around her clothes, which he would try on when locked in his room or shut in his closet. During these times, she would think of herself as Jessica, twirling and modeling the outfits in front of the mirror, or just enjoying feeling like a girl for a few minutes a month. As time continued, the frequency of these activities increased, but his caution did not, and Jessica went undiscovered. Of course, the fear of being caught also was no longer solely centered on the desire to please his parents, but also the knowledge of what kind of trouble he could get into if word got out, particularly with the Cabots.
The trouble between the families was escalating, too, leading to an incident where the Cabots attempted to kill Josh, his older brother. This resulted only in the death of Julia, however, as she and Josh were secretly lovers, and having believed he’d been killed, she committed suicide. After this, Josh became intensely depressed, attempting suicide several times. Jeb was worried for his brother, but was unable to help. Nothing he could do could bring Julia back, and it seemed that nothing short of that would help him. Perhaps the end to the rivalry between the families would have been something, but due to Jeb’s continued bullying at school, Jeb refused to drop this.
Eventually, their mother sent Jay away to a school for mutants. While Jeb missed his brother, he hoped the school would be able to help him. Maybe he’d meet someone new there and he wouldn’t want to hurt himself anymore.
During the time while Jay was away, Jeb gained his own powers. When they first emerged, he was frightened, having accidentally started an electrical fire in the yard. He wanted to put it out, but in his panic he only made it worse. Eventually, however, his siblings and mother, who had rushed out of the house upon hearing his screams, calmed Jeb and put out the fire. In the following months, Jeb would find a place that would be fairly safe to practice his abilities. Originally, his intent was merely to get them under control so he wouldn’t be a risk to his family, but as he learned how to control the intensity of the electricity, another idea came in mind. He realized he was no longer helpless. He didn’t have to be as big or strong as Abe to deal with him, not with these powers, and with the new control, he wouldn’t even have to worry about hurting him. However, he might be able to scare Abe enough to keep him from picking on him ever again.
Of course, Jeb didn’t want to get in trouble for attacking the other boy, but he figured if he could get Abe to attack him, which shouldn’t be hard, he could always say it was self defense. Excited about his idea, Jeb went to tell Ray about it, and the two set out to try it. It wasn’t terribly hard to find Abe, and it was even easier to get him to fight them. It was after that the trouble started. Though Jeb wasn’t really hurting Abe that bad, Abe drew the attention of a mechanic as well as the local sheriff by yelling that Jeb was burning him. While Jeb was explaining that he wasn’t really burning Abe, the mechanic came up behind him, hitting him over the head.
The fight escalated, and Jeb, in a panic, began to fire his eyes, accidentally hitting the police car and making it explode when he saw the crow bar being thrown at him. His eyes continued to spark, and the sheriff told him to turn off his powers and lay face down on the ground. He was in trouble. Going into a panic, Jeb began to point out that Abe attacked him, not the other way around. He shouldn’t be in trouble when he was only defending himself. The sheriff didn’t care. He kept telling him to turn off his eyes, and Jeb kept trying to explain why he was the victim there until…a shot fired, and Jeb fell to the ground, eyes finally deactivating. After a short trip to the hospital, he was then taken to his home, where he was thoroughly scolded.
After this incident, Jeb was sent to the mansion to stay with his brother, his family hoping that the distance from the Cabots would keep him from causing further trouble.
Sample Post: His shoulder hurt, but he tried to pretend it didn’t. Jeb didn’t want Jay to notice, after all, and he’d be meeting him at the school. If Jay noticed, he’d ask questions, and Jeb simply couldn’t give him answers, not with what the answers were. He could always spin it so it was the Cabots’ fault, which it was, but Jay might be a bit upset since his girlfriend had been a part of that family, and was killed by the feud. It wouldn’t do any good to let him know that those troubles were still going on. However, there was no way he was going to admit any of his own fault in the incident. That would only direct Jay’s anger at him.
No, it was best that he didn’t know. There was no reason to upset his brother.
Walking up to the gates, Jeb pressed a button that looked like it was probably a doorbell of some sort and waited. Before long, there was a voice that crackled over a speaker.
“Welcome to the Xavier’s Institute, who is this?”
“Jebediah Guthrie,” he said, feeling like he should use his full first name considering the formality of the greeting, “Ah’m supposed to be meeting my brother here.”
“Hold on one moment please.”
And so he did, sitting on one of his bags. He only had a couple, but when he could only take them out of the taxi one at a time without hurting his left arm, it was certainly a hindrance. He didn’t know what he’d do when Jay came down. Well, in a big fancy place like this, maybe they had a butler or something that would carry his bags for him, though it would feel funny having someone else doing that like they were his servant. Jay would wonder about it, though, if Jeb was only using one arm when he brought little enough that he could go up in one trip if he was in full health.
Maybe he should try despite the pain. It would really hurt, though, and be obvious, but he didn’t want to explain to Jay what happened. Well, he’d do his best to cover it up, and if he had to he had to. Of course, he’d make it clear that it was entirely the Cabots’ fault. If Jay absolutely had to be upset by something, at least he could not be upset at Jeb.
Then, seeing a familiar form coming out of the mansion and walking toward the gate, Jeb temporarily forgot his thoughts, jumping up off of his bag and hurrying over to the gate.
“Jay!”
