Jacob Delsin

For the Jacob Delsin of other realities, see: Jacob Delsin (disambiguation).
Jacob Flynn Procter, né Delsin (born April 5th, 1994 as Justin Miller) is a major supporting character and incidental antagonist of Blank Earth and the main protagonist of Of Cigarettes & Copulation, Under The Stars, The Rain of April, The Melancholy of Separation and One Warm Night.
In Blank Earth, Jacob is introduced as the ex-boyfriend of Alex Peterson, an emotionally-turbulent, opiate-addicted recluse living in downtown Seattle, Washington. He is a close friend of the majority of the household whom unwittingly attracts the romantic interest of Ami Richards as well as the antagonism of Alex's current partner and novel protagonist: Ryley Summers, leading to the majority of the novel's conflicts. 
In Of Cigarettes & Copulation, Jacob makes his reappearance as the narrator and protagonist, still haunted by the events that occured in the previous novel. Delsin attempts to redeem himself through his alliance and eventual romance with May Lawson as the two engage in a bloody fourteen-day campaign against the Sacchitello Crime Family, an event which inevitably culminates in his death atop the Stansfield Building in New York City.
==Biography==
===Early Life===
Justin Miller was born amd raised in the city of Vancouver, Washington to Taylor Watson and Joseph Miller. From a rather young age, Justin was a extremely charismatic, independent and resourceful child. His altruistic nature, as well as a strong desire to study on a variety of topics, not only helped Justin to succeed academically, but find common interests with peers and easily develop strong friendships, many of which would last throughout the remainder of his childhood.
 At the age of seven, Justin intervened in an attempted abduction of his younger sister by an older man while the two were at the nearby park. Having felt helpless in the situation, Justin convinced his parents to allow him to begin taking weekly self-defense and martial arts classes (namely taekwondo and jiu-jitsu) which continued into his early teenage years.Of Cigarettes & Copulation
In autumn 2008, Justin had started attending classes at Ernest Hemingway Secondary School, and less than a month into the semester that Justin (who had generally abstained from romances) would meet and become friendly with fellow classmate Emily Kaufman. The two had a distant, yet, flirtatious friendship until Halloween of that year when the two (dressed as Michael Myers and Marilyn Monroe) drunkenly hooked up at Lynn Clarke's costume party, both losing their virginity.
After the incident, Justin and Emily reconciled their feelings about what had happened and made the decision to begin dating in secrecy, with the goal of testing the waters of their relationship. However, news of the pairs one-night-stand had already circulated throughout the school without their knowledge. Justin and Emily's close friends (Lynn, Jake Clemons, Megan Elizabeth, Ethan Webb, and Alyssa Walker) made an active effort to get the couple together. Over the next two months, Justin and Emily would go on several private weekly dates while Justin otherwise focused on the school's basketball team and Emily concentrated on her cheerleading routine. The couple would soon reunite in a more serious capacity over the holiday season and in the short period before midterms.
Finally, after much public uncertainty, the two confirmed their involvement on Valentine's Day, attending the school's dance in matching red outfits and being crowned as the "Mr. and Ms. Valentine" of 2009. Well respected by tutors and peers alike; Justin developed several circles of friends and his physical and mental competence on the court helped to lead the school to many victories against other teams in the state tournaments as power-forward.Nihilist Apathy: Under The Stars
===Under The Stars===
===Aberdeen===
Unfortunately, by June 2010, Justin and his family had relocated to the small town of Aberdeen, due to economic and work-related reasons. This change drastically affected Justin, who felt that his life, friends, and hard-earned achievements had now been ripped from him and, as such, had difficulties socializing and making friends in the foreign and far more conservative environment. Justin, for the first time in his life, became actively withdrawn and introverted, avoiding social interactions and gaining considerable weight, while in the process achieving a newfound appreciation for music, painting, and poetry as a new outlet for his previously repressed emotions.Nihilist Apathy: The Rain of April
At school, Justin would find his new clique among a small group of local burnouts, notably Kurt Brewster and Hayley Anderson, whom Justin would become extremely close friends with. Much to his mother’s vocal behest, Justin began habitually sneaking out in the middle of the night to have sex with Hayley, routinely arriving home drunk or stoned, and often skipping school to hang at the nearby skate park. 
