Jay Merrick hcs...? /nf
SORRY i completely forgot about this, i have so many jay hcs. Like a lot. Like this is four pages of Jay hcs. And this is just general jay hcs, this isn't even including my proxy Jay/Skully!Jay hcs. I didn't realize how many times I thought about him, oh my god
Jay Merrick Headcanons -
TW: Child Neglect, Transphobia, Abuse
Jay’s full name is Jason Merrick, and he’s a polyamorous transmasc gay asexual man, and goes by he/they.
Him and Jessica are twin siblings, and Jodi is their older sister. Their relationship has always been a bit strained with Jodi, but he and Jess were much closer up until the Slender Sickness made Jay forget both his sisters. Even then though, Jay always felt something was missing from his life and it messed with him all the way until he died.
In the Rosswood series, he actually has a much closer relationship with Jodi than the main universe, but Jess still isn’t talking to her much. He had asked Jodi to do the interview with Alex as a favor. It was her first time meeting Alex and it went really badly.
Jay rarely doesn’t wear a cap or hat. He’s been doing it since he was young and trying to deal with his dysphoria by tucking his hair up into his hat. Nowadays, even though his hair is short, he uses it as a safety net. He feels very weird not wearing one.
His parents didn’t really treat him and his sister well and while they didn’t actively physically abuse them, they neglected the three really badly, leaving Jodi to usually be the one to look after her siblings, as they were more focused on their failed marriage than their kids. Jodi was the favorite, while Jess was the scapegoat, and Jay was the one who their parents would mostly ignore.
Jay's trauma response is flight.
He does not trust the passage of time. Someone could tell him it's been two hours, and he wouldn't believe it until he was able to check the time himself.
Jay has five tattoos. He has white wings across his shoulder blades, a small bird on his ankle, flowers on his thigh, "REC" on his wrist, and the Operator symbol on his hip, though that wasn't his choice. Him and Tim got the bird tattoos together.
Seth and Jay had an inside joke of playing a silent game of tag on set because they were bored. Everyone knew except Alex. Alex just thought Seth and Jay just couldn't keep their hands off each other.
In Jess and Amy's apartment, Jess has a beanbag set up for him to chill in when he comes over.
He has depression, anxiety, OCD, AuDHD, insomnia, and gender dysphoria. He’s deaf in his left ear and has asthma. He carries his inhaler with him a lot, and Tim was always the most attentive when telling him to use it.
Of all of his friends, surprisingly, Jay is the most against going to therapy or admitting he has mental health problems. It's a big issue, where while Jay doesn't act like he's better than the others for not supposedly having any diagnosis, he treats his mental health with a lot of bitterness and lack of want for growth or proper coping.
Jay knows English and ASL.
Jay's favorite ice cream flavor is mint chocolate chip.
He loves fruit jelly cups.
He always prefers a window seat on a plane.
He’s a very picky eater. He prefers the least amount of ingredients in his meals, and gets overwhelmed when there’s a lot of flavors at the same time. Alex and Sarah used to bully him for being “boring”, especially Sarah since he was very scared to try any food she made him.
His favorite food is buttered noodles.
Jay has a mancoon named Leia that he obviously named after Princess Leia.
He does not react well to fighting due to his childhood with his parents, and will distract himself or remove himself from the situation if people start arguing around him and he’s not the one involved.
He does not like people touching him, and will gently pry people’s hands off him if they try. If he lets someone touch him, it’s clear he really likes them and feels safe with them.
He listens to alternative rock and his favorite band is Radiohead. He also listens to Green Day, Arctic Monkeys, Radiohead, Blink 182, and The White Stripes.
His favorite song is No Surprises by Radiohead.
His parents never actually married but tried to have Jodi as a way to “save” their relationship. Having Jay and Jess later on was a complete accident, and only delayed their breakup even longer.
He’s been a firm believer of ghosts since he was little. He would drag Jess to ghost hunt with him when they were kids. He’s always been attracted to the supernatural. During Rosswood, he didn’t want to say it to Alex because he felt embarrassed, but he really was kinda hoping they’d find something there like ghosts and was a bit thrown off that Alex didn’t think so too. He still didn’t want to stay though once it got dark since he knew something was there.
Jay can be a very dry texter and has a hard time with tone over text. He tries to use emoticons to fix it though.
He’s been doing photography since he was a kid. He got his first camera as a gift from Jodi and he took photos all the time. He lost it in the move for college but he had a big photo album of him, Jess, and Jodi from their childhood.
He had a bird Beanie Baby plushie that Jess had gotten it for him after he chose his name.
He’s Italian American.
His username on most platforms was scriptsupervisorjay.
His parents were really uncreative with names and purposely gave their kids all J names and did not give them middle names.
His favorite taste for most candies and snacks is mint. He eats mint gum as a stim too sometimes, and smells like mint a lot. He also ate toothpaste as a kid because of this.
One of his biggest pet peeves is people mumbling around him, especially near his bad ear. Riley mumbles a lot and has to either sign or speak up a bit.
His favorite soda is Sprite but he drinks Pepsi to help with his ADHD, especially since he refuses to take ADHD meds.
His favorite subject in school was photography and video editing unsurprisingly.
Him and Brian would scare Alex a lot as a prank by pretending they broke his equipment. They thought it was hilarious.
His room actually used to be surprisingly really clean most of the time, thanks to his OCD making him clean up a lot in fear of tripping on something and dying. He stopped cleaning as much though once he started traveling to search for Alex, and would instead bed rot to avoid getting up and seeing his room.
