i found jay’s black jacket (an ID guide)
This black jacket is worn by Jay about 9 times throughout Marble Hornets, including his final appearance. And after some weeks of on-and-off research, I think I know the exact make and model.
This post will detail exactly how I found it, and serve as a guide for anyone that wants to find the jacket, whether that's for cosplay purposes, or if you're just keen on collecting items related to MH.
Main post under the cut
Intro
The first step to identifying the jacket was to gather as many references as possible.
I went back to the web series and took screenshots from any entries the jacket makes an appearance. (shoutout to mg549′s very comprehensive MH wardrobe guide, without it this would’ve been much more of a pain)
Jay's jacket is, for the most part, very plain. It's a solid color, full-zip jacket, without any particularly eye-catching logos or other details. I had to look for moments where even the slightest distinction appeared clear on camera, at least as distinct as it can be. Even if it was just close-ups to get the shape of a zipper, or how many buttons are on a sleeve, it was the best I got.
While I did manage to find a decent amount of these, there was just one crucial detail that would've made finding it near-impossible; the brand is never shown. Thankfully, I had another resource.
In 2018 Troy Sold a Lot of Stuff
In early 2018, Troy officially announced that MH would be continued in a comic series. To fund the first issue, he held a number of auctions for production items used during the web series on Ebay.
These included items such as Jay’s camera, Brian’s hoodie, A Masky mask, and Jay’s black jacket.
Lo and behold, the jacket listing includes a picture with the brand in clear view. It's from Gap.
Ebay does not archive sold listings older than 90 days. However, Worthpoint, a website for valuing and pricing collectibles, does. Using Worthpoint I was able to find all of these items, (and a lot more, which can be found in this doc I submitted to Archive Hornets)
Identification
With the picture from the listing and the series screencaps, I had a complete ID list.
(Top image is from the Ebay listing, with the contrast adjusted a little for easier viewing. The bottom two images are from Entry #79)
The Gap logo (This specific logo dates the jacket being made anywhere between 1986 and 2009, when it first appears).
Front Zipper (Note the shape)
The two front pockets
The two buttons and pointed cuffs on each sleeve (Second one is a little hard to see but it's jusstt peeping out at the side)
The blue piping in the inner lining
The zipper in the right side inner lining
The gray mesh inner lining
With these in mind, I could now go to the next and longest step-
Finding the Jacket
I combed three resell sites; Ebay, Depop, and Poshmark. My main goal wasn't to actually purchase the jacket, (although, I would like to at some point) but to find a jacket listing that had every identifier, and have a more definite baseline for finding others. I needed to be sure what I had was enough to properly ID the jacket. The references I had stitched together were decent enough, but I wanted to see if there was something better out there.
After tons of page scrolling and tab-switching and comparing and contrasting, I finally got lucky.
(first two images are from crashthecloset's listing on poshmark, last six are from shannfo-76 on ebay)
I haven't bought one myself as of posting, but I feel pretty confident this is it. The jackets were already sold, but every marker seemed to be accounted for. It also revealed new ones, like the reflective pattern and pockets on the inner lining, (zipper on the right side pocket, button on the left pocket) and the materials tag.
With that, here's some final notes that may be helpful if you try looking for the jacket yourself:
Online sellers often describe it as a light jacket, a windbreaker, a 2-in-1, or 3-in-1.
"Gap Mens Black Jacket" is the search phrase I used the most since it yielded a (very) broad result pool.
Most of the jackets I found came from Poshmark or Ebay.
The exact size of Jay’s jacket is unclear. My best guesses are either a US Men’s S or M, since Jay was pretty skinny and of average height. I’ve only been able to find maybe 2 jackets that are a size M, one of which is the first pic in the photoset above.
Gap has sold other black jackets that look remarkably similar to Jay’s, and they do pop up on resell sites. One of these was so similar, the only discernible difference was the style of the logo. I highly recommend making sure it matches the exact one Jay had before purchasing. (It's also more than fine to ask/msg me if you have any doubts!) As long as you know what to look for, you shouldn’t have a problem finding at least one.