Justin, along with his peers, frequently committed petty acts of vandalism, theft and general mischief that caused them to clash with local police and school officials, further fueling his general disdain for his parents and authority figures whom Justin had felt were partially responsible for his now disillusioned view of the world. As such, Justin's home life became even more rigid and troublesome, and the high tensions between Justin and his mother especially, negatively impacted his younger sister, Zoë, who had previously looked-up to the more-conformative Justin as an inspirational figure and was emotionally distraught at his seemingly immoral actions and frequent arguments with their mother.
===The Rain of April===
Tragically, another change in Justin's life occurred suddenly on the morning of March 13th, 2011, when his mother was killed in a vehicular collision on an early morning drive home from work. Justin was late to discover the news as he had snuck out that morning to meet with Hayley and when he arrived home, assumed the police had been searching for him. This calamitous loss shattered Justin's already unstable relationship with his family, particularly with his father, who quickly took to alcoholism, became frequently absent, and prone to emotional and occasionally violent outbursts towards both his children, specifically after it came to light that he had been having an affair in the months prior to the accident. Zoë would also grow increasingly reclusive and near-mute in the following weeks, engaging in self-harm, smoking, and getting into fights at school -- all things of which Justin had wanted to stop but felt beyond his capacity to control and too ashamed and hypocritical to discipline or condemn her for.
Justin's handling of the grief process was far more drawn-out, as he sat with an explicit guilt for his turbulent relationship and resentment of his mother in the months prior, not fully able to process or express the loss until after the funeral. Justin struggled with basic tasks and found himself incapable of experiencing any sense of enjoyment or ability to communicate his subtle yet extreme emotions through art. Upon his return to school after the spring break, Justin received sympathy and a lesser workload from his typically strict teachers and became distant from his friends who were unsure how to approach him. 
It was at this time, that Justin would become acquainted with Alex Peterson, a transfer student who had just moved to the coastal Washington town from Oregon with her adoptive parents. Alex was almost immediately shunned by her fellow students after she was outed as a lesbian, Alex, desperate for friends, had taken notice of Justin and reached out to him, doing this through a random phone call to his house while Justin had coincidentally been in the middle of a suicide attempt, causing Justin to abandon the attempt and connect with the stranger, both shared feelings of grief and cynicism and resentment towards the town they both felt alien to, and decided to meet up after school the next day at the skate park Justin had took the most comfort in.
Over the next couple weeks, Justin would take this opportunity to distance himself from both home and school and cathartically deal with his own grief over his mother's death, a task made easier by the far more proactive and adrenaline-fueled behavior of the boyish Alex. Justin quickly began to develop a strong sense of attachment to Alex that he felt difficult to describe, as it remained separate and intangible from his past connections with Emily and Hayley.
strange and intimate romance with Alex, that slowly became more serious as the two opened up about their lives and aspirations. Not long after, Justin and Alex would hitch a plan to hop on a freight train out of the small town and towards the big city of Seattle, Washington -- and with the help of their mutual friend Hayley, this dream would very quickly transform into a reality, culminating with the couple sneaking out in the middle of the night and leaving their old lives behind them. In celebration of a new beginning, Justin helped Alex dye her hair, while Justin decided to change his name to sever all ties to his past -- becoming Jacob Delsin.
===Life in Seattle===
Alex and Jacob found themselves untethered and liberated to challenge or explore their identities and personal philosophies, often following in the footsteps of their older, more-experienced roommate; Dawn: a politically-active, self-identified hippie who eventually adopted a role in the couples’ relationship as a fountain of wisdom, a gateway to new ideas, illicit substance experimentation, and most notably, a welcome but infrequent third-wheel in their sexual and romantic relationship. 
The trio would take part in several large local events before the year was out, such as the annual Rainbow Gathering and Occupy Seattle, while Alex slowly became an outspoken activist for local issues and political gatherings, Jacob, while opinionated, remained rather apolitical. Jacob and Alex also took part in Dawn's frequent parties and group 'sessions', indulging in the drugs and sex inherit.Nihilist Apathy: The Melancholy of Separation 
Jacob and Alex would also become acquainted and friendly with Jacob's co-worker Zachary Richards and his young sister Ami Richards, who were themselves runaways who had fled from an abusive household several years prior and had adapted to living on the edge of poverty in Seattle. Zachary would help the undocumented Jacob in securing a job as a mechanic, being paid under the table.
