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starry-bi-sky · 10 months ago

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I had a thought, dear However scary About that night The bugs and the dirt Why were you digging? What did you bury Before those hands pulled me From the earth? I will not ask you where you came from I will not ask you, neither should you

-------- an extension of this excerpt because I've been thinking of Femme Danny and Jason all week. It's mildly suggestive, but that's really the only heads up needed. --------

Music blaring, bass heavy in her ears, Danny finds him in a ditch at the bottom of the bluff. She was leaving the observatory, and she nearly misses him as she turns out onto the last stretch of road leading back into the city.

She catches sight of him, just barely. A glimpse in the corner of her eye; something reflecting on the light. She thinks it's a deer at first, and instinctual terror that only the idiocy of a deer denting her car can give her, strikes her hard. There's no one behind her, so she slams the breaks.

Her car stops; there's no deer. She looks and looks, but there's no deer, no deer buddy — they always come in pairs. But something still catches her eye; light reflecting off leather, in the ditch below just a few feet in front of her.

"What the fuck is that?" Slips out of her mouth before she can really think it through, and she's pulling off to the shoulder, wheels crunching gravel, before she thinks that through either.

Danny's climbing out of her car within seconds, putting it in park and hitting her hazards as her door clicks open and she stands up on the ledge. The trees block the sky, and there is no moon beholden to brighten the land, only the dull light of the stars and the brights of her car.

There's a man in a ditch. And he's not moving. From the distance, Danny's not sure if he's breathing.

She breathes out for him; "Fuck." She's running around the front of her car, not thinking it through. Her feet crunch the gravel, bugs buzzing at her ears, and she's sliding down the small hill into the ditch to reach his side.

"Please don't be dead, please don't be dead." Repeats in mantra under her breath, she can smell blood; heavy and iron, mixing with the dirt and the grass. Her hands find his side, Danny rolls him over onto his back. Her fingers find his pulse, and she breathes relief. He's alive.

—---------

Danny finds no less than two — no, three guns, four knives, and an actual, goddamn shiv on the half-dead ditch man. But not a single ID or wallet.

The man reeks of danger, even in his unconscious state it lingers on him like a rich cologne. It's the human instinct to be curious, and maybe it's the blood and dirt that tells her he's bad news. Common sense, naturally.

She doesn't know what to do with him. Danny wants to help him, but the ghostly part of her, the one that seeks safety above all else — for herself, for her loved ones. Because growing up in a house of weapons on the tables for sticky, pudgy fingers to play with, and food that needs killing twice, and labs full of half-broken beakers and radioactive substances spilling onto the floor robbed her of it entirely, — tells her to leave him.

He's dangerous. Her core hums cold, freezing the tips of her fingers, making her ears ring. She forgets to breathe, her hands going numb. Leave him for the coyotes to find; for the bugs to feast on; for the mud to swallow whole. Leave him for the land. Nobody carries this many weapons on them unless—

He groans. In only the light from her high beams, his cracked lips split and makes a noise of pain. His chest rises, shuddery and slow, and he doesn't wake. The man slips back down into unconsciousness. But he's alive.

He's alive.

Danny exhales. It's springtime, wreathed in life. It's cold; he's cold. But alive. She shakes the chill from her fingers, resolution warms her lungs.

Carrying him up to her car isn't easy — dressed like fucking Dean Winchester and wearing half as many layers, the man is probably two hundred pounds. But she's been working out and taking boxing classes since sophomore year of high school. She throws him over her shoulder in a fireman's carry, and hikes them both up the hill.

She drives them home. Don't ask her why she didn't take them to the hospital; she can't give an answer. Not one that makes sense. She knows enough first aid to fix almost anything he might have.

Danny blasts the heat and turns the music on low; switches to something softer, more comforting, in case he wakes up. She kicks the passenger seat back far enough so that if he does, he's reclined comfortably.

He doesn't wake up, she can't keep her eyes off him anyways.

—---------

Danny lays him on the couch in her house. He gets blood and mud on the fabric, and she'll need to get a new one because of it. But she takes off his boots, strips him of his shirt and jackets, and flies to the bathroom to get her first aid kit.

He doesn't wake up the entire time she's putting stitches in his side. Nothing is broken, but he's bruised and cut. Some get band-aids, others get bandages.

The man has half as many scars as Danny does. Stabs, cuts, a few burns here and there. Danny has those too, but she doubts the man has been impaled before like she has. The luck of ghosts that they can't die by mortal means. Or curse, depending on how you look at it.

(There's a thin scar on his throat, like someone tried to slice it open. She sees it while she's stitching up a laceration near his collarbone, and Danny can't stop herself from huffing.)

