eway application.
Name: Juri
LJ: recurrence
E-Mail: robert.haydn at gmail
IM: contrariancy
Character Name: Jesse St. James
Series: Glee
Timeline: 1x19 Dream On
Canon Resource Link: Series wiki, character
Character Background: Jesse St. James is a star and a rising triple threat - or at least, this is the attitude that he projects to the outside world. He thinks he is amazingly awesome, but he does have good reason to believe this. After all, he is (or as of the canon point he is being pulled from, "was") the lead vocalist for a nationally-ranked show choir (Carmel High's Vocal Adrenaline) and has been accepted to the University of California, Los Angeles. Maybe you've heard of it. It's in Los Angeles. In other words, Jesse is a guy with a lot going for him.
But to back it up a bit - Jesse, first and foremost, appears to be extremely self-confident to the point of arrogance. He is an amazing performer and is canonically recognized as one of the top singers in the region. This makes him appear to be very, very intense. Jesse is focused on his goals and what he wants, be it another victory at Nationals or the heart and adoration of New Directions' Rachel Berry. He's also a go-getter! If he wants it, he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants, by any means necessary. This is the attitude he displays when he's first introduced partway through Glee's first season, as both a rival and a love interest to the female protagonist, Rachel.
Over the span of a few episodes, Jesse appears to fall in love with Rachel Berry and actually transfers to her school, William McKinley High School, just so they can continue their Romeo-and-Juliet-esque affair without hiding in the shadows and . . . well, anything Shakespearean, really. He claims to have given it all up for her! His top roost in Carmel High, his lead position on a top-tier show choir - he even moved from Akron to his uncle's place in Lima, OH just to be with her.
. . . which is, of course, not entirely what it seems. Jesse's coach is Shelby Corcoran, the cutthroat head of Vocal Adrenaline and Rachel Berry's biological mother. Because of the contract she signed with Rachel's dads, she is unable to approach her until Rachel is 18. However, if Rachel approaches her, that changes things. Shelby had enlisted Jesse to approach Rachel, befriend seduce her, and ultimately lead her back to Shelby, by any means necessary. Jesse agreed because it would be an excellent acting lesson and hey, what the hell!
However, dating Rachel and transferring to McKinley High (and thus, New Directions) has had an effect on Jesse's personality. His intensity has been dialed down a notch and replaced with a healthy dose of snark - Jesse doesn't mind cracking wise about the godawful song choices Will Schuester makes for their club or being a dirty enabler and encouraging Finn Hudson to upload a hilariously terrible video of the school's spitfire of a cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, to Youtube. Jesse has a more sociable and almost playful side that comes out once he's pulled away from his natural environment, and he settles into it nicely.
And even though he became involved with Rachel just because Shelby asked him to, Jesse finds that he's genuinely come to care for her. He is actually upset when he finds out that Rachel made a god-awful music video that "triple-cast" him against two other guys, making it look like they were all fighting over her. But even though he feels betrayed (telling Rachel that she "broke [his heart] first"), he stills comes back to her and makes a point of telling Shelby during one of their covert meetings that he doesn't want to see Rachel hurt. Despite this, he still goes forward with Shelby's plan, under the impression that he's fulfilling Rachel's dream to meet her mother, and "discretely" delivers a cassette tape to Rachel - a clue to her mother's identity.
The Jesse that is portrayed at this point is one that is conflicted. He wants fame and glory and everything that goes with it, but at the same time, he's found that he's really come to care for this one girl. Jesse is being pulled from right after delivering the cassette tape, before he actually defects back to Vocal Adrenaline.
Abilities/Special Powers: The Best Singer . . . in the World! - in non-normal terms, there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about Jesse St. James. He is your average human that can make great music! But. Average human being.
Third-Person Sample: When Jesse took the cassette tape from her, it felt somewhat heavy in his hand. A simple cassette tape, a relic of the 80s - or was it the early 90s? He could never quite remember when it came to things that were obsolete. All he knew was that it was heavy, heavier than anything that held less music than a USB stick full of MP3s had any right to be.
