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dykedvonte · 3 months ago

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You ever just see a Mouthwashing take that makes you want to bang your head into a wall? I literally just saw someone claim Curly couldn't have been emotionally abused by Jimmy before the crash because he was in a higher position of power than Jimmy.

-Shrimp Anon

The mouthwashing fandom has shown me that people genuinely do believe that certain types of abuse are not as detrimental as other types especially when they deem those immune/resistant, ergo, believing one is objectively worse no matter how it affects the person nor the intersections of power, history and dynamics at play.

Get ready cause this is a yap session:

Cause like it's heavily implied that Curly and Jimmy's friendship was toxic and abusive, pointedly in the direction of how Jimmy uses Curly's belief/comfort in him. Curly wasn't forced to enable Jimmy but he was emotional and mentally on edge around him in almost every scene in some way. Mental and emotional abuse are not contingent on what positions you have at work. Yeah, he's Jimmy's boss but he was Jimmy's friend first and it's like getting into Psych discussion to talk about how social power tends to overshadow any perceived organizational power in the human mind. People are concerned about their jobs ofc but they tend to hang onto and put more value/investment into their personal relationships, hence why there tends to be laws and restrictions around mixing the two.

I always see the sentiments that "Curly is a grown ass man", "Curly is bigger than Jimmy", "Curly is Jimmy's boss", "He just needed a backbone" as criticisms of Curly and while I do agree that on the surface level all of these to be true and viable ways Curly could've taken more control of the situation, I often look at the parallels of Anya and Curly as victims of Jimmy pre/post crash.

The way Jimmy talks to Anya post crash is how he talked to Curly in the pre-crash segments. It's hard to pin-point mainly because we know he hates and wants nothing to do with Anya compared to his contrary but similarly handled obsessions with Curly. It's a weird sort of "honey-moon" effect of abuse Jimmy does in terms of emotional and mental victimization. He is always horrid to Anya, always talking down or questioning her abilities and thoughts in a situation, this of course includes the harassment and assault. However, he has a moment of attempted gentleness/conditioning when he question her about the mouthwash when she's contemplating drinking it at the table. The key difference is he has no personal investment in Jimmy outside wanting nothing to do with him, meaning there is no sort of romanticized version of him that he can condition her off of. He knows this, hence, why he always reverts to trying to make her to scared to oppose him.

This sort of give and take of "kindness" doesn't work on her because she knows he is just doing it to take more from her than whatever he could possibly give but it reflects even the "softer" scenes between him and Curly where he always rewords or rephrases Curly's sentiments and concerns to sound more shallow. He is feigning a deeper understanding by reworking Curly's emotions into something bad and needing to be hidden. Everything is laced with envy and resentment, an outburst just around the corner, I mean he even slams the table in the birthday party scene, a tactic in emotional manipulation to set the victim on edge and cloud their ability to respond. Even if Curly knows Jimmy won't get physical in that moment, the physical actions is intended to make him back down in the confrontation in case it does. This is something that is just not person specific. It ingrains itself into how you interact with the world and life and it shows in major and minor ways with Curly.

Post-crash, the abusive nature is more in tandem to the physical victimization Anya went through and the stripping of voice and autonomy we see take place. Like the parasite in HFIM, Jimmy speaks for Curly most of the time and puts words in his mouth, similarly to how he takes Anya's plans as his own. He very commonly, with the both of them mind you, supplements the worst aspects of himself into them; pettiness, selfishness, lack of understanding... And tries to cover himself with their best qualities; kindness, planning, initiative, etc...

These parallel are just to say that positional power has little to do with if a person can be abused and how it can even be flipped to further the abuse. There is no doubt that Curly could've picked up on Jimmy's envy of his position hence another reason he never confronted him as a Captain but as a friend as doing so would immediately put Jimmy in a space to be confrontational/combative.

