I can’t even tell you how long I spent counting down the days for the Veronica Mars movie. (Well, I could tell you, but I’m not going to because I have a tiny bit of dignity.) I had so many questions – so many things that have haunted me, in the years since the show was canceled – but few more pressing than the question we’ll discuss today, which is: Would Veronica and Mac finally get together?

(Actually, the only question more pressing than that one was “Will something good finally, for goddamn once, happen to Weevil?” Which… well. Rob Thomas giveth and Rob Thomas taketh away. Let’s all just hold hands and pray for a sequel.)

Anyway, yes, I knew it was a long shot, but I was rooting for Veronica to end up with Mac at the end of the movie. I am not and have never been a member of either Team Logan or Team Piz. Nothing personal to Piz, you understand; Piz is a perfectly nice fellow but he is lukewarm tap water in human form and we need not discuss him further.

But let’s do take a moment to discuss the mystery that is Logan Echolls. I know that, for many Veronica Mars fans, Logan is endgame; he is the true love by which all other loves shall be judged, and also everyone’s imaginary boyfriend. Their love is epic, etc. And I will grant you that Jason Dohring and Kristen Bell do have extraordinary chemistry. But you know why that is? Because Kristen Bell is Kristen motherfucking Bell, and like a real-life Jeff Winger, she has chemistry with everyone. Search your feelings; you know it to be true. There is basically no character except Keith with whom Veronica could not plausibly have made out before the end of the movie. Wallace? Sure. Weevil? I always kinda figured. Vinnie Van Lowe? Why not. Madison Sinclair? No two people hate each other that much without at least a little sexual tension in the mix.

So Logan, though certainly willing and able to make sexy eyes at Veronica at the slightest provocation, is hardly uniquely qualified to do so. He loves V, it’s very true, and they have some sweet scenes together. Plus, he has hit/beaten up/threatened to kill people for being mean to Veronica on several occasions, which, if you squint and the light is dim, could conceivably look romantic. The problem, however, is that a dude who is scary and violent in defense of his girlfriend is probably going to become, at some point, the dude who is scary and violent to his girlfriend. People whose reaction to stress or fear is “uh oh, better punch something” are not great people to be in long-term relationships with. Plus, Logan is really pretty racist, like an uncomfortable amount of the time, and no amount of homoeroticism between him and Weevil will ever make me overlook that fact, I’m sorry.

Also, he’s really unsettlingly misogynistic toward most non-Veronica women. To the point that he once gave Dick date rape drugs to use on Madison, and was only sorry later because they ended up in Veronica’s cup instead. A misogynist who makes exceptions for the girl he loves is still a fucking awful person, and I care about Veronica and I believe in my heart she can do better.

And by better, I do not mean Piz. I’m sorry, Piz fans (is there such a thing?), but Piz is not Veronica’s equal. Piz is not as smart as Veronica, he’s not as brave, and he’s entirely too simpleminded a creature to understand Veronica’s worldview. If you want better, my friends, I offer you the one and only Cindy Mackenzie.

Seriously, how gay is Mac? Have you seen the cargo pants this woman wears? More importantly, have you seen her dimples? I refuse to believe God would put those dimples on the planet and not make them interested in women. (Dimples, as everyone knows, are lesbian catnip.)

Also, oh my God, how did I not realize that this is what Tina Majorino’s hair looked like last year?

DEAR SWEET GAY BABY JESUS. You want to talk about a Kickstarter? This picture just kickstarted my goddamn vagina. It seems like she went short for the movie, so my question to you is, why would Mac wear her hair like this unless she was posing for the photo that would accompany her coming-out announcement in the local paper? (Not that straight girls can’t have short hair, but if you walk around liking dudes and wearing your hair like that, you should at least be aware of the suffering you’re causing.) (Editor’s note: that is OFFENSIVE and reinforces a OPPRESSIVE GENDER BINARY [Secret editor’s note: oh my god RIGHT?!])

