| Introduction
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xxxxxTentaclekid with telepathy, Taylor combines what most people -- even other mutants -- hate and fear most about freaks into one cheerful package.
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| Description
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xxxxxStriking. Taylor stands out in a crowd. 6'3" and muscular, his entirely obsidian-black skin is noticeable in itself. His face is not all that remarkable otherwise; large grey-blue eyes in an oblong face, wide bulb of a nose, wide thick lips, unfortunately protruding ears, rounded head (a thin long-healed line of scars along the side of his skull) kept shaved smooth. What tends to draw people's eyes -- and often their strong opinions -- far more is the wealth of tentacles that he sports in addition to the more standard limbs. Some are thin and flexible, some extremely thick and enormously long, lined with suction cups (some of which sport sharp toothy hooks in their centers.) Hard to miss, they mark him quite clearly as Other.
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| Reputation
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xxxxxAmong Morlocks, Prometheans & the Xavierites who were in school around the same time as him, known to be a cheerful, outgoing and generally helpful type. Known at least by sight to plenty of New York mutants as That... uh... Friendly? Tall? Buff? Loud? Barista at Evolve because even among mutants nobody wants to be the first one to say 'the freakish one with the tentacles'. Though those who frequent Evolve know that he tends to Know Everyone and be a helpful guy to ask if you need connections in the community.
xxxxxKnown to the cops, around Freaktown, in the community at large also as one of the Mutant Mongrels, a mutant 1%er bike gang who inspire very polarizing feelings within the community -- they dispense a loooot of help and they dispense a loooot of violence.
xxxxxOccasionally, also, appears onstage/in music videos as a dancer for Ryan Black. He not famous, but, for anyone who has been to Ryan's shows or seen his videos, he's very identifiable.
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| History
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xxxxxBorn the youngest of three to a family that liked to call themselves 'working class' so they didn't have to cop to 'poor', Taylor's life wouldn't have been easy even if he weren't born a tiny squidling. His dad couldn't handle the birth -- he walked out in Taylor's first few weeks of life, leaving Taylor's mom alone to raise the three children.
xxxxxWhich she did, and did with a fierce devotion. It wasn't easy -- in terms of finances, in terms of the strain it put on her from the world's reaction to her inhuman new baby, in terms of her own struggle with horror and shock and dismay that she had to come to terms with and learn to accept the baby for who he was. But. She made the decision and worked hard to follow through on it -- whether that meant working three jobs, moving school districts, fighting tooth and nail to get her youngest access to the same education her older daughter and son had.
xxxxxAll the working, though, means that while Taylor grew up knowing his mom loved him, it was his siblings who spent more time actually raising him. In school he was always in and out of trouble -- zero tolerance policies meant that fights other children started, he was punished for (often more harshly.) Often in detention, often suspended, he nevertheless kept more or less up with his grade by dint of his family spending a lot of time teaching him outside of class.
xxxxxAt least, until he was eleven. Things at his new school -- the latest of several -- had been rocky, to say the least. Things in their new neighborhood -- the latest of many -- had been even rockier. Coming home from school nearly every day for two weeks, other students waited -- some days only jeering but some days getting actually violent. His siblings waited to walk him home, for all it helped.
xxxxxWhen the vandalism started at their townhouse, his mom started looking for a new place to live again. Not quickly enough, unfortunately. One day when a neighbor showed up actually looking for violence, she got in an altercation with them to defend Taylor. Though she hadn't started the fight, one neighbor ended up dead, Taylor ended up in the hospital, and his mom ended up in jail.
xxxxxHe never made it back home from the hospital. Two surgeries later and he woke up, rather than in the hospital bed, in a lab.
xxxxxSomewhere back in California, his siblings were throwing a fit. It wasn't under Jax's team showed up half a year (and the onset of his telepathy) later that he was reunited with them. It was a short kind of reunion, though; with them in foster care and their mom still in jail, they all decided the school was the best place for him. He started middle school there, and has been at Xavier's till the present.
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| Powers
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xxxxxTentacles. Oh god tentacles. Small tentacle and huge hooked tentacles and massive strong tentacles. It's impossible to miss them, really.
xxxxxAlso, he can read your mind.
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| Skills
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xxxxxPutting up with bad hentai jokes.
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| Connections
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We real cool.
- Anole - He cool people.
- B - Doesn't just talk about it, is about it.
- Blink - Shall we not make the bleak way for each other's sake less rugged and unkind?
- Daiki - Be blessed.
