Jesse Marek

As the most eccentric hot boy at his old prep school, Jesse is used to being impressive, and unceasingly desperate to be loved. However, last semester, when he reported his (now former) frat for some genuinely terrible conduct violations, they royally fucked him over (along with his reputation). Though he can be insecure and unstable, Jesse is a charming, clever, and kind person who isn’t going to let his old frat ruin his college experience. Just as long as everyone in Mysteries of Ames likes him. They’ll like him, right?!

Jess (only if you're his friend)

18-22

Expressive and animated. Talks with his hands. When nervous, he becomes especially chatty and will often fidget with whatever he's holding.

His desperation to be liked, his desperation to be loved, and his compassion.

Neurotic, fragile, impulsive. Obsessed with external validation, to the point that he is willing to put himself in harm's way to get it, but is simultaneously terrible at regulating his emotions/emotional reactions when he’s particularly upset.

Charming, sharp-witted, and passionate. He's also very empathetic, and hates seeing others face hardship or injustice, especially on their own.

Although he grew up undeniably wealthy, he's biased against rich people, especially people who "look" and "act" especially rich (and particularly Northeastern U.S. rich: Vineyard Vines, golf trips, republican, etc).

Very good at recognizing patterns, reading between the lines, and finding the underlying meaning in things (sometimes to a fault). Decently athletic. Good at TikTok, whatever the hell that means.

Reading, watching movies, listening to music, telling people about his taste in books/movies/music

ENTP 4w3 (in a near-constant Ne-Fe loop)

Anxiety, BPD, PTSD, recently recovered from broken ribs and a concussion. Probably autistic and really good at masking (the more autistic I realize I am, the more autistic I realize he is lol)

Gemini Sun, Taurus Moon, Pisces Rising

Rejection, being disliked, loneliness, thunderstorms

80s teen movies, e-girl music, white wine, physical affection

Bad texters, country clubs, criticism

Bi. He's known this for some time, but he has been very selective in who he comes out to (and he'll probably never come out to his parents).

Agnostic, but his family went to church on Christmas and Easter. Additionally, he claims to be an existentialist, but he's only read the Wikipedia page on existentialism.

Progressive, especially compared to his parents. He tries to avoid arguing with them about anything, but it's hard to hold his tongue sometimes.

English literature student

Warm, rich tones

The anthology of Robert Frost poems his 12th grade AP Lit teacher Mr. Moore gave him, and his lock necklace (he likes to fidget with it when nervous).

Ophelia, which he's been carrying with him on the daily since his run-in with Brad.

Dogs; his family had a golden retriever named Lucy until he was 12, but they had to give her away when his mom allegedly developed allergies.

05/31/2000

William and Amelia Marek have a son Alex, who is at Weill Cornell; two beautiful daughters, Emily and Sam; Ben, who wants to major in finance; and Jesse, who is studying literature. In that order of importance. The second-eldest and often overlooked child of a stoic hedge fund manager and a judgy dermatologist, Jesse grew up in an upper-class Philadelphia suburb, and also in the shadow of every single one of his siblings. Born when his older brother Alex was five and a half, Jesse had less than two years of his own as the baby of the family before Ben was born. By the time Sam was born when he was four, his attention-seeking tendencies were already developing rapidly, and these tendencies earned him even less attention from his exhausted parents. He remembers to the present day that the last time his parents ever hugged him when he was sad was when he was five (and he was sad plenty of times after that). He did start to consider Sam a buddy by the time he was a tween (in a way that Alex never did with him). Also when he was a tween, Emily was born, and by this time he was matured (and downtrodden) enough to see her as a cute baby rather than a threat. However, he always held a somewhat-unconscious grudge against Ben, and his relationship with Alex always remained distant.

For all of his primary and secondary schooling, Jesse attended private school, and was fairly popular. In elementary school, he and his friends would often get in trouble for talking during class, but he was intelligent and had especially good reading abilities. From kindergarten until around second grade, he had also developed a reputation as something of a crybaby, but he grew out of this to a degree. In middle school, he started playing lacrosse (primarily because his friends did, and Alex had too), but also continued to love reading, and got straight As in English class. In seventh grade, his favorite movie was Dead Poets' Society (his own school reminded him of Welton) and his favorite book was The Outsiders (he liked to imagine himself as a soc with a bad home life who was taken in by greasers, his only friends. In real life, he was only friends with other socs). He wanted to audition for the school play (they were doing Romeo and Juliet), but his friends discouraged him from doing so.

He spent most of his teenage years trying to balance his more romantic nature with his WASPy upbringing, and while he mostly succeeded in fitting in amongst his peers, his parents remained unimpressed by his efforts, apathetic towards his As in English and more concerned about his Bs and Cs in Math and Science, only mildly pleased with his lacrosse-playing. Throughout this whole time, his mental health was never good: he had severe anxiety and at least weekly panic attacks, with no real outlet through which to express any of this (aside from poetry assignments in English class, which were only slightly better than you would expect).

By high school, Jesse had settled into his role as the quirky one in the friend group: slightly more sensitive and bohemian than the others, but still very extroverted, and prep-school enough to hang out with them. Trey McManus was the "king" of the squad, a tall, muscular, confident lax bro, who was well-liked and rich enough never to get in trouble, but "carefree" enough to develop a reputation as something of a bad boy. Jesse didn't actually particularly like Trey himself (he found him entitled and annoying), but they had been "friends" since first grade, and winning Trey's favor was a social blessing. Jesse had plenty of hookups in high school, but only one steady girlfriend: Isabella Jordan in twelfth grade, with whom he wasn't particularly compatible, but she found him attractive and gave him at least some affection, which was addictive to him. In March that year, Isabella cheated on him with a recently-single Trey, then left him for Trey without a real apology. She claimed that he was "too needy," a statement that he overthought to the point of bursting into tears during a calculus test. The latter part of his senior year became tense and upsetting, and he just wanted to leave already. Luckily, he had committed to Ames in February, pleased to be headed to New England.

