JOAN OF STARK

tv talker, side blog 23 she her

[dershoimvik]

ao3

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posts mostly about TV!

shameless, 9-1-1, the righteous gemstones, workaholics, severance, always sunny, and anything else i feel like :)

heads up! this is a side blog so my follow back will be from a different username.

[dershoimvik]

shameless corner

[muyeyi23]

Ian and Mickey's hands.

Painting practice.

[dershoimvik]

new of montreal album

[dershoimvik]

what are your thoughts on ian and fiona's relationship? do you have more ian thoughts in generalll

i love reading your analyses <3

thank you!! mmm okay i cant divulge too too much bc im about to explore this in fic but.

im speaking mostly with respect to the earlier seasons but: theres a really cool imbalance between fiona and ian (that ian has with the majority of his siblings). and that is that they lean on him, but he does not lean on them.

what i mean by that is that she confides in him and goes to him for moral support or a sense of stability, but he seeks support outside of the household. likely because he doesn't want to put extra stress on her, but also ian's tendency to closet himself-- not just in the traditional sense, but with respect to his entire life. recently a friend of mine did this art piece on the intersection of gossip and queerness and their sort of thesis there was that gay people who spent time closeted for one reason or another (usually fear of safety) become unconsciously (or consciously) accustomed to secrecy in nearly every aspect of their lives.

and that is something i feel like ian practices. because to be his full authentic self would be to disclose every aspect of it-- plus things connect to one another!! like though it sounds innocent at face value, mickey working at the store WITH IAN becomes mickey works at the store WHEN IAN'S AT SCHOOL (fiona refers to this in s2). and yes this is the truth, but it does omit the truth that ian and mickey also work the same shift a lot, and did throughout the entire summer. so, he’s letting people make assumptions or distancing himself from mickey whenever possible in order to curb any idea of involvement with each other. because it's not safe. even though ians out to fiona, mickey’s not out at all, and fiona wouldn’t disclose even if she did know, it's not safe. Ian disclosing mickey to lip is a different situation, but he does not disclose all of the information afterwards (such as the ins and outs of their dynamic, emotional and sexual). like, lip assumes ian is the bottom with kash in s1 and ian lets him assume that!

side note remembering ian's porn folder from the pilot i lollll because its covered in naked women. which of course, if carl or lip found they'd immediately look in (which is what happened) but he hid it specifically in a place that only fiona could reasonably find . and his assumption is correct that she would've probably left it alone....

i do believe that outside of his romantic prospects, ian does communicate with and confide in fiona on a deep and consistent level. but it's usually stuff with little actual bearing on his life or stuff that's out of her hands: his grades aren't as good as he'd want them to be, a kid is bullying him, ROTC is tough, frank hates him, etc. i think they see and respect each other. very rarely do they have issues in a personal sense, and when they do, it's usually an indicator of something deeper going on.

fiona also does not put legitimate weight of responsibility on ian in the early seasons. she doesn't go to ian about serious issues relating to debbie or carl-- if she does, she goes to lip and ian at the same time to act as the Older Brother Brigade.

i can reason with this in that she's always operated under the assumption that they were both getting out; lip will be going to college, and ian will enlist or go to west point. so, in s4, when ian runs away (bc they dont know hes in the army) and lip goes to college, she's prepared to continue raising debbie and carl and liam without them.

luckily, she's holding down a pretty good job. but a steady, well-paying job and a boring, nice boyfriend is something that fiona's always just dreamed about. she doesn't know what to actually do with it, and things going well makes her feel like she's waiting for the rug to get pulled out from under her when mike reveals himself to be a POS. so, she pulls the rug out from herself. she seeks out robbie because his behavior is familiar. if nothing else, she knows how to thrive in times of chaos, because she has something to focus on that isnt her big, unsolvable problems (money, her parents, her future, and even ian being absent). of course, this all goes to shit when the coke incident happens, and now she's up shits creek without the extra support she'd always had: lip and ian.

so, lip deems her an Unfit Parent, and is now usurping her authority in the household. this decimates her ego, because fiona needs to feel needed, and she starts to fawn.