===The Melancholy of Separation===
Unfortunately, Jacob and Alex’s relationship was an inevitable time-bomb, in the two years following, he found himself lacking appetite, unable to sleep for weeks at a time, having night terrors, panic attacks and growing increasingly self-destructive. As Jacob’s mental state worsened, it wasn't long thereafter that he fell down a rabbit hole of alcoholism and opiate abuse in search of relief and escapism. 
Slowly and coldly recoiling himself from Alex and Dawn in fear of indirectly harming them in his downward spiral, the two called quits on their relationship after two years, acknowledging it as a miraculous oddity of circumstance and a dependency for one-another that had no longer existed. It wasn't long thereafter that Jacob would make the decision to move out of the household and instead move in with Zachary -- while Zach's younger sister Ami took up residence at Dawn's and Alex embarked on a lonesome soul-searching journey down the west coast.
Not long after moving in with Zachary, Jacob's previous experimentation with drugs under Dawn’s roof had grown and manifested into a full-blown addiction to opiates that both he and Zachary mutually engaged in, alongside Zach's on-again, off-again girlfriend Kim Min-Ji.
After a few months, Jacob and Zachary would soon become romantically involved and virtually dependent upon each other. At this point, Jacob had practically become a hermit, spending the majority of his days indoors, shooting up, engaged in sexual activity with Zachary and/or Min-Ji. Jacob and Min-Ji soon hatched a scheme to distribute their homemade sex tapes as a means of making a quick buck to varying degrees of success, this business venture was short-lived, however, as the VHS recorder that the trio had used to record and duplicate their tapes had ultimately crapped out. 
Over the period of time he spent living with Zachary, Jacob had become increasingly malnourished, having lost a ghastly amount of weight due to his drug use and relatively non-existent diet that consisted of little more than alcohol, black coffee and microwave ramen. Min-Ji was arrested and sent to prison on a year-long sentence for drug possession, leaving Jacob and Zachary to have to resort to purchasing their drugs from Garcia Espinosa, a member of Los Sureños Locos 13. 
It wasn’t long after that another tragedy would strike, as, after a night of binging in celebration of Jacob's twentieth birthday, he would wake to discover that Zachary had overdosed and, after suffocating on his own vomit, passed away in his sleep. After nearly four hours of mourning and desperate but vain attempts at resuscitation, Jacob, dazed, and seeing little alternative, made the decision to dispose of his boyfriend’s body, dumping it into the waters of Puget Sound. This traumatic memory would haunt Jacob for the rest of his life.Blank Earth
In the months that followed, Jacob would make several attempts to become sober and quit cold turkey, to no apparent avail. He would always inevitably relapse or collapse under the weight of his withdrawal. Jacob’s desperation to rid himself of his dependence had reached such an extreme point emotionally that Jacob began contemplating suicide as a means of escape, looping a leather belt into a noose, but inevitably opted-out of acting upon it. Instead, Jacob, guilt-ridden began making infrequent visits to Dawn’s when he wasn’t too high or too dopesick, with the intention of visiting and overseeing Zachary's younger sister, Ami. Jacob felt an enormous amount of culpability for having stolen from her what he saw as potential months or years with her elder brother, a guilt trip of which only worked to recall his own memories of abandoning his sister, and made every attempt to become a sort of surrogate brother in Zachary's place. In the year and a half that she had spent living with Dawn, the developmentally-challenged Ami had made leaps and bounds of progress in terms of discovering how to express herself and her emotions, largely through her exploration and love for various forms of art. Jacob’s visits would often include him gifting her with new supplies and utensils, much to her joy, and Ami would grow to even to the point of admiration.