Him and Alex were briefly roommates in college for the semester after they met. They stopped rooming together after Alex and Amy started dating though.
Jay is really bad at eye contact. It’s easier behind a camera, but without it, it’s really hard. It pissed Alex off a lot and he’d always tell him to look at him when they were talking, especially if he was mad at him.
Jay prefers comfy baggy clothing, and will often wear several layers to feel comfortable.
He came out to his parents as trans in the fifth grade and gay when he was 16. They didn’t really understand and refused to try, saying it was too complicated. Jess always had his back though.
His favorite color is green.
He hates driving at night.
After Jay started going by Jay, Jess started calling him Letter to bully him. It’s his contact name in her phone. After she forgot him though, it confused her really bad, with her thinking “what the hell, who the fuck is Letter-”.
His parents are named Mark Locke and Josie Merrick.
He was born and raised in Wisconsin until he moved to Rosswood, Alabama with Jessica for college. Jodi had already moved there years prior. Jay was never planning on staying at Alabama for long but ended up never actually leaving.
When him and Jess were really young, their parents would bring them to church with them a lot. Neither were ever too focused so they sometimes would hide under the seats and play hide and seek. This was fine until their parents accidentally forgot to bring them home with them when they left. They both got lectured a lot and were never brought with them to church after that and were left home alone while their parents took Jodi with them.
Him and Jess would swap clothes a lot when they were younger, and their parents often never realized they did.
He bruises really easily.
He has his ears pierced.
His pain tolerance is actually pretty high! Hence, his many tattoos.
Jay is very stubborn and has a “I know what’s best for me and those around me” mindset all the time, and does not follow most advice he’s given. Tim, Alex, Amy, and Jess are kinda the only people he willingly accepts help from and that's because they're his favorite people and he truly believes they are the only ones that are significantly smarter or better than he is. I don’t think it's so much that he thinks he's better than other people but I can’t say it’s not that either if that makes sense. He might also have a savior complex.
He considers Tim, Alex, and Amy his best friends. He still has contact with Amy during Rosswood and actually didn’t know that her and Alex broke up, causing him and Alex to get in a minor fight about how Amy stayed in contact with Jay and not Alex, even though Alex was the one to introduce them.
Tim had a bit of a crush on Jay during the filming of Marble Hornets and was actually really excited when Jay reached out again. He didn’t even realize at first that Jay didn’t remember him.
If he never died, he would’ve worked as a wedding photographer before starting a small production company.
He actually knows how to sew by hand thanks to Jess teaching him.
He loves the shows Hannibal, Avatar the Last Airbender, and Big Bang Theory! His other interests include Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, DC Comics, and Star Trek. He also enjoys his fair share of horror movies, namely Insidious.
His favorite Disney movie is Toy Story 2. Alex actually got him a Woody toy for his birthday one year. He still had it at his apartment when it burned down.
His favorite gem is peridot.
He started transitioning socially in highschool, and started taking testosterone when he started college. He never got his surgeries done though.
He came out to Alex as trans (Alex assumed he was a cis man when they met) when he was on his period and was handling the worst cramps ever. Alex was shocked when Jay told him why he was miserable, and had a million questions about how Jay found out, how his parents reacted, and “what it was like to be a girl” (he doesn’t know 🥚).
He can barely swim. He knows how to not drown a least but he’s not good at holding his breath.
His favorite candy is Junior Mints or Life Savers hard candies. He also likes Oreos.
In college, he was a huge gossip. Him and Amy gossiped together about it. Nobody trusted him with secrets because they knew he was gonna tell her, and also he was awful at lying.
His favorite smell became basil or really most seasonings, as it was what he smelled when he and Tim were staying together. Every morning, he’d wake up to smelling Tim cooking.
Amy gave him a bracelet once with the trans flag colors as the beads. He still had it when she went missing.
He got the name Jason from Jason Todd. He ended up going by Jay right after changing his name legally because he felt weird going by Jason around friends. He purposely chose a J name to be petty, but lowkey regrets it now. Jodi calls him Jason if she’s mad at him though.
His deadname was Juliette.
His anxiety causes him to get stomach aches and really bad cramps.
He’s a compulsive liar. But also an AWFUL liar. It’s an ongoing issue.
He was sick a lot as a kid and was kinda conditioned to handle his symptoms alone and quietly because his parents weren't going to help him. As an adult now, he still does the same thing. He tries really hard not to let anybody figure out he's sick because they might get upset or worried and he can't have that. The only issue is that because of him not really letting himself rest or anything, he ends up making himself stay sick for longer until he's absolutely miserable.
Tim forces him to take care of himself because he either forgets or refuses to, and Jay will not listen to him if he asks him to nicely.
He usually eats plain toast for breakfast, sometimes with butter but not always. Sometimes he’ll just eat normal bread if he’s feeling lazy. Tim and Riley usually are the ones to make him better food, with Tim teaching him to make eggs, and Riley making him avocado toast.
Jay wanders a lot and has gotten lost in stores and the woods A LOT. His sense of direction is awful. Subconsciously, Alex will hold onto the hood of Jay’s jacket in fear of him wandering away.
Jay likes being the little spoon usually, but Alex likes being held sometimes and he indulges him.
His favorite animal is a blue jay obviously.
Jay will never be the first one to fall asleep when he’s with a partner. It stresses him out for him to be asleep when someone else is awake.
He’s never slept well, even when he was younger. Jess often stayed up with him, to keep him company.
Brian calls him Birdie as a nickname.
He’s amazing at trivia, and is great at Jeopardy and Trivial Pursuit.
He’s actually really good at puzzles and checkers, but not chess.