I think the disdain some people have when they talk about the heavily implied if not implicitly stated emotional/mental abuse Curly experienced being Jimmy's friend is when treating it as an excuse to why he didn't do more. I can understand that completely because it is not an excuse to why he didn't do more but is a very real reason people in his position in these scenarios can experience whether in the context of a work or social environment. However, I also think the way people talk about it really does demonstrate a bigger problem when talking about abuse when somehow who is/was abused is either part of the issue or enabled it.

Harkening back to the sentiments about Curly's inaction regarding Jimmy, I think the exact phrases I used/have seen show how there is an inherent belief that it is easier to overpower the effects of emotional/mental abuse that go in tandem with the perception of Curly as someone who should be able to. There is not an age you suddenly stop being susceptible to abuse nor a set point or low where you realize how it has affected you. You don't suddenly know to stand up or put a face on to face your abuser nor admit that you inadvertently enabled them to subjugate someone else to the same treatment. Maybe it's my psych brain but their is this growing belief that direct action is somehow easy or always the best method with the game shows you instances where it is not always the case. In real life that rings true too. He should have done more, but it's not impossible to see why he struggled to find a way or didn't even if it makes us mad.

It's not easy to suddenly gain a "back-bone". You don't immediately want to resort to aggression, especially if it mirrors the type you were a victim to. You don't want to believe you allowed yourself to be treated this bad, let it get that bad or allowed something bad to happen to someone else. It is easy to be in denial, to retreat to your thoughts or make excuses to avoid the painful truth. It's frustrating but in a way we know is relatable. It why we both hate and love Curly for it. We know we'd be better, we think we'd be better, we like to think we wouldn't falter in the same ways but it's always easier to say that from the outside looking in. It's easy to see what he was doing wrong because we are seeing it, not him, but the game really does make you picture what you would do if this was your raw reality and it's why this debate about Curly seems so never ending/contradictory. We can all say what we'd do but bottom line is that's much different when you're in the moment with all the emotions and human feelings attached.

I personally think Mouthwashing tackles the themes of rape culture, enabling, toxic masculinity, types of abuse and patriarchy in ways that are meant to deconstruct the typical straightforward views we mostly have of these concepts and how little subtilities of them are just as, if not more, detrimental than the overt/obvious parts. The game deals with the idea of little details and bigger picture in a way to show that sometimes the bigger picture is not the issue but the little details that make it up. It's why I have a personal dislike of depictions of Jimmy as the typical horrible person who would of course do something like this because the game is about noticing the little warning signs, the foreshadowing and foresight.

It's why I dislike the typical discussion of "bro code" and "boys will be boys" for the game because the game makes a point to avoid the standard depictions of such. It is about the type of men who still enable despite not condoning, agreeing or even perpetuating harmful beliefs because they can't see the little details or the ways it seeps into their everyday. The severity is not obvious to them as it was not obvious to Curly, Swansea or even Daisuke the way it was to a woman like Anya. There are little details about Jimmy that should ring alarms but if you are too naive like Daisuke, too distant like Swansea or too conditioned like Curly, they are just off markers.

There is 100% more constructive/concise ways to say "Curly was a victim of Jimmy's abuse on an emotional and mental aspect that clouded his judgements and perceptions in the scenario" while also critiquing on the side of "Curly still had a responsibility to protect Anya as a crew mate and Captain that he failed to do due to biases and stigma's he failed to surpass" without the weird condemnation people give him about should've knowing better than to let himself be manipulated by a person he considered a close, if not family/best-friend and had his own reasons to trust initially. Also stop being weird about victims of abuse in general with this fandom, like sorry not everyone has a like social epiphany the moment someone's nasty to them. People are treating it like you immediately know when you are in a toxic relationship immediately or comprehend when a person is actively dangerous and either it's your fault for not knowing how to leave/cut them off or you deserve it. Like the hypocrisy of people believing how certain fans treat the story reflect their irl views but not their own is crazy.

End statement is: I honestly don't even know man, I've been writing this too long and just like no man on that ship was perfect or really helped Anya when it mattered and I feel like pitting them against each other in discussion on who did the least or most or how it was justified sucks cause in the end Anya always did the most and best thing for herself.

