MASK OR MENACE APP
Dec. 9th, 2018 07:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goldtoxicity〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Shikki
AGE: 26
JOURNAL: n/a, minimoffs on plurk
IM / EMAIL: CHAOSTHEATRE#7869
PLURK: minimoffs
RETURNING: No
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Joshua Foley
CHARACTER AGE: 21*
SERIES: Marvel Comics
CHRONOLOGY: After repairing the damage caused by the Mothervine Virus
CLASS: Hero ( Chaotic Good )
HOUSING: Randomize!
BACKGROUND: ELIXIR was the son of a very anti-mutant family. He was convinced to join a meeting of REAVERS, anti-mutant extremists, by his childhood best friend, Duncan. His mutant ability manifested on his first mission out – instead of killing the mutants around him, he discovered that he could heal them. And that he was a mutant.
His parents disowned him. They made DANIELLE MOONSTAR his legal guardian and washed their hands of him, never even casting a backward glance.
His first friend in the academy was JULIAN KELLER (HELLION, active) a powerful telekinetic who shared his disdain for their living situation, but not his former antimutant bias. Their friendship ended when HELLION discovered that ELIXIR had once been a REAVER. Something he did not hesitate to tell the rest of the school. It never quite recovered from that.
While in XAVIER’S he made his fair share of friends. And ENEMIES. His first SQUAD was the NEW MUTANTS. DAVID ALLEYNE (PRODIGY, depowered), SOFIA MANTEGA (WIND DANCER, depowered), NORIKO ASHIDA (SURGE, active), JAY GUTHRIE (ICARUS, deceased), and LAURIE COLLINS (WALLFLOWER, deceased).
He also began a romance with RAHNE SINCLAIR (WOLFSBANE, active) which began when he returned her mutation to her. Unfortunately, the wolf was uncontrollable. Rahne gutted Joshua, leaving him to bleed out on the ground as she rushed away in a panic. Thanks to the quick thinking of David and Noriko, Joshua was able to use his healing factor on himself - the side-effect of which turned his skin gold. His romance with Rahne continued, though it became strained as Rahne took a position as a teacher at the school. During a fight, he asked his teammate Laurie Collins out on a date out of spite. Yet from there, a romance began to blossom between Josh and the shy Laurie.
Rahne officially ended it when it became clear there was no future for them and that Josh was happier with Laurie - and she was right. Josh continued to date Laurie and work on mastering his powers, deepening his friendship with his teammates, as well as maintaining a rivalry with the HELLION squad, former friends of his who threw him out of their group when his past as a Reaver was revealed. The team had its fair share of misadventures and fights, though perhaps none so intense as the reveal that Josh had been seeing both Laurie and Rahne simultaneously.
When M-DAY came it once again upended his life.
M-DAY resulted in the depowering of most of his squad and the rest of the school. They barely had a moment to process that before anti-mutant extremists bombed a bus carrying most of the depowered students as they tried to leave.
From there, he became a member of the NEW X-MEN - the members of the remaining powered squads merged into one team. Only to be immediately kicked off the team when he attacked Colossus after a lesson ended, demanding to know why he didn't save them. When Laurie comes after him to try to talk him down from the mood he's worked himself into, he reels on her and starts yelling. Mid-tirade, Laurie is shot by a sniper hiding in the wings. And shortly after witnessing Laurie’s assassination – Joshua’s powers became unstable. He developed the ability to kill with a touch and his secondary mutation developed further. When using the death side of his powers, his skin turns a shiny metallic black.
He falls into a catatonic state due to the stress of using his abilities in that way. He's only awoken from it when Julian brings a dying LAURA KINNEY (X-23) to him to heal, giving him a speech about how he's really a healer and not a killer. He reawakens and recuses himself from active duty, focusing on healing full time.
That doesn't last.
Josh is recruited onto the X-FORCE after he's pulled from bed one night to heal a wounded Rahne. He witnesses too much and the team is in dire need of a healer, and so onto the team he goes. He attempts to get out of it by offering to have the Stepford Cuckoos erase his mind, only to end up going on the mission and opting to stay after he saved Laura's life again by curing a deadly mutant-killing virus that had infected her.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst of what awaited him as an X-Force member.
They have him implant a tumor in Vanisher's head. They drag him to the future using unstable technology that slowly starts to kill him. He has a heart to heart with Wolverine about how you're meant to live with yourself after killing someone and is told that there is no way but to try to do better the next day. They have him activate his death powers on multiple opponents, and ultimately, this leads to Josh using his abilities on a classmate gone rogue: Wither.
