#at least on the fandom wiki they arent listed in his character bio at all
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qprstobin · 2 years ago
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Mike is just a little guy! And even if he knew that Will has a crush on him, like… he isn’t that much of an asshole, I think? He is very awkward and has fucked up ideas of masculinity, yeah, but I don’t know! Even if the crush is mutual he shouldn’t, like, be in tune with every emotion that Will has. Sometimes people act like Mike should be aware of every little thing that Will feels and just immediately react accordingly, like some sort of a wizard. But Mike paying less attention to Will than when Will was missing/dying is just a result of Mike healing from that trauma! Let Mike be aloof! The Wheelers are Like That TM, it’s fine.
Mike is far less of an asshole than people portray him as. They see him having an attitude with people and the weird shit that happened in s3 with El and Max (which was I think at least half bad writing by the Duffers and half just teenagers being teenagers and having growing pains).
Mike is an extremely empathetic character in the show. Some people make fun of the "Mike is the heart" thing but lmao, he is?? He's not always very good at apologizing, but he is far more consistently than some of the others shown to be compassionate and in tune with the fact they are struggling. Mike is the one who notices first of the Party that Will is not okay in s2. As soon as they are together again in person Mike can tell that not everything is as fine with El as he thought. Just because he made some shitty comments in s3 when everyone's base misogyny level was raised for some reason and struggled saying "I love you" (which... he's like 14/15 of course he does??) doesn't mean he's not empathetic or compassionate.
To your point about the crush like, idk if the feelings are mutual (I am... not a b*ler shipper personally) but like you said if they are? That doesn't automatically mean he can read Will's mind? There has to be give and take and communication in a relationship. And yeah, their communication wasn't great in s4 but sometimes that happens when friends move! He's not a bad person for either a) not returning Will's feelings (and not realizing that Will has those feelings in the first place) or b) struggling with his own emotions and feelings? He's a kid, being a kid is fucking hard without the constant near death experiences. He isn't a bad person if he doesn't understand his feelings, doesn't know what those feelings are, and/or struggles to accept those feelings.
Like Mike realized that he had fucked up with that argument in s3! I think he realized it immediately, but didn't get a chance to apologize because of the Mind Flayer stuff.
Both Wheelers have issues with their emotions it's true! They also sometimes have issues with tunnel vision, though Mike's tends to be tunnel vision focused on one specific person rather than ambition/problem solving like Nancy's is. They obviously don't come from a great home environment emotionally (though I don't think it's as bad as some people hc but like, his dad is an asshole and emotionally unavailable, and Karen can be great but also has her own shit going on as well as Holly) and they suffer for it! But he's also only a teenager. *shrugs*
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