History

Jake was born on April 17, 1999, to Carmen and Nestor Fitzgerald, in Lakewood. The Fitzgeralds were an old family, and wealthy, having come up from nothing a century earlier. By the time Jake came around, the Fitzgeralds resided in a picturesque mansion in the waterfront district of south Lakewood.

Nestor had done his part to fluff the family coffers through strategic investments (conducted under the auspices of under-supervised brokers) and cashed out before he turned 30, leaving Carmen to be the sole earner in the family, through her boutique fashion label.

Jake was raised in privilege and knew it. The Fitzgeralds weren’t modest about their wealth, and saw no point pretending they weren’t fabulously wealthy. Jake’s every desire was indulged, and he developed a temperament that forced more than one babysitter into an early retirement. Carmen, much too busy to dedicate time to her hellion son, received advice from a socialite friend, Monica Maddox, who recommended Adeline Belmont, a farmwife who, with her husband Clint, maintained a sizable tract of land outside town. Monica had been sending her daughter Brooke to the Belmont farm for a short while and was pleased with the results.

Jake, Brooke, and the Belmonts’ son Will spent long summers on the farm, forging a close bond. Jake and Will in particular became regular partners in crime. Their birthdays were two days apart, and Adeline and Carmen began a tradition of throwing them joint birthday parties, cementing a brotherly bond between them.

The Jake

Jake’s swagger served him well as years passed. While he could and no doubt did come off obnoxious to his peers, his force of personality ensured he was always popular…a fact that his family’s money didn’t hurt either. In September 2014, Jake entered George Washington High School as part of the Class of 2018. He and Will joined the basketball team, where Will quickly proved himself a rising talent, amassing clout apart from Jake and Brooke for the first time in his life.

This clout led to Will and Jake being noticed by GW High’s Queen Bee, Nina Patterson. If Nina was interested in Will, she couldn’t do anything about it: Nina had a boyfriend, Tyler, who’d lost his position as point guard to Will; and Will had just begun dating the pretty but unassuming Emma Duval.

Shake-ups persisted, however, and by the time they’d come back from Christmas break, Nina and Tyler had abruptly broken off…and Nina was suddenly interested in Jake. The relationship may have been a sham designed to make Tyler jealous, but Jake didn’t care at first, relishing the perks that came with being Nina’s arm candy.

These perks included certain secrets: namely, about Lakewood Eyes, a clandestine intelligence network Nina and Tyler had begun a few months earlier, designed to collect sensitive information on Lakewood residents that could be used for blackmail. By the time Jake learned about Lakewood Eyes, Nina and Tyler had already made thousands of dollars. Jake, always up for a thrill, eagerly joined up.

Help a Bro Out

In February 2015, about a month after Jake joined Lakewood Eyes, he spilled the beans to Will. The Lancers had just suffered a narrow loss, and Will lost his cool in the locker room, venting his fears to Jake about not being able to snag an athletic scholarship, his only key out of Lakewood.

Jake, affected by his friend’s plight, brought him to Nina and Tyler, pitching Will as the fourth member of Lakewood Eyes. Nina was skeptical but offered to bring Will in, but only if he could provide collateral: something she could use to ensure he wouldn’t stab her in the back. Nina challenged him to have sex with Emma before her 16th birthday, a little over a month out.

Will had his reservations, but squared his shoulders and committed. A few days later, Brooke told Jake how surprised she was that Will was going all out on Valentine’s Day for Emma. Jake, unable to suppress his giddiness, admitted what was going on, claiming that it was just a “bet” and not mentioning anything about Lakewood Eyes. Brooke, disgusted, went to Nina to get her to call it off, but to no avail.

Valentine’s Day came and went: Will took Emma’s virginity and was formally inducted into Lakewood Eyes.

Ultimately, Jake and Nina’s relationship didn’t work out. Nina proved too frigid for his tastes, and their sexless partnership fizzled out before the end of the year.¹ Their business partnership, however, was alive and well.

Kissing and Kegging

Friction between Jake and Will came to a head in mid-October, after the Lancers qualified for the basketball playoffs. They got into an argument, Jake coming away convinced he’d scared his friend straight.²

On October 17, Jake was hanging out with the rest of the “in-crowd” at the Wren Lake Overlook. Zach was reenacting a play from a recent football game while Jake mischievously tried to trip him.³ Before his maneuver could succeed, Emma recognized the car of her childhood best friend Audrey Jensen pulling up at the opposite side of the summit. Audrey, unaware she was being watched, began making out with another girl. Emma’s shocked reaction drew the notice of the others, who responded with scandalized glee.

Nina took a venomous pleasure in this bit of gossip, whipping out her phone and recording the girls’ intimate moment. Emma, offended on her old friend’s behalf, told Nina to delete the video. Nina promised to “take it off her phone”, and honored this exact words defense by deleting it from her phone, after uploading it to YouTube the next day, where it rapidly went locally viral.⁴

The video was uploaded the same night as Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash, a house party thrown by Brooke ostensibly to celebrate the Harvest Moon. It being a party, Jake was of course in attendance. Brooke allowed him to pick the party playlist, though she found herself regretting the trap-heavy mix Jake chose.⁵

Jake was characteristically the center of the action, chugging from a keg in Brooke’s garden, to the cheering approval of other guests. A furious Audrey crashed the party, pushing past Zach, who knocked into Jake, causing him to spill beer over himself. Audrey paid the boys no mind, going on to confront Emma, blaming her for the video. The girls were split up by Brooke on Emma’s side and Audrey’s friends Noah Foster and Amanda Steele on the other.⁶