and then ian comes back, and he's not the same one who went away. and mickey's always around now, so she can't actually get to ian. like, it's jarring when she asks ian to loan her money!!! she seems so young and helpless there... she even asks him in front of mickey. and all he can give up is a pile of crumpled ones. it reminds me a lot of the scene in the pilot where she asks if frank gave ian money for the field trip, and he says he'll pay his own way. she shakes franks pockets down and gives him a bunch of change. they're both just broke kids!!

fiona then regresses into equal parts juvenile behavior and addict behavior, and it isn't until she hits complete rock bottom (and her PO gives her that talk) that she feels determined to build herself back up. i could twirl all day on how fiona was probably feeling about ian being bipolar... but i'll save that... for fic...

fiona seems to be kinda hands off in s5 in relation to ian until shit hits the fan, because mickey swatted her away in 412. like shes trying to gauge from the sidelines by seeing ian any time she can, but ian’s keeping her at arms length because he wants to seek support from people outside of his siblings. hes literally building another family with mickey and svet!! and mickey’s secretive/dismissive about the whole thing, so talking to him gives her virtually no insight. but instead of muscling her way into their lives, she funnels her energy into something she does know how to do: another relationship. (i see this as partly because she doesn't Want to take ian on as "another monica" and partly bc fiona's reached a level of stasis again where she needs a distraction. also her getting w gus... at first a knee-jerk reaction to the ego blow of davis having a gf . and gus is like the perfect level of Chaos to her at first but in reality he's so normal)

i have thoughts on gus/jimmy/sean but ill leave that for another day.

anyway. skipping ahead. ian loses mickey and becomes depressive. fiona knows she is being called upon again to be MotherFatherSister (jesus fiona if all you want is to be needed...), and that this is an opportunity to set him up for success in a way that monica couldn't ever have. she's going to watch him closely, because from her perspective, everyone dropped the ball during his previous episodes and she wasn't around enough. so she gets him a job at her diner, she counts his pills, she checks in with him constantly. Ian obviously rejects this level of attention and infantilization. fiona fights with him, but lets him distance himself. he gets it together on his own by doing what he does best: seeking someone outside of the house.

this is getting much too long. but it's interesting to me the way they do communicate with and confide in each other, but they also keep each other away. i do think they have a special kind of bond still...really special even....

[herestoallthetimesthatwemessedup]

[dershoimvik]

jobful day. Going to shameless out soon

[saintjock]

wait i forgot to say this answering the last ask + it got so long i had to cast her off to postingsea, but lip worries about ian enough that it effects his choices within his own life, yet he will stay inactive about it. he knows ian is with kash and he knows kash is a creep and he says he almost called the cops a hundred times but he never actually does. and ian has a major bipolar episode which culminates in him getting arrested a state away and admitted to the hospital and lip tells the registrar that the best thing he can do to help ian is not be home to support him. and instead it's to be continuing college WHICH HE DOESN'T DO he eventually drops out. for a myriad of convoluted reasons. and then when ian starts getting deeper into gay jesus territory, lip is largely preoccupied with sierra/youen's death until ian is on the news and wanted for blowing up a van. lip constantly hits a theme of inaction or just immobility throughout the show of his potential never being fully 'reached' the way everyone around him always said it would be, and when it comes to ian he makes his opinions heard, but not much happens after that. i don't really think his intervention would've changed much/ian probably would've dug his heels in more #stubborn but it's an illuminating reoccurrence to acknowledge in relation to ian and lip

[dershoimvik]

my job got really jobful

[saintjock]

I'd love to hear some more of your thoughts on the elder gallagher trio vs younger trio based on canon, the sibling parallels are soo interesting to me, and I'm so swept away by the family connections (the behaviour modeled from their adult influences) you can make across the monica-frankness all their kids display to their moments of 'going fiona', but the ways the 'adult' trio being the primary caretakers manifests in the kiddos... so much to dig into

yes, there’s sooo much here…when it comes to monica, i think it’s imperative to realize that the elder gallaghers had to learn for themselves who their mother is, while the younger kids are told/taught who she is. monica’s been in and out of their lives the whole time, but fiona/lip/ian have the most ‘experience’ with her. my blogger in arms dershoimvik has a really great write-up on monica; i’ll also add my thoughts :3 i think part of why fiona & lip are so frustrated with ian’s continual relationship with monica—to the point in s5 ian tells monica the others don’t know that they are still in contact as much as they are with each other—is that fiona & lip think ian should know better the way they ‘know better’ when it comes to monica. they’ve been burned by her again and again, and can’t understand why ian willingly puts himself back in her orbit; which ian does because he’s put up such a convincing front within his family, he seeks his mother out because he seeks to be seen and understood by somebody. usually, when ian wants this he seeks out mickey, but the contradiction here is that mickey knows ian too well, and although monica can offer specific commiseration mickey can’t (like their shared disorder), she doesn’t and can’t truly know him as a result of her prolonged absence.

