Bruno: Isabela? What are you doing?

Isabela: Writing Mariano a friendly letter.

Bruno: Does that part say "If you upset Dolores, I'll destroy you so thoroughly that the very memory of you will be lost to the horrors of your fate"?

Isabela: Yes, I'm giving him a warning. A friendly warning. Like friends do.

Bruno: Oh, that's alright then.

Do you still write Encanto: A male friend of Mirabel help saves the Miracle and Mirabel gets injured ?

Yes, I’m trying to find the right way to do the dinner scene better than before.

Also I didn’t finish part 3 of the Mirabel gets injured; Pepa needs a break, so let’s her Julieta for now

Oh Boy have I made a discovery

GILMORE GIRLS | 3.08 "Let The Games Begin"

+ bonus:

Why does everybody, including Rory, assume that school would be easy for Jess? Because he's smart? Because he's well-read?

Being well-read would do exactly nothing to help Jess pass chemistry, algebra, or Spanish. Reading every book on the planet doesn't mean Jess has the executive functioning skills necessary to study or manage his homework.

And we KNOW that Jess' schooling was interrupted. They moved constantly, which means Jess changed schools constantly. Liz was financially unstable and completely disengaged as a parent: both of those things lead to school absences. If Jess missed entire chunks of math and science, no amount of natural intelligence magically erases that.

AND Jess has obvious mental health issues. You know what makes it really hard to succeed in school? Intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, chronically high anxiety, hypervigilance, poor sleep patterns, and a lack of social skills needed to ask for help. Doesn't matter if you're the smartest human on Earth: nobody can pass a physics test if they're in the middle of a panic attack.

It bugs me that everyone collectively rolls their eyes at Jess' school problems. It's entirely based on the (wrong and VERY dumb) assumption that if he simply walked into the school building and put pencil to paper, he'd instantly ace his classes.

I don’t know how I never realized this but…. does isabela ever actually speak to mariano in the movie? Sure she’s sat beside him at dinner and is around him at some points but do they ever actually have a conversation?

Funnily enough I think mirabel actually spoke to him more than isabela did so that should have been sign number one she was NOT into this man💀 every scene where isa and Mariano are together it’s always Mariano who’s saying something and isa just says nothing and strains a smile.

i reeeally thought that we would continue to follow jess' life in california even after rory and he broke up. i was very optimistic.

DANA’S 4K CELEBRATION: Jess/Rory + See You Later (for @i-will-sing-no-requiem) (want one?)

a fellow gg mutual said to me shane was jess's version of crazy carrie (who hooked up with luke in hs) and i cant stop thinking about it😭

Mariano Incubo

Nicknames: Monsieur Brouillard (Rook), Coelacanth (Floyd), Maria/Mar-Mar (Cater)

House: Octavinelle (Twice transferred from Scarabia and Heartslabyul)

Class: Junior, 3-A

Age: 18

Birthday: April 13th (Aries)

Height: 237 cm

Dominant hand: Right

Homeland: Shaftlands (Southern)

Club: Basketball Club

Best subject: Astrology

Hobbies: Exploring nature

Favorite food: Plain porridge

Least favorite food: Sweets (in general, he does not like sugary foods)

Talent: Whistling

Signature spell/Unique magic: "Wander for a While", entraps the target in a dark mist, which clouds their immediate memory and instills an incredible amount of fear, evoking the feeling of being "lost in the woods". Becomes less potent if used on the same target more than once.

The "misty-haired monster", a half-nymph student of Octavinelle. He has a dangerous aura around him, though he only wants a friend.

Personality: Mariano is a very gentle person, though he is not social and rather clumsy or stilted in conversation. The inflection of his voice makes him sound very threatening or "creepy" at times, and combined with his towering height, he is the root of many students' fears.

He is often the victim of rumors and scandals and has a certain reputation around the school, despite being so reserved. He's incredibly lonely; However, because of the discussion around him, he has a lot of anxiety towards others. He prefers to keep to himself anyway, fearing what those who approach him truly think of him.

