#mike wheeler’s internalized homophobia

[wistfulenchantress]

just mentioned this in a different post but i'm gonna mention it again.

this hug is mike-wheeler-is-gay proof, or, specifically, mike-wheeler-loves-will

now, stay with me. "what about the hospital reunion" "what about the season three finale" "what about the airport disaster"

no. it's this one.

will is hugging his friends. lucas is hugging his friends.

mike is half hugging lucas and has his other arm pulled in. will's hand is over his (which is not romantic), but mike's eyes are open and he glances at their fingers for a second while he's talking to lucas.

and he isn't uncomfortable hugging boys in general, but with will he seems to think it is too intimate now.

and, whats funny is will isn't thinking of it as romantic. he's just excited to see his friend in the airport, and here in this scene he is comforting lucas and grieving max. but mike is making it weird

im probably articulating this poorly but this is very much gay of mike

[zunaki]

Repainted an old Byler illustration 💖

[oncamelliastreet]

why are they looking at me like i called them slurs

[masonthemoss]

if byler isn’t canon i’m gonna need a 8 hour long interview with Finn Wolfhard explaining every little detail

CUZ LIKE FINN WHY IF NOT GAY

[divinisable]

there's something so tragic about mike wheeler that hits me in a very specific place in a very specific way that i can't find in any other fictional character

[ant249]

How Mike Wheeler started with his internalized homophobia

[dingle42069]

he just wants to feel like he's supposed to or whatever alex g said

[your-stranger-halfblood-things]

"You're pathetic."

That's what Mike tells himself each night. The words eat him up and they dig a hole in his chest. He stares in the mirror and sees nothing but darkness and his sunken face.

"I'm pathetic," his reflection agrees.

But then Will would knock on the bathroom door, ask if he's alright (it had been 12 minutes already), and when there's no reply, he knocks again.

"Mike?"

The darkness around Mike's face in the mirror flickers, now hearing Will's voice.

"Will?" he asked. He tore his eyes away from his reflection and stared at the door.

"It's me, Mike," Will said from outside. He put his hand flat against the door. "Can you hear me?"

Mike took a deep breath, broadened his shoulders, exhaled, and made his way to the door. "I hear you, Will."

He put his hand on the door, sensing Will's was right across from his. He felt the warmth seep into his skin- he felt better already.

"Are you alright?" Will asked softly, leaning his head against the door.

Mike grunted. "I will be." And he rested his head against the door too. "Just the thoughts again," he said sourly.

"Mike," Will spoke, and Mike loved his voice; the sound, the tone, the pitch: whenever he said his name it made all the bad thoughts go away. "Do you want a hug?"

Mike took another deep breath. "Yeah, actually." He opened the door, and Will, who was still leaning on it, fell against Mike.

Mike smiled weakly. "Hey."

Will gave him a fierce hug and didn't let go. Not yet, at least. "Hey," he replied.

With Will's arms wrapped around him, and his hands clutching fistfuls of the back of Will's shirt, Mike sighed in relief as the rest of the bad thoughts went away.

He felt comforted and calm, like he could stay in this position for hours and never get bored of it. He knew that Will's hugs had healing powers. They always had and they always will.

Mike looked past Will's shoulder into the mirror.

There was no darkness surrounding his head. Just Will and him.

[bylerlvrfr]

I NEED to see more of Mike in season 5. That boy is CLEARY struggling for YEARS with internalized homophobia inside of him. In season 4 they showed us Will's feelings, but not Mike's. We know that he loves Will but I NEED TO HEAR IT FROM HIM. I NEED TO HEAR HE SAYING IT. i need this boy to ACCEPT IT OUT LOUD. It must be so hard for him to just realized 'man I'm in love with my best friend who is a boy'. And he kept it for so long, plus he spent SO MUCH TIME pushing himself into relationships that DIDN'T MAKE HIM HAPPY, just to pretend to be something that he's not. This guy deserves to be happy and loved - by himself, too.