Wither blames him for Laurie's death. No matter what Josh says to him, it becomes clear that he isn't going to listen or relent his attack. And after Wither threatens to kill the remaining mutants Josh cares about, he turns his power back on him and erodes him to dust.
It set the course for the next years of his life. Killing Wither leaves him unable to use his healing powers. Josh stays to help with the cleanup effort in Genosha, and then as soon as he's done, he vanishes. No one has any idea where he's gone. Not until he's kidnapped and dropped into a Weapon X testing facility in Croatia during the DEATH OF WOLVERINE and seemingly killed, disappearing without a further word.
The next time he appears it's revealed he's been living with the UTOPIANS, displaced mutants who have decided to live in the rubble of Utopia as they've grown sick of the fighting and no longer want to have to fight for the right to merely exist. It's not clear how long they've been together, but been with them since Charles Xavier died. He briefly rejoins the X-MEN in their abandoned WEAPON-X facility base in Canada -- only to disappear again during the M-POX crisis, as he's unable to heal anyone and goes into hiding out of guilt. When the DARK RIDERS, a group of Inhumans who believe in Darwinism and believe that healers violate the natural order. After Magneto's X-Men track him down to try to protect him, Josh is struck down by an Inhuman sniper named GAUNTLET. But not before he revives all of his human friends who the Dark Riders killed. Monet and Sabretooth take his body back, and Josh is buried in Queens.
After that, things go to Hell and Josh is forgotten about. By the time anyone thinks to check to be sure that the omega level healer stayed dead, Josh has already revived himself from the dead and somehow got from Queens to Genosha. There, he begins sadistically reviving and killing his murderer. It's made very clear that his death has pushed him over the edge. Josh attempts to revive all 11 million dead mutants on the island, but the strain of it leaves him to pass out. When the X-Men take him to try to heal the mutants affected by the M-Pox, Josh nearly succeeded in eliminating the virus - but the psychic feedback is too much for him to handle, and he begins to lose control and kill everyone in the vicinity. He snaps himself out of it in the nick of time.
This ultimately leads Magneto to leave him at Xorn's temple so that he can heal and gain control of his powers. They remain in contact, as Josh repays the favor by reviving him from death after Psylocke kills him, and again when the Mothervine Virus is released across the world and mutants millions of humans. Josh is able to use his abilities to roll all of their mutations back (save for people who were born with the X-Gene, he either wasn't able to or refused to take that from them) and is then shown as a member of Magneto's new Brotherhood of Mutants.
PERSONALITY: Josh Foley is a trainwreck.
He's gone from a wanna-be thug, to a prep, to an outcast, to a zen healer, to an apathetic mess. His character development has been one long conga-line of trauma, ending with a face-heal turn to villainy.
To start off what hasn't changed about him over the years: He's naturally charismatic and charming. People are drawn to him despite some of the worse traits of his personality always being on display - and it's a good thing for him because Josh isn't great at being alone. Whether it be a deep and intimate friendship or just another person to be near, Josh needs people. He's never managed to figure out the hang of just enjoying his own company, for all the times he might try to split and be on his own.
Josh is a bit of a jerk. He's often shooting his mouth off without care of what he's saying, or what consequences might follow. Even after all he's gone through, or maybe even because of it, he has a habit of saying the first thing that comes to mind in any given situation. Sometimes this is goading an enemy on because he's angry, or sometimes it's an unintentional compliment or a cryptic remark that leaves his friends confused and worried.
Josh isn't passive. For all he may try to be, he doesn't believe in just sitting by and letting things happen. The second he got his powers he was reaching out to help everyone in need. With his own helplessness staring him in the face after the death of his classmates, he goes to the Stepford Cuckoos and has them download all of Beast's knowledge of medicine and anatomy into his mind to ensure he'll never be helpless in the face of death again. Even when he tries to retreat from the world, he's unable to stand on the sidelines when push comes to shove.
Which is really the core of his personality - Josh likes helping people. He likes being able to do good. Being able to heal people has always brought joy to him. While his feelings on the full scope of his powers are... complicated, Josh appreciates the chance to make people's lives better and easier. He has a habit of forgiving people for hurting him or screwing him over, so long as they're safe and well in the end. There are limits to this kindness now - he's finally had enough of mutantkind being abused and has thrown in his lot with the Brotherhood, after all his attempts to escape the shadow of the X-Men backfired.