Audrey ditched promptly, but Noah and Amanda were cornered by Nina and Tyler. Amanda insinuated that Tyler was giving too much of himself to an ungrateful Nina, suggesting she was being unfaithful to him. The insecure Tyler jumped to the conclusion that Nina was cheating on him with Jake and furiously summoned him, thwarting Jake’s attempt at a chug record. When confronted about his alleged relationship with Nina, the by now soused Jake assumed Tyler was joking, insisting once was more than enough Nina for him. Tyler, insulted, tackled him and the two guys splashed into Brooke’s pool.⁷

The struggle was broken up by an irate Brooke, who demanded an explanation. The surly Tyler didn’t hang around to give one, leaving Jake to face the full bore of Brooke’s wrath. Brooke’s temper wasn’t improved by learning of the Jake/Nina allegations, which he vehemently denied. Exasperated, Brooke declared her party ruined and ordered her guests to leave.⁸

The by now quite drunk Jake made an attempt, but found he’d lost the keys to his Behemoth in the pool. To this effect, he returned to the pool deck, where Brooke, Emma, Riley, and Zach were attempting to clean up, was too wasted to even make it back to his Behemoth. Jake placated the exasperated Brooke, telling her he’d bum a ride off Will, only to be dryly informed by the others that Will had never shown up to the party to begin with.

Brooke told Jake to pass out on the couch while she retrieved the keys but, before anyone could move further, Zach received word from his mother of a shocking tragedy: the Hendersons’ neighbor, Stacy Winters, had been murdered with her boyfriend, Brock Carmichael. Mrs. Henderson had found the bodies.⁹

Appearance

Jake was a tall, athletic young man with a leanly muscled figure. At 6’1, he’s the tallest of his friends, narrowly beating Will and Zach. He had an olive complexion, wavy black hair and brown eyes.

Wardrobe

Jake’s style tended toward ostentatious and flamboyant. Among other things, he was fond of Hawaiian shirts, wearing one to Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash, paired with Bermuda shorts.^{10 11}

Personality

Jake is extroverted and id-driven. Loud and expressive to the point of being obnoxious, he can turn on the charm when he wants, but is most comfortable acting like an overgrown 12-year-old. Hedonistic, he’s a huge fan of pleasure for its own sake, loving any excuse to let loose.

Despite his party-loving attitude, Jake has a hot temper and can be dangerous when provoked, and is prone to lashing out when he feels he’s been wronged.

Skills

Jake could hold his liquor to a remarkable degree. He was on pace to beating a record for chugging from a keg through a hose before circumstances intervened.¹²

Equipment

The Behemoth: Jake drives a white Mustang he calls “the Behemoth”.¹³ The muscle car is sleek, fearsome, and very expensive. It’s his prize possession.

Development

Despite being credited as a guest star in Scream the TV Series, Jake appeared in every episode of the first season. Fittingly, he was part of the SRU at its inception. Since 2015, he has been portrayed by three people.

He was portrayed by forum moderator Celebrity01 in the 2015 Season 1 AU. Though Celebrity was part of the May 2016 Season 2 AU, he was unable to reprise the role, which had already been taken by that forum’s moderator, TheDerpHowlsatMidnight. The majority of the Season 2 AU played out immediately before the premiere of Season 2 of the TV series, which saw Jake killed off in the first episode.

The sense that Jake was disposable predated his canon equivalent’s death, however. During the Season 2 AU, Audrey (then portrayed by Snafu Guru) was given a choice by Ghostface: spare the life of Brooke (portrayed by ThePlotMurderer) or Jake. Audrey chose Jake, in the most pivotal scene of the short-lived forum. Jake was subsequently attacked by Ghostface and was lingering in a coma by the time the forum went defunct that summer.

It was the Season 2 AU’s depiction of Jake’s fate that was adapted into The Story so Far in 2019, with the comatose Jake being murdered in his hospital bed two days after the attack.

Other Interpretations

Season 1 AU

The brunt of Jake’s story in the Season 1 AU concerns a baseless rumor started by Amanda Steele, accusing Nina of cheating on Tyler with Jake, stirring up friction between Jake and Tyler.¹⁴

Trivia

Jake is a fan of dubstep and trap music.¹⁵

Jake is the only member of Lakewood Eyes to survive the Lakewood Slashings. He wasn’t so lucky in the Lakewood Slashings, however.

Quotes

The Jake knows his limits, and this…is hella limiting.

Jake tells Tyler that one round with Nina was more than enough.

I don’t think I’m drunk…I know I am.

Jake assures Tyler that he knows himself

Bash? Shit, sorry, B, I been using the wrong tag…

Jake apologizes for misidentifying Brooke’s Big Beautiful Bash

Gallery

1. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 5 ↩︎
2. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 7 ↩︎
3. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 5 ↩︎
4. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 2 ↩︎
5. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 2 ↩︎
6. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 1 ↩︎
7. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 4 ↩︎
8. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 5 ↩︎
9. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 7 ↩︎
10. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 1 ↩︎
11. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 4 ↩︎
12. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 4 ↩︎
13. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 7 ↩︎
14. Season 1 AU: Pilot, Post 16 ↩︎
15. The Story so Far, Vol. I: Chapter 1, Scene 2 ↩︎