I would love to know how. I hate when people say that he is an idiot who just goes with whatever anyone tells him. I haven’t heard this perspective before
I am completely fucking roadblocked on my royalty AU I’m writing, so sure. LET’S TALK ABOUT JAKE ENGLISH, because my god I love Jake. I love all the Alphas (far more than the betas, sorry betas) but Jake is one of the mega faves, and it really makes me sad how few peeps get how Jake English’s brain ticks.
Blah blah this is my interpretation of Jake, if you have another that’s great, blah blah, DISCLAIMER OVER LETS TALK ABOUT TEH ENGLISH SPEEPSTAKES AND HOW JAKE WON IT HIMSELF.
Every Alpha has a huge fucking tragic flaw or five to their name, and one of Jake’s biggest flaws is his purposeful obfuscating stupidity. Because despite what Jane thinks of him, Jake is not actually stupid. He’s an incredibly resourceful kid who routinely works with robotics and nuclear materials and survivalism. He’s a rubber fucker, you cannot keep the boy down.
What he isn’t is good at being forthright about his desires. It’s really the central issue in Jake’s character arc, that he doesn’t know how to assert himself. On the Quest Slab, talking to Roxy, he outright says that all the things he believed about himself were wrong, that he had tied himself to this biographical list of personality traits only to… grow out of them or to realize they were never true.
To me, a central part of reading Jake is to notice the times he hides behind that persona. There are times when Jake talks about himself as in his personal feelings, the “I feel” emotions, and there are times when he doesn’t. When instead of talking about what he would do, he talks about what a Dashed Rugged Adventurer would do. And it’s pretty fair to say that a lot of the time, that’s a tactic to put a cipher between himself and what he’s saying, to make his real emotions more obscure.
For example: The Pesterlog Where Jane Could Not Spit It The Fuck Out.
When Jake brings up his apparent attraction to Jane, it’s not couched in what he feels about her. It’s about what this Hypothetical Guy should feel about her. Because cripes, of course anyone in Jake’s shoes should be thrilled to get with Jane, right?
Right?
When the cards are on the table, Jake’s regret with Dirk is that it wasn’t the way he wanted it to be. (And, Jake, don’t worry, Dirk feels the same, lol what a fucking MESS.) When Jane presses Jake it’s not about how a Gentlemanly Adventurer would feel about Dirk, it’s about the ideas he’s been percolating over, it’s about how he feels it’s unfair to write Dirk off for not being a girl. The barrier is gone, and Jake’s being at least more honest about his attraction to Dirk than he is to Jane.
Jake spent the entire day desperately trying to get a hold of Dirk to talk to him, and is genuinely upset he never got the chance to.
Jake absolutely knew what was going on with Jane when they had their big conversation about their feelings. Not only does he imply it on the Quest Slab, but Brain Ghost Dirk gives him shit for it during their huge conversation. Jake is not stupid. He repeatedly picks up on people’s flirtatious remarks to him, onto Roxy’s implications that Jane likes him, and does some flirting in return.
(mostly to dirk but nevermind that)
So when Jane shoves her foot in her mouth and tries to backpedal, Jake stops her, thanks her for speaking her mind, and almost instantly reassures her that he’s glad and relieved that she’s not interested in him while Jane scrambles to fix her blunder. But he doesn’t let her get a word in edgewise and launches into a conversation revealing that he’s been considering dating Dirk for a long time.
Ergo Jake takes the out Jane accidentally gives him, and then underhandedly informs her that he was more interested in Dirk the whole time. After all, any gent worth his salt would date Jane! But… what about Jake English?
The problem is that Jake can only set things up this way. He is terrified of disappointing people. Everything he did in the Trickster Arc, how his shortcut to “happiness” was cheerfully becoming a doormat for everyone’s desires, expounds on the idea.
I believe down to the bottom of my heart that if Jane hadn’t messed up and had successfully asked Jake out, he would have said yes. Because he doesn’t know how to say no. Because at this point in the narrative, he’s hitching his entire modus operandi to this nebulous idea of what he’s supposed to be, and it clashes with what he actually wants. Not just in regards to Dirk, but in the wider scope of his character.
Jake’s convinced he’s a cheerful extrovert when really he’s an intense introvert, and it puts him in this position where the only way he can get what he wants from people is in this quiet, underhanded way.
Jake wanted to date Dirk. So he let Jane stumble and mess up asking him out so Dirk would be the one to ask him out instead.
So he created a situation where he didn’t have to say no and could live in plausible deniability.
And from there obviously shit got Complicated, but Jake was not a shrinking violet with no agency in the situation. He’s a clever thing, which Jane never truly realizes.
Flying through Storytelling 