There was always a sort of ambient haze of queeritude around the edges of Veronica Mars, despite the lack of gay characters – from the banter between Logan “Never Underestimate the Size of My Cojones” Echolls and Eli “Do I Need To Turn You Upside Down and Shake You” Navarro to Logan’s adopted sister being played by Alyson Hannigan (the mere presence of Willow, even in a minor role, makes everything just a little bit gayer) to the fact that, seriously, there is a lot of plaid in the first season. And a lot of big, chunky, gay-ass boots. I once started making a list of the OGTs in season 1 and had to stop (around number 50) because my partner was like “How am I supposed to focus on the show when you WON’T STOP TYPING?” I think Veronica may have even worn a leather wrist cuff at one point, I don’t know, I got the vapors and had to be revived.

But this isn’t just about quips or aesthetics; this is about the fact that Veronica is brilliant and strong and brave and complicated and deeply, deeply flawed and funny and scared and reckless and, all too often, very much alone. It’s not easy to be the smartest and the toughest person in the room all the time, but that’s the kind of pressure V puts on herself. She has to carry the weight of her best friend’s death and her father’s public humiliation and solve basically every crime in Neptune and still get a scholarship to Stanford, and it’s fucking exhausting, and yet every time she turns around there’s someone asking for her help. And she’ll never say no. She’ll charge them for it, but she won’t say no.

Veronica desperately needs someone who can help her, who can be there for her and hold her up without making her feel weak. She needs someone who she trusts, someone who can keep up with her intellect, someone who doesn’t rely so much on her strength that it’s impossible for her to reveal the places where she’s struggling and confused and afraid. She needs someone who can see her flaws and love her anyway, instead of someone like Logan, who breaks up with her because “she never needs anything,” ugh, Logan is the worst.

Mac is, flat out, the only person on Veronica Mars who is as smart as Veronica. In fact, she’s the only person who might actually be smarter. Most of the people in Neptune, including some of Veronica’s closest friends, seem to see our girl as some kind of perpetual-motion problem-solving machine, but not Mac. She’s the person Veronica turns to when she needs a favor, one of the very few people who can do things for V she can’t do for herself. They help each other. The first time they meet, V swoops in to rescue Mac from car trouble, like a good gentlebutch; in return, Mac helps with Veronica’s computer question. Is that not everyone’s idea of a perfect lesbian relationship? “What did you ever do before you met me?” Mac asks, and indeed it’s hard to imagine how V managed to get anything done without her trusty Willow. (By which I mean: Mac likes computers, is homosexual. Willow dated guys in high school too.)

As for Mac herself, she doesn’t have it much more together than Veronica does; she’s just a little more honest about it. They’ve both been through some shit, and neither one of them is the person she thought she would be. They both know too much, have seen too much, to let themselves trust anyone blindly. They both need someone to prove that it’s worth it. But in occasional scenes together, you can see some of those edges softening – you can see Mac giggling (THOSE DIMPLES) and Veronica letting her snark shield slip, every so often, revealing the earnest fluffy marshmallow inside.

And, Jesus, when those two are cute together, they’re so fucking cute. When Veronica gives Mac her computer to fix, and V says “Everything important is password protected,” and Mac giggles and rolls her eyes and says “Like I care who you have a crush on!” and is generally adorable? Oh, she cares. Also, remember when Veronica was trying to blackmail that dude and she asked, “How long do you think it would take you to make a homoerotic sexually explicit website?” Mac’s entire response: “45 minutes, give or take.” Zero questions. You want gay porn? Mac will GIVE you gay porn. She’s just been waiting for you to ask.

I am really, deeply invested in Veronica Mars, both the show and the character, and I want so badly for everything to work out all right for her. I want her to be happy and loved and respected and safe, and I want her to find a partner who is her equal, morally and intellectually, someone who can keep up with her instead of holding her back. Mac is the only person who fits the bill. This isn’t just my desperation to squeeze some queerness out of one of my favorite shows; this is the unadorned truth. No one deserves Veronica but Mac.

If they team up, as Mac says in season 1, “I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say we could rule the entire known universe.” Now that’s a movie I really want to see.