within the family unit the gallaghers have created, ian is further on the outskirts—older enough to share responsibility for the house with fiona/lip, but without all the decision-making abilities the two of them frequently butt heads about. fiona & lip make up the defecto ‘mother / father’ roles, but fiona leans more heavily into her role than lip, for obvious reasons. fiona is more frequently having to make the harder decisions and hurt more feelings as their guardian, while lip is more comfortable in a wise elder brother role where he does do his share in caretaking, he is rarely made out other be the ‘bad guy’ towards the kids. debbie/carl/liam do look up to fiona and lip, but i think they (especially debbie/carl) find the most solace in ian, ironically. i say ironically because they ian appears to be a calming, responsible, and fair presence, and although he does possess these traits, he’s also hiding most of his personal life from everyone! lip meddles past what ian does confide in him, but fiona is largely unaware of what ian gets up to. part of ian’s secrecy is his own inclination from his personality and it’s an effect from his circumstances (he’s a middle child who never has anything of his own, so he creates his own life outside of the house/his family); but he almost never asks for help/advice—especially about his relationships. he gets so close to telling fiona about ned, but ultimately backs down until he has to offer some explanation after ned mistakes lip for ian in 304. even though the elder trio tries to put on a united front, ian finds it hard to open up to fiona (either from ian’s usual reservedness or because he wants to lessen the worry from everyone else towards him), and although ian does open up to lip he has made it clear that he does not approve of ian’s continued relationship with mickey—what i find really interesting is that ian continually confides in monica! specifically about mickey! she remembers him as ian’s boyfriend when he brings him up in 511! it makes me wonder how much ian brought him up during their s4 stint, or if he did at all…

even if frank had more of physical presence around the kids than monica did, the younger kids take after fiona/lip/ian more often than frank or monica…and the older kids end up emulating more of frank/monica's behaviors! of course they all have their frank/monica moments, it’s illuminating to see parallels between the older and younger gallaghers…it’s easy to make the lip-liam connection from their shared intelligence, but i notice a lot of ian within liam…industrious, conscientious, ambitious…and liam shares ian’s internal approach to turmoil. remembering when he spends all day by himself trying to figure out where he’s going to live if/when they sell the house :( and lip didn’t tell him he’d move in with him and tami because he thought that was obvious! very similar to ian’s stubbornness to try and figure everything out on his own/not wanting to burden anyone else with his troubles

i do have Serious Thoughts about the comparisons that can be made between fiona & mickey made obvious by my blogging LOL but mickey does share a lot of traits with lip, too! i think ian finds a lot of solace and familiarity within these shared traits of fiona/lip within mickey, especially in the beginning…mickey shares a lot of the familial responsibility that fiona does, and shares the astute hustling qualities lip exhibits. an awesome thing about analyzing a well-and-intentionally written long-running show like this, is there’s sooo many parallels that crop up that offer really great insight into not only characters singularly, but relationships between characters as well! yay tv

[dershoimvik]

six feet under you are the best show ever. brenda's mom is getting divorced and she's making it brenda's problem. keith and david are back together nearly immediately after cheating on their respective partners with each other bc keith had a dream david confessed his love to him and broke up w eddie the next day. meanwhile rico comes home to find out that his cousin was not fucking his wife (as he suspected) but gay and fucking some guy. and he already gets enough from gay guys at work with david as his annoying boss so he's pissed also bc his cousin is the worst handyman ever. he was supposed to be getting rid of the MOLD IN HIS HOUSE. claire is at her estranged aunt sarah's house probably about to drop shrooms and ruth is hosting gay coworker robbie for dinner and her internal monologue is Shut Up If There's A God In Heaven He Will Shut Your Mouth. speaking of god nate has decided he is jewish now (probably because the rabbi he met is sexy af)

[dershoimvik]

shameless u.s.