("We match." She murmurs, joking dry and ingenuine. She doubts anyone's survived a botched decapitation like she has. At least his scar is thin and hard to see. That wasn't a good night for her; she had to sew it closed herself, alone out of refusal to let her friends help.)

When she's done, she collapses into the recliner beside him, and falls asleep. She slips in and out of dreams all night.

—---------

When she wakes up, the man is staring at her, sitting up on the couch like an animal listening for the predator nearby. It's a good thing she hid his weapons in the floorboards when they arrived. She stares back at him, eyes half-lidded with sleep.

He's handsome. She thinks, and wakes up fully.

—---------

His name is Jason Todd, he doesn't remember who he is.

That's... a problem.

—---------

She makes them both food, and she'll never stop appreciating the fact that she no longer needs to fight her fridge before the food inside lets her eat. She hasn't lived with her parents in years, and yet the awe still hits her some days.

"I thought I told you to stay seated." She frowns when Jason Todd enters her kitchen, a hand hovering over his bandaged side. They're both tense; awkward and wrong-footed. Off-kilter. It's not a surprise to her. He's amnesiac, she's a stranger.

Jason Todd blinks at her, leaning against the doorframe. From her periphery, he shrugs, only to suck in his teeth in pained regret moments later. "I got bored." He tells her.

"Well, I don't have painkillers," Danny retorts, cheek comes easy to her. Too easy, sometimes. "if you tear your stitches then I'm giving you a rag to bite into while I redo them."

Well, if anything, it gets a snort from him.

—---------

"So, do I have a shirt, or did you just find a half-naked, half-dead man in the woods and decide to take him home?" Jason Todd asks her from the table a few minutes later. She can see, even standing a few feet away, the gooseflesh rising bumps against his skin.

Her cheeks color pink, and she moves to the hallway. "You have a shirt," she says, "you have two actually, and a jacket. I threw the shirts in the wash because they were filthy."

The jacket was leather, so during the night, when she woke up from her many bouts of restless sleep, she got up and cleaned it by hand. "I would've done the same with your jeans, but I can take a half-dead man home," she opens the dryer and pulls out the shirts, "but I draw the line at taking off his pants when he's unconscious."

It gets a short laugh out of him; harsh and brief, and it makes her relax, just a little. Laughter meant just enough comfort to not be tense... most of the time. She returns to his side and drapes the still-warm clothes onto the table.

"What if my legs were hurt?" He asks her, raising an eyebrow even as he reached for the first shirt.

"Then that is called an exception to the rule, ditch man."

—---------

He stays with her. He has nowhere to go — and trust her, they looked. Or they tried to. But he has no social media that shows up under the name ‘Jason Todd’. Oh, there are Jason Todds, but none that match the way he looks — none of them his age, none of them with black hair and blue eyes, no white streak in the curls at the front.

Well, there was one possible candidate. A Jason Todd-Wayne, infamous adoptive son of Bruce Wayne. But he died the same year Danny did, and unlike her, he didn’t come back.

“Great.” Jason Todd sighs heavy, “I match with a dead kid.”

“I’m honestly kind of impressed.” Danny tells him, frowning despite her laughing disbelief. She scrolls through every social media she can find, and he just doesn’t show up. There are no warrants out for his arrests, no celebrity interviews with him in it, no missing news reports matching his description. Nothing. “How do you not have any socials? You’re like a ghost.” And she knows a thing or two about ghosts.

It’s equally as suspicious as it is impressive. Who are you, Jason Todd? She wonders, looking over to him.

He merely shrugs, careful of his injuries, and slumps into his chair. “Don’t ask me, I don’t remember.”

She gives him the guest room, and they go out and buy him clothes with what budget she can afford. She drags him to a thrift store first, to every thrift store in the city, and they come back with a decent enough haul that he has clothes for at least two weeks.

—---------

“Danny, what is that?”

She takes a long sip of her drink, Jason lingering at her side like a shadow. “A smoothie, Tucker.” She says, deadpan like it's the most obvious thing in the world as she slides into their favorite booth with practiced ease. “You know this, I always get one on Fridays.”

Jason follows her easily, slow and careful, mindful of his sides. He’s back to awkward, tense, acting like an outside looking in. Like he’s not quite sure what to do in the face of her friends. They’ve been together for a week now, and she asked him if he wanted to meet Sam and Tucker with her.

(“You’ve been cooped up here all week.” She says when he asks her why, her hands shifting the purse at her shoulder. In shorts and a tank-top her scars lay on display for the world to see, and while she's long since shed the worst of her self-consciousness, it still creeps up on her. She can feel his eyes on them, even after a week. “Some fresh air and a change of scenery might do you some good. Maybe even jog that noggin of yours.”)

