Seven

Alright friends, I’ve compiled a list of all of the songs used in Gallavich scenes (plus a few individual scenes), and let me tell you, reliving Gallavich musically is one of the best (& sometimes heartbreaking) things ever.

Spotify playlist here & song breakdown under the cut! (anything with an asterisk (*) means it wasn’t available on Spotify)

-Jewel-Osco is the most common grocery store. Most people just call it "Jewel" (no article, just Jewel. Like I said, no one calls it "the Osco" like Trevor does in S7). Aldi and Mariano's are probably the second most common. -There are two Walmarts in Chicago proper. Both are on the northwest side, weirdly close to each other. There are regular and mini Targets kind of all over, though. -Transit is really good here. There are buses everywhere, the L is great compared to other cities I've lived in. But Chicago is huge and it takes forever to get anywhere. I used to live on the south side (further south than where Shameless takes place) and worked in Wicker Park 10+ miles north and it took me approximately an hour and a half or more on transit to get to work and usually 2 hours to get home.

-There are like zero protected left turns (aka left turns that have a light telling you to turn left and everyone else to wait) in Chicago. It baffles me. When people want to turn left they just wait for there to be a gap; everyone behind them wanting to go straight just goes around them. -When it rains here, the sky dumps the entire lake on your head for about 15-30 minutes, then it stops raining. It rains more in the summer than the winter. People get caught in the rain and then come indoors looking like they jumped in a pool with all their clothes on. I've literally handed out paper towels to customers at work. -There is a distinct difference between street cleanliness in the richer vs poorer areas. In the south side (and where I'm living now in the more westerly northwest), there's trash all over the sidewalks and in the gutters and stuck on fences and things. -There are loads and loads of abandoned houses in the south side. My last apartment had abandoned lots behind and abandoned houses in front/to one side. Sometimes a group of guys will commandeer the stoop of an abandoned house to hang out on. -The beach that is directly east of the Gallaghers is called Oakwood beach. It's kind of a weird indirect trek to get there by transit. It's a party beach, there's tons of people there all the time and it's covered in so much trash and old fireworks and goose shit compared to other beaches in richer areas or even the ones directly south of it closer to UofC. -The Red Line of the L in particular has people selling drugs on it all the time, with far more frequency than most other lines. In general, it's a bit more rowdy than other lines. (The Gallaghers would probably get on the red line at 43rd? I'm not entirely sure exactly where their made up address is supposed to be.)

-People drive like maniacs here. I describe it as people driving like they learned by playing GTA5. Last year I was an in accident where someone was driving the wrong way up an on ramp as I was trying to get onto the freeway. -Scammy evil tow truck companies are an Actual Problem (this could make an interesting scam plot for Mickey). Like, enough of a problem that there is a form you can fill out specifically to report scammy evil towing companies. -"Other side of the river" isn't really an indication of anything (esp because the river bends), but sometimes it's an indication of short distance. Like, I'd say the closest Trader Joe's to my apartment is "on the other side of the river" because that is a straight shot distance of about four miles east. -If you want to talk about where someone is from or where something is, there are actual neighborhood names. Those do mean something, and also are a lot more directionally clear. -A single ticket for the L is $2. One bus ride is $2.50. You can get Ventra cards that you can load any amount onto. Most people have that (either a physical card or just the app) if they commute frequently. You can't use your ventra card on the Metra for some stupid reason; they've raised the price to like $3.75 now or something. -There are electric bikes and scooters all over the place that you can use. (I'm too scared to bike in Chicago because I've watched enough people get hit or nearly get hit.) People just leave them all over the place. One sat in my apartment building entryway for months before the company that owned it came and picked it up. -Two classic Chicago sandwiches that are not deep dish pizza or hot dogs: the Jim Shoe (or Gym Shoe or Jim Shoo) and wet beef. Look up the Jim Shoe. It's a lot. I think Mickey would devour it. -There's a huge Polish population here and also a huge Puerto Rican population. Also, this is something that has been a criticism of Shameless for a while, but the demographic of the area the show takes place is mostly Black. -This is a COVID-related thing (that is also obsolete after November 2024 I think) but there are no pharmacies in the south side that are participating in the Bridge Access Program that will give people without insurance free COVID vaccines. -Nobody gives a shit about tornado warnings. Tornado sirens or the phone alerts go off and people go about their business as usual. Last month there were a bunch of days of tornado sirens/alerts in a row and I remember looking out the window as the sirens went off and my neighbor was just in his chair on his porch smoking and not giving a single shit about anything. -Chicago has the worst bedbug problem of any US city. (Luckily it's legally the responsibility of the landlord to take care of the problem -- at least, if you know that it is and bother them about it.) -Speaking of bugs, house centipedes are a thing. They're not dangerous; they eat smaller pests kind of like daddy long leg spiders do, but they're basically living jump scares. -Everyone who does not live/work in Wrigleyville generally does not want to deal with going to or being in Wrigleyville. -Spring and autumn weather is about 3 seconds long. It's mostly either winter or summer. -There are little heated shelters at most of the outdoor train stations where you press a button and heated lights turn on to stand under. They turn on between October and March. These have been super helpful when I've gotten out of work and the next train isn't for 20 minutes. -Clark/Lake is kind of the main L station in the loop that most of the lines run through. It's outside but covered and I've had some of my weirdest public transit experiences there. -The streets are pretty diligently plowed/salted in winter (though some poorer areas or less frequented streets get neglected). Cars rust out a lot faster here because of the salt. -This happened in my coworker's neighborhood earlier this year:

-There are a gazillion outdoor festivals. If a festival blocks off a street, it's free (but the organizers often ask for a "suggested donation"). Wicker Park Fest happens directly outside my job every summer and it's chaotic and loud. Could be another good Crime Mechanic for Mickey. -Google Maps tends to break if you're walking around in the Loop. It just cannot figure out where you are or what direction you're going. -Juneteenth is a bigger deal than New Years fireworks-wise, but I heard more gunshots at New Years than Juneteenth

AHHH. YOU BET!! minor spoliers? (for the people like me who watch shows years after they ended)

I could talk for actual hours over this show, it a little difficult without anything specific thing so i lowk just spun the wheel of names to see what character it landed on and we got Debbieeee

Debbie is a bit of a difficult character to write about due to the person she grew into, but that alone is why I'm honestly really excited to talk about her as a character cuz I think she is a GREAT example of her circumstances.

When we are first introduced to the Gallaghers, each sibling is kinda given a stereotypical role. Fiona, being the eldest, has her as the caretaker (the Mother, the Matriarch). Lip's knowledge has him as the smart one (the Golden Goose, the Sage). Ian's sexuality has him as the Outlier (the Black Sheep, the Outcast), and Carl's unpredictability has him as a comic relief (wild card, jester). (I could do an entire section for Liam, but he wasn't really a character until the later seasons.)

All of these traits are shown for each sibling from the very first episode and even follow most of them throughout the rest of the seasons.

Fi continues to watch out for her family (until S9 E14).

Lip is still considered smart even after his college arc.

Ian's sexuality still separates him from people (Shim).

Carl still remains unpredictable and random. (I do think his character showed a lot of change throughout the seasons, but this one ain't about him lol.)

But Debbie?

When we first meet Debbie, she is quite literally described as a pure angel (S1 E1 "Pilot" 01:12-01:30): "Ah, Debbie, sent by God. Total angel." Her character is introduced as what I would consider hope. She is shown as selfless, kind, caring—the Innocent

The first episode of Shameless goes into the depth of how Frank manages to be a horrible father, how he teaches through neglect and abandonment, leaving Fiona with the burden and responsibility of watching after her siblings. The show makes it evident that Lip, Ian, and Fi all hold resentment towards their father for his instability, for how he excuses his lack of teaching by the existence of it. With the audience aware that Debbie's age would make her the next to come to this realization, the viewer almost holds their breath at her kind actions toward Frank. Her blindness to the situation.

Season 1, Episode 1, "Pilot," 36:23-36:49—Debbie putting a pillow under Frank's head as he's passed out drunk.

Her character back when she still viewed him as what he was meant to be: a father. Not as the addict or druggie her siblings saw him as.

Debbie's character is meant to be something that the viewer can almost cling onto. Similar to watching a young animal be hunted by a predator. You know what its future will be, but because of its youth and innocence, you begin to hope for another outcome—one where that animal is able to get away.

"The American Dream," S3 E2, 38:55-39:47. Frank tries to break back into the house as Lip, Ian, Fiona, and even Carl try to keep him out. He runs up the stairs into Debbie's room as the rest of the siblings try to drag him out of the bed before he eventually runs into her school project, ruining it.

This part alone is the breaking point for Debbie—the start of the change for her character throughout the rest of the show. We are quite literally able to watch the difference, as during the start of the scene we hear her defend her father: "Lip, don't." "Stop it, guys! Stop!" "He didn't even do anything..." Up to this point, the only thing she ever fought for in this family was peace. She couldn't understand why her siblings weren't able to forgive Frank because she still viewed him as her dad, but once he broke her project she began to understand the perspective everyone else was looking from.

Frank breaking the little wood house became the first changing factor, as Debbie's response was far from passive, far from peaceful, and far from pure. Her beating her father with a bag of soap was her "growth" from adolescence. This was her form of defense, a form of violence. It was a survival realization. She became aware that Frank would not be able to help her the way she helped him. "How could you do this to me?"