It was also during these occasional visits that Jacob had met and befriended one of the newer individuals to take up residence during his absence; Jay Sanders, who, like Jacob, was relatively introverted and quiet compared to her housemates. Jay, whose idea of hanging out included tinkering around in the garage while drinking beer, enjoyed Jacob’s relatively silent form of company and the two grew closer as a result. Jay encouraged Jacob to live a healthier lifestyle and become more physically active in response to his cadaverous appearance, but even with this encouragement, Jacob struggled to grasp with any real motivation. It was clear to see that Jacob and Jay had become infatuated with each other (going so far as to be nicknamed “J-squared” by others in the household), but the attraction was short-lived after the two finally hooked up and Jacob was once again, swamped by his own internal guilt, apologizing continuously even though it had been Jay that initiated it. After this, Jacob’s interaction with those living with Dawn once again dwindled and his visits became once again scarce and infrequent.Blank Earth
===Blank Earth===
===Starting Over===
===One Warm Night===
===Loss===
===Of Cigarettes & Copulation===
===Death and Legacy===
==Personality==
In his younger years seen in Under The Stars, Jacob is presented as a notably outgoing, sharply charismatic, and admirably empathetic individual, traits best exemplified by his relationships, having demonstrated a teasing and sarcastic relationship with his eleven-year-old sister, Zoë, a respectful relationship with both his parents, a strong and friendly camaraderie with his coach Phil Poncier, and his fellow teammates, loyalty to his close friends (notably Jake Clemons and Lynn Clark), and an openly physical and playful relationship with his then-girlfriend Emily Kaufman.
However, these traits are almost poetically reversed by the time of his appearance in The Rain of April, set a mere two years later, after having been forced to leave his life behind and move to Aberdeen, Jacob had become far more reclusive and an introverted sort, more preoccupied on following an internalized passion for art and music and a search for identity and expression than the flattery and approval of others, a personality change only extenuated in the period of grief following the death of his mother. Now struggling with crippling anxiety attacks, depression, and low self-esteem, Jacob's youthful charisma receded into a form of witty cynicism and he became much quicker to irritation, often choosing to rebel against/be dismissive of authority figures that clashed with his beliefs. At this point, Jacob's relationship with his sister had devolved to distant-at-best, his friendships with Kurt Brewster and Hayley Anderson were notably half-hearted and in, even with the latter becoming sexual in nature, while his eventual romantic relationship with Alex Peterson was far more intimate and affectionate than with previous partners.
It's implied that Jacob's mental health and self-image temporarily improved as he came to terms with his mother's death and decidedly abandoned his troubled home life in Aberdeen to run off to Seattle with Alex, who he remained in a stable relationship with for a further two years, as well as developing extremely close friendships with Hayley's sister Dawn Anderson and Zachary Richards in that time. However, by mid-2013, Jacob suddenly took a steep turn for the worst, followed by a strong sense of guilt that accentuated his then-harmless and recreational substance abuse and caused him to become more physically and emotionally distant with Alex, leading him to break up with her and move in with Zachary.  
Over the following years, Jacob became an emotionally detached -- yet, still a morally compassionate person, with his initial pessimism and sometimes disgust for society being a mere reflection of his own internal self-loathing and guilt. Jacob's overwhelming anxiety and depression led him further into the rabbit hole of substance abuse, spending the next year in a dissociative-haze, indulged in an unfiltered binge of opiates, alcohol, and sex with both Zachary (his now boyfriend) and their close friend, Kim Min-Ji. Jacob and Zachary lived in a small low-income bachelor apartment that remained in a permanent state of disrepair, and the couple owned very few possessions. At this point, the extent of Jacob's social and emotional engagements being his frequent attendance of Dawn's group "sessions", which were, for all intents and purposes, glorified drug orgies. 
However, this period of Jacob's life was cut short and marred by tragedy following his twentieth birthday, as he and Zachary engaged in a heavy binge in celebration of which Zachary overdosed and passed away, with Jacob awakening to the aftermath -- and inevitably choosing to dispose of the body.
In Blank Earth, Jacob is commonly seen drinking and smoking both in social situations and when by himself. Jacob prefers his substance abuse to remain personal and separate from his social life and usually avoids discussing such topics around his friends, going so far as to isolate himself for weeks when either binging on substances or dealing with withdrawal.