He doesn't like to use his UM that much, and will try to remove himself once the spell is active. Seeing others afraid causes him distress, but he worries that he may only make the problem worse if he tries to help.

can’t believe that i have to point this out to people (in general, not you) but jess never starts fights. i mean, sure, he mouths off and he’s sarcastic and very very good at pissing people off, but he’s never the guy that throws the first punch. not with that jerk in season 2 who he warns to back off. not with dean, even when he tries to pick a fight on thanksgiving. not even in keg max after rory comes crying down the stairs. and maybe it’s just cause he’s 5’8” and a small scrappy guy, but he clearly has the power to land a solid punch, he just never ever punches first and i love that about him.

YES!!! it's actually so funny he never throws the first punch he just is an instigator purely by being bitchy and snarky and then he immediately gets hit. even the smallest things he does makes rory's bfs so unreasonably mad (WAVING at dean in the inn, taking the trash out, working at the diner, writing a BOOK). logan tries to do this to him in Balalaikas but he SEES through the bait okay he settles for a bitchy comment and then removes himself from the situation like his theoretical therapist probably told him to do. and he always has a reason to be in a fight with someone too, he's either defending himself or the guy he's fighting is being a jerk. like with TJ he tackles him but it's out of an instinctual reaction to probably being pushed around by liz's boyfriends in the past since it's implied she didn't exactly date the greatest guys nor did she care how jess felt about them. in general jess + violence is very interesting to me bc he's scrappy in the sense that he's used to getting in physical altercations with people and also because he acts like a cornered animal in a way that makes me to stick him with needles and look into his brain. What happened to you boy Why are you so prickly as a self defense mechanism. like for some reason jess just cannot help himself he HAS to say something and poke the bear he's that painting of the jester on top of a wall mocking a pack of dogs trying to kill him except he falls off the wall every time. Slay little boy honestly

jess + violence thesis personally i think he was justified in every single one of these you shouldn't be punished for being a little shit if you're objectively funny about it

Alrighty, time to get into my theory about how each of Rory’s three main love interests represent different versions of the bad boy trope! So, I’ve seen some discourse about how certain characters are not actually bad boys and how others are and how that relates to Rory, and it made me go into this big reflection over what defines the bad boy archetype and how it’s changed from iteration to iteration. Long story short: it made me realize that all three of the boys (yes all of them) are one version each. So here’s a massive rant where I explain how that works, with Dean as the «good boy gone bad», Jess as the «bad boy made human» and Logan as the «rich bad boy».

Note: I am writing this as someone who ships literati, so know that my analysis will be biased. That being said, I want to focus on how the boys inform the bad boy archetype (and the other way around) and not on the value of their relationships to Rory. So think of this as a defense/deconstruction of certain characters rather than another round of «who should Rory have ended up with?».

Out of all the boys, Dean is the one who is rarely defined as a bad boy, and with good reason. Seasons 2 and 3 played him up as the «good» against Jess’ «bad», he is routinely described as the perfect first boyfriend (and by Lorelai no less), and he’s the one with the most traditional small town outlook on things (liking the concept of a housewife, being a chaste boyfriend in the first round, getting along with the parents etc). But that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of people despised him by the end of the show, since he cheated on his wife with Rory and made her the other woman. And I think this very action is what solidifies him within the good boy gone bad-trope. I haven’t found a lot of writing on this sub-trope (although one could argue it falls under the face-heel turn trope), and it has very vague limits, but I believe that it exists anyway. A good boy gone bad is a male character that started out in a piece of fiction as all around «good». He respects rules, gets along with parents, might even be a bit of a «nice guy» with/without the entitlement. But something in the story (sometimes a build up) will trigger the good boy’s transformation into a bad one. Sometimes it’s getting sick of being an outsider/underdog, sometimes it’s triggered by romantic conflict. I would argue that this transformation begins for Dean when Jess and Rory get together. While Dean has been a jealous and arguably possesive boyfriend before he breaks up with Rory, he still hasn’t done anything that properly makes him a “bad boy”. But once Rory and Jess are a couple everything changes: he threatens Jess in private, insinuates that he can manipulate the situation to his favour and that he can «steal her back», physically fights Jess at one point and arguably marries Lindsay in part to rouse jealousy in Rory. This transformation is fulfilled once he has sex with Rory for the first time while still being married. He might continue keeping the good boy image, and his infidelity is definitely turned into something that harms Rory’s image more than his, but his actions still qualify for the subtrope. (I also want to note that Dean is introduced in season 1 with a leather jacket and love of motorcycles so… do what you will with that information)