And this trait followed her character. She quickly started to understand that to live on the South Side she would have to defend herself and began to act on more violent concepts. S3 E5, "The Sins of My Caretaker," 54:30-55:16: "Oh my God! I totally almost drowned a slut! She was kicking and scratching, but I held my breath and hung on until she passed out..." Compared to the girl who placed a pillow under her father's head and raised money for UNICEF year-round, her actions began to differ.

And as the season continued, she loses this innocence we remembered her having because she realizes that promises can't get you far when everyone has their fingers crossed, glitter only keeps you safe if it's in someone's eyes, and that Frank Gallagher isn't the type of father to show up to the daddy-daughter dance.

So she chases after the rest of her family.

But Lip, Ian, and Fiona still see her as the little girl she is. They still view her as someone who needs to be protected from the wrongs of the world, from addiction and poverty, but she understands what this is now and wants to make herself useful.

So Debbie tries to grow up, and she tries to grow up fast.

In the very first scene of Season 4, we see her mimic the actions of Fiona, from the way she acts to the way she dresses. She starts to hang out with more promiscuous characters like Holly and uses more aggressive/hostile language. She is shown having more conversations with Mandy—a character who, from the first time we meet her, is associated with sex and violence. She does all of these things in hopes of showing her siblings that she's no longer the defenseless animal caught in a fence.

With time, she begins to realize that her attempts to show her age weren't working how she wanted, so she felt this need to make her actions more extreme by following after an idea that only teenagers and adults do: sex.

But why stop there!? Debbie doesn't just want to be included; she wants to be trusted. She wants her family to know they are able to rely on her. She wants them to tell her what's happening and believe that she will be able to assist with the problem and fix it.

So Debbie asks herself, what type of person is someone who's always there? Fiona's always there, but what kind of person is she? She's almost like a mother.

Debbie then becomes obsessed with this idea that her getting pregnant and giving birth will make her worthy enough to be trusted, and it's not like she isn't good with kids because, down in her heart, she still is that kind little girl who would put a pillow under her father's head. She's still the kid who was said to be a gift from God. She's still innocence, even if she's no longer seen that way.

But at the end of all of this, I can't help but wonder: why is she the most disliked Gallagher? Why is she one of the most hated characters in the show? How come so many people would rather curse out her name over Frank's? Because she is a victim of her circumstances. She is a victim of nothing other than her own actions. The audience wished for her to become something other than the prey being hunted, unaware that the "other" was the animal hunting. She became the things we liked her for not being. We met Frank knowing he was dirt; we met her thinking she was hope

anon the floodgates you have opened within me...

okay, so, in canon mickey calls ian a bunch of shit; "gallagher," "red," "firecrotch" etc. most of them are plays on his hair, and they've got a sort of cheeky air to them whilst still toeing the line of not really being pet names. i think he uses those ones so he can play them off as nicknames without showing off how much he really cares for ian.

but his sweeter names, the ones that explicitly state they're together, are more along the lines of "lover," "partner," "my old man," "stud," that sort of thing. even when he's being a little bitch, he calls ian "baby face" and "sugar tits." the names are all a little old fashioned, more something you'd hear in a sitcom from a past era.

i like to think that mickey got his ideas of love from two places: ian and tv/movies. think about it, ian was the first guy he loved, the first one he was ever in a real relationship with, and it's pretty clear he's learning as he goes (what's that one quote? i saw it on a gallavich gif edit once and it went something along the lines of "he had the awkward hands... of someone learning to love as he went." i wish i could remember the full quote, but it was so viscerally mickey that the sentiment stuck with me even when the quote didn't) anyway, he's learning what a relationship is from ian, and pet names are probably a part of it. we only get ian calling mickey "baby" once in the show, but from the way he says it and the fact that mickey barely reacts, we can assume that it's a common thing.

but, mickey would probably never call someone baby, cause it just doesn't feel right to him. so that's where that second influence comes in; tv and movies. i can totally imagine young mickey, staying up late with mandy, watching reruns of some old shows as they try to ignore the horror that they live in. or watching a movie while terry sleeps on the couch across from him, the volume down low and the subtitles on. he watches these men call their wives things like "doll" and "sweet" and "angel" and i think he holds onto it. thinks that maybe it wouldn't be so bad to call someone those things when he's older.

and then he gets ian. and ian calls him "baby" and "honey" and "sweetheart" and all these mushy things, so mickey thinks he should probably call him a few things back. so he starts calling ian "doll," "pretty," "sugar," all these kind of old fashioned sort of names he saw years ago. like tell me you can't picture mickey pressing a kiss to ian's cheek and saying, "yeah, alright, handsome. let's get some fucking breakfast" or "c'mon, doll, lip's waiting for us."

his favourites are definitely things like that. "lover," "doll/angel face," "sugar," maybe even the occasional "my steady" and "valentine" when he's in a particularly soft mood.

Does he get that look in his eye when he’s with you?

What look?