#and Mike and his storylines

[chewwytwee]

Better call Saul is da best show evarrrrr xD

[pinkeoni]

There's such a double standard irt Mike and Will showing interest in other people

[monkee-mobile]

okay random headcanon but peter likes to nuzzle with his nose!! he gets all smiley and snuggly and just nuzzles in!!

also the monkees set aside time in the day to snuggle, usually before they crash for bed. this probably starts sometimes in the 70s and continues as they get older

okay thank you bye!!!

[byclairs]

Lucas's arc seemed like he deserved to be put in his place and recognize that he was wrong for believing he could hope for better? And they did not even focus in his character that much. Most people say Mike has a spectacular forced conformity storyline waiting for s5 when we had a forced conformity storyline for Lucas but it was so sloppily written. I thought the forced conformity narrative is suppposed to be written good in any case for poc too, not just for your white character that you send a message with.

it feels like the duffers just don’t care enough to convey a cohesive message for lucas’ arc and/or don’t know how because on the one hand they’ve acknowledged several times the racism he faces both on and outside the show so they can’t even play dumb and yet they then constantly downplay what he goes through and so you end up with scenes like the end of s4 where he basically learns to know his place or whatever like..lucas is not in same boat as someone like mike who’s mainly bullied for being a nerd. he’s ostracized in a way that mike and dustin will literally never understand but the show almost never makes any attempt to show how he deals with that yet it’s explicitly talked about in an official book from his perspective (and i know lucas on the line is not technically canon but it’s still tied to netflix/st and if they had someone in the writer’s room who could’ve incorporated even part of the type of material from the book into the show i think it would’ve done wonders to flesh out his story) like i’m sorry if you’re gonna acknowledge that his situation is different than the rest of the party’s then you need to put more care into following through with that because the whole “i thought i wanted to be like you—popular, normal” scene was just..it felt like they were insinuating his main reason for joining basketball was just to be cool when we know it’s a lot more complex than that; he was trying to protect not only himself but his friends too even though they don’t face the same shit he does. and possibly even enjoy something new in the process god forbid. and you would think that he was ditching his friends and other interests for the basketball team when that’s not what happened at all? like he never started acting aloof with them or ignoring them, he was still very much in hellfire and he never turned his back on them he even used his status on the team to lure them away from where eddie was hiding even though everyone was saying he killed chrissy and lucas didn’t know what was going on yet. he never let his desire to fit in turn him into someone unrecognizable who needed to be taught a lesson and that’s why it pisses me off so bad that he was made to feel this deep regret in the end as if he made some huge mistake that he learned from because in reality he’s never been anything short of a loyal friend or strayed from his morals. and to top it all off mike and dustin get off the hook without having reflect on how they hurt lucas because apparently you should never support your friends unless you fully understand and agree with the things they want 👍🏼 idk.

i also think his conflicting feelings about helping his (ex) girlfriend deal with her grief for her canonically racist brother who traumatized and literally almost killed him would’ve been really interesting and important to explore especially since that most likely relates to the reasons he started feeling like it was urgent to fit in more in the first place but. none of that because this boy’s feelings are never taken into account

i also think everyone should read all of this

[cherry-treelane]

everytime i feel bad and stressed about my life i remember that i might be in a troubling situation and having a bad time but im not season 4 fiona gallagher in the clink after leaving crack on the counter which my 3 year old baby brother happened to ingest resulting in a fatal near-death experience thats wracked me with never-ending guilt and forever altered my life

[imjustavenuxwithaboomerang]

no yeah i really love how every core 4 member got a real happy ending....except for ej

nini is happily pursuing music in la with her moms' full support

ricky is dating gina, a girl he calls "home". he's finally becoming more at peace with love and how to show it. he's learned how to not run from his problems. his parents are getting back together (???) and his drama teacher wrote such a good letter of recommendation that he was accepted into a community college

gina becomes a literal movie star and was able to change the filming location of her second movie, without any consequences, to salt lake so she can physically be with ricky, the boy she finally got to date after crushing on him since the day they met. she has a permanent home to call her own now. her mom finally showed up to an opening night and she was finally able to portray gabriella

and then ej...is alone (in a wildcat sense) at college, financially cut off from his family, working multiple jobs to afford it. he spends most of his season 4 screentime guiding and helping others (ricky, gina, miss jenn, madlyn) instead of an actual storyline and a lot of his lines were about how he's made mistakes and has to live with them

[jaegerisim]

The Eddie Munson-ification of Mike Wheeler, my mortal enemy.

[puhpandas]

i cant stop thinking abt mike trying to mess w evan on his birthday while gregory consistently stops him. mostly bc flashlight duo hating michael is the best thing thats come out of fnaf

SERIOUSLY. like after a while of being friends (maybe a year or more) Gregory would have fully convinced Evan that hes fine to actually hate Mike, because at that point Gregory's gotten it into Evan's head at least a little bit about how he isnt what mike and his father say about him, and hes not stupid or worthless and doesnt deserve to be hated

mike on the other hand? oh yeah. Gregory's finally made it so Evan realizes that Mike is a shit brother (at least in this au, where he never gets a wake up call and nobody ever tells him to stop), and when mike tries to pull some crap on Evan's thirteenth when Evan stopped reacting as badly to his attempts of tormenting him, Gregory isnt having it and just keeps sabotaging Mike behind Evan's back, because man does Evan deserve to have a good birthday without the knowledge that somebody doesnt like that hes having fun enough to try to stop it.

