#mel hat

Great question!! Buckle up.

(There are some that I can think of multiple movies for each one, but I’m just sticking to one for each. If anyone has other suggestions I’d love to hear it!)

Misty - Never Been Kissed | Josie Grossie as played by Drew? This is such a Misty movie.

Tai - Love & Basketball | This taps into Tai’s competitive nature so much. There are others that remind me of her but I wanted to stick to a film with black leads.

Nat - The Outsiders | Oh, how I loved this book and movie. Rough around the edges with a lot of heart. Rebel Without a Cause is another I’d pick.

Shauna - Heathers | This was a hard pick! I settled on it because Shauna reminds me of Veronica in many ways. So smart and aware of social dynamics while also clinging to them. If people have better suggestions I’m all for hearing it.

Lottie - Donnie Darko | Not a comedy per se, but the struggles Donnie faces are very similar to Lottie. I’d also pick the Craft. Open to suggestions for Lottie.

Jackie - Clueless | Miss Queen Bee with a heart of gold is so very Cher Horowitz. There’s a lot of movies that fit Jackie though.

Travis - Stand By Me | Oh, how I love this movie and how it explores masculinity. This is the perfect amount of tenderness that makes me think of Travis.

Van - Ferris Bueller’s Day Off | Surprisingly I struggled with Van! A lot of movies fit my cinephile blorbo. But Ferris has Van’s approach to life and school pretty well. And he’s kind of an ass, like Van 😆.

Akilah - Now & Then | Akilah was hard to place! I think the fact that she’s really loyal and floats among friend groups lends itself to this movie, I also like making parallels to Travis and this movie is a great double feature with Stand By Me.

Mari - Bring It On | It’s witty, it’s sporty, it’s campy. It’s Mari! She’s also very SoCal to me.

Laura Lee - A Walk To Remember | Also not a comedy but she’d love this movie. Every churchy girl I knew loved this movie. It was tied between this and Saved! but I think LL wouldn’t enjoy the negative light of Christianity in that movie. Either way, my girl is riding for Mandy Moore.

Mel - Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure | Mel loves an adventure movie (Princess Bride) and is kind of a himbo with an earnestness. She’d love this. This movie is very VanHat.

Coach Ben - Dead Poet’s Society | I’d like to think Ben had a really important mentor in his high school days that inspired him to want to be a coach.

Gen - Bend It Like Beckham | This is the most Genlissa movie in the world. She’d love it.

Melissa Hat

Melissa would pick a Totodile as a starter because she saw Van pick one.

Porygon is her favorite, but she’s such a kind and encouraging trainer. All of her Pokemon adore her.

She coaches her Sharpedo to enter races and it wins quite a bit of awards.

It was @foggyeyes that brought up Melissa liking Alan Jackson and I envisioned her on a wakeboard in boots jeans and her hat like Alan in his ‘Chattahoochee’ music video. And well, here it is.

For those of you that don’t know this reference, please enjoy.

Mel Hat! Let’s take a stab at this…. Too soon?

Please note that I am disregarding a lot of her Adult TL canon, because I just don’t like SwankLissa’s plotline.

I am of the mind that Melissa comes from a family filled with brothers, likely older brothers. I think she grew up hearing them talk about women, objectify women, and ogling women.

She has such a toughness to her that I think that comes from standing up to older brothers. And she likely had a big crush on one or two of their girlfriends.

I don’t think Melissa dated pre-crash! She has a lot of awkward tendencies and likely felt very scared about her sexuality, or was in denial.

If she had, her mode of dating would be so cheesy and romantic! She is such a softie! I think she would look at what her brothers (or other shitty guys in school) were doing wrong and do the opposite.

I picture her saving her money for weeks to take a date out to a restaurant that’s way too fancy for some high schoolers, buying flowers, you name it. One of her favorite movies is ‘The Princess Bride’. Melissa is romantic as they come.

Post-rescue (I’m pretending the Hannah’s daughter plot doesn’t exist sorry). I could see her still faking her death and going down a hedonistic path!

This is from the smallest cutaway line where she asks Hannah about MTV’s the ‘Real World’ but she strikes me as having the urge to go party and do things that feel good.

Think spring break parties in Florida, (in the late 90s-2000s it was a whole lifestyle)

Then when she leaned into her sexuality, I think she was absolutely a Rainbow Gay. (I don’t mean that as an insult, I see it as her being really proud and feeling a lot of comfort in the gay community in the 2000s) I could see her being very active in the club scene and going to Dinah Shore weekend.

I could see her settling off in a warm place somewhere, either California or Florida.

She very likely went through a series of unfortunate lesbian hairdos you’d see on the L-Word. Never white girl dreads though. I think every survivor would find white girl dreads insulting. 1000% was a SnapBack lesbian.

She probably dated lots of women but had a tendency to love-bomb them before she did some self-work.

As a teen, I always picture her being into ska music for some reason. She probably listened to whatever her brothers listened to. I could see her getting into skating so maybe that’s where I get it from.

- Van uses their hackey sack to practice hand-eye-coordination.

- Van insists that everyone who makes fun of them for playing hackey sack is “just jealous”