One detail that confounded me was this sleeve poking out of Jay's jacket. At first I thought he was wearing a long sleeve underneath, making this shot a continuity error since he appeared to Only be wearing the green short sleeve under the jacket.
@hivemite pointed out that this might be a two-in-one jacket, which has multiple layers for different types of weather. While I have not been able to see the sleeve outside of two shots in entry #79 and #80, one listing I found did describe it as a 3-in-1.
that's about it! hope this helps :)
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compiled a list of some of my favorite text-based games & VNs that are specifically wlw:
another round - You play as Maddie, a woman in love with a woman named Agnes. Actually, she hates her. Actually, it's complicated. You definitely broke things off with her. And you don't regret it. At least once. Yes. At least once per day, you don't regret ending it with Agnes. Except tonight. You definitely regret it tonight.
such, such were the joys - It is the year 19xx in England. You are returning to the town of Grayling after your first year at university to meet your old school friends: Cicily Thomas, Fatima Khan, and Susheela Rajaram. As the only Indian girls at Grayling Towers, the four of you quickly became close friends, but you haven't seen each other in a year. You're not sure what has changed since then, but this is your chance to find out.
florence - Florence lies in bed, cold and still. You watch over her and wait.
perseids, or, all this will go on forever - Four trans girlfriends go on a road trip to a dark sky park, to see the perseid meteor shower.
winter - an interactive fiction about sex, trans insecurity, and a girl with a skull for a face.
butterfly soup 1 & 2 (VN) - A visual novel about gay Asian girls playing baseball and falling in love.
birdland - At night 14-year-old Bridget Leaside dreams of fantastic lands full of strange bird people. By day she's a miserable anxious summer camper, trying very hard not to think about her feelings for the mysterious girl detective in Cabin 22. And when her dream life starts bleeding into reality, things are going to get weird for her in a whole bunch of ways...
a summer's end: hong kong 1986 (VN) - Follow the story of Michelle and Sam, and how their chance meeting evolves into a deeper romantic relationship. Set in vibrant Hong Kong in the year 1986, it is an original story about love, family, and culture.
one day hike - You go on a hike in a familiar wood.
a year of springs (VN) - experience the stories of haru, erika, and manami in A YEAR OF SPRINGS, a visual novel trilogy about a trio of friends navigating their feelings of love, connection, and just wanting to belong.
pageant - Your name is Qiuyi (Karen?) Zhao, and you’ve just been signed up by your parents for a beauty pageant. You’re not ready, not even close, but you don’t have a choice. But perhaps you can make the best of it.
new year's eve, 2019 (sequel to pageant) - You are Karen Zhao, a senior in college who is home for winter break, and seeing your old high school friends for the first time in years. You are not ready, not even close, but perhaps you could make the best of it.
the revenant's lament - Way out west, in the most lonesome of reaches, strange things are afoot. Cowboys around campfires tell ghost stories and tall tales, speak of impossible, supernatural things. They say the devil walks amongst men. They say he'll grant you impossible wishes at the cost of your eternal soul. They say he can bring dead men back to life.
venus meets venus - Two women meet in a bar. This is not a love story.
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Monkey Chase
I stepped off the loading ramp and got a good view of the reason why we’d landed in the wrong part of the spaceport. A giant cargo hauler lay on its side, broken and bent — had a ship crashed into it, or had the engine exploded? I couldn’t tell from here — and large slabs of spaceship insulation gel sprawled everywhere. The hauler’s cargo, clearly. As I watched, three people with a hovercart tried to shove one aside to no effect, and another slab as big as a cross-section from my old apartment on Earth slowly peeled off from inside the remains of the hauler. It hit the ground with the squishiest thud I’d ever heard - the thing was the color of smoke, but dense enough to make the ground vibrate from here.
I whistled, then regretted it when the tentacle alien on the ramp beside me scrunched up at the sound. “Sorry,” I told Mur.
“Ow,” he said, uncurling his blue-black tentacles. “Was that a human swear? It’s sharp.”
“More of a ‘wow-look-at-that’ kind of noise,” I said. “But swearing would sure be appropriate. What a mess.”
“You said it. Glad it’s not our problem.”