His first semester at Ames, despite his insistence on going somewhere that he could leave the social-climbing nature of his upbringing behind, he rushed and was recruited to Tri Eta, the "top tier" frat on campus. He made a couple of friends, his closest being Jake Morello (another recruit), but he was exhausted by the party culture, and (really, genuinely) humiliated by the hazing rituals. Despite this, he had already grown reliant on Tri Eta as a safety net, and Jeb and Brad (the president and vice president), had adopted him into their "inner circle" along with a few other recruits. Once again, he had fallen into the comfortable (but disappointing, and tiring) pattern of being the avant-garde one in the old-money friend group, no matter how unsatisfying it was.

[upcoming TW for sexual assault]

However, come December, Tri Eta was planning a big end-of-semester mixer with the girls from Tri Alpha. Jeb and Brad had devised a list of the "hottest" Tri Alpha girls, and made a contest among the frat to see who could sleep with the most in one night: the winner would get a pooled $200, and the official title of "pussy-slayer." Brad, perhaps jokingly, claimed that he would confirm the "hits" by placing hidden cameras in the frat house bedrooms, and stipulated that the sex didn't have to be consensual. Deeply uncomfortable with this, even if Brad was joking, Jesse anonymously reported his frat and they got a social probation warning strike. The frat leaders discovered somehow that he was behind this, and kicked him out. A week or so later, Brad found him walking alone and physically fought him, severely injuring him and landing him in the hospital right before winter break. Jesse enrolled in Mysteries of Ames mainly because he wasn't sure what else there was left to do: he was back to square one.

130 lbs

5'10

Light brown

Thick, wavy, "effortlessly" tousled

Hazel

Fair to tan

Thin, angular, and vaguely delicate.

Subtle scratch-like scars down his arms. Expressive, somewhat androgynous facial features.

Subdued high-end cologne

Theatrical Romantic (Gamine Essence)

Soft Autumn

Average

High

Above Average

Very High

Below Average

Below Average

Hydrangeas, especially pink hydrangeas.

He has an undying affinity for Dead Poets Society, and also adores anything John Hughes. (His story takes place in 2019, so Greta Gerwig's Little Women isn't out yet, but once it is, you better believe he'll start projecting onto Timothée Laurie-met.)

Young Robert Sean Leonard. Okay, Old Robert Sean Leonard too.

In fifth grade, a classmate of his named Selena wrote him a secret admirer note, calling him "the cutest boy in school." He knew it was her because her friends told him. He'd never thought much about her before, but after that, he became smitten with her and they "dated" for a few weeks until Selena's parents put the kibosh on it. Some of their peers found them an odd couple, since Jesse was talkative and popular and Selena was reserved and shy.

His sixth grade "girlfriend," Maddie. She asked him to the semi-formal, and he said yes. They kissed during the first slow song. All according to awkward middle school it-couple formula.

Riesling

Champagne; bubbly, bright, often delicate, and perfectly in place at a special occasion. Also, he comes from money.

Sort of. He can carry a tune, and his speaking voice has a nice bright tenor quality that translates to his singing voice, but his range isn't any wider than the average vocally untrained person.

English

Usually just underwear. If it's winter, maybe a giant hoodie.

"Dad, you're a first-generation American and you're going off saying you want to build wall to keep out immigrants! That's really hypocritical, and if grandma was still around she'd have been in tears by now. That's my problem."

"I'm not, I'm fine... okay, Brad was... well, I w-was trying to talk to him and he just looked at me weird like I was being annoying and I wasn't trying to be! But I was because h-he hates me, and so does everyone else here! Ugh, I'm pathetic, I just want to go home. N-not that I even have a h-home! Just a lonely d-dorm room and a house that's seven hours away w-with p-parents who also hate me! ... I'm s-sorry for bothering you. I need to stop breaking down like this."

Very. His persona allows for a degree of sensitivity, but he tries (and often fails) not to let it show too much.

"Aw, fuck. I can't believe you've done this" and "what the FUCK is up Kyle?" Also, he will often quote "Jared, 19" while doing work for his, y'know, English degree [a real English major would never do something so silly, especially not while writing an extensive analysis of Rocky Horror through the lens of performativity theory. What? Too specific? You're starting to suspect that I actually do this regularly? A magician never reveals her secrets. She just projects them onto her characters].

This is his worst nightmare, no matter who it is, even if it's someone he doesn't particularly like himself. He'll try to avoid them as much as possible, because he prefers not to think about it, but if he has to be around them he'll grovel to impress them. And if he can't, he'll get very upset about it.

Disaster.

Depressed, though he could be reasonably classed as all three.

I Wanna Get Better - Bleachers
money machine - 100 gecs
Say So - Doja Cat
It's A Trip! - Joywave
Ways to Go - Grouplove

While everyone in Mysteries of Ames hates Rex, Jesse is particularly bothered by Rex, who often specifically targets him since it's so easy to get him to react.

Much like Jesse, I am a 5'10 English major who loves attention.