In Of Cigarettes & Copulation, It's shown that since the death of his wife, Sophia, Jacob has returned to smoking and has become an alcoholic, yet has remained clean of opiate abuse.
==Physical Appearance==
Jacob is a pale-skinned American of French and Irish descent, his hair is a greasy dark brown (almost black) color that often drapes into his face, covering one or both of his eyes. His eyes are a grey/olive color that change depending on the light.
In Blank Earth, Jacob Delsin is described as being extremely tall, thin, pale and lanky. He maintains a very scruffy appearance as a result of poor grooming. Jacob is often seen wearing a blue denim vest with black leather sleeves, a long-sleeved olive flannel shirt underneath and baggy jeans with holes and rips in various locations. Jacob also tends to accessorize his appearance, wearing various pins on the front of his jacket, black fingerless gloves and chains that hang from his belt.
In Of Cigarettes & Copulation, Jacob is somewhat cleaned up, his body is now more lean and muscular due to a consistent work out routine and appropriate diet, his hair is now parted down the middle. Jacob still looks scruffy due to his lack of care to clean himself up often. Jacob is seen throughout the novel wearing the same suit that he wore to his wedding, though it is stained and dirty from having being worn for days on end and he wears the outfit rather casually, ignoring the tie and unbuttoning the shirt around the neck. Later in the novel, Jacob updates his outfit with a tailored suit lined with stab-resistant carbon nanotubes and a bright red tie with Level IIIA kevlar armor underneath.
==Appearances==
Appearances for Jacob Delsin
In chronological order:
* Nihilist Apathy
** Under The Stars
** The Rain of April
** The Melancholy of Separation
* Blank Earth (first appearance)
* Nihilist Apathy
** One Warm Night
* Snow In Summer (mentioned)
* Of Cigarettes & Copulation (dies)
* Nihilist Apathy
** One More Night (voice)
** Saudade (posthumous)
* Holmes (mentioned)
==Killed Victims==
Jacob has possibly the largest body count of any character in the main universe, despite having no military background or experience, his familiarity with street-brawling and a variety of martial arts (largely regarding grappling, redirection and pressure points), as well as pain tolerance and unpredictability, lends him an advantage in combat. This list shows the notable victims Jacob has killed:
* Zachary Richards (indirectly caused) -
* Norman Kohvler -
* Dawn Anderson (indirectly caused) -
* Ami Richards (indirectly caused) -
* Robbie Gognitti (caused) -
* Victor Henderson -
* Sammy Fondozzi (caused) -
* Anthony Sacchitellio (caused) -
* Vincent Akiyama -
* Logan Benton -
* Michael Sacchitellio (caused) -
* Numerous counts of gangsters and hired guns working for the Sacchitellio family.
==Relationships==
For a more in-depth look at Jacob's relationships, read here: Jacob Delsin/Relationships
==Gallery==
:For more images of Jacob, visit Jacob Delsin/Gallery.
File:JustinUTS.png|Under The Stars
File:JustinROA.png|The Rain of April
File:JacobMOS.png|The Melancholy of Separation
File:BEJacob.png|Blank Earth
File:JacobOWN.png|One Warm Night
File:OCCJacob.png|Of Cigarettes & Copulation
==Trivia==
* Several main influences for the character of Jacob Delsin include Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Cobain, Rustin Cohle, Travis Bickle, Frank Gallagher, John Bender, Trevor Reznik, Max Payne, Frank Castle, Spike Spiegel, Elliot Alderson, BoJack Horseman, Trent Lane, John Wick, and The Narrator.
* Jacob Delsin's name is a reference to both Jacob Singer, the protagonist of the 1990 psychological horror film Jacob's Ladder, and Delsin Rowe, the playable character in the 2014 video game Infamous: Second Son.
==Sources & Links==
Category:1994 births
Category:2019 deaths
Category:Vancouver, WA residents
Category:Aberdeen, WA residents
Category:Seattle, WA residents
Category:New York City, NY residents
Category:Vigilantes
Category:Blank Earth characters
Category:Of Cigarettes & Copulation characters
Category:The Rain of April characters
Category:Under The Stars characters
Category:One Warm Night characters
Category:Criminals
Category:Caucasians
Category:Bisexuals