[brionysea]

will people ANSWER his QUESTIONS. this is why he's not allowed to breathe the same air as joyce anymore. they'd actually figure out what's going on with him if they had the chance to brainstorm together

[heavencasteel420]

I think sometimes fans who are almost exclusively invested in the younger-teen characters are only interested in seeing the older characters (especially the older teens) in a support role to their faves. Which is a totally neutral preference, but then they confuse that preference with (a) what is good/interesting writing more generally and (b) what is healthy for or desired by the characters in-universe.

[vendingmachinesoundeffects]

man you guys weren’t kidding about racism making bcs a shittier show. nacho’s storyline is the most compelling in the show by leagues and it moves at a fucking snail’s pace because they weren’t willing to give him more that two minutes of screentime per episode. 

[forcebookish]

the more i rewatch burn notice the more i kinda ship michael and tyler gray..............................................

[answermywearyquery]

sol and yim. literally nothing else matters to me atm.

[willothewispwisteriadawn]

His companion app bio indicates that his heroism comes from his narcissism. He likes being the man who can “stand up and get things done.”

And I love how the game presents the positives and negatives of this. Mike’s drive can cause him to make hasty choices that get people hurt/killed. But that same desire to accomplish things also saves lives at other points. He has selfish reasons for being selfless, and that’s what makes the progression of his story a bit interesting. You see this rash, egotistical guy start to show that he does in fact rely on his friends and their well-being for his own happiness and self-image. It’s also telling that Hill states Mike’s deepest fear is “isolation.”

I feel like there should be more stuff exploring Mike's weird hero complex. His need to be able to fix everything. Specifically stuff around him having to deal with that not being the case.

[bylerpining]

looking at the way they begin and end each season regarding mike's relationships with will and el is so telling and makes it so clear where they're going with each of their arcs (specifically looking at s3 and s4):

beginning of s3: everything is going relatively well and their relationships are aligned with the "status quo." mike is in a (what he perceives to be) normal hetero relationship with el and friends with will.

end of s3: something has shifted, and mike begins to have some sort of doubt about his feelings toward el. at the same time, he realizes the depth of his connection with will and how important will's presence is in his life.

beginning of s4: mike pulls out all the stops to be the "perfect" boyfriend for el and puts on a false persona in order to do so. mike attempts to distance himself from will to keep up the illusion and deny the true nature of their relationship.

end of s4: even though mike has finally said "i love you" to el (which should have been what resolved their conflict this season), they seem to be just as disconnected as ever. mike is no longer holding back from will and they have reignited their bond. they seem to be closer than ever.

there should be no way you can look at this and deny where their storylines are going. what else could possibly happen?? they reverse everything they've done in previous seasons and go "oh actually mike and el are totally fine and in love!! and will is alone goodbye." it would be totally pointless and there would be no payoff to anything they built up. BYLER ENDGAME

[lizbetlovesbyler]

my biggest personal byler proof is just how much they remind me of my first queer relationship before we started dating

queer characters are incredibly easy to fuck over, even without intention. often spelled out or intensely sexualised to prevent misunderstandings for a mostly heterosexual audience, queer storylines are exaggerated and thus become unrealistic.

stranger things doesn’t do that with its queer characters. take robin:

this scene is done beautifully. genuinely beautifully.

robin admits her feelings for tammy and how she locked them away, not just because tammy didn’t like her back, but because she is a queer girl in the 80s. her feelings are unnatural and unwelcome in hawkins.

steve’s acceptance of robin in this scene makes people forget how horrifically this could have ended:

As for Mike and Will

you don’t write a perfect representation of mutual teenage queer pining between childhood friends by accident.

queer pining is quiet and suppressed (especially for young people and ESPECIALLY in the 80s). It is unhealthy to suppress these feelings the way queer people tend to, it’s beyond the typical “secret crushes” straight people experience. queer pining can destroy people when they’re not supported.

through robins character, and wills arc in season four, we can see clearly the duffer brothers understand the nature of queer love, and wish to do it justice.

will ending up with some random last minute jock is unrealistic and does not do his character justice.

mike staying in an insecure relationship, constantly worried his girlfriend will grow out of him and leave him, rather than accepting will’s unconditional love for him, accepting his own love for will and letting himself be who he is, does not do his character justice.

even so, if they tried to set up byler in a way that would come across clear to the GA, it would, by default, become unrealistic and unrepresentative.

neither are yet able to admit to close friends and family they are queer, but they are supposed to convey that part of themselves to an (understandably) dense/heteronormative mainstream audience?

queer teenage love is not the same as straight teenage love, it doesn’t shock me that the majority of the audience isn’t able to pick up on byler beyond wills feelings, and they’re not supposed to.

we all say what we see, they don’t see the queer love brewing because they’ve never experienced it, they’ve never been mike and they’ve never been will. they’ve been max and lucas and nancy, steve, jonathan, etc etc

doesn’t make their heteronormative perspective accurate, they are just straight. they understand will and mike the same they do lucas and dustin. mike says they are friends, they have no reason to think otherwise. they do not know what queer love actually looks like, the duffer brothers do. the actors do. we do.

you are not delusional. you are queer.

if byler was widely agreed upon at this point in the story, it would not be an accurate representation of queer romance. that is the point.

my moneys on the latter and they better get every award for it.