In spite of how often Jess is defined as the bad boy of the show — and by other characters in the show at that — a lot of viewers don’t actually think of him as one. And that’s understandable. I think a lot of people in my generation and onwards have grown up with very simplistic iterations of bad boys that follow the formula to a T. They’re aggressive, violent, wildly sexual and usually downright toxic (see: After-series, Jacob post-transformation in Twilight, 90% of erotica novels). And the women in these stories usually exist to «give in to animalistic urges» and heal the bad boys with their love. Taking even the quickest glance at Rory and Jess shows you how this is not the case. He’s more basket case than sex god, is repeatedly denied second chances at love with Rory, and has to heal and improve without her, out of frame. But I don’t necessarily think this makes him less of a «bad boy». While I despise the overuse of the term «realism» in popular media analysis, Jess is arguably a «realistic bad boy». He embodies most classic bad boy tropes (if not all of them), but each trope is then humanized within him. Jess gets into fights, but the two moments we know about in detail are with a bully and with Dean (and both fights are initiated by the others, not Jess). He’s the first boyfriend that Rory acknowledges/explores her sexuality with, but they never technically consumate (and good for Rory, the Keg! Max! scene is a massive yikes). He’s a high school drop-out, but because he worked too many shifts at Walmart. He reads classic literature (yes, a lot of bad boys in media do this) but is a total nerd about it (see: Bukowski v Austen). He has mommy- and daddy-issues, but they are fleshed out and given the space to exist on their own rather than as in relation to Rory and making her love him more. And while he heals through love, it is not through the active romantic love of Rory, but the familial love of Luke and his eventual love for himself. A crucial factor for Jess is that he gets to exist outside of the romance. His most important relationship in the show is perhaps not with Rory but with his uncle Luke. It is this relationship that introduces him to Stars Hollow and it’s this relationship that officially heals him. The last time we see Jess in the original run, when Rory admits to trying to hook up with him as revenge against Logan, Jess claims that he deserves better. And he does. He’s a human, and more than that, he has spent years working to become the person he has become and to get a chance at a loving and respectful relationship. Jess still loves Rory enough when he lets her go to not hold a grudge, but he also now loves himself enough to know he deserves better than to be the other guy twice. He is the bad boy made human.

But whenever people argue that Jess isn’t a bad boy, they usually claim that another boy in the show is. And while I still think Jess is a bad boy, I don’t think that means that Logan isn’t one. Logan simply fits into a very specific subtrope: the rich bad boy. I can’t trace the origins of the rich bad boy, but my (and probably many’s) first introduction to the trope was Chuck Bass from Gossip Girl. Where the classic bad boy has a problem of reputation and in some cases specifically struggles economically, the rich bad boy is partly bad because of his wealth. The daddy issues come from a tyrannical capitalist father who expects his son to be a carbon copy. Instead of a motorcycle he drives limousines and expensive cars. His sexuality is informed by lavish parties, a casanova-lifestyle and general hedonism. While the classic bad boy drags the woman «down» into his world, the rich bad boy drags her «up» into his world of wealth and «civilized» violence. The woman exists to bring the rich bad boy «down to earth». To teach him values of fidelity and kindness, and to show him he is more than his money/work. And as a reward the woman gets to live out the materialistic fantasy: expensive gifts, exclusive balls, luxurious trips around the globe, you name it. If the classic bad boy is about the inherent eroticism of anger/violence, the rich bad boy is about the inherent eroticism of wealth. And Logan fits this archetype to a T. His initial relationship with Rory is «no strings attached», he apologizes with expensive gift giving, and he introduces her to exclusive hedonistic circles like the Life and Death Brigade. He cheats, he recklessly gets into dangerous situations to simply feel something, he has a dysfunctional relationship with his father, and he loves Rory partly because she simultaneously does and doesn’t «belong» in his world. I also think that either end for him (breaking out of his father’s shadow or falling back in it) is realistic for the rich bad boy. Which end he gets simply depends on whether the author desires an endgame relationship for the rich bad boy or not.