#i also think it is because mouthwashing is first and foremost a game about rape culture and the patriarchy especially in work spaces #regarding women and centering conversation around Curly a man rubs people wrong because it does overshadow that commentary #but it still mixes other topics into its initial theming and message on how abuse conditions you to accept certain things that are harmful #and how getting used to a culture/enviornment does not mean you are happy healthy or most importantly safe in it. I personally like to #explore those aspects where it mixes all the themes so we can discuss the ways you have to watch out for things because there is a differen #in the idea Curly enabled Jimmy just because they were bros and because he was an example of another man afraid to step out from what #is a still oppressive system that does try to punish those who act against it even if they fall in the category of those who would benefit #from it as Jimmy and PE 100% represent that sort of misogynistic system where men that would be “good” are altered until they follow line #in a way both on the personal and professional level as PE is the corporate lock out and Jimmy represents the social and its just the issue #that the discussion of it sounds like “in defense of men” when I am more so trying to discuss how it is much deeper than men being scared t #upset other men but complacency is rewarded by not becoming another person subjugated hence as all the moments Curly does try to do #something we can tie it back to how Jimmy reacts and a possible penality from PE where we now need to address the ways to combat those #two concepts so we dont get cases like Curly or Daisuke or Swansea where male avoidance of the issue is considered neutral or even good.#i think most of this boils down the perfect victim mentality to where if someone who underwent or is being abused is not a perfect example #or accpetible type than their abuse can not be considered a valid or substantial reason for effects on their behavior compounded with the #fact that Anya's abuse at the hands of Jimmy is a systematic issue that Curly is a part of even if unwillingly and was more physically #violating and topical cause sometimes i have to remind myself that all media is still critiqued through the lens of the culture it came out #in cause i do think about what if this game came out inlike 2014 like the conversations would be sooooooo different could you imagine it?#but back the before statement Curly isn't perfect but I feel like boiling it down if hes a good person or man is not the point of the game #but more so good people can still be part of the problem and the idea of condemning a person for one act creates a false sense of #rightouesness and justice that does not aid the victim and in fact aids the abusers in escaping blame for their mulitple behaviors as we se #how the men on the ship tend to blame Jimmy for just one act against them including himself while there is a plethora of things Anya is #concerned about with Jimmy #and its not that Curly just made one mistake with Jimmy but more so we consider his actions more damning because he didn't stop Jimmy #instead of focusing on the fact Jimmy did what he did regardless of Curly and the consequence because we already know he's bad n maladjuste #which is problem in the conversation where the individuals are blamed but the system and perputrator are overlooked in a sense of acceptiab #complacency as we know how they are and the lack of tangibility to personally affect them on a larger scale like I should just make a post #on like cutting out the face when it comes it confronting systems of oppression rather than tag talking but just ask me to clarify if #you want that like im jus trying to say we avoid talking about Jimmy and PE so much cause it is obvious what they do wrong that we make #the initial and inherent problem out to be one aspect someone in this case Curly does and the the constraints they use to force actions

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dazzle02 · 2 months ago

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Fiona and Lip vs Mickey (They did not hate him or treat him unfairly!!)

People love to claim Fiona and Lip were always super unfair to Mickey and I need to get all this out. I said in my last post that I would make this post at some point, and so I'm doing it now because I need to get it out.

I'll start with Lip.

So during the first 3 seasons Lip was the only one who knew about Ian and Mickey. And he was always pretty supportive about it really. At the end of S3 he made one comment to Ian about how the good thing about falling for Mickey was that you could always do better. Was that necessarily nice? No. But I never actually even took it as Lip truly not liking Mickey for Ian. Just as that thing people often do when their friend/sibling goes through a breakup. Trying to make him feel better, and adding in a little trash talk about the person who hurt them. But also, their relationship hadn't exactly been the most healthy. I love Gallavich, but we can all acknowledge that, right? Mickey had beaten Ian up just a couple episodes before that. Also, Lip very rarely got to see them together pre season 4. And when he did, they were pretending there was nothing going on because Mickey didn't know Lip knew. Lip literally saw Mickey walk off to go have sex with Angie while Ian was right there. And sure, he would've likely been told some of the better stuff about their relationship (if it can even be called that in 1-3?) but for the most part he only got to see the bad, and also the bad was what Ian was gonna talk more about because that was when he needed to get things out. So yeah, Lip may have had a little bit of hesitance towards their relationship at that point in time.