While he learned to be his own person at the school, he tries to be what other people want him to be - whether that was to pose as an anti-mutant punk, a preppy jock, a true and compassionate healer, or a good church boy. He's always bending a little to be a person other people would like. He does his best to adopt their best traits and make himself into someone they can be proud to call their friend, rather than just bends himself into being their friend. Spending enough time with someone will have Josh adopting their traits and mannerisms unconsciously.
Josh has always had a poor temper, but M-Day worsened it considerably. He's prone to lashing out in times of stress. He did it New Mutants when they tried to help him after parents day, blowing up at Dani every time she tried to help him, little things that can be brushed off as a teenage boy dealing poorly with all the new changes life had thrown at him. During M-Day he held onto a classmate as he died. He experienced that feeling for the first time, unable to heal him, only able to feel him slip away through his fingers. In his own words, "part of me died with him". This marked the first true showing of his instability. He physically lashed out at Colossus (in his human form) mid-lecture, demanding to know why they hadn't saved him. The act got himself kicked off the newly formed X-Men team. He lashed out at Laurie verbally when she tried to talk him out of the terrible mood. And when Laurie died, Josh flew into a murderous rage and used his powers to kill the man who ordered her death.
It's his temper that Cyclops and Shadowcat fear could turn him into the next Magneto.
And to be frank, they aren't wrong too.
Life has been cruel to Josh. While he initially refused to use his powers for harm, the time serving on the X-Force (as well as a few other instances of teachers pressuring him to use that ability) wore him down. He sought Logan out for advice, wanting to watch him and understand what makes him tick, how he can live with all the death, to see how to avoid becoming him - only comes out of it understanding that sometimes it just has to be done. Monsters aren't born, they're made. Despite his efforts to fight against it - embracing Buddhism and yoga to try to work on his temper, recusing himself from field work with the other X-Men, developing flirtations and physical relationships with other students to distract himself - Josh has come to accept the necessity of using force and causing death.
While he tried to hold on to all the good things that his friends saw in him, he came out the other side of Necrosha as a killer. Even after he regained his gold form he was never, ever the same. Over time, all the little traumas built up and left him with a mountain of issues he couldn't cope with.
The way the X-Men treated him destroyed much of his self-worth. In times of crisis, Josh was often reduced to the use of his powers. Josh's use to people has defined so much of who he is that when he can't heal, he breaks. When he gets trapped in his black form, the side of his ability that kills, he runs away without a word to anyone. When he can't heal the M-Pox he goes deep into hiding, believing himself to be worthless in the face of the cause.
Both times he has died have been a direct result of heroic sacrifice - though perhaps one brought about by not realizing the danger he was in. Still, he has an inability to walk away from people in need. Both times he walks straight danger with little regard for his own safety, seeing only that people are hurting and that they need him. And later, after he's rescued from Genosha, he begs to be brought back so he can heal the dead there.
Yet you don't die and come back as a whole. Touching death for the first time made Josh bitter, living it once made him angry and living it twice left him a catastrophic mess. When angry or overwhelmed, Josh acts out - shouting, using his powers, acting irrationally. Death has left him with even worse impulse control than he already had, and a rage fit to scorch and salt the earth.
Josh no longer believes in a non-violent approach. He doesn't believe in the message that the X-Men put out in the world - peaceful cohabitation attained without force. He isn't the same kid who tried to be loved by everyone around him. He still cares but he's had to cauterize his wounds and move on, or else he'd continue to bleed out for anyone who so much as looks in his direction.
Instead, he values keeping the people he cares about alive. He cares about mutantkind surviving.
All in all, Josh is... struggling. No one joins the Brotherhood because they think its a good idea. The boy has a very kind heart, but the years have left him angry and struggling to figure out how to cope. He's trying to keep things together and keep people safe, but he's been so busy taking care of other people that he's neglected himself. There's just a pit in his stomach and its roiling with anger and resentment, often overtaking his reason and leaving him ready to lash out at the first thing to strike him the wrong way. He's a mess of poorly dealt with trauma, wrapped up in a blue hoodie, with unspeakable power at his fingertips.
POWER:
GOLD FORM. In canon, Josh is what's known as an OMEGA LEVEL MUTANT - meaning that there is currently no scope for how strong his powers will grow. He's able to alter the human body on a genetic level, allowing him to heal injuries, reverse the damage done by unnatural mutations, and even revive the dead. He does not need to touch anyone and can project a healing field for miles, healing everyone within it on a genetic level. This is more than a little overpowered, so being ported here will roll back his powers to a more manageable scope.
