#give mike a storyline in season four that doesn't go against the established themes of the show challenge 2k22

[sleepy-moron]

This might be an extremely strange sounding take, but just hear me out it's actually relevant I swear:

Let's talk about Velma from Scooby Doo mystery incorporated. I know I know I'll explain why later just trust me for now

This specific incarnation of Velma spends a lot of the early portion of the show having Shaggy as her love interest/boyfriend. While dating Velma is extremely possessive of him and very forward about wanting to spend "alone time"(which for the sake of this comparison we will draw the line at this implying anything more adult than making out for the sake of my sanity), tries to sneak around to prevent Scooby from finding out about their relationship because she fears he will try to keep them apart. She also devotes a lot of time and energy to try to get Shaggy to both eat and dress better, and when they eventually break us she still holds a sizable grudge against Scooby for it. She is upset and frustrated when they break up, but when Shaggy suggests they eventually get back together Velma is the one to say they probably shouldn't.

Now, Mike shares much of this behavior when he dates El. He actively keeps her in the cabin so they can kiss, makes excuses to separate from group hangouts to kiss and makes sure the rest of the group knows that's what they're doing, gets annoyed and attempts to disobey Hopper telling him to stop hanging around El all the time, objects to Max spending so much time with El and to her encouraging El to try new things,and at least partially blames Max for El breaking up with him. Despite all of this and the fact he straight up says he loves El while they're broken up, Mike doesn't seem to reciprocate the kiss or actually want to get back together with El at the end of the season.

Now some of you have probably figured out where I'm going with this by now. The co-creators of mystery incorporated have gone on record to state that Velma was written to intentionally come off as toxic and a bit out of character when dating Shaggy, because she was always intended to be a lesbian in this continuity and she had not come to terms with this yet; however the show was airing in 2010 so they were very limited to how much they could show this.

This makes Velma a very good example of a well done repressed gay character, because she isn't a walking caricature of every bad gay stereotype who continually insists she's straight. There are plenty of people who aren't straight in real life that don't have everyone in their lives figuring out they're gay before they do. It also makes for a very realistic twist about this character because it recontextualizes their behavior without contradicting their established characterization. It keeps the shock factor while also not feeling like it came completely out of nowhere, because when you really sit down and think about it it makes complete sense.

This makes Mike a very interesting case study, because even if you don't believe that he was written to be a repressed gay character, you can't really deny the fact that he would probably be a very convincing one. If this were to be revealed in season four it would: explain and make the audience sympathize with how he acted in season three which many fans stated is one of the worst parts of the season, would be a big twist for casual audiences without doing a game of thrones season eight, and would make him a big departure from the standard "leader of a group of plucky preteen heroes" character archetype he is based on and we know how much stranger things likes to mess with these archetypes.