And same in early S4 when he asked Ian if it was really a good idea that Mickey was still at the house. That wasn't anything actually against Mickey as a person, that was about the situation and the fact that he knows how much everything hurt Ian.

Also, he knew about Mickey being gay since S1 and Mickey never even suspected he knew anything until S4 when Lip had to hint at it to try and get him to say whether he'd heard from Ian. Lip knew that wasn't something he was supposed to know, and so he only knew it when he and Ian were alone.

In S4 when Lip was looking for Ian, Mickey was the first person he asked after Debbie and Carl. And he didn't push. He just asked if he'd heard from him, the only thing I'd say could be classed as pushing was his "are you really gonna make me spell it out?" about his and Ian's relationship. And even that he quickly backed off from. Then he said he'd let Mickey know what kind of trouble Ian was in once he found out. (And by telling Mandy what was going on, he did...)

Season 5 is where it gets interesting and where I see the most shit about Lip being unfair to Mickey.

We see Lip and Fiona go to Mickey to ask him to try and talk to Ian about going to see a Doctor, they explain the symptoms of Bipolar they're seeing in Ian. They mention Monica to point out that they know what they're talking about. (We also see that Lip is actually amused by Mickey when he's beating that guy up and yelling up to his wife...) And Mickey ignores them. And that must've been SO frustrating and scary for them. But they don't hold it against him, because they understand!

Then we see Mickey go to Lip and ask about the doctor after the debacle with the suitcases. And Lip is visibly worried, but when Mickey tells him things are okay, he believes him. Or he doesn't quite believe him, but he doesn't push. And this is something I often see people think the opposite of. People often seem to believe that Lip will push Mickey over Ian's Bipolar, that he won't let him handle it himself and just insert himself in and not trust Mickey has things handled. And honestly, after this I wouldn't have blamed him if that was true. But it's just NOT.

Then we really get into it. Episode 5 happens. Ian hasn't come home and Mickey goes to find him and learns he left the club with some other guy and he's pissed. But he can't get to Ian, so he goes after Lip. (Just like in 1x03...) He and his brothers invite Lip to join them in their shooting stolen guns at a window thing, then try and leave him to take the fall. They literally could've destroyed his entire life. And look, Lip was an adult and made the choice to join them. But at the end of the day, Mickey was angry at Ian and tried to take that out on Lip. AND IT IS NEVER MENTIONED AGAIN! Lip never holds it against him. He could've. Maybe even should've. But he doesn't.

Because the very next episode is when Ian has taken Yevgeny and Lip goes to the Milkovich house with Fiona and is totally fine with both Mickey and Iggy and it's like nothing happened. And the car scenes!

Mickey apologises because he realises that he should've listened to Fiona and Lip when they told him that Ian needed help. And Lip responds that yes, he should've. Because he should have. Then proceeds to let him know it can get worse. But then the second car scene, once they have Ian. Lip tells Mickey that he did his best. That he knows he tried, and that that's more than most people would do. With no prompting. Literally the episode before this, Mickey and his brothers had tried to set him up for a crime they'd committed and didn't apologise or anything, and yet Lip is so quick to assure him he did okay. Despite the fact that he likely does have some anger at the fact that he didn't listen to them from the start.

Then when he and Fiona are going to pick Ian up from the hospital, he says he thought Mickey would be there. Lip can see how much Mickey loves Ian. He was surprised he wasn't there.

