i keep thinking about the milkovich family and the ride or die mindset where they are willing to help each other commit murder with no questions asked, but they won't confide in each other or support each other emotionally. they're all about action and loyalty and death before dishonour. but none of them even seem to know each other personally beyond their established position within the household.
its like a hierarchy, an organization more than a family. and that's all they've known. that's normal for them. in the earlier seasons they're always dirty and scratched up and parade that around like war paint. being milkovich sets them apart, and it stops people from getting too close, and terry likely told them that was a good thing, that being feared made them powerful. but it just allowed the dynamic to continue.
the closest we see to a more traditional sibling relationship is mickey and mandy, and this is only really apparent after they both start hanging out with ian. they banter, they tease, they play video games and mandy visits him in juvie and picks him up.
i think that their individual relationships with ian gave them an insight to what a family dynamic is supposed to be for the first time. the gallaghers are loyal to each other in a way that means their end goal is to better the family. they will do everything and anything to ensure that in the end they stay together and the family remains intact. there's no instant agreement to murder with you, but they won't judge you for wanting to, won't snitch and will ask how you feel and why you want to do that and be a voice of reason and a sounding board and remind you of the consequences.
it's a layered and complex form of love and care that the milkoviches weren't capable of, had never had.
with that in mind it explains why mandy tries to dismiss her sexual abuse as 'not a big deal', confuses ian's concern for judgement, and feels that an abusive relationship is all she can get.
it explains why mickey's internalized homophobia is so deep-rooted at first, so aggressive and violent. he believes his sexuality is not only all the negative things that terry has made him believe, but he believes it marks him as being not milkovich. and if he's not milkovich, what is he?
with the milkovich ride or die, death before dishonour, there's no line they won't cross for each other mentality, mickey likely sees his own secret as a line he never should've crossed, and so he has no choice but to overcompensate because if you step out of line, out of the established order of terry's world and the milkovich household, you're asking for death.
the way that ian - and then by extention the gallaghers - help mickey and mandy see what loyalty should be, what familial love can mean, shifts their perspective.
when ian was manic in season 5, suddenly mickey and mandy aren't all in to murder the guy because it's what ian wants, they know that ian isn't thinking rationally and hasn't considered the consequences and that he will almost certainly regret it. so the way to be actually loyal to ian in this instance is to deny him, to stop him, to work against him temporarily and find a compromise.
whereas in season 2 mickey just walks into the milkovich kitchen like 'i wanna kill frank gallagher' and his brothers put up only a token protest and mostly because it seems like an inconvenience to them. they don't actually care why mickey wants to do this. they don't really consider the consequences in an in-depth way other than to not wanna get caught.
mickey was not thinking clearly in that moment. mickey was panicked and acting out of self-preservation, with his fight or flight severely triggered. his brothers didn't notice or care enough to know, and that's just the milkovich way.
TLDR: i wish we got a more in-depth depiction and analysis of the milkovich family, and i will always be really sensitive about that fact that ian managed to shift the dynamics and perspective of both mandy and mickey by just loving them.
ian saved them both and i don't think he even realises how much. there's nothing they wouldn't do for him. they are who they are now because of him
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