genuine question, what is everyone's obsession with making Mike Wheeler the "pathetic" one and Will Byers being someone he "can't live without?" like... i get that he's pretty awkward and emotional, but somewhere along the way fandom seems to have decided that Mike's entire personality is just "Will 🥺" and nothing else.
this is the same kid who spent a year refusing to give up on finding Will, jumped off a cliff for Dustin, stood up to bullies twice his size, argued with adults when he thought they were wrong, and routinely throws himself into situations with approximately three brain cells and a dream. he's stubborn. he's reckless. he's loyal to a fault. sometimes he's insecure, sometimes he's confident, sometimes he's a complete idiot. he's a person.
and on the flip side, why is Will constantly written as this impossibly confident, emotionally mature person who has Mike wrapped around his finger? have we met Will Byers? the boy is anxious. he overthinks everything. he bottles things up until he practically explodes. half of his character is wanting connection and being terrified of losing it.
like, if you ship them, surely the appeal is that they're both disasters?
Mike isn't some helpless Victorian widow who'll collapse onto a fainting couch if Will leaves the room, and Will isn't an all-knowing emotional support wizard whose entire purpose is managing Mike's feelings. the interesting thing about them is that they're both messy, stubborn kids who care way too much and communicate way too little.
i don't know. it just feels like a lot of fanon turns Mike into a wet paper towel and Will into a relationship guru, and that's way less interesting than the actual characters. ðŸ˜
decided to attach some proof too:
(check the search amount)
---
---
why the fuck is there only one fic for 'pathetic Will Byers' but there's 419 MORE fics for Mike Wheeler?
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality✓ Free Actions
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
one thing i've never really understood about the way people talk about Mike Wheeler is the assumption that he should have known that he liked Will.
not "he should have known eventually." not "he should have figured it out after being told."
just... known.
as though recognizing feelings—your own or somebody else's—is this simple, automatic thing that everyone is capable of doing perfectly. maybe this is why i've always struggled with that argument.
i haven't fallen in love. that's not me saying i'm aromantic or asexual. i just haven't met someone i've loved that way yet.
but because of that, i've spent a lot of time thinking about what love is actually supposed to feel like.
i've heard people describe it. i've read books about it. i've watched films and TV shows and listened to songs that all insist they're explaining love to me. and maybe they are.
but knowing what people say love feels like and actually feeling it yourself are two completely different things.
if someone described the taste of a food i'd never eaten, i'd probably get the general idea. that doesn't mean i'd instantly recognize it if you put it in front of me. and i think people underestimate how much that applies to emotions.
a lot of us don't recognize what we're feeling immediately. we realize later. sometimes much later.
people don't realize they have a crush until months after it starts.
people don't realize someone liked them until years after the fact.
people convince themselves they're over somebody and then find out they're not.
people mistake friendship for romance and romance for friendship all the time.
(ever heard of the "kissing my best friend to see how they react" trend? how many times to they end up making out instead of pushing their friend away?)
human beings are not nearly as emotionally self-aware as fiction likes to pretend we are. so when people say Mike should have known, i always find myself asking: known what exactly?
that Will liked him?
okay.
let's say he figured that out. then what?
because people talk like that's the final piece of the puzzle when, realistically, that's where the puzzle starts. now he has to figure out what he feels, and i don't just mean whether he likes Will back, i mean what those feelings actually are.
how do you tell the difference between loving somebody as a friend and loving somebody romantically if you've never had to think about that distinction before? how do you separate years of friendship, loyalty, affection, protectiveness, and familiarity from romantic attraction?
how do you know what you're looking for if you've never experienced it?
and that's before we even get into the fact that Mike is a teenager. a teenager in the 1980s. a teenager whose understanding of relationships has mostly come from seeing boys date girls because that's what almost everybody around him was doing.
before anyone twists my words, no, i'm not saying homosexuality didn't exist. obviously it did.
what i'm saying is that there's a difference between knowing something exists and considering it a possibility for yourself. people discover things about