Captain Sunlight came down the ramp to join us, regal as ever in the bright yellow scales that had given her the name. “Our client isn’t answering,” she said. “I’ve put in a request at the local medcenter to see if they’ve been injured in this crisis, but haven’t heard back yet. Anyone interested is welcome to join me in walking over to where their ship was meant to be parked.”
Three other crewmates followed her out of the ship: Blip and Blop in their flowiest silks that both matched their fin colors and also showed off their biceps, and Zhee with his purple exoskeleton as shiny as always. They all made quiet noises of dismay at the state of the spaceport.
(Well, Blip and Blop seemed dismayed. Zhee was looking down his nonexistent nose at whoever had been careless enough to cause such a mess.)
Mur waved a tentacle. “Lead the way,” he said to the captain. “Here’s hoping the ship isn’t buried under all that.”
“Yeah, it looks heavy,” I said as we moved out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if a little ship could be crushed under that, especially if it also took damage from whatever kaboom happened in the first place.”
As we got closer, I made several observations in a range of importance. A medical shuttle was zipping off toward the city center while another appeared to be waiting around just in case; the medics were standing there chatting instead of tending to anyone. The gel slabs couldn’t be pushed, though they could be lifted with a big enough gravity platform. There was only one of those here. Cleanup was going to take a while. The slabs covered a large area of ground as well as a couple ship-sized lumps, turning the spaceport into a sea of smoky gray translucent rubber.
A small creature bounced around on it. People were shouting about that.
“What’s going on over there?” I asked.
Captain Sunlight sighed deeply and sped up. “I really hope that’s not our cargo.”
“Our cargo’s an animal?”
“Yes, among other things. I thought I told you, but I guess not; it was a last-minute addition to our load. Someone’s exotic pet.” She looked up at me with concern on her lizardy face. “How are your animal-catching skills?”
“Depends on the animal,” I said, squinting at the fast-moving thing. I was the critter expert on the ship, but I didn’t want to promise anything. “What species is it?”
“I’ll bring up the description in a moment,” Captain Sunlight said. “I think I see our client over there.”
She was right. The slender Frillian with a leash and an exasperated expression did turn out to be the person we’d come to meet, and the various spaceport officials on the scene had no any easy answers about how to catch his pet.
“Normally he comes running for food!” the client exclaimed. “But he’s got plenty to pick from here!” He pointed accusingly at the spill of fruit from a truck smashed open by a slab of gel.
“Oh, like that’s my fault?” said a Heatseeker who was busy gathering fruit. “Half my stock is ruined! Go catch your little menace and stop complaining.”
This led to a rant about how impossible the menace in question was to catch when he didn’t want to be — giving him a bath had to be done by trickery — and he was never going to come down from this playground full of food, and oh the man should have just paid for a transit that allowed him to bring pets.
Zhee muttered agreement at that last, but I don’t think the guy heard him. Spaceport officials offered calming words and a reminder that nets had been sent for.
Captain Sunlight asked one of them, “Is there an animal-handling service anywhere nearby?”
“Nowhere close,” was the answer.
She looked back up at me. “Any bright ideas? Here, I’ll show you the description.”
While she unfolded a screen and brought up the information from this particular courier gig, I watched the jumpy creature carefully. He was close enough for a good look now, since he’d come back to snatch another alien citrus off the ground, making the owner yell after him.
My first thought was “monkey,” followed by “frog.” The animal was long-limbed and green, though with velvety fur instead of an amphibian’s shine, and had a tail that could hold fruit just as well as his hands could. Pointy nose, round ears, and the biggest eyes of anyone here except for Zhee. He could probably see a person sneaking up from behind. He was fast. And he was clearly having a great time jumping from one bouncy surface to another, making chattering noises and spitting citrus peel everywhere.
“It’s called a treeleaper,” Captain Sunlight told me. “Warmblooded, diurnal, omnivorous, and ‘a bit of a troublemaker.’”
Mur snorted. “Sounds like your species,” he told me.
“Just with a tail,” Zhee added.
“I wanted a tail as a kid,” I said absently, thinking hard. I’d just caught sight of a shipful of humans disembarking nearby, on the other side of the biggest pile of gel. They looked like they were in pretty good shape. One was already walking on the gel and laughing about the bounce.