Sam and Tucker stare at her, expressions unreading on their faces. Their eyes flick to Jason at her side, and then back to her. Danny takes another longer sip of her drink, and when she lets go with an obnoxious smack, she jerks her head to Jason. “Oh,” she says like an afterthought, an impish smile shadowing over her lips. “This is Jason, I found him in a ditch on Sunday.”

"You what!?"

—---------

She doesn’t know how it happens. It sneaks up on her like sunlight creeping across the grass, melting away the morning dew and warming the dirt. She loves him. She loves him, she loves him, she loves him. It’s a terrible, choking thing. Wonderfully beautiful, melting her from the inside out.

She loves him, she loves him, she loves him.

It’s greater than anything she’s felt before. Different from when she nearly dated Valerie in high school — but so, so similar to it at the same time. Warm in its certainty, in its similarity, burning in its difference.

Danny doesn’t even realize it until half a year living with him, maybe just a little bit longer. But she realizes when she comes downstairs in the early dredges of the morning, sleep clinging to her lashes and sunlight unfurling through the windows, and finds him in the kitchen making food already.

It’s not the first time she’s woken up to him doing this. But it’s, for some reason, only now that it hits her how fucking domestic it is. With music playing soft through the speaker of his used phone, barefoot in nothing but sweatpants, and humming along under his breath. He’s gotten so comfortable here; he laughs easier now, smiles easier. It was like watching a flower bloom in real time.

And the sunlight cards through his hair like fingers, caressing over his face in that loving way it does when it wants someone to see the breathless beauty of their eyes.

Something constricts in Danny’s chest, tight, fond, wanting. Mine, her mind whispers, faint and distant, and knocking the air from her lungs like a fucking train. Her fingers curl tight around the stairway rails, she has half a mind to crack it in two.

Then he turns and sees her, he always notices her quickly, and Jason smiles at her.

Somehow, Danny manages to smile back smiling with the ease of breathing, even when her mouth runs dry.

(If she kisses him, will she taste sugar? She hopes not — white sugar is unfilling, sweet but with nothing else to it. If she tastes Jason Todd, she hopes she tastes caramel.)

—---------

“Want to go throw axes with me?” Danny asks, draping over the back of the couch and hanging her arms off Jason’s shoulders. Her hand finds his hair, and her fingers tangle with the dark curls. She can smell his shampoo when she hooks her chin on the top of his head.

Jason stills, a book in hand — he’s always got a book, and Danny’s never had much artistic talent but she always want s to find a pencil, maybe some charcoals, and sketch the sight down on paper. Memory isn’t enough, she needs it burned into something tangible. She wants to burn everything he does onto paper, wants to remember every little thing about him.

Then he hums, questioning and low, and Danny tries not to shiver with greed to hear it again. She hums back, her next inhale clearing her head. “Well, it’s not just me, but Sam and Tucker too. A new bar opened up downtown and we were gonna check it out, and we have enough time to add another person to the reservation.”

A silence, thick and thoughtful. Jason tilts his head back to look up at her, and she removes her chin and hand to look down at him. Her hair curtains over them both, locking her into his eyes — impossibly blue, and beautifully so, with teal lining the iris.

He wears his thoughts on his sleeve, his brows furrowed and mouth puckered in lighthearted thoughtfulness. Quit making me want to kiss you, Danny thinks, and forces her eyes to remain on his face. Idly, her hands trace over his shirt, rising slowly to drag the back of her nail over his collarbone.

Jason shudders, sighs out slow, and smiles easily. “Sure, what time are we leaving?”

—---------

Danny sighs as if she aches; she does. Her fingers find Jason Todd’s hair, soft and slipping between her fingers like silk. He’s so close to her face she can feel his breath on her lips, it’s driving her crazy with it.

“My god.” She murmurs, her voice slipping out without her consent as her fingers drop from his hair to trace featherlight touches down his temples, down his jaw. His eyes haven’t left hers, half-lidded they are, and heavy, staring at her like he might just swallow her whole.

Please do, she thinks, tilting her head to the side to slot their noses next to each other. His hands tighten at her waist, fingers digging through her hoodie into her skin. He hums, questioningly, low and rumbling like a thunderstorm on the horizon. As if he can’t trust his voice to say something instead.

Danny chokes on nothing’s heat and runs her thumb over his bottom lip, the flesh catching briefly on her nail. She can’t think straight with him so close to her. Not when he’s so close she can smell his cologne, not when he’s so close she can lean down and sink her teeth into his throat and leave a bruise. She should, it might clear her head.

