Jenna Lagorio

Background: Jenna was the lovechild of two high school students who thought they would be together forever, right up until her mother got pregnant when she was seventeen, and the consequences and arguments began to set in. Her mother wanted to keep her, but her father thought adoption would be better since they were still in high school and all, and in the end her mother kept her and she was raised, to start with, by her mother and grandparents, up until her grandparents died when she was five--first her grandfather of a heart attack, then her grandmother of cancer. It left her mother alone, without more than a community college degree and a few years experience being a secretary, raising little Jenna.It really didn't help that Jenna had attention problems in school. She was the impulsive little girl who did things as soon as thought of them and didn't want to do things unless she had to. Her mother was frustrated by the constant calls home and how nothing seemed to get Jenna to focus, and like she had money to get medication, if that was even what Jenna needed, which it probably wasn't, since schools were so horrible and teachers all had it out for single parents and all.By middle school, it was no surprise that Jenna was friends with the other misfits and rejects, and prone to just going off and doing whatever it was they were doing. When she was thirteen, her mother got a "good" boyfriend, an older man, an accountant who was financially sound and oh, so kind. Jenna thought something was wrong with him, but her mother wouldn't listen. She just said he knew how to discipline her and follow-through with school things, and that was what made Jenna not like it. Eventually, they moved into his house. It was pretty clear her mom was going to marry the guy.When she was fourteen, almost-step-dad was a bit drunk, and mom was gone for the weekend for some training thing, and almost-step-dad came into Jenna's room while she was asleep. She woke up, and he was on her, kissing her, and she felt like she was pulling something out of him, and suddenly she had all the strength she needed to shove him off of her and halfway across the room despite the size difference in them, and he was suddenly sobered up. But now he had something on her--if she told, he would make it very public that she was a mutant, and there were all these rumors of places they dragged mutants off to. Unpleasantness followed.

Jenna spent more time well away from home, hanging out with friends, and she got into recreational drugs. She idly started to look for her biological father, with the faint dream that maybe, just maybe, he would be able to save her from her nightmare life. She finally got a name out of her mother--Fletcher Whittaker. She started to try to look him up, and ran away to go looking for him. Nothing could be worse than life as it was, she figured.

She found her paternal grandparents, and learned that her biological father was dead. She left before any more could be said or done. She wasn't about to go back to her mother now, so she ended up running off with a friend of a friend and just getting lost.

She doesn't remember much of what followed for the next stretch of time, just that time passed, and that she picked up the nickname "Killjoy" because it tended to be that whenever she got into kissing someone on the mouth, they stopped being high or drunk even though she didn't.

She was surprised when someone she didn't know showed up and took her away from the abandoned building she'd been living in with several others. She must have told this stranger everything about her, because when she came to her senses, he seemed to know a lot about her and what she'd been through. He introduced himself as Kevin Whittaker, her biological father's twin brother. He introduced her to his wife, Daniella. They had been looking for her almost since she'd shown up at her paternal grandparents' home, after they went to her mother and found out she hadn't returned.

Kind people that they were, they decided to take her in. They tried to help her pursue charges against her mother's boyfriend, but there just wasn't any evidence to go off of. Her word against his, and he wasn't about to slip up. At the very least, she was eighteen by this point, legally an adult and able to choose what she wanted to do with herself. Though initially wary, she agreed to stay with her aunt, uncle, and three cousins. The ability to trust them increased when she learned her uncle and two of her cousins were mutants.

She grew to deeply care for her cousins, her aunt, her uncle. They were real family. She pursued her GED and really started to try to figure out who she was, herself. She found she really liked baking, and she had a knack for it, besides. Plus, her younger cousin Cora had the ability to change the taste of things, which made cooking especially interesting. The two of them joked about opening a bakery together when Cora was out of high school. She got a better sense for what her powers were, too--though she was much more selective about who she was kissing than she had been in the past. With an actual supportive support network, trying to lift her up and help her reach her full potential and all that, life was pretty good. She was taking community college classes.

The whole family all ended up registering as mutants, with the hope that the government was going to come around and things would become sane. Instead, things got tough for them. One of Kevin's mutant friends was mobbed, and Kevin went after the mob leaders, taking justice into his own powerful hands. He stopped before serious damage could be done, but it was more than enough to get him marked as dangerous. The government came for him, and intended to take every mutant in the house, just to be sure that Kevin wasn't raising a little army.

Jenna did the awkward thing and kissed one of them, pulling at the glucose in his system until she was super fast and he went into a state of hypoglycemia. She managed to get away, but she couldn't save the rest of her family. She wanted to save them, to fight back against a system that rounds up innocent kids and treats them like criminals.

For a time, she worked with the X-Men, striving to do just that. She knew they weren't exactly changing the world, but it felt like they were making a difference. She got motivated to start a bakery, naming it after her missing cousin Cora, who had always had a sweet tooth.

When she got word of her family, though, that they were safe and together, she couldn't sit still. She parted ways with the team in a hurry and set out to rejoin them, to help them survive. Her cousin had developed an ability to create an invisibility field

She stopped in to New Orleans once or twice, visited Bridge at her restaurant, but mostly stayed on the move. Eventually, they got word that there was a mutant town in Colorado where they might be able to find some rest and a safe haven. With four mutants in the family to vouch for the two humans, they were able to take up residency. Even with the restrictions, it was a hell of a lot better than life on the road and under cover. Jenna made up her mind to do her part for the local economy. With all the family pitching together, they started up Cora's Bakery once more.

With the reassurance that her family will be safe, when the X-Men came into town, she decided to offer her apologies for leaving so suddenly and offer her help. Back on the team, she hopes to do a little more than just survive.

Personality: Jenna is impulsive, quick to change emotions from one to another with very little explanation. If she isn't fully on, it must only be because she's sick or injured or really depressed about something. She's usually totally in the moment. She's always willing to challenge and ask questions, but she accepts answers she deems reasonable. In the last few years, she really became a bright, cheerful young woman with the whole world in her reach. Now she is going to hit, kick, bite, and claw her way back to being able to have the world in her grasp again.

Special Notes: Playby: Autumn Reeser