Jest is a petty, prideful man. When he was younger, he had determination; in the modern day, he only barely gets. He has the tendency to use Stem Rum as a coping mechanism, as it's hard for him to work without thinking of the family he's lost. He holds lots of resentment towards Stem City for letting the world get this bad.
He has a tendency to get physical when agitated. This is because, as a child, he was taught it was the proper way to get people to shut up.
Jest has constructed anti-Stem Slime tools and supplied them to Gillsway hunters for free.
Jest lives alone in the Clorentine family's workshop in Gillsway. He fixes things for people, works on the Gillsway limited electrical grid, and maintains the shoddy tram system from Stem City to Gillsway.
Jest's childhood wasn't pretty. His parents escaped to an off-world because of their illegal business dealings, so Jest was left in the care of his grandparents. Jest was frequently verbally and emotionally abused by them. The only thing keeping him sane was good grades and STEMNET forums.
He loved learning about the way the world worked, frequently asking questions online two years earlier than when Shroom's Academy was slated to teach such subjects.
In engineering specialization classes, Jest met Mary. Since then, every moment he could spend away from home, he'd spend it with her. They both graduated from their engineering classes, and he started up an electric sign company at the ripe age of 16 with great success. He and Mary worked on small inventions on the side, earning small bucks with local noble businesses looking to invest in interesting things.
This period of grace didn't last long, however. As Stephill Frie's iron fist came down harder and harder on the noble's local economy, Jest's company struggled. Most of his requests for the Nexus were rejected, leaving the engineer unable to get the supplies he needed to continue.
At the age of 28, Mary brought Juke Clorentine to Stem Island. In spite of the Marks struggle they had going on, the man had never been happier. His daughter was his pride and joy, teaching everything he could about his profession in hopes of continuing his engineering legacy through her.
When Blema's WALL ACT dropped, Jest and Mary made the difficult decision to leave the noble paradise. The economy hadn't improved at all since they had their daughter. They sold off the company to Stephill Frie for extra Marks, bought a load of supplies, and migrated into the Outlands.
Jest was one of the first settlers of Gillsway. Though he wasn't much involved in their politics, he did use whatever material was given to him to construct a nice house and workshop for his family before setting up massive electrical and tram line projects. Grand ambitions were seen in the newly determined man's eyes.
A majority of the early settlers, all off-worlders, didn't take kindly to the Clorentine's rich noble background, only keeping them around as the family was building infrastructure; Jest didn't care what the aliens thought. He was better than them.
Three years after they had moved in, Gillsway was attacked by a hunting party of Stem Slimes. Jest protected Juke in their cramped basement as Mary tried to defend their property.
When the attack was over, Jest was horrified. Mary had been torn open.
He didn't know what to do. He felt a hundred different emotions at once. He needed to calm them down.
Jest took up drinking. His daughter's eyes reminded him of his wife's eyes. He couldn't stop himself, his impulse control dissolving as he drank every day and every night. Any time Juke was seen not working in their workshop, he would berate and slap her, telling her to make her father proud. The preteen Juke worked his business as he rotted away, stumbling between the bar and home every day.
Two years later, an opportunistic woman saw how down in the dumps Jest was and decided to marry him in order to crash at his place instead of Gillsway community shack. He was impulsive, not stupid; he saw straight through her motivations, but he just needed somebody, anybody, to love him like Mary had.
This new pillar of half-hearted support gave him the courage to get back to work, taking over the company once more. Of course, his pride couldn't let him admit his daughter was the one doing all of the maintenance for the past few years.
His second wife died later that year as Stem Slimes from the Fungal Wastes tore through Gillsway again. Jest clung onto an injured Juke as he had another source of love torn away from him.
This time, he refused to fall into a pit again and tried to pull himself together. Jest, swearing off booze for the time, tried making up with his teenage daughter. He was met with cold shoulders, shallow conversations, and passively aggressive behavior.
He knew that his daughter was so smart; he had spotted the projects she had gotten up to in her free time, so why couldn't she forgive him for what he had done to her? Didn't she understand how Mary's death had affected him?
It never once crossed his mind that he should apologize to her.
Juke got arrested some years later for Lawman tampering, Jest horrified by his daughter's unknown fate. He became depressed and drank again.
A drunken Jest became hysterical when Juke soon arrived back home and told him the news that Stem Tower had hired her as a scientist. He couldn't stop her from packing up her stuff and leaving him all alone in Gillsway.
He continued supporting the community and building infrastructure as a husk of his younger self. Hatred brewed deep in his heart for what the world had taken from him. There was no motive to change, though. So, there he stayed, broken.
Juke Clorentine - He hates her for abandoning him. In his eyes, when he was at his lowest, Juke packed up and left to work for the very cruel system that left them out in Gillsway in the first place. Though, even with the sour taste in his mouth, he still loves her and knows he would forgive her if she ever came home... It would simply take time.
Godgrilla - Hates his cooking.
Becca Raincutter - Sometimes, it feels like she's the only one who is there for him.