While in his gold form, Josh can heal people with a touch. Doing this expends energy - healing someone from the brink of death is exhausting and not something he can do more than maybe twice per day. Minor injuries such as cuts, scrapes, and bruises can be healed instantly with very minor contact, and minor ailments such as colds or mild fatigue could be caused by distance as well. If pushed, Josh can also rebuild human body parts from mere cells. He was able to fully regrown his friend's heart.
In his gold form, Josh can also regenerate himself. This means he could tank through direct attacks and instantly heal from the damage, eventually, the strain of fixing that damage would catch up with him and he'd collapse.
Josh has complete control over his own biology. This has pros and cons: while he can heal himself in this form, he can't be healed by external forces. If he pushes himself too far or is too badly injured, he'll drop into a coma until his body has recovered enough to wake from it.
LEAD FORM. To contrast the healing, Josh can also cause harm. Josh's abilities aren't truly defined as healing, as in repairing the damage that has been caused. It's biokinesis. The ability to manipulate the human body on a genetic level.
He's demonstrated the ability to create cancer where there was none, to draining the life out of people around him, to creating specialty made tumors. He could jack someone's body temperature up to a brain-melting level or reconfigure someone's genetic structure to include a deadly allergy to the sun. Or he could give someone he really doesn't like a cold.
Of course, this has to be done by touch (and with player permission) and leaves him feeling drained. If someone were to touch his bare skin in this form they'd, at the bare minimum, experience nausea. The longer they hold on, the more likely they are to pass out. The more he uses these abilities, the harder it is to switch back to his healing ones.
In addition, he can't heal in this form. Josh cannot heal at the same time he's inflicting harm.
I'm fine with any additional limitations the mods want to put on his abilities - the ability to instantly kill people is stupidly overpowered and needs to be nyxed immediately.
WALKING DIAGNOSTIC UNIT. Josh can sense what is wrong in the bodies of the people around him. He's able to pick up on Monet's parasitic brother, on Sabretooth's inversion, and Magneto's general fragility. Consider it something akin to standard telepathy, except instead of thoughts, he's picking up on biological feedback. He seems to be able to sense the 'emotions' of the illnesses and abnormalities he's curing as well.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: So, um, uh... [ The young man sitting in front of the camera doesn't look particularly enthused to be here. In fact, it kind of looks like he just rolled out of bed. ] You know, for all the times I've been kidnapped or dropped into another world it actually never gets easier, sucks less, or gets less weird, but, uh... Hey. Glad I'm not the only one?
[ he scratches his head. maybe he shouldn't be announcing himself at all, given how anti-mutant prejudice is at an all-time high. ]
I'm Josh. Or, Elixir, I guess? If that's what you wanna go with. I'm not sure where we stand on code names but given the government knows my name, what I look like, gave me a gross tattoo and marked down my powers I don't think it matters. And I guess people are really into "imports" [ there are air quotes ] and I'm, y'know... [ he gestures to his everything. the blank eyes, the gold skin. ] I don't think trying to hold a secret identity is going to work anyway. Gotta say - not a huge fan of being registered against my will. You'd think if they were dragging people in to help them they'd want to ask before they start making bodily changes or whatever, you know, endear themselves a little instead of just throwing some money and hoping we don't just try to take them out. I mean, hey, I'll give them credit I can't get it off and I've really tried.
[ Okay. That wasn't what he meant to say. He's angry, alright? So angry. Just when he thought he was finally done being yanked into situations beyond his control for the sake of other people, he gets sucker-punched and dropped into an entirely new one. Josh blows out a breath. ]
I think that's everything. Oh! Wait, no, missed the point of actually doing this. I'm a healer and [ a highschool drop out with a Ph.D. in his head and also kind of a murderer. ] and a doctor. I guess that's about where you'll be wanting me since I'm not really feeling the whole... free will thing in this setup. Cool. [ he drums both hands against the table, slow, sifting for something else to say before he just gives up and drops them with a sigh. ] Neat. Good to be kidnapped with you.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: test drive thread with laurie!
FINAL NOTES:
* Due to the floating timescale it's really hard to peg what age the Academy X kids are. Marvel seems absolutely allergic to acknowledging that they've grown up but has aged everyone around them accordingly. Josh and Laura were the same age when she appeared in New X-Men, and now she's apparently 22 in Uncanny. 21 feels like the most reasonable age for all the nonsense that's gone down between point A and point B, but if there's an issue with this then please let me know!