Instead, she sighs again, her mouth so close to his that she brushes over his lips when she says; “You’re divine.”

In the end, she doesn’t need to think about leaving bruises on his throat, because Jason closes that centimeters’ worth of distance between each other and kisses her like he needs air.

—---------

“Do you have to go, love?” Arms snake around her waist, slipping easily over her dress, and Danny laughs, soft and easy, as Jason pulls her flush against his chest and drops his head into the crook over her shoulder. He dwarfs her in the mirror, capable of curling around her entirely, and she raises a gloved hand to rake her fingers through his soft hair.

Danny hums deeply, tilting to bare her throat as Jason starts pressing kisses to the skin. “Vlad will be upset if I don’t show up.” She wasn’t sure of the importance of this party, but Vlad had promised her a hefty bribe to show up, and call her greedy but damn if she wasn’t going to turn it down.

Teeth bite gentle at the underside of her jaw, and Danny laughs out of surprise. Jason smiles, indenting it into her skin, and his hand finds the slit of her dress and covers the burn scar on the outside of her thigh. “What about running late?” He asks, something impish in his tone. “I’ve never seen you wear this one; you look good in red.”

Danny laughs again, turns her head to catch his lips against hers, and kisses him long and sweet. “Yes, he’ll be mad if I’m late.” She says when she pulls back.

He pouts, and really, how else is Danny supposed to react other than kiss him again? So she does, happily. “Wake me up when you get back,” Jason murmurs against her mouth, chasing after her, “I want to help you undress.”

—---------

Some days, death creeps up on her, and the phantom pains of it render her coiled into a ball in her bed. She wakes up at three am burning, her starburst scars rooting down to her bones to remind her of the feeling of being torn apart by the atoms and stitched back together again.

Danny can feel her heart beating in her ears, fast and panicked like she ran a marathon, filling her mouth with iron and the urge to cough out her lungs. There’s a scream stuck in the back of her throat like a spider sac, and she writhes with her head in her arms for what feels like an hour before she forces herself out of bed, mind half-muddled like a zombie.

Jason is still asleep, Danny doesn’t have half the mind to be grateful, she shuffles herself down into the garage and grabs a compressed canister from the fridge, hidden in a false shelf. She might not keep ectoplasm in the kitchen, but she does in the garage.

She returns on second nature to the bathroom. She locks the door, shuts the drain, and runs the water to boiling, and doesn’t stop the faucet until the water reaches the little drain in the wall beneath that prevents overflow. The compressed canister cracks open with a hiss, and Danny dumps what’s probably an ounce of ectoplasm into the steaming water.

The effect is instantaneous, the water swirling and turning bright with ectoplasm all the way down. It’s diluted, and Danny only remembers to take off her sleep shirt before she slips into the water.

Relief sinks into her, and chases away the worst of the pain. She sighs, she can breathe again, and dunks her head beneath the water.

Then doesn’t get out until she’s freezing again and nearly peeling with wrinkles.

(She goes downstairs when she’s changed into dry clothes and her hair is damp, and then collapses into Jason’s lap. Her face finds the crook of his neck, and Danny slumps, arms wrapping around his neck.)

(Jason’s hands find her waist, and his thumbs rub circles into her side, slipping under her shirt to run over the raised skin of the burn there. “What’s wrong?” He asks, murmuring low and close to her ear.)

(“Phantom pains.” Danny mumbles.)

(“Where?”)

(“Everywhere.”)

—---------

When Danny returns home after finding Jason again, she feels numb, she feels cold. Her engagement ring is heavy on her finger and she feels like an outsider looking in when she looks down at it.

She can’t get the way he looked at her out of her mind. It’s seared into her brain.

Her back hits the door, and slowly she slides down it, a sob building in her throat. Her lip curling, her heart aching, her heart breaking. Too many questions inside her head for her to try and sort through them, but one is prevalent; Jason Todd is a liar.

Danny shrieks his name so loud that she breaks her ceiling lights, and takes out the power throughout the entire block. There are dogs howling, cars wailing outside. There’s broken glass beneath her, scattered across the ground, cutting into her palms, and she hurts so much she wants to take the biggest shard and shred herself into ribbons.

—---------

The memory fades away back into its small star-shape, and floats back up to the ceiling of her lair’s observatory. Danny watches it go, something small and aching still in her chest. Two weeks since she moved into the Zone, and she hates that she still loves him. She loves that she still loves him.

She hates that she still misses him. She still visits Sam and Tucker, but Amity Park is tainted with the memory of Jason Todd; she needs away from it for a little while. Maybe a long while. She’s not too sure right now, she just needs to stay away. Somewhere where she can’t run into him.