2x05 | 4x11 | 3x10

[dershoimvik]

what coincidence

all will be revealed.. its not plot bearing really

[dershoimvik]

Okay, hi, so this is really embarrassing, and I’m definitely exposing myself a little bit here, but I’m new on Tumblr and I couldn’t figure out how to change my username to match what it is on ao3 (I’m only 26, just inept when it comes to social media), so I’ve just kind of been lurking and observing for a while now lol. Idk what the etiquette is, but I thought I might seem like a bot if my page was blank and I had a rando username. BUT I finally figured it out, so I decided to go non-anon today. 

I know it's been a couple of days since you brought up the seasons10/11/HoS discourse again, but as someone who not only commented on one of your fics about it and also sent you an ask a while ago (it was about tone shift), I wanted to share that you, @saintjock, and a bunch of other wonderful creators here have really changed my perspective on the later seasons! 

First, I want to say that I was never one who truly disliked 10/11/HoS. How could I dislike the seasons that gave us married Gallavich? That would be wild. 

But I think when I watched it all the way through for the first time, the amount of comedy as compared to the earlier seasons really threw me off. I found myself thinking about all the angsty storylines they could have leaned into (and not just for Gallavich) that were instead traded for more comedic situations/jokes/etc. Which isn’t inherently bad, but it was different. (I work in neuroscience and study brain patterns and human behavior, so my nerdy self was eating up the angst in seasons 1-5).

All that to say, I’ve done another rewatch and I have such a newfound respect and love for the later seasons. If you watch it through a comedic lens and don’t go in expecting the same vibe as, say, season 4, it is truly so beautiful in its own way! Some of the things I really, really loved this last rewatch: 

The fact that Ian and Mickey spend (a year? Does time exist in Shameless?) in a prison cell together, where privacy, space, and individuality are completely nonexistent, and actually grow in their relationship instead of break? That premise alone is awesome! 

The casual way that the entire Gallagher family acknowledges that Ian is completely in love with Mickey. “You love him, right?” “Aren’t you still in love with Mickey?” Their immediate acceptance of Mickey back into the fold, is so cool because they don’t tend to welcome significant others so easily. 

ByronGate as a whole, really. 

Franny as a character and her relationship with Frank. It brings out a really interesting side of Frank that humanizes him in a way that we hadn’t seen since…dare I say, Emily?

The Gallagher house and the Alibi existing as characters again. 

Season 11 Ian. I could say so much about this and how alive and happy he is in the last season. It really made me reflect on how lost Ian was for years. He finally found himself again, and it was really beautiful.  

I strangely love Lip imploding in the final season. That particular backslide had potential for some really cool growth.

Real Gallavich communication (like you, I love the barbarian scene so much!)

Similarly, #codependent Gallavich. Always touching, always in the same room. Working together. Dancing together. All of the things.

And so much more.

Are there still things I didn't connect with? Sure. But really, it's still the same Gallavich we know and love, just through a different lens. And they're kinda awesome no matter how you frame them! Still so much to analyze and so much to love.

Anyways, this is a long-winded way of saying that you changed my perspective and I wanted to share that with you! 

I always love reading through your asks and your analysis, and I’m a big big fan of your fics. Can’t wait for more of fionaworld– the sneak peeks you posted are A++

hi!!

not embarrassing omg i loved your asks they were so much fun to think through and write responses to!! im so happy we opened up some new perspectives for you!!

absolutely yes the tone shift is jarring if you're binge watching!! and i do remember being weirded out while it was aired live too but it really is beautiful in its own way!! and a nice chaser for the really heavy stuff sometimes. i love all those parts of it too, especially the alibi + house being characters that was one of the things i loved the most about the early seasons was that the alibi was just the neighborhood meeting place. everything happened there!! and will continue to happen. (wink)

thank you so much for writing to me, this is so very sweet and appreciated!! fionaworld is chugging along and im so excited for you to read this next chapter

[dershoimvik]

in fionaworld there is a nod to something that i feel like might get me canceled bc idk if enough time has passed...

[dershoimvik]

okay i got consensus and people are saying it's too unbelievable of a coincidence to not include and im tastefully nodding to it.🙏

[reihea]

SUPERNATURAL 1.12 FAITH

[buddieloustat]

Audrey's 2k Follower Celebration ↳@emziessasked ⏮️ + this set