#today's rant

First, the chemistry between Mickey and Ian was so strong it far exceeded what the writers themselves had anticipated.

Second, none of Ian’s other partners even came close to replicating half of that connection.

To put it bluntly, they simply weren’t appealing. As fictional characters, they lacked the depth or magnetism that gives viewers a reason to care. Yeah, Mickey appeared over the course of five seasons, while Caleb and Trevor only had about one or two seasons’ worth of screen time. Some might say they just didn’t have enough time to show the same kind of charm Mickey did. But we also have to remember that Mickey was originally meant to end with s1. He probably had less screen time than Caleb or Trevor, even then. But the actor managed to create something unforgettable in that short time, and the chemistry with Ian was immediate and explosive. That’s why the story continued—s 2, s3, and beyond. Honestly, was there anything that special about Mickey in Season 1? He was straight-up disgusting, just some thug who messed with Ian, and even after they slept together, all they became was two guys who hooked up from time to time. Mickey didn’t just “luck into” five seasons; he earned it with performance and on-screen chemistry.

The second issue was the way the writers tried to force these unappealing characters onto the audience.

As you all know, with Caleb they deliberately tried to diminish Mickey in comparison. And as you all know, that strategy completely backfired. because it happened just as Mickey was sacrificing everything for Ian, while Ian was walking away to start a new relationship. No viewer who had followed Ian and Mickey for five seasons was going to suddenly say, “Oh right, Mickey was a terrible person. I’m rooting for Ian and Caleb now!”

So in season 7, the writers adjusted course. They stopped criticizing Mickey (in fact, they just stopped mentioning him altogether) and focused on exploring a new relationship with Ian’s new partner. Like how Mickey had formed ties with the Gallagher family, Trevor was given similar opportunities to bond with them and share space. It wasn’t a bad strategy on paper. I think the writers put a lot of effort into these two.

But the first issue was too big. Trevor simply didn’t have any chemistry with Ian, and so all those efforts ultimately amounted to nothing.

On top of that, by the end of season 7, the show’s future was uncertain, and the writers had to start wrapping up the characters' arcs. And their solution? They brought Mickey back. wow. After two full seasons of trying to convince the audience that Mickey was no longer needed, they chose to reintroduce him to bring closure to Ian’s arc. That decision, ironically, proved just how essential Mickey was to Ian’s story and to his life.

But to be honest, if we go even further back, the real problem started when they broke Ian and Mickey up in s5 for no good reason. And then, in s6, they gave Mickey a cruelly humiliating send-off.

Ian visiting him only after being paid by Svetlana? Okay, maybe you could argue it makes sense. (Actually no it doesn’t) But why would you then make the departing character tattoo the name of his ex on himself?

This was a character we had loved for five seasons. And yet, they sent him off in the most powerless and degrading way, only to immediately follow it with Ian falling for another guy and baking cookies for him? What exactly did they want viewers to feel when watching that?

Yes, there were external factors—budget issues, the actor wanting to leave, and so on. I get that. But even so, I still believe the choices the writers made in season 6 were consistently the worst ones possible.

What should’ve happened instead? Ian should have continued to miss Mickey. Then, when he eventually met the firefighter, he should’ve still been struggling with those unresolved feelings. (Yes, he briefly mentions something to Mandy, but that’s it.)

Just like Lip kept thinking about Karen while dating Mandy, or cared about Mandy even while dating Amanda, Ian should have had a slow, conflicted process of moving on from Mickey—not an abrupt one.

But they didn’t do that. They just trampled over every emotional landmine that Mickey fans(and even general viewers) had.

And yet… after all those terrible missteps, somehow, Mickey came back to us. It’s funny. It’s ironic. The string of terrible choices the writers kept making ended up bringing Mickey back to us. if they had done a better job, Mickey might never have returned. It’s truly funny and deeply ironic.

I will never forgive that s6 visitation scene, but I also sure that moment was the cosmic sign that Gallavich would be endgame.

Tumblr is back on its bullshit with content labels and pictures it deems 'sexually explicit'.

Just adding...

As I try to navigate my life in my freshly twenties, the topics of "dating, boyfriend, marriage, kids" are being discussed in my close circle of people. They always were tbf but as I get older it's more serious and therefore there's social pressure.

Let me firstly state, everyone's SO different and it's not a one size fits all advice, but I'll say...

You are only in your 20s once and you need to do whatever makes you happy and if it starts to making you unhappy and you've tried your best to fix it, let it go, Elsa. If it's meant to be it will come back. If it doesn't come back it wasn't for you.

And don't ignore "little things" just because it's easier to stay or "you think you can work on it". Especially if you express to them this and that is important to you, yet it never changes.

At no point in history has more women had this much financial power/freedom in society at any one point in time. Which I think is great, However I've never met a woman whose ideal plan is to date down financially. They're told they have to find a man to provide. Even when they're making good money.

I grew up with this weird juxtaposition of being essentially feral but also not?

I knew I could do essentially anything if I was out of the house but also nothing because I was still accountable to god and that's very confusing as a child. Like I could run around in fields and meet up with friends and mess around, talk to the earth and thank it whenever I took anything or shut myself in the spare room and watch my parents' vhs tapes which were probably not meant for children and what my parents didn't know wasn't gonna hurt them.

I knew I could play on the assumption that I was staying out of trouble by always being good at home. So I learned the art to acting sober and feigning shock when a film had an inappropriate part and having a planned route prepared for where I went all afternoon for a 'walk' but I could never get round that feeling of 'god knows'. No matter what I did or who believed my stories, it was never enough for that ever present judge in my head.

I was not doing anything worse than anyone else my age wasn't doing, I was probably a perfect child in any parent's view. But I always felt like an awful person because everything I did was Wrong and God was going to kill me because I spent my day sitting in a river and eating wild berries instead of reading my bible and I watched Jurassic Park in the evening instead of a JW vhs or doing my meeting prep.

I was a bookish kid so my parents always told me to go outside and enjoy the sunshine. Or it was probably a good time to do some religious shit, and why was I reading That instead of the bible?? The amount of times I took a pocket bible with me to go pet some cows or plunder a berry bush. And it burned a hole in my pocket because I knew I should be reading it because all of these things were from Him.

Like I had All the freedom and privacy but it all came with Expectations.

We've shut down the entire country to slow down the corona virus. We know very well that the older you are, the more dangerous it is. So. After one week of isolation, where the number of infected went down every day, the number shot through the roof this weekend because our idiot citizens are sick of isolation already.

Large groups of retirees out and about in the cities, walking and talking as close to each other as any other normal day. And when someone tries to gently tell them to maybe spread out a little... "We've been through worse than this, kid."

And on Friday, I saw four teenagers inside one goddamn tractor. And then I went to the store, and then those four idiots came into the same store not respecting the one meter apart limit and wandering around and touching everything.

People flock to parks, because being outside and getting fresh air is good for you, parking lots are overloaded with cars, because what's the point of using our miles upon miles upon miles upon miles upon miles of forest to be outside. We have so much forest every single one of us could be out and not see each other.

(From RB and BA, this weekend.)

Today, driving in to work... There was almost the normal amount of traffic.

I'm so childish in these situations that I think these people fucking deserve to get corona. They fucking deserve to struggle.

That lady living in China for work that VG interviewed last week, said she was feeling safer in China than if she would have to go back to Norway. And she's right. China has done everything right. It's all the other idiots who are the problem. Because of course Norway is safe from viruses because we pay taxes and we have our oil money, which we're now handing out to people who are laid off, and that automatically makes us immune apparently.

Well fuck you.

FUCK.

YOU.