jesse colton

appearance

Jesse is a little shorter than average and has a thin build, with a little more muscle definition in his arms and legs. He has pale white skin that easily discolors by the sun or caused by irritation, and has deep, dark rims under his eyes. His eyes are a dark blueish gray color with light rings around his pupils, and his hair is black and graying a little at the roots. He has several earrings in either ear as well as a lip piercing in his lower lip.

Jesse has several facial scars, the most prominent ones large scratches across the left side of his face from when he was attacked as a young child by an animal. Right below, he has cybernetic plating over his left jaw, which can be removed to show more scarring, including a hole in his cheek which shows the inside of his mouth. He also has supportive cybernetic plating over the bridge of his nose and on his back covering his spine, and mantis blades; all his cyberware is a light gray metallic color.

Despite being trans, Jesse has not had any surgeries done and is happy with his body the way it is. He binds on occasion, but much rather wears a sports bra, as it is more convenient for his line of work.

biography

childhood

Jesse was born to Godfrey and Deborah Colton and grew up in a large mansion in North Oak, Westbrook, with two older brothers. He was an outgoing and bubbly kid who loved to talk and play in and around the house, causing problems on more than one occasion; his parents however barely paid any attention to him because of their respective jobs, and his brothers were already much older than him leaving him with little enrichment. When his oldest brother William moved out when Jesse was five years old, Jesse became terrified of the concept of having to move out– on top of that, going to school was very overwhelming for him and because of the lack of interaction with him at home he became a very quiet kid.

This became worse when Andrew also moved out when Jesse was nine years old. By then, William had moved back in for the time being, but mostly spent his time as far away from Jesse as possible leaving him mostly to his own devices until he moved out a second time when Jesse was eleven. Being home alone all the time was not good for him and he spiraled quickly, to the point his behavior at school got worse; his bad grades then led to him being grounded, which made him very lonely as he was stuck at home all the time.

teen years

As a teenager, Jesse was very quiet and distant. He did not like to be touched and preferred to be left alone as much as possible, every social situation entirely too overwhelming for him to the point he would rather grow up lonely than have to expose himself to overstimulation every day. His autism remained undiagnosed for all of middle and high school and his parents blamed his bad grades and regular detention and even a couple of suspensions on his antisocial behavior, which only pushed Jesse further away from his family.

Jesse came out as transgender at age fifteen at Christmas dinner. While it wasn’t poorly received, he also did not get a lot of support either, and he ended up trying to run away from home on several occasions because of it.

early adult years

Jesse was kicked out of the house when he turned eighteen years old. His parents wanted him to make something of himself like his brothers before him, but refused to help him with this as they had different plans in mind for him that were “ruined” when he came out as transgender. He only barely managed to graduate high school and initially had no interest in studying any further, and ended up moving in with Andrew for a few months to try and get his life back on track.

Jesse had no desire to become a corpo like his older brothers and was well aware his parents would rather have him out of town, so he ended up looking for something he knew he would enjoy doing instead. He had always had interest in volcanoes and seismology and tried to pick up some online classes, but after writing a lengthy report he caught the attention of a science conglomerate on the east coast and was offered a full-time scholarship in New York City.

scholarship

For the scholarship, Jesse moved to the east coast of the NUSA to study volcanology and seismology there. Starting from his third year, he went to Europe and later other parts of the world as well to do active field research while working on his thesis, and he graduated with a bachelor’s degree at age 22.

Jesse continued to work with the team he did his studies with for another two years, traveling the world to support local research facilities in their studies and observation work. However, an incident at an active volcano left half of his team dead, forcing him to return to New York City to switch over to a desk job there which he continued to do for another few months before returning to Night City severely depressed.

mercenary

Back in Night City, Jesse struggled finding a place for himself, hopping from job to job for a while as he tried to get his life back on track. The situation with Arasaka surrounding the year 2077 stressed him out a lot, knowing his brother was probably caught up right in the middle of that; all of it together led to Jesse ending up in the wrong places with the wrong people and soon enough he found himself in the midst of the criminal underworld of the city.

He picked up mercenary work in 2078, and ended up at Vitali Dobrynin’s office in the later months of that year. He mostly picked up simple gigs no one else wanted to waste time on and spent a lot of time in the office itself doing cleaning and administrative duties, but as time went on and he gained Vitali’s trust he ended up part of his inner merc circle which led to him doing bigger gigs for a while. He mostly did thievery gigs.

An accident in 2080 left Jesse severely injured and in need of cybernetic replacements and reinforcements on a few body parts. Following this incident, he decided to take it easy for a while and never went back to full-time gigs, instead hanging back at Vitali’s nightclub Dysnomia where he became manager together with Shiro Nakano.

personality

Jesse is aloof and reserved, observing situations from a distance before actively getting involved himself. He is careful and thorough and not one to rush things, taking his time to get the desired results no matter what other people do or say. He tends to stick to himself and doesn’t speak up unless asked a question, and rather has a passive role in a conversation as to not drain his social battery too much.

Once affiliated with someone, he opens up a lot more and will excitedly talk about his interests when given the green light for it. He enjoys learning a lot more than his past experiences with school may show and likes to listen to others talk about things they know a lot about.

affiliations

factions

• Arasaka; antagonistic
• Inner merc circle; Vitali Dobrynin's most trusted mercenaries
• The Crest; current workplace

relationships

andrew colton

Andrew is Jesse’s older brother. Despite their age difference, Jesse has always thought of Andrew as his favorite brother and enjoys hanging out with him, which is part of why he asked to move in with him for a while after he got kicked out of the house.

Jesse never liked Andrew’s job at Arasaka, to the point he started a fire in the labs when he was ten years old to try and get Andrew out of there; he was also very vocal about Arasaka being a bad workplace, but despite it all Andrew was not fired and did not quit. As much as it saddened Jesse, it didn’t drive him away from his brother.

When Jesse went to the east coast to study, he and Andrew lost contact for a good amount of years because of their busy schedules. Even after moving back to Night City, it took them a while to find each other back– but once reunited it is as if they’ve never been apart in the first place and they see each other on the regular once Andrew learns Jesse works at Dysnomia.

william colton

William is Jesse’s oldest brother.

maxwell crane

Maxwell is Jesse’s younger cousin.

diana crane

Diana, better known as Vulture in her professional life, is Jesse’s older cousin.

external links

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