NAME: Shikki
AGE: 26
JOURNAL: n/a, minimoffs on plurk
IM / EMAIL: CHAOSTHEATRE#7869
PLURK: minimoffs
RETURNING: No
〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Joshua Foley
CHARACTER AGE: 21*
SERIES: Marvel Comics
CHRONOLOGY: After repairing the damage caused by the Mothervine Virus
CLASS: Hero ( Chaotic Good )
HOUSING: Randomize!
BACKGROUND: ELIXIR was the son of a very anti-mutant family. He was convinced to join a meeting of REAVERS, anti-mutant extremists, by his childhood best friend, Duncan. His mutant ability manifested on his first mission out – instead of killing the mutants around him, he discovered that he could heal them. And that he was a mutant.
His parents disowned him. They made DANIELLE MOONSTAR his legal guardian and washed their hands of him, never even casting a backward glance.
His first friend in the academy was JULIAN KELLER (HELLION, active) a powerful telekinetic who shared his disdain for their living situation, but not his former antimutant bias. Their friendship ended when HELLION discovered that ELIXIR had once been a REAVER. Something he did not hesitate to tell the rest of the school. It never quite recovered from that.
While in XAVIER’S he made his fair share of friends. And ENEMIES. His first SQUAD was the NEW MUTANTS. DAVID ALLEYNE (PRODIGY, depowered), SOFIA MANTEGA (WIND DANCER, depowered), NORIKO ASHIDA (SURGE, active), JAY GUTHRIE (ICARUS, deceased), and LAURIE COLLINS (WALLFLOWER, deceased).
He also began a romance with RAHNE SINCLAIR (WOLFSBANE, active) which began when he returned her mutation to her. Unfortunately, the wolf was uncontrollable. Rahne gutted Joshua, leaving him to bleed out on the ground as she rushed away in a panic. Thanks to the quick thinking of David and Noriko, Joshua was able to use his healing factor on himself - the side-effect of which turned his skin gold. His romance with Rahne continued, though it became strained as Rahne took a position as a teacher at the school. During a fight, he asked his teammate Laurie Collins out on a date out of spite. Yet from there, a romance began to blossom between Josh and the shy Laurie.
Rahne officially ended it when it became clear there was no future for them and that Josh was happier with Laurie - and she was right. Josh continued to date Laurie and work on mastering his powers, deepening his friendship with his teammates, as well as maintaining a rivalry with the HELLION squad, former friends of his who threw him out of their group when his past as a Reaver was revealed. The team had its fair share of misadventures and fights, though perhaps none so intense as the reveal that Josh had been seeing both Laurie and Rahne simultaneously.
When M-DAY came it once again upended his life.
M-DAY resulted in the depowering of most of his squad and the rest of the school. They barely had a moment to process that before anti-mutant extremists bombed a bus carrying most of the depowered students as they tried to leave.
From there, he became a member of the NEW X-MEN - the members of the remaining powered squads merged into one team. Only to be immediately kicked off the team when he attacked Colossus after a lesson ended, demanding to know why he didn't save them. When Laurie comes after him to try to talk him down from the mood he's worked himself into, he reels on her and starts yelling. Mid-tirade, Laurie is shot by a sniper hiding in the wings. And shortly after witnessing Laurie’s assassination – Joshua’s powers became unstable. He developed the ability to kill with a touch and his secondary mutation developed further. When using the death side of his powers, his skin turns a shiny metallic black.
He falls into a catatonic state due to the stress of using his abilities in that way. He's only awoken from it when Julian brings a dying LAURA KINNEY (X-23) to him to heal, giving him a speech about how he's really a healer and not a killer. He reawakens and recuses himself from active duty, focusing on healing full time.
That doesn't last.
Josh is recruited onto the X-FORCE after he's pulled from bed one night to heal a wounded Rahne. He witnesses too much and the team is in dire need of a healer, and so onto the team he goes. He attempts to get out of it by offering to have the Stepford Cuckoos erase his mind, only to end up going on the mission and opting to stay after he saved Laura's life again by curing a deadly mutant-killing virus that had infected her.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the worst of what awaited him as an X-Force member.
They have him implant a tumor in Vanisher's head. They drag him to the future using unstable technology that slowly starts to kill him. He has a heart to heart with Wolverine about how you're meant to live with yourself after killing someone and is told that there is no way but to try to do better the next day. They have him activate his death powers on multiple opponents, and ultimately, this leads to Josh using his abilities on a classmate gone rogue: Wither.