So that’s it. Mind you, me categorizing Rory’s boyfriends as different kinds of bad boys doesn’t necessarily mean I would tie them exclusively to that trope. The Gilmore Girls writers did an incredibly good job at writing fleshed out characters that grew outside of their stereotypes and created their own molds. And one could argue that if you make the definition of a bad boy broad enough, most flawed boyfriends will fit into the trope in some way. That being said, I’m currently standing by my analysis. Not only do I think it’s fun to view the guys through such a lens, I think it helps flesh out Rory too. She isn’t necessarily drawn to ‘bad’ men, but her track record does show that she deals with a lot of inner conflict about her love life, and that this is externalized with incredibly flawed (and sometimes ill-timed) relationships to men who have a lot to figure out themselves. Honestly I’ll probably pull a full analysis on her love life one day too, just not yet.

At the end of the day I think who people root for depends on what kind of bad they’re either drawn to or willing to excuse. If you like the idea of someone going mad/bad with love, you might prefer Dean. If you like a character who is undeniably human (as in has good sides but can be so so so flawed), odds are you’re a Jess-person. And if there’s just something about grand gestures and finding a «real» person in a sea of «fake», you’re probably a fan of Logan. It really is a case of personal preference.

just thinking about how Rory runs out of the house to catch Jess and shows him 'the first three chapters!' and squeals as she shakes him by his coat and I just- she is actually the cutest.

MILO VENTIMIGLIA as BILLY HANOVER in the unsold pilot of GRAMERCY PARK (2004)

(x)

Can we just talk about how fucking sucky it is that Jess doesn’t tell people the truth because he know they won’t believe him?

When Rory loses her bracelet and Jess leave sit in her room for her to find and when Lorelai accuses him of stealing he knows no matter what he says she won’t believe because she’s made up her mind about who she thinks he is.

When he gets attacked by the swan? He doesn’t want to tell Rory because he knows she determined to believe he picked a fight with Dean and there’s no point trying to convince her otherwise.

It’s completely unfair.

Also I really don’t think we discuss Lorelai bullying Jess enough. Because it’s not ok. It is so far from ok for her dump on him the way she does and it’s completely unfounded. She made a snap judgement from one conversation and she can’t let it go.

Like Jess obviously has a lot of traumas and justified anger at Liz and the world in general and he doesn’t do well with communication, but Lorelai was the adult. She should have been more compassionate. And she always felt justified because Dean agreed with her(which he only did because he knew he was losing Rory to Jess). Rory tries several times to remind her that she doesn’t know Jess and she needs to give him a chance(even going so far as to remind her that she didn’t like Luke when she first met him because he was so surely and grumpy, but then she got to know him and realized he wasn’t so bad) and Lorelai just gets mad at her and claims it’s not the same thing because “she knows kids like Jess” which is bullshit. She grew up incredibly privileged, with parents she may not have liked, but who were always there and did try to do what was best for her.

Jess grew up with a flaky, substance abusing single mother who was as far from reliable as she could possibly be. I would bet anything that he grew up with nothing. And I can guarantee he’s spent his entire life feeling unwanted and like a burden.

Lorelai has no idea who Jess is and she doesn’t want to know him. Like everyone else in Stars Hollow she made a snap judgement and refused to believe Jess was anything other than trouble.

When really Jess is troubled. Jess is lonely, angsty teenager who’s never felt loved in his life. Of course he got attached to Rory, Rory was the only person, aside from Luke, who got to know Jess, who liked him, who cared about him. And Lorelai was adamant he shouldn’t have that either. And frankly it makes me mad. In case you couldn’t tell.

Thinking about the fact that Jess Mariano is the actual reason Rory Gilmore really goes back to Yale instead of whining over privileged rich kid problems till the end of time