I had an idea. “Excuse me, Captain. I think I see reinforcements,” I said, then ran off toward my unsuspecting kinfolk. When I got close, I took great pleasure in yelling, “Hey humans! Who wants to help me chase a monkey across a trampoline??”
They were all smiles and questions, then when I led the way to where they could see the monkey-frog jumping around with stolen fruit, they volunteered immediately.
“I’ll get the small cargo net!”
“Do you think the big gravity wands will slow it down?”
“Bet you a cleaning shift that I can grab it in a towel.”
“You’re on!”
I told Captain Sunlight that I had successfully recruited some animal-catchers, and she didn’t bat an eye, just suggesting that our crew gather similar tools from our own ship. Zhee and the twins rushed off while Mur stayed to yell suggestions.
The other humans were already venturing into the bounce zone. I hurried to follow, grabbing a fist-sized lime thing from the ground as I did. We made a wide circle before closing in.
The treeleaper saw us coming, of course. Threw a half-eaten fruit at one person and made a rude noise at another, then sprang up to ricochet between surfaces like an unholy pinball.
Thus began a merry chase.
It brought back memories of bouncy houses and birthday parties at the trampoline gym. The gel was tough enough to take an impact without doing more than denting briefly and launching a person hooting into the air, to rebound off another surface and hopefully not smack into anyone else in midair. There were a couple close calls. But that just made everything funnier somehow.
I jumped off one gel wall with and hit another with my shoulder, making the monkey-frog turn a 180 back towards a pair of guys with gravity wands. He tried to spring away to the side, but I threw my lime to bounce off a surface nearby, spooking him enough to change direction yet again. Somebody slid down a gel slab like a rubbery playground slide, yelping as that turned into a wild tumble. The animal didn’t know what to make of all the flailing and laughter. His hesitation was enough for the gravity wands to lift him partway off the gel, then when he stuck a leg out far enough to jump free, he was immediately bagged by a grinning lady with a cargo net.
Everybody cheered.
The treeleaper growled and tried to scramble free, but no luck. Somebody else caught up and helped tie the net off with a scarf. Everyone settled down to minimal bouncing, and many hands worked together to carry the bundle of ropes and disgruntled animal back to solid ground.
“You got him! Is he okay? He didn’t sprain anything in that net, did he? I hope he didn’t eat too much fruit. He’ll do that if given the chance, you know.” The owner was grateful and worried and relieved and talkative.
Eggskin had arrived from our ship with a medical scanner, and thankfully they could put everyone’s mind at ease about the state of our animal cargo. The treeleaper was fine. It had a stomach full of fruit and a bloodstream full of adrenaline, but all it needed was a nice nap in its carrying cage.
I considered asking why it hadn’t been in the carrier before, when the rented shuttle got its windows smashed, but I didn’t.
A small hand patted my back, as far up as it could reach. “Earning your keep once again,” said Captain Sunlight.
I laughed. “That was my pleasure.”
Another human lingering nearby asked, “Is there anything else that needs catching? That was great.”
“Yeah, you should sell tickets to this!” agreed another.
A Frillian in a port uniform said, “No, but thank you.” She paused, then added, “Hm. I wonder if that’s worth suggesting to the owner of all this insulation. It’s useless for its intended purpose now that it’s breached the sanitation shielding.”
I smiled. “It still makes an excellent trampoline even with footprints all over it. Lay those out in an empty field and charge people entrance, and they could make back a decent amount of money. You get plenty humans through this port, right?”
The woman who’d caught the treeleaper said, “We’re here early for a family reunion before the big festival, then there are three or four sporting events in a row. Let us know if that does happen, because we can get you a lot of humans interested in jumping on this stuff.”
I had to leave with the animal cargo back to our courier ship, so I didn’t hear how the rest of the conversation went, but I saw the official bring the representative of the hauling group over to meet the humans. He looked very interested in what the spokesperson had to say.
I grinned at the scene as I walked away: the intense conversation in front of the vast playground of bouncy surfaces. I wondered if we’d get a chance to come back for a visit when they got it set up properly.
~~~
The ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book. More to come! And I am currently drafting a sequel!
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