Wither blames him for Laurie's death. No matter what Josh says to him, it becomes clear that he isn't going to listen or relent his attack. And after Wither threatens to kill the remaining mutants Josh cares about, he turns his power back on him and erodes him to dust.
It set the course for the next years of his life. Killing Wither leaves him unable to use his healing powers. Josh stays to help with the cleanup effort in Genosha, and then as soon as he's done, he vanishes. No one has any idea where he's gone. Not until he's kidnapped and dropped into a Weapon X testing facility in Croatia during the DEATH OF WOLVERINE and seemingly killed, disappearing without a further word.
The next time he appears it's revealed he's been living with the UTOPIANS, displaced mutants who have decided to live in the rubble of Utopia as they've grown sick of the fighting and no longer want to have to fight for the right to merely exist. It's not clear how long they've been together, but been with them since Charles Xavier died. He briefly rejoins the X-MEN in their abandoned WEAPON-X facility base in Canada -- only to disappear again during the M-POX crisis, as he's unable to heal anyone and goes into hiding out of guilt. When the DARK RIDERS, a group of Inhumans who believe in Darwinism and believe that healers violate the natural order. After Magneto's X-Men track him down to try to protect him, Josh is struck down by an Inhuman sniper named GAUNTLET. But not before he revives all of his human friends who the Dark Riders killed. Monet and Sabretooth take his body back, and Josh is buried in Queens.
After that, things go to Hell and Josh is forgotten about. By the time anyone thinks to check to be sure that the omega level healer stayed dead, Josh has already revived himself from the dead and somehow got from Queens to Genosha. There, he begins sadistically reviving and killing his murderer. It's made very clear that his death has pushed him over the edge. Josh attempts to revive all 11 million dead mutants on the island, but the strain of it leaves him to pass out. When the X-Men take him to try to heal the mutants affected by the M-Pox, Josh nearly succeeded in eliminating the virus - but the psychic feedback is too much for him to handle, and he begins to lose control and kill everyone in the vicinity. He snaps himself out of it in the nick of time.
This ultimately leads Magneto to leave him at Xorn's temple so that he can heal and gain control of his powers. They remain in contact, as Josh repays the favor by reviving him from death after Psylocke kills him, and again when the Mothervine Virus is released across the world and mutants millions of humans. Josh is able to use his abilities to roll all of their mutations back (save for people who were born with the X-Gene, he either wasn't able to or refused to take that from them) and is then shown as a member of Magneto's new Brotherhood of Mutants.
PERSONALITY: Josh Foley is a trainwreck.
He's gone from a wanna-be thug, to a prep, to an outcast, to a zen healer, to an apathetic mess. His character development has been one long conga-line of trauma, ending with a face-heal turn to villainy.
To start off what hasn't changed about him over the years: He's naturally charismatic and charming. People are drawn to him despite some of the worse traits of his personality always being on display - and it's a good thing for him because Josh isn't great at being alone. Whether it be a deep and intimate friendship or just another person to be near, Josh needs people. He's never managed to figure out the hang of just enjoying his own company, for all the times he might try to split and be on his own.
Josh is a bit of a jerk. He's often shooting his mouth off without care of what he's saying, or what consequences might follow. Even after all he's gone through, or maybe even because of it, he has a habit of saying the first thing that comes to mind in any given situation. Sometimes this is goading an enemy on because he's angry, or sometimes it's an unintentional compliment or a cryptic remark that leaves his friends confused and worried.
Josh isn't passive. For all he may try to be, he doesn't believe in just sitting by and letting things happen. The second he got his powers he was reaching out to help everyone in need. With his own helplessness staring him in the face after the death of his classmates, he goes to the Stepford Cuckoos and has them download all of Beast's knowledge of medicine and anatomy into his mind to ensure he'll never be helpless in the face of death again. Even when he tries to retreat from the world, he's unable to stand on the sidelines when push comes to shove.
Which is really the core of his personality - Josh likes helping people. He likes being able to do good. Being able to heal people has always brought joy to him. While his feelings on the full scope of his powers are... complicated, Josh appreciates the chance to make people's lives better and easier. He has a habit of forgiving people for hurting him or screwing him over, so long as they're safe and well in the end. There are limits to this kindness now - he's finally had enough of mutantkind being abused and has thrown in his lot with the Brotherhood, after all his attempts to escape the shadow of the X-Men backfired.