That deleted scene from after Ian didn't go to Mexico with Mickey next. "People say "You always went a little loco when Mickey was around." THAT LINE WASN'T ANYTHING ABOUT IAN'S BIPOLAR OR THE WAY MICKEY HANDLED IT! It was a "I know how in love with Mickey you are and how much you'd do to be with him." That wasn't a criticism of Mickey. And Lip saying he doesn't think he should've gone wasn't either. It was just that he didn't wanna lose his brother, and that he also knew it likely wouldn't be good for his health. (Which I talked about in my last post...)

In Season 10 when Ian tells Lip he thinks Mickey killed Paula, Lip's response is that of course he should lie to the police and say that Mickey was there all night.

Lip literally tells Ian he thinks he should marry Mickey the next episode, but only when he's ready. That first he needs to figure out why he doesn't want to at that moment. And he was right. Ian was so clearly going through something at that point in time, struggling with his feelings of worthiness and about his Bipolar and legally binding Mickey to that for the rest of his life.

And then along with everyone else Lip does everything in his power to make the wedding happen. Which, yes the wedding is also his brother's. But you don't go that far to make sure your brother gets to marry someone you don't approve of or like.

In S11 there's the "family only" moment, but I get what Lip meant there. It wasn't that he didn't consider Mickey to be family, it was that he felt the conversation should only be the Gallagher siblings. This was their childhood home, it was a discussion between them. He also told Tami to back off. The "What so Mickey's family but Tami isn't" thing also didn't come off as a criticism of Mickey being family to me, more as a "Tami is the mother of my child, marriage isn't the only way to become family." But I get that might just be me.

And they butt heads a lot, I get that. But at the end of the day, Lip does approve of Mickey. I'd even go as far as to say he likes and cares about him.

Now onto Fiona.

Let's start with the fact that she had no idea anything was even going on between them until suddenly Mickey was living in their house. And she never really said anything about it. Just had a little confusion about it.

The real starting point is when she realised Ian was Bipolar. People claim she did a bad job at explaining it to Mickey and made it sound like something that could never be stabilised in any way and that the only answer was hospitalisation. But like, she was terrified too. Her little brother who she loves is in a depressive episode and she's just realised he's likely Bipolar and the only experience she has of it is her mother. Monica. She was absolutely terrified because the last experience she had with Monica at that point in time was her slitting her wrists in the kitchen. Her entire childhood was totally chaotic because Monica wasn't taking her meds. (Plus everything with Frank, and I'll always say he's far worse!! But this isn't about him...) She has never experienced someone actually being able to live a good life with bipolar where they're not just hurting everyone around them. And of course she was getting frustrated, because even though logically she would've understood that Mickey just doesn't know anything about Bipolar, it likely felt like he was invalidating her trauma. ("Depressed? We all get fucking depressed." "He's depressed we'll cheer him up." "I'll hide the knives until he perks up.") Not only would that feel like he was just saying "it can't be that bad, you're overreacting and I can fix this." but also some of these things are likely things she'd thought or said about Monica when she was younger. Trying to cheer her up when she's depressed, trying to downplay it a bit to help herself deal. But she knows from experience that's not how it works. And she's terrified because now it's her little brother.

But she agrees to let Mickey take care of him. She can see how much this means to him, that he's determined and that he's not going to let her get him to a doctor. (Even though legally she could've as he was still underage and she was his legal guardian...)

And people also seem to think that the Gallaghers just abandoned Ian with the Milkoviches while he was depressed and didn't help out or anything, but the scene of her and Ian going for that run together doesn't feel that way at all to me. I've always felt they'd go to see him whenever they could and do what they could to help out. But at the end of the day, he was at the Milkovich house and they couldn't just be there at all times. (Just another criticism I see a lot that I hate...)

As I said in Lip's section, they go to see Mickey to talk to him about getting Ian to see a Doctor, and he refuses.

At the end of the episode when Ian shows up to their pool party Fiona immediately asks where Mickey is. Which means that she not only either extended the invite to Mickey to come too, or just assumed he would, but also cared enough to ask after him when he didn't show.

