in which i share a personal timeline of my favorite male characters

Hello, friends!

I hope you all aren’t tired already of hear me rambling about favorites, because apparently that’s all I can do. And also, I haven’t been feeling the sharing gripe recently. Trust me, I’m still always down to rant, but for the past few days, life has been so stressful and gloomy as it is, I haven’t felt like sharing any more negativity.

So, instead, I thought it would be fun to take a trip down to memory lane and share with you how my obsession with male characters hasn’t started yesterday. It pretty much goes down to when I was only six and hasn’t left me since.

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Honestly, if you weren’t a Latino kid in the early 2000s and have no idea what REBELDE is, then I can only be sorry for you.

Okay, but to actually give you some context: Rebelde was a Mexican telenovela, following this group of teenagers who were, indeed, rebeldes, in their prestigious boarding school. All the characters come from different backgrounds, some more privileged than others, and they end up forming a band halfway through the novela too and the songs are purely iconic.

I was actually re-watching it recently and it’s a shit show, truly. It’s definitely not appropriate for a six year old to be watching and most of the romantic relationships were incredibly toxic. But, you know, you can’t judge a 2004 show with a 2019 mindset, but oh boy if it was weird.

Nonetheless, Miguel is still probably the most good looking man I’ve ever seen in my life. (Perhaps, you may recognize him from Sense 8). If I ever walked into school one day, and there was a guy like him just standing there, I’d never leave either. His story was also really angsty and dramatic – he enrolls in this specific school because he wants to get revenge from a certain family but then ends up falling in love with a girl from this family -, so I was truly sold at that.

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Raise your hand if you also spent your entire childhood in front of the TV because of Disney Shows.

No, but really, not to get super controversial here but it pains me sometimes to think that parents these days try so much to protect their kids from TV. Not that I think it was healthy to spend so much time watching shows instead of playing, but some of the stuff I watched as a kid was what truly shaped me into the person I am today. Starting with Zack & Cody, truly.

(I decided not to talk about Troy Bolton, because tbh he’s still my crush to this day but he’d be a part of this, for sure. If I am the person I am now, it’s because of High School Musical, without a doubt).

The Suite Life of Zack and Cody was my favorite Disney Channel show and I still have a lot of fond memories of it. Cody was my ultimate favorite character too. He was really nerdy and awkward and his relationship with Bailey was probably the first ship I would’ve gone down with.

It’s also kinda funny how I loved Cody with the same intensity I hated Zack, probably because he was a troublemaker that could get away with *everything* and my Libra self was just not having it.

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I started reading Percy Jackson back in 2010 and I basically haven’t been the same since. I talk about this series way too much, but it is indeed my #1 favorite thing in the whole world. Plus, it was the one series that introduced me to the bookish online fandom, so I think it’s safe to say that without PJO all those years back, I wouldn’t have a blog today.

Thanks to Percy Jackson, I found out about Tumblr, and then, book recommendations from Tumblr users, and then Divergent, The Hunger Games, The Maze Runner and just the YA book community in general.

But this series wouldn’t be the same without Percy. (God, I hate to even think of a world without Percy. What would I be doing, then?) His personality is what makes this book so perfect. He’s hilarious, smart and very sarcastic. He’s brave and would go absolutely anywhere for the people that he loves. His sense of loyalty almost blinds him sometimes. I loved learning more about Greek myths with him.

Having read around ten books with Percy by now, I can safely say I’d read absolutely anything with him. If he was a real person, he’d be my favorite one ever.

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The truth is: if you were on Tumblr at all in 2012, you were watching Teen Wolf. There’s no way you weren’t. That’s classic TV for you right here.

Teen Wolf started out as this real trashy MTV show, but apparently Dylan O’Brien’s nose was so perfectly shaped it convinced all of us to continue watching and the show sort of blew up out of nowhere. And while it is very much true I only started watching this show because of the hype, I ultimately stayed because of the characters.

Granted: I gave up on the show by season five, but it was out of love. I liked these characters so much I didn’t want to ruin my idea of them by continuing on with the show that was becoming worse by the minute.

And Scott was the best of them. Sadly, the most underrated one too and everyone in the fandom sort of forgot about him, even though he was the protagonist (!), which makes no sense. He was the most thoughtful and amazing person. He literally couldn’t hurt a fly. He was carrying and kinda awkward and grows so much throughout the show.

If you start this out, hating how selfish Scott is for wanting to play lacrosse over taking responsibility on the fact he’s a werewolf, just wait. His character development brings me to tears every time.

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If you’ve read any of my posts before, you probably know by now I have a thing with The Maze Runner. It’s pretty intense. I’m just totally obsessed with this series and all of the characters.

I remember reading The Maze Runner in 2013 because it was my favorite book of the year. And I remember that specifically because 2013 was also the worst year of my life – I’d just changed schools and was being bullied pretty bad, but I had these characters to count on. It was also the moment I think I truly felt how reading can shield you from the outside world.

(Have you sensed yet there’s a trend with The Maze Runner books showing up at some of the lowest moments of my life and just brightening up my day instantly?)

Even though I love everyone in this and it’s hard to pick favorites, Minho was the one that caught my attention the most, probably because of his really spunky personality. He just takes no crap. He was really badass and also a runner, which is like the nicest role you can have in the Glade, but it didn’t make him an asshole.

Also, when Death Cure rolled around and I picked that one up, it broke me to see how, no matter how strong and badass he tried to come off as, he was still a huge softie inside with too much love for his friends.

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To be honest, I’m putting 2016 here but I don’t remember exactly when I watched this amazing K-drama that changed my life for good. It was the first drama I’ve ever watched and it is magnificent, truly.

You Who Came From the Stars follows our main character Do Min Joon, who’s an alien who’s been living on Earth for the past 300 years. His ship left without him and now he has to wait for it to get back, which only happens every 300 years. Two months before his expected departure, he meets Cheon Song Yi, this really loud drama actress, who moves to the apartment next door.

The dynamics in this drama are hilarious and the storyline is so well crafted. It’s truly perfection.

But Do Min Joon is the cherry on top. He has a very serious personality, but throughout the show, you start seeing more and more layers of him. He can also be really sweet, but a true badass with his alien powers. Plus, his knowledge and cardigans were so adorable. I died every time I got to see him expressing his true feelings and most importantly, seeing him smirk.

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Okay, I’ve rambled about male characters for almost 1.5k words for now, so I swear this post will be over soon. We’ve reached 2019 already, so soon you’ll be free, I promise.

Even though Jonathan is the one character from most recent years I can pin point as being a true obsession, I am not that attached to Stranger Things as a show. I still think it’s entertaining and great, but I do not care about anyone else with anywhere near close the intensity I love Jonathan. And the worst part is that I don’t even know how to explain why.

If I’m being honest, there’s nothing about Jonathan that caught my attention instantly. I don’t think the actor is particularly good looking (but I mean, with that hairstyle, who is?) and he wasn’t a protagonist either.

But there was something about his outsider-personality, or the way he looked like a bad-boy but was actually a really big softie who liked photography, dreamt of going to NYU, had an awful dad and was still loving and kind to his family like no one else that got me wrapped up. He’s the biggest sweetheart there is and the fact the show & the fandom just don’t appreciate him enough will leave me forever bitter.

(Like, I was legit trying to find Jonathan stickers on Redbubble and I couldn’t find a *single* one? Wth).

If you’ve reached this far in this IMMENSE post: thank you! Let me know in the comments if you relate to any of my favorite characters & what was your first book/TV crush ever and how much your taste on characters has changed over the years!