While he learned to be his own person at the school, he tries to be what other people want him to be - whether that was to pose as an anti-mutant punk, a preppy jock, a true and compassionate healer, or a good church boy. He's always bending a little to be a person other people would like. He does his best to adopt their best traits and make himself into someone they can be proud to call their friend, rather than just bends himself into being their friend. Spending enough time with someone will have Josh adopting their traits and mannerisms unconsciously.
Josh has always had a poor temper, but M-Day worsened it considerably. He's prone to lashing out in times of stress. He did it New Mutants when they tried to help him after parents day, blowing up at Dani every time she tried to help him, little things that can be brushed off as a teenage boy dealing poorly with all the new changes life had thrown at him. During M-Day he held onto a classmate as he died. He experienced that feeling for the first time, unable to heal him, only able to feel him slip away through his fingers. In his own words, "part of me died with him". This marked the first true showing of his instability. He physically lashed out at Colossus (in his human form) mid-lecture, demanding to know why they hadn't saved him. The act got himself kicked off the newly formed X-Men team. He lashed out at Laurie verbally when she tried to talk him out of the terrible mood. And when Laurie died, Josh flew into a murderous rage and used his powers to kill the man who ordered her death.
It's his temper that Cyclops and Shadowcat fear could turn him into the next Magneto.
And to be frank, they aren't wrong too.
Life has been cruel to Josh. While he initially refused to use his powers for harm, the time serving on the X-Force (as well as a few other instances of teachers pressuring him to use that ability) wore him down. He sought Logan out for advice, wanting to watch him and understand what makes him tick, how he can live with all the death, to see how to avoid becoming him - only comes out of it understanding that sometimes it just has to be done. Monsters aren't born, they're made. Despite his efforts to fight against it - embracing Buddhism and yoga to try to work on his temper, recusing himself from field work with the other X-Men, developing flirtations and physical relationships with other students to distract himself - Josh has come to accept the necessity of using force and causing death.
While he tried to hold on to all the good things that his friends saw in him, he came out the other side of Necrosha as a killer. Even after he regained his gold form he was never, ever the same. Over time, all the little traumas built up and left him with a mountain of issues he couldn't cope with.
The way the X-Men treated him destroyed much of his self-worth. In times of crisis, Josh was often reduced to the use of his powers. Josh's use to people has defined so much of who he is that when he can't heal, he breaks. When he gets trapped in his black form, the side of his ability that kills, he runs away without a word to anyone. When he can't heal the M-Pox he goes deep into hiding, believing himself to be worthless in the face of the cause.
Both times he has died have been a direct result of heroic sacrifice - though perhaps one brought about by not realizing the danger he was in. Still, he has an inability to walk away from people in need. Both times he walks straight danger with little regard for his own safety, seeing only that people are hurting and that they need him. And later, after he's rescued from Genosha, he begs to be brought back so he can heal the dead there.
Yet you don't die and come back as a whole. Touching death for the first time made Josh bitter, living it once made him angry and living it twice left him a catastrophic mess. When angry or overwhelmed, Josh acts out - shouting, using his powers, acting irrationally. Death has left him with even worse impulse control than he already had, and a rage fit to scorch and salt the earth.
Josh no longer believes in a non-violent approach. He doesn't believe in the message that the X-Men put out in the world - peaceful cohabitation attained without force. He isn't the same kid who tried to be loved by everyone around him. He still cares but he's had to cauterize his wounds and move on, or else he'd continue to bleed out for anyone who so much as looks in his direction.
Instead, he values keeping the people he cares about alive. He cares about mutantkind surviving.
All in all, Josh is... struggling. No one joins the Brotherhood because they think its a good idea. The boy has a very kind heart, but the years have left him angry and struggling to figure out how to cope. He's trying to keep things together and keep people safe, but he's been so busy taking care of other people that he's neglected himself. There's just a pit in his stomach and its roiling with anger and resentment, often overtaking his reason and leaving him ready to lash out at the first thing to strike him the wrong way. He's a mess of poorly dealt with trauma, wrapped up in a blue hoodie, with unspeakable power at his fingertips.
POWER:
GOLD FORM. In canon, Josh is what's known as an OMEGA LEVEL MUTANT - meaning that there is currently no scope for how strong his powers will grow. He's able to alter the human body on a genetic level, allowing him to heal injuries, reverse the damage done by unnatural mutations, and even revive the dead. He does not need to touch anyone and can project a healing field for miles, healing everyone within it on a genetic level. This is more than a little overpowered, so being ported here will roll back his powers to a more manageable scope.