Danny pulls down another star to watch another memory again. One where they're dancing.

#dpxdc #danny fenton is not the ghost king #dpxdc crossover #dpdc #fem danny fenton #amnesic jason todd #dead on main #dpxdc ficlet #starry's writing #who gets amnesia twice!? prompt au #credit goes to kuroishuuha because this was their prompt that inspired this #cw mildly suggestive #danny's 'obsession' being more about her own personal safety along with the safety of her loved ones just makes sense to me in this au #i have so many thoughts about her and jason its lowkey ridiculous.#in my head danny got into boxing and she also has a ton of scars from ghost fights and burn scars from the portal accident #yes that *is* a reference to the fact that Dean Winchester voiced the Red Hood in UTRH! And also I imagined Jason in the #s1 Dean leather jacket and promptly lost my fucking mind. so now he has that. in my head he was undercover when he got amnesia blasted #and the amnesia was from a magic user. and that when he regained his memories the magic got all fucky wucky and thats why he forgot danny.#it didn't exactly go away it just malfunctioned for some reason and latched on to the only other memories he had. accidentally releasing #the hold it had on his prior memories in turn. it's just horrible luck all around folks. bad end jason is having a terrible time frankly.#so is danny but they're kinda suffering on the same yet different frequencies. danny can't understand why jason would run off on her #and thought he was pretending not to know her. it threw her entire perception of him into question and whether or not the last three #years were even real or if he was just a fantastic actor. she's obsessively rewatching memories of them together to try and figure out if #he ever let his 'facade' slip around her and she just didn't notice. and also because she just. really fucking misses him. he disappeared #for three months. she was worried sick. they were supposed to be married by now. she had to call all their venues and cancel. she returned #her wedding dress. she's hurting terribly right now. Jason is like. one wrong rubber band snap from pulling a Tim. He didn't fall out of #love. he forgot and now he's remembering and he's still madly in love with his fiancé. its only been 3mo but now she's dead and he is just.#SUFFERING. someone keep an eye on him yall. he's not doing too hot. the waynes are cursed to never get married ifykyk

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dazzle02 · 2 months ago

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Why Do People Never Let Ian's Bipolar Be About IAN?

This does get rambly and ranty and might annoy people. So beware.

Honestly so fed up of looking for good fics about Ian's Bipolar and most of them being about Mickey's feelings on it, and from Mickey's POV, and how hard it is for him to see Ian like that and how stressful it is on him.

Yes, loved ones of people struggling with Mental Illnesses go through a lot and that's important to acknowledge.

But why aren't there more fics about how Ian feels about his Bipolar? How hard it is for him? How he feels when he's manic or depressed? How he feels after an episode? Him having to deal with living his life with Bipolar? How he interacts with the world as someone with Bipolar? Him getting to defend himself if someone is ableist towards him? How he feels about the Psych Ward? How he feels about the way everyone (including Mickey) sometimes speaks about him?

And this is the opposite of that, but I'd also love fics that explore the Gallagher's feelings on it. Especially the younger ones as that was never really explored in the show. How awful Debbie and Carl must've felt in that moment where they go to Mickey's house and see Ian laying in bed unresponsive and realise what's happening. How it must've felt to watch their big brother who was always so reliable and steady be brought down by the same thing as Monica. Liam's feelings on having helped Frank profit off his mania, which wasn't on Liam as he was a child being manipulated by his Father, but surely he would've later realised what was going on and had feelings about it. Debbie's fear at hearing Fiona tell Mickey that he could end up suicidal. But also Fiona and Lip. Having to see their little brother go through this. We got a bit more of that in the show though.

But mostly, like I said, I want more about how IAN feels about everything. One of my favourite moments from the show is him fighting for his EMT job. It's so important. It's him fully accepting that he is Bipolar and that it is a disability and fighting to still get to live a fulfilling life. Realising that being Bipolar isn't the end of his world, that he can still do something with his life. That Monica was right when she said that people like them can be happy, even if her way of getting that wasn't healthy. And the story leading up to that of him realising what being Bipolar means outside of the actual Disorder. What it means for him in the world as a member of society. That first moment of discrimination for being Bipolar. And him at first feeling defeated by it, but then deciding to fight. And I know we all hate Caleb, but he DID help Ian in some ways. He pushed him to fight for his job. Did he say things in the best way? No. But he did clearly believe that Ian really had it in him to be an EMT and saw it as bullshit that being Bipolar could keep him from that. And Ian fought. And he won. He knew his rights. He knew that he was being kept from work due to being Bipolar. And he knew that that was discrimination and not okay and he said it. And he got his job back and gained the respect of his co-workers.

