*boops you*

"Tutorial" on how to "draw" a blind OC.

My kofi

Boring tired disclaimer: Keep in mind that this is an introductory "drawing" "tutorial" and has some generalizations in it, so not every “X is Z” statement will be true for Actual People. Which happens to be true for everything in general. Links below so that you can research and do a nuance. Ones that were directly mentioned are bolded.

Or of Will going missing, or Mike seeing his body dragged out of the river

Or of Mike nearly jumping off the fucking cliff

Or of his parents nearly getting killed in front of his face

Or of the rain fight or of rink o mania or of the I love you scene. NONE of that shit.

Not even IN ADDITION to El disappearing

Obviously Mike hasn't been trapped in the Upside Down like Will has, or had his childhood taken away by being raised in a lab like El. But that doesn't mean he hasn't suffered.

He lives in an emotionally cold household where nobody cares enough about eachother, which may sound like something minimal, but as someone who was raised in a situation like that, it really fucks you up mentally.

His best friend was kidnapped at the age of 12 and subsequently possessed by an evil entity. Mike probably blames himself so much for not only what Will went through, but also what everyone he loves went through as a result, thinking that if only he would've made him stay over, then maybe this wouldn't be happening.

He jumped off of a cliff with basically no hesitation. What was it, two times that Troy asked him to? Then he just fucking did. What the fuck, how can you see that as someone just being 'loyal' to his friend (it is a factor, but it's not the MAIN reason). Especially when it's the same goddamn quarry his best friend of over half of his life's dead body was JUST pulled out of a short while before. What.

Or the amount of times he has faced down with evil interdimensional entities, especially in times when he was moments away from death, such as the Mind Flayer showdown and the literal scene with the Demogorgon in Ep4 THIS SEASON. I would imagine that almost dying several times probably also doesn't make you feel too great.

And also the people he loves almost dying or going missing more times than you can count on two hands? Will, El, the rest of his friends, his family... Even seeing Karen in the hospital would've made more sense to be the flashback memory.

And this doesn't even cover the emotional toll of being a teenager, especially one who is likely closeted. The fact that he can't say 'I love you' to El or love her in the way that she deserves, the fact that he's treated Will badly too as a way to deflect from his own panic with his identity, being told that he has to conform to a certain archetype and that archetype is to be an emotionless figure.

In my opinion, they should've used the combined forces of Will's body being pulled out of the Quarry and the Quarry jump, just to fully get it across.

Mike has so much trauma that could've been used instead of just relegating him to 'El's boyfriend'.

The Duffers— alongside half of the audience— just couldn't see said trauma, because Mike goes through every day repressing his emotions, so you can't just immediately see everything he struggles with. That's who he is as a person, and it makes sense as to why.