While in his gold form, Josh can heal people with a touch. Doing this expends energy - healing someone from the brink of death is exhausting and not something he can do more than maybe twice per day. Minor injuries such as cuts, scrapes, and bruises can be healed instantly with very minor contact, and minor ailments such as colds or mild fatigue could be caused by distance as well. If pushed, Josh can also rebuild human body parts from mere cells. He was able to fully regrown his friend's heart.
In his gold form, Josh can also regenerate himself. This means he could tank through direct attacks and instantly heal from the damage, eventually, the strain of fixing that damage would catch up with him and he'd collapse.
Josh has complete control over his own biology. This has pros and cons: while he can heal himself in this form, he can't be healed by external forces. If he pushes himself too far or is too badly injured, he'll drop into a coma until his body has recovered enough to wake from it.
LEAD FORM. To contrast the healing, Josh can also cause harm. Josh's abilities aren't truly defined as healing, as in repairing the damage that has been caused. It's biokinesis. The ability to manipulate the human body on a genetic level.
He's demonstrated the ability to create cancer where there was none, to draining the life out of people around him, to creating specialty made tumors. He could jack someone's body temperature up to a brain-melting level or reconfigure someone's genetic structure to include a deadly allergy to the sun. Or he could give someone he really doesn't like a cold.
Of course, this has to be done by touch (and with player permission) and leaves him feeling drained. If someone were to touch his bare skin in this form they'd, at the bare minimum, experience nausea. The longer they hold on, the more likely they are to pass out. The more he uses these abilities, the harder it is to switch back to his healing ones.
In addition, he can't heal in this form. Josh cannot heal at the same time he's inflicting harm.
I'm fine with any additional limitations the mods want to put on his abilities - the ability to instantly kill people is stupidly overpowered and needs to be nyxed immediately.
WALKING DIAGNOSTIC UNIT. Josh can sense what is wrong in the bodies of the people around him. He's able to pick up on Monet's parasitic brother, on Sabretooth's inversion, and Magneto's general fragility. Consider it something akin to standard telepathy, except instead of thoughts, he's picking up on biological feedback. He seems to be able to sense the 'emotions' of the illnesses and abnormalities he's curing as well.
〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE: So, um, uh... [ The young man sitting in front of the camera doesn't look particularly enthused to be here. In fact, it kind of looks like he just rolled out of bed. ] You know, for all the times I've been kidnapped or dropped into another world it actually never gets easier, sucks less, or gets less weird, but, uh... Hey. Glad I'm not the only one?
[ he scratches his head. maybe he shouldn't be announcing himself at all, given how anti-mutant prejudice is at an all-time high. ]
I'm Josh. Or, Elixir, I guess? If that's what you wanna go with. I'm not sure where we stand on code names but given the government knows my name, what I look like, gave me a gross tattoo and marked down my powers I don't think it matters. And I guess people are really into "imports" [ there are air quotes ] and I'm, y'know... [ he gestures to his everything. the blank eyes, the gold skin. ] I don't think trying to hold a secret identity is going to work anyway. Gotta say - not a huge fan of being registered against my will. You'd think if they were dragging people in to help them they'd want to ask before they start making bodily changes or whatever, you know, endear themselves a little instead of just throwing some money and hoping we don't just try to take them out. I mean, hey, I'll give them credit I can't get it off and I've really tried.
[ Okay. That wasn't what he meant to say. He's angry, alright? So angry. Just when he thought he was finally done being yanked into situations beyond his control for the sake of other people, he gets sucker-punched and dropped into an entirely new one. Josh blows out a breath. ]
I think that's everything. Oh! Wait, no, missed the point of actually doing this. I'm a healer and [ a highschool drop out with a Ph.D. in his head and also kind of a murderer. ] and a doctor. I guess that's about where you'll be wanting me since I'm not really feeling the whole... free will thing in this setup. Cool. [ he drums both hands against the table, slow, sifting for something else to say before he just gives up and drops them with a sigh. ] Neat. Good to be kidnapped with you.
LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE: test drive thread with laurie!
FINAL NOTES:
* Due to the floating timescale it's really hard to peg what age the Academy X kids are. Marvel seems absolutely allergic to acknowledging that they've grown up but has aged everyone around them accordingly. Josh and Laura were the same age when she appeared in New X-Men, and now she's apparently 22 in Uncanny. 21 feels like the most reasonable age for all the nonsense that's gone down between point A and point B, but if there's an issue with this then please let me know!