And I wish people would write about that sort of thing more. Instead of having someone be ableist towards him and him just getting sad and Mickey getting protective and defending him then taking him home and comforting him, have Ian stand up for himself like he did in that scene. Yes, sometimes you need someone to stand up for you and then comfort you. It can be nice to have someone who will defend you so you don't have to constantly do it yourself. But it's such a big part of Ian's character that he DOESN'T need Mickey to step in and defend him. He can do it himself. And he will. In fics Mickey gets to stand up to Terry himself and doesn't need Ian to do it for him, why is Ian not allowed the same thing?

Same with when dealing with Frank, or Kash/Ned. Somehow it always ends up feeling like it's more about Mickey than Ian. How he feels about the people who hurt Ian. Him defending him and telling them off. Why can't Ian get to do that more?

Ian is more than capable of defending himself. And more than capable of kicking someone's ass. He has ROTC training. He can fire a gun perfectly. He took Mickey out with one punch to the neck. He was beating the shit outta Terry in 4x11 before someone smashed a chair over his back. Frank said in the Pilot that he could "disembowel an enemy with a roll of dimes and an old gym sock." He said in S1 that he broke a guys leg in Karate so bad it took three pins to put it back together. He can fight, and he can HURT people. Just because he usually prefers not to doesn't mean he can't or won't. Because he has shown that he can and will. He's not some Damsel in Distress who needs Mickey to come and save him all the time. This is why I kinda hate the scenes of Carl and Kelly teaching Ian to fight before he's going to Prison. As if he's not the one who Carl was asking to teach him new knife grips in S3, as if he doesn't have all that ROTC training, as if he's never fought in his life and doesn't know even the basics. It should've been more framed as them helping him touch up on the stuff he already knows, that he was doing long before they were. Stuff that it honestly sounds like he might've been teaching Carl when he was younger. Just having him say to them "Hey, I haven't done this stuff properly in years and just wanna make sure I can still do it. Wanna help?" Instead of framing it like he'd never done this before and they just knew so much more than he did.

And why can't he process these things with one of his siblings sometimes? And this is just my love for platonic relationships coming out. But I wish there were more fics about Ian and his siblings. Especially Debbie and Carl. I've read a few that focus on him and Lip or Fiona, and Liam too. But there's just something so special about his relationships with Debbie and Carl and the fics are sorely lacking. (But even the Fiona, Lip and Liam ones tend to be more focused on Gallavich. I LOVE Gallavich, but I need more fics where Ian gets to exist within his family without Mickey...)

Honestly I just need more fics where Ian gets to exist as his own person and not just as Mickey's husband.

That's what this post is about really. I am really focused on this right now. The fandoms treatment of Ian makes me sick. (Along with some other characters...)

I also would love for more of him with Kev and/or Veronica. I feel like that was underutilised in the show. He got a few scenes with Kev over the seasons, and a couple with V too. But others got full stories focused around their friendships with them, but Ian didn't. (Just as he was the only one who never had a meaningful story with Frank, which I kinda like as a plot point, but would like more if they actually MADE IT a plot point instead of it just being that they very rarely interact, when they do it's negative and Ian never really has any feelings about that...) There could've been a really interesting story arc when Svetlana was starting her relationship with them and they were becoming parents to Yevgeny. Ian seeing this and feeling happy that Svetlana is happy, and that Yevgeny has such good parents in his life, but also feeling some sadness due to losing that relationship due to his mania. Feeling that grief of the family dynamic that they'd built between S4&5, and at having to see these people he loves be parents to the kid he loved as his own while he couldn't because his mania ruined that for him. Maybe even eventually having Svetlana give him another chance. Have it be emotional, but then have a kinda comedic story of Ian, Kev and V realising that they have become coparents and then a sweet story of them figuring that extra dynamic out. This would be good for multiple reasons.

But back to what started this post, sorry for the rambles. I am fed up of IAN'S Bipolar being made about Mickey.

Not even just in fics.