[palettehao]

I'm still obsessed with the concept of Mike getting Vecna'd. I need him to materialize inside Mike's noggin, wiggling his fingers like "you've been hiding from yourself too long, gay boy!!"

[fryeswiththat]

I'm lowkey obsessed with the idea of Vecna taunting Will about Mike not wanting Will as a friend. Mike, who is present, can only stammer that it's not true. But Vecna's mouth is full of rot and he keeps smearing the truth.

(And Mike's truth is that no, he doesn't want to be ((just)) friends with Will - he wants to be boyfriends. But where Vecna's mouth drips venom and cruelty, Mike's is filled with shame and it's so hard to get the words out. And the hole keeps getting dug deeper.)

[wistfulenchantress]

ok we’ve all seen the joke about how wills poster had his thing about the heart and mikes just said i hate high school

but here is the thing

mike could’ve been quoted in his love confession to el, like will was quoted in his veiled one to mike

But. He. Wasn’t.

Because “i hate high school” was a true statement. He is evidently miserable, we know that from the books and the acting and basic knowledge of his character up until that point.

But nothing in the monologue was. they couldn’t use it.

[pinkeoni]

I feel as though there is a desire to completely dichotomize byler when they don’t need to be polar opposites in order to fit together. They are individuals, but it’s their differences AND their similarities that make their dynamic what it is

[heartsgettingwiser62]

Mike's definition of normal went from this, caring for his best friend when he went missing (regardless of the reason people said he went missing) and willing to do anything to find him:

To this:

A.k.a., what Mike used to think was normal vs what society taught him 'normal' was.

Bonus:

[clericxhood777]

I've always watched ST through a writer's lens. I watch most of my fav shows that way. Saying that Mike isn't struggling with internalized homophobia, is dead wrong. You need to realized that in media, internalized homophobia looks different, because not everyone experiences it the same way than others. Mike's family is heavily religious, which is why religious trauma is at play here. When you watch ST through that lens, you'd pick up how Mike is struggling as the seasons go on, because he starting to get feelings for Will. When it comes to religious trauma and internalized homophobia, your reaction is always gonna be different. Mike has repeatedly projected his feelings onto Will, in plain text. No subtext needed for that to be seen. He's fighting his inner feelings, because he know it's a sin

[qquokkari]

this is so dumb and probably doesn’t make a lot of sense but i’ve been thinking about stranger things a lot for the past few days and i feel like part of the reason a lot of people don’t like mike after s2 is because he’s reacting to trauma in a way they don’t feel is justified.

objectively he hasn’t been through as much as the other party members have because he hasn’t been possessed or Plagued With Visions or turned into a human weapon. he’s the third party to a lot of traumatizing events (which can be, in itself, traumatizing) but everything that directly happens to him doesn’t feel as major as the crazy supernatural things going on. he was bullied as a kid, his parents are dismissive and emotionally absent, and he’s very clearly depressed—he has behavioral issues at school and his grades are slipping, something the counselor cites as being a sign of max’s depression. there’s also a lot of subtext/hints about him having issues with food and body image things.

the problems that directly affect him are all ostensibly very normal in the face of monsters and human experimentation, and his reactions are very normal too. he’s self-isolating, he lashes out at people, he puts himself in danger, he can’t express his emotions in the “right” way. but in a universe where supernatural things are always happening around him, his problems seem insignificant. people don’t like that his behavior and personality changed as a result of trauma and other issues because they don’t think he has earned it.

his problems are too normal, or what traumatized him didn’t directly happen to him (like, his best friend went missing and was believed to be dead and came back and was possessed and mike felt like he was the only one who cared and he was there for it all), so he shouldn’t get to be angry and depressed and emotionally distant. he needs to go through something worse before he’s allowed to show that he’s been affected by the events of his life.

this isn’t all to say that i think he hasn’t been an asshole. rather, i think knowing why he’s been an asshole is necessary for viewing him as a sympathetic character, and a lot of people don’t think he deserves that because his ‘why’ isn’t good enough.

anyway mike wheeler they’ll never make me hate you