Which was why he said as much to her, ignoring the incredulous look that crossed Shelby's face as the words left his lips. "I'm just saying," he noted pointedly, passing the tape from one hand to the other flippantly. It was true that, yes, a USB stick would have been horribly anachronistic. This was supposed to be a memento from 1995, an object that had long been buried. A flash drive would have been completely implausible. He knew all of this on some level, and yet, there seemed to be something decidedly anticlimactic about an old, worn cassette tape.
Of course, his suggestions to have churned out a record - a vinyl record, thank you - were summarily shot down by her. Jesse huffed inwardly at the thought. So what if vinyls were passe by '95? It had more drama to it! Imagine, he had said, the slow-dawning look of realization on Rachel's face as she drew the not-as-dusty-as-it-should-have-been-but-whatever record from the depths of her past, perfectly preserved in box form by her dearest fathers? Ron Howard himself couldn't have staged a better scene!
. . . the thought of Rachel's face made him pause, and he glanced down at the tape. This was her dream, wasn't it? She had said that she wanted to know who her mother was. So why did this feel so . . . less West Side Story and more Jesus Christ Superstar? He never liked Judas, despite how catchy "Superstar" was. Besides, Andrew Lloyd Webber was a sell-out these days, a fact that made him boil a bit just thinking about it. He shook his head, slipping the tape into his shirt pocket. If this was her dream, then he'd make it happen - costs be damned.
First-Person Sample:
- hello? Is anyone there? This is so retro.
[there's a tap at the screen! and then the briefest of frowns, before his expressions shifts to a more pleasant one.]
Whatever. Look, while the motif around here is rather creative if not borrowing from some of the better and less saturated portions of Burton's vision, I'd appreciate it if someone could direct me towards the exit. Aside from the fact that I'm expecting a Danny Elfman score to begin resonating throughout the hallways - which would be, of course, a complete travesty given how derivative and overblown his pieces tend to be - it's hardly right to keep a rising star such as myself holed up in a place like this.
LJ: recurrence
E-Mail: robert.haydn at gmail
IM: contrariancy
Character Name: Jesse St. James
Series: Glee
Timeline: 1x19 Dream On
Canon Resource Link: Series wiki, character
Character Background: Jesse St. James is a star and a rising triple threat - or at least, this is the attitude that he projects to the outside world. He thinks he is amazingly awesome, but he does have good reason to believe this. After all, he is (or as of the canon point he is being pulled from, "was") the lead vocalist for a nationally-ranked show choir (Carmel High's Vocal Adrenaline) and has been accepted to the University of California, Los Angeles. Maybe you've heard of it. It's in Los Angeles. In other words, Jesse is a guy with a lot going for him.
But to back it up a bit - Jesse, first and foremost, appears to be extremely self-confident to the point of arrogance. He is an amazing performer and is canonically recognized as one of the top singers in the region. This makes him appear to be very, very intense. Jesse is focused on his goals and what he wants, be it another victory at Nationals or the heart and adoration of New Directions' Rachel Berry. He's also a go-getter! If he wants it, he'll do whatever it takes to get what he wants, by any means necessary. This is the attitude he displays when he's first introduced partway through Glee's first season, as both a rival and a love interest to the female protagonist, Rachel.
Over the span of a few episodes, Jesse appears to fall in love with Rachel Berry and actually transfers to her school, William McKinley High School, just so they can continue their Romeo-and-Juliet-esque affair without hiding in the shadows and . . . well, anything Shakespearean, really. He claims to have given it all up for her! His top roost in Carmel High, his lead position on a top-tier show choir - he even moved from Akron to his uncle's place in Lima, OH just to be with her.
. . . which is, of course, not entirely what it seems. Jesse's coach is Shelby Corcoran, the cutthroat head of Vocal Adrenaline and Rachel Berry's biological mother. Because of the contract she signed with Rachel's dads, she is unable to approach her until Rachel is 18. However, if Rachel approaches her, that changes things. Shelby had enlisted Jesse to approach Rachel, befriend seduce her, and ultimately lead her back to Shelby, by any means necessary. Jesse agreed because it would be an excellent acting lesson and hey, what the hell!