The amount of posts or comments on things that I'll see that are all "Poor Mickey" "Mickey is struggling with this so much" "This is so hard for Mickey" "Mickey hates seeing Ian like this" "This must be so scary for Mickey" etc pisses me off. What about Ian? You know, the one who actually HAS Bipolar? The one who while manic enlisted in the Army under his brothers identity, then proceeded to try to steal a helicopter and surface to air missiles (that one is never talked about... by anyone. Not even in the show. When the MPs find Lip they list that as one of the things he tried to steal and everyone just brushes past it. WTF did he want them for?!) and then went AWOL. Then stayed with his ex (one of the men who groomed him as a teen), ended up kicked out, then lived in a crack house with his mother who is also Bipolar, ended up working in a strip club and selling himself and doing drugs and starving himself, then his mother left him there, eventually ended up back home, then had a depressive episode (I always wonder if that was his first or if he'd had one before anyone found him but just didn't know what it was and couldn't process it as he was unmedicated. Part of me wonders if he had his first while staying in that crack house with Monica and if maybe that was when she left... I feel like it could make sense...) had his entire family trying to get him to see a doctor because they're convinced (rightly so) that he has the same thing that they seem to hate Monica for (they hate her for leaving and the things she did to hurt them, but it often gets so twisted that it comes off as hating her for being Bipolar in the first place...) except Mickey who is adamant he's fine and is protecting him from having to talk to a doctor and defending him to his siblings until suddenly he's not after Ian MADE A PORNO that is out there forever and he has to live with that forever, so he ran off with the baby he loves as his own, sells himself again to get money to buy stuff for Yev, ends up convinced that the Police who are trying to "take his baby" were sent by JESUS (which is absolutely heartbreaking and I wish they'd gone into that a little more because Ian had a lot of religious trauma when it came to his Bipolar, and I know that religious delusions are pretty common in Bipolar and Schizophrenia, but I always wonder if that was also in part due to him being gay and literally earlier in the season having to deal with religious homophobes...) then thought he was being chased by Demons sent by an Angel, then he ended up sedated and arrested (the arresting officer seemed kind and understanding, which was such a relief...) and then he was in the Psych Ward and he did not like it and it was clearly traumatising for him and his meds were just making him totally numb. Then he was out of there, with a diagnosis he didn't believe but everyone else did, and meds he had to take but didn't want to because they made him feel like LIFE WASN'T WORTH LIVING (also, wish people would explore how Debs must've felt hearing him say that...) so he flushed them and then had his sister using the same tactics on him that they used to use on Monica and that must've just felt so shitty. But also, Mickey wasn't there. The first thing Carl said to him was "What does it feel like to be crazy?" And I don't hold it against Carl, he was a scared kid with no reference for how to be more sensitive about that stuff, but man that must've hurt. (Also, I think about the look on Ian's face when Carl says it could be him next so much! He looked so upset! He would never want that for his little brother!) Then Mickey's back, yay! But then he's waking up absolutely terrified because he's convinced there are MPs trying to get in the house to take him away, and he almost hits Debbie with a bat. Then he's getting told that he's likely going to have to be on these meds that he HATES for FORTY YEARS! Possibly longer. Basically this is something he has to deal with his whole life.

Then he's having to deal with adjusting to the meds, and everyone fussing over him like he's a child and just everyone treating him differently. He puts his hand on a hot stove just to feel something. And he opens up to Sammi about the Army. Also, first time he refers to himself as mentally ill. First time he really acknowledges that. And he manages to open up to Mickey about how the meds make him feel, about how he needs Mickey to be his boyfriend and his partner instead of just his caretaker. And it seems that Mickey is understanding that. He stops protesting at Ian having a beer, they go home happy and plan a proper date. Then fucking Sammi reveals she's called the MPs and they're there to arrest him. Literally the episode before this his first scene was him being absolutely terrified due to believing they were there trying to get him, and now they really are. And he is dragged out of there screaming. He's feeling betrayed because he opened up to Sammi and she threw it back in his face. And he's terrified. Then he has to hear his siblings talk about him like he's not there, talk about how bad his Bipolar is, talk about how he's been acting crazy, how their mother with the same thing made their lives hell, how he sometimes can't take care of himself, list all the things he did while manic. And they're doing it to help him. They love him and want him home and safe, but hearing them say all that would hurt! And then his Mum is there, telling him all this stuff about everyone wanting to fix them and how he'll never be able to make them happy because of that. And how is he supposed to not believe that when he's just had to listen to his siblings say all that? When he's just been dealing with everyone treating him like their patient instead of brother and boyfriend. When he already feels he's just been hurting everyone he loves. So when he's released he goes with her because she gets it, and they can just be fucked up together where they can't hurt anyone and everyone will be better off without him. But then while he's with her she talks about bad things that happened when he was a kid like they're fun and good memories, and she's dating a drug dealer who cooks meth and is just awful, and she tells him they CAN be happy. And he goes home. But he's feeling terrible about himself still, he still feels like he's just a burden on everyone, especially Mickey. So he breaks up with him because the thought of keeping him tied to him like that destroys him. Oh, and you know, that scene at the bridge where he was very clearly thinking of jumping because he was so depressed and felt his life was over... Ya know, that little scene.

