#jaxson

Here we have the designs for the Gifted captives in the facility.  It was eventually worked out that there are five of them that both survived the process of taking their subtle Gifts and making them physical, and that they have unique Gifts.  While most of the other experiments are held captive for study, since the main goal of the Institute is to figure out a way to get their wealthy benefactors to have Gifts (without killing them), the goal for these guys is to make soldiers out of them.  The wealthy benefactors don’t want anything special with their Gifts, but they certainly want to exploit those who do have special Gifts.

So, from left to right, we have: Piper Jones, Jaxson Palmer, Natalie Williams, Jericho Miller, and Bryson Dumas.

Piper and Jaxson are part of the main character group.  Piper has the Gift of ice, and is the person Emily (the other actual main character) has been searching for for the past six years, having witnessed her kidnapping.  Jaxson has the Gift of electricity, and is the person Emily is assigned to handle because she can calm him and help control his Gift.  She also ends up falling in love with him.

Natalie has the Gift of being able to breathe underwater, and she’s Piper’s girlfriend.  Jericho has the Gift of tremors, and he’s just sort of there.  He keeps his head down and stays out of trouble, but mostly just because he’s the main one working on how they’re going to get out.  He’s trying his best to remain invisible.  Bryson has the Gift of sound, and he, lol, is the annoying one.  His family is involved with the Institute, and he volunteered to go through the program.  (His father conveniently left out the part that he might die as a result.)  He ended up with a unique Gift, and as a result, got sent to the facility with the others.  He’s entitled and thinks he’s owed something, and does not think he should be treated like he is.  The others want to punch him so badly, and he and Jaxson seem to have an odd rivalry.

So the first designs are of their jumpsuits that they’re forced to wear when they’re training.  The Institute is trying to force a sense of comradery on them so they’d work well as a team, and what better way to make you feel like a team than matching uniforms!  They are bright, omg, but it works.  I made Piper and Natalie’s uniforms slightly different from each other because I figure since they’re supposed to be their own uniforms, they’d want to make Piper distinct from Natalie.  They’re simple, but I think it works well.

So we’ve accidentally branched The Gifted universe out into little side stories.  Which makes sense – the main cast of The Gifted is just one of many, many people effected by the Institute’s nonsense, and each facility houses it’s own experiment.  This story is about a facility that takes people born with subtle Gifts – this is what Gifts normally are, where they’re actually undetected by most people – and turn them physical. 

Emily there is a non-Gifted (or so she thinks) person who infiltrated the facility because her best friend was kidnapped right in front of her by the Institute about six years ago.  No one believes her because the Institute is very good at covering their tracks, and Emily is determined to prove herself right while also rescuing her friend.  In the process, she meets Jaxson, who is a captive at the facility, having been taken and experimented on about five years ago.

Jaxson, for his part, happens to be able to control electricity (meaning his Gift is fire).  However, due to the nature of the experiment and the nature of his Gift, its rather unpredictable, and he’s been known to knock out the power grid in the area.  He’s a bit of a sarcastic rebel, but at the same time, it’s understandable given his circumstances.

While Emily is merely an intern, she ends up getting promoted to Jaxson’s handler when it’s discovered that she can calm him down which in turns helps him control his Gift a bit better.  Jaxson had developed a crush on her the moment he saw her, but it takes him a little bit to actually trust her.  Emily starts off feeling bad for him and his situation, but is weirdly drawn to him (she was a bit of a late bloomer and sort of obsessed with finding her friend to really crush on any boys, so she doesn’t understand the feeling).  We haven’t quite planned all this out yet, but obviously at some point, they end up getting together and so being all stupidly cute and all that nonsense.  :P

I had planned on Emily having a clipboard to show that she’s a researcher, but then realized that was a little too old fashioned before switching it to a tablet for a second.  They’re a high tech scientific research company, after all!  But then remembered Jaxson’s lightning might not be electronic friendly, so they probably record a lot of their results on paper just in case.