In episode 2, Mandy asks Mickey if they should call Fiona when Ian's planning to go kill a bunch of homophobes. (This unintentional foreshadowing to Gay Jesus though...) Mickey immediately says no because she'll take him to a Shrink. Again, I get that's scary, but that was what he needed.

Mickey finally calls her when Ian takes Yevgeny and she immediately goes over there and calls Lip too. She also doesn't lay any blame at Mickey's feet. There's no getting annoyed that he didn't listen to them when they warned him. Just need to find Ian.

She smiles when Mickey calls himself Ian's boyfriend in the next episode when they're going to visit him. She's comforting towards him when Ian leaves after the visit by assuring him that he's just sedated and adjusting to meds and that it'll be okay. But doesn't push. Then later tells Gus that she thinks it was really hard for Mickey.

Here's the part where she gets the most criticism though. "I thought Mickey would be here." "I didn't." THIS WAS NOT ANYTHING AGAINST MICKEY! She had seen how hard the visit was for him. She saw his reaction and how freaked out he was. This wasn't her saying "I didn't think he'd come because he doesn't actually care about Ian and he's the worst!" No! It was her saying "I didn't think he'd come because I saw how much it hurt him seeing him like that and haven't heard from him since." Also, she wasn't wrong. He wasn't there. Like, we know why. He was struggling with everything and that is understandable. But why is Fiona just so awful for believing something that turned out to be true?

Then of course Mickey came back and all was good. And Fiona wasn't surprised by that. She never held it against him that he wasn't there to pick Ian up. There was no animosity. He offered to help her out with Carl's Court outfit stuff, she just asked if he could use an iron and then they walked off together to go do that and possibly talk or whatever.

Then Mickey was still just walking about the house like it was his own after Ian was arrested. This was totally normal to Fiona. There was no question whether Mickey would be going with them to see Ian in Military Prison. When they got back she was fine with leaving him with Debbie and Liam as if it was totally normal.

And I spoke about her line in S7 about how Mickey would set a match to Ian's life in my last post. But I'll say it again here. It wasn't about Mickey as a person or his relationship with Ian. It was about the fact that Mickey was literally a fugitive. He'd just escaped Prison and was a fugitive. Ian could not have been in a relationship with him at that time without destroying his entire life. Without losing his job. Without losing his family due to the fact that he would also now be a fugitive and wouldn't be able to have contact with them. Going with Mickey would cost him everything. She was right. He would've set a match to Ian's life. And he kinda did. To me it was never about her thinking Mickey was bad for Ian. She knew how much they love each other and she saw how good for each other they could be. But at that point in time, they couldn't have had a good relationship. The circumstances were too bad. She didn't want that life for Ian. Constantly looking over his shoulder because the Police were looking for him, always on the run, never able to really see his family.

They didn't have many interactions, but a lot of them were during a time where both were terrified for Ian and wanted to handle it in different ways. Both came from places of love. But Fiona's also came from a place of experience, while Mickey's came from a place of inexperience.

#shameless #shameless us #fiona gallagher #lip gallagher #mickey milkovich #criticising the act of pitting characters against each other #lip and fiona didn't treat mickey like shit #or unfairly #in fact they handled things better than i would've #if my brother was clearly unwell and his partner was actively keeping me from getting him help i'd never want them near him again #mickey milkovich critical #i guess?#not really but i wanna be safe #i love him #i really do #but i am fed up of so many narratives surrounding him #especially when it comes to the gallaghers #and i am getting it all out there #he was not always a victim of everyone #stop putting characters down just to bring your favourite up #stop victimising characters at the expense of making everyone else out to be the worst #it's what makes me end up hating characters #and not the ones you're making out to be the worst #there are characters i actively hate now just because their fans try to paint everyone else out to be awful to them #because people claiming one character is perfect makes me more critical of them #and then sometimes it gets to the point where all that mixed together just makes me hate them #and i don't think i'm the only one

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