However, dating Rachel and transferring to McKinley High (and thus, New Directions) has had an effect on Jesse's personality. His intensity has been dialed down a notch and replaced with a healthy dose of snark - Jesse doesn't mind cracking wise about the godawful song choices Will Schuester makes for their club or being a dirty enabler and encouraging Finn Hudson to upload a hilariously terrible video of the school's spitfire of a cheerleading coach, Sue Sylvester, to Youtube. Jesse has a more sociable and almost playful side that comes out once he's pulled away from his natural environment, and he settles into it nicely.
And even though he became involved with Rachel just because Shelby asked him to, Jesse finds that he's genuinely come to care for her. He is actually upset when he finds out that Rachel made a god-awful music video that "triple-cast" him against two other guys, making it look like they were all fighting over her. But even though he feels betrayed (telling Rachel that she "broke [his heart] first"), he stills comes back to her and makes a point of telling Shelby during one of their covert meetings that he doesn't want to see Rachel hurt. Despite this, he still goes forward with Shelby's plan, under the impression that he's fulfilling Rachel's dream to meet her mother, and "discretely" delivers a cassette tape to Rachel - a clue to her mother's identity.
The Jesse that is portrayed at this point is one that is conflicted. He wants fame and glory and everything that goes with it, but at the same time, he's found that he's really come to care for this one girl. Jesse is being pulled from right after delivering the cassette tape, before he actually defects back to Vocal Adrenaline.
Abilities/Special Powers: The Best Singer . . . in the World! - in non-normal terms, there is absolutely nothing out of the ordinary about Jesse St. James. He is your average human that can make great music! But. Average human being.
Third-Person Sample: When Jesse took the cassette tape from her, it felt somewhat heavy in his hand. A simple cassette tape, a relic of the 80s - or was it the early 90s? He could never quite remember when it came to things that were obsolete. All he knew was that it was heavy, heavier than anything that held less music than a USB stick full of MP3s had any right to be.
Which was why he said as much to her, ignoring the incredulous look that crossed Shelby's face as the words left his lips. "I'm just saying," he noted pointedly, passing the tape from one hand to the other flippantly. It was true that, yes, a USB stick would have been horribly anachronistic. This was supposed to be a memento from 1995, an object that had long been buried. A flash drive would have been completely implausible. He knew all of this on some level, and yet, there seemed to be something decidedly anticlimactic about an old, worn cassette tape.
Of course, his suggestions to have churned out a record - a vinyl record, thank you - were summarily shot down by her. Jesse huffed inwardly at the thought. So what if vinyls were passe by '95? It had more drama to it! Imagine, he had said, the slow-dawning look of realization on Rachel's face as she drew the not-as-dusty-as-it-should-have-been-but-whatever record from the depths of her past, perfectly preserved in box form by her dearest fathers? Ron Howard himself couldn't have staged a better scene!
. . . the thought of Rachel's face made him pause, and he glanced down at the tape. This was her dream, wasn't it? She had said that she wanted to know who her mother was. So why did this feel so . . . less West Side Story and more Jesus Christ Superstar? He never liked Judas, despite how catchy "Superstar" was. Besides, Andrew Lloyd Webber was a sell-out these days, a fact that made him boil a bit just thinking about it. He shook his head, slipping the tape into his shirt pocket. If this was her dream, then he'd make it happen - costs be damned.
First-Person Sample:
- hello? Is anyone there? This is so retro.
[there's a tap at the screen! and then the briefest of frowns, before his expressions shifts to a more pleasant one.]
Whatever. Look, while the motif around here is rather creative if not borrowing from some of the better and less saturated portions of Burton's vision, I'd appreciate it if someone could direct me towards the exit. Aside from the fact that I'm expecting a Danny Elfman score to begin resonating throughout the hallways - which would be, of course, a complete travesty given how derivative and overblown his pieces tend to be - it's hardly right to keep a rising star such as myself holed up in a place like this.