Why is it never about all that? Why is it almost always "Poor Mickey having to see him like this" and "Mickey is such a great boyfriend for dealing with this!" And like, yes, it obviously sucks for Mickey having to see the man he loves like that. And yes, certain things that happened during that time hurt Mickey. And yes, he's a good boyfriend who tries his best to take care of Ian. But WHY is that so much more important to people than the person who's brain has turned against him and blown up his entire life?

I know why. Ableism. Plain and simple.

And the show could be guilty of this at times too. So much of the story of him first showing symptoms and then his diagnosis were from other character's POV. Especially Mickey's. We get a bit of a shift in 5x06 when he takes Yevgeny, and then him in the Psych Ward. But then it kinda shifts back to other characters again. A moment I think about a lot is when Ian and Mickey go to the clinic to get Ian's meds after the incident with the bat. It's a good scene, and I would say it's more Ian's POV. But I kinda wish the scene had ended on a shot of Ian instead of Mickey. Don't get me wrong, showing both reactions to the doctor saying Ian would be on the meds for at least 30-40 years was important, but I kinda wish that it had gone from Ian to Mickey and back to Ian again. I just think it's kind of important how a scene closes and who that last shot is of. And in that moment, it should've been Ian because this was about HIM. And by ending it on Mickey, it feels kind of more focused on Mickey than Ian. And I hate that. In that moment, Ian should've been the focus. Just as there are moments that Mickey should be the focus. (Like there should've been scenes from Mickey's POV about 3x06 and the aftermath...)

I'm just fed up. I want more fics about Ian as a person outside his relationship with Mickey. I want more people talking about Ian outside his relationship with Mickey. More people acknowledging Ian's relationships with his family and friends.

I love Mickey. I love Gallavich. I love reading fics about them. And I DO enjoy fics where Mickey is taking care of Ian. But when that's basically all I can find it gets boring and exhausting.

I want more fics from Ian's POV about his own Disorder and traumas. I want more fics about Ian's relationships with his siblings. I want more fics of Ian with characters other than Mickey. Like, let him and Tami bond over their experiences being groomed and learn to truly process that with someone who understands. Let him have days out with just Franny. Let him bond with Veronica over their medical knowledge. Spend time with Kev. Let him have feelings over when Carl was trying to get into Westpoint. WHY wasn't there a scene between them about when Carl was rejected from Westpoint where he goes to talk to Ian because he knows he understands?! Why was there basically NOTHING between them when Carl started Military School and was wanting to go to Westpoint? I loved the scenes of them running together and I loved the scene where Carl told Ian he was considering not going to Military School because Dom wanted to get back together and Ian told him not to. But where were the scenes acknowledging that this was Ian's dream that got ripped away from him by his Bipolar? Where was the scene of Ian telling Carl he's proud of him? Of Carl going to him for advice? Why did they have to make Ian dismiss Debbie's sexuality? Why couldn't they have them bond? Or at least if they wanted to keep that first scene of her coming out to him and him saying she's not, have a scene later in the episode where he apologises to her and explains that he's just scared for her because he doesn't want her to have to go through the stuff he's had to or that the people he was helping during the Gay Jesus arc were going through and that because that was still SO fresh and literally at the front of his mind that fear took over and he just didn't want that for Debbie. That could've been interesting. Instead they just decided that the one person in the family who should've been the most understanding and helpful to her when she was questioning her sexuality is actually just going to totally invalidate it and never provide a reason. Because the fear of someone you love going through the same thing you've had to your whole life is going to make you act irrationally and maybe do or say things you shouldn't, and that could've been really interesting. Instead it just wasn't. Instead it was just everyone telling Debbie she wasn't gay and then suddenly that just stops and it's never mentioned again that anyone was saying that. Let it be an ACTUAL story with genuine feelings between two queer siblings who love each other instead of whatever that was meant to be.

#shameless us #shameless #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #gallavich #gallagher family #ableism #ableism in fandoms #people need to stop #let disabled people have voices #let platonic relationships be just as important as romantic ones #let ian gallagher be his own character instead of viewing him as an extension of mickey #he's not just there to be whatever you need for mickey #whether that be a loving husband #or someone for mickey to take care of #or someone to use to hurt mickey #this goes for so many disabled characters #it feels like some weird saviour complex #and i hate it #let ian's bipolar be about ian #but also let his siblings have feelings about it too #and again #mickey is allowed feelings about it #you are allowed to write fics about mickey's feelings about it #but we need to talk about ian's feelings about it more #because my mental health is my own #no one else's #if someone came and said that my family is so amazing for dealing with me i'd be so hurt #or just constantly made my shit about everyone around me #i'm not bipolar

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