- Dusk - And all the songs we've sung
- Flicker - And all the hopes we've held
- Hive - For all the dreams we've dreamed
- Hope - Got me feeling some type of way.
- Jax - Each one, teach one.
- Karrie - Go back like four flats on a Cadillac.
- Lyric - Uncommon common sense.
- Marinov - On point.
- Nick - Can rob a bank with this one.
- Scramble - I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own backyard.
- Shane - Message.
- Spencer - he names the sky his own.
It never was America to me
between starshine and clay
- Desi - we are stalks that will bend and bend and bend...
- K.C. - Decent.
- Kyinha - Real in a fight.
- Skye - angels are watching over
- Tian-shin - :/
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| Trivia
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- His older brother and sister Isaiah and Nina don't visit often given the expense of tickets from California, but at least one of them will try and make an effort to come out for Family Weekend or occasionally times when he has a particularly big part in a dance performance.
- Has a pet African Grey parrot, Coraline, who lived in his dorm at Xavier's.
- Sometimes people start rumors that she is some kind of strange mutant-enhanced bird -- maybe that funny bird girl made her smarter? maybe she is a really birdy person? -- and he has to explain to them that no, African Greys are just really smart.
- Is a pretty excellent freestyle rapper.
- He tells most non-Promethean human-passing folk that he's moved in "with friends"; after finishing at Xavier's in 2017 he and Nick moved into the Morlock tunnels.
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| XS Schedule
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Fall Term, 2015
- English: American Literature
- Mathematics: Trigonometry & Precalc
- Language: AP Japanese Language & Culture
- Science: AP Physics
- Ethics: The Ethics of Power
- Computer Science: Fundamentals of Computer Science
- Sport: Cross Country
- Extracurricular: Rock Climbing Society
- Extracurricular: Dance Dance Evolution
- Extracurricular: Archery Club
- Extracurricular: Peer Tutoring
Winter Term, 2015-2016
- English: Asian-American Literature
- Mathematics: Trigonometry & Precalc
- Language: AP Japanese Language & Culture
- Science: AP Physics
- Vocational: Automotive Mechanics
- Ethics: Power and Social Responsibility
- Sport: Basketball
- Extracurricular: Peer Support Group
- Extracurricular: Dance Dance Evolution
- Extracurricular: Archery Club
- Extracurricular: Peer Tutoring
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| Gallery
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| Taylor James Allen
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| Codename
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None
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| Birthdate
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June 8, 1998
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| Birthplace
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Santa Cruz, CA
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| Species
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Mutant
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| Affiliation
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Morlocks
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| Alignment
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Patient
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| Powers
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Brainsquid
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| Occupation
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Evolve barista
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| Registration Status
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Unregistered
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| Played By
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None
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| RP Hooks
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| Pick-me-up - Slings coffee at Evolve most days of the week. Even in freak cafe he tends to stand out; in a community as small as the mutant community, working at such a popular hangout, he's pretty recognizable.
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| Mean Right Hook - Fight Clubber? Maybe you've been on the receiving end of those wicked-looking barbs in his extra limbs.
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| Dirty Boy - An avid gardener. Likes working with plants and the earth. Often found outside, tending the gardens or the beehives, if not hiking further into the woods just to get some quiet Nature Time.
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| Black is Beautiful - Despite what people always seem to think, being a giant tentaclemonster doesn't magically erase other forms of oppression from the world or his life. Heavily involved in racial justice activism, Taylor is an organizer with the NYC chapter of BYP100 and very active in Black Lives Matter organizing. Usually pretty short on patience with all manner of White Nonsense.
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| Fly On The Wall - A telepath in a small boarding school and at one of the most popular mutant hangouts in the city. He tends to overhear a lot that he wishes he didn't. That other people wish he didn't! It's hard to keep secrets around him. Usually one of the first to know gossip -- about teachers as well as students -- and privy to a lot of people's secrets that he's... more or less good at keeping! Talk to me if there's things Taylor might know that other people may not.
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| Life is Much Better Down Where It's Wetter - A welcoming ambassador for the not-always-particularly-welcoming Morlocks, Taylor has a strong affinity for the monstrous and dispossessed mutants of the city who might be in need of a home.
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| Chimaerical - Part of the Chimaera Arts Collective in Brooklyn, a radical arts collective and frequent events hosting space; he is a well known face around the local arts scene, where he is mostly involved with spoken word, rap, and dance but is almost always willing to be an extra Many Pairs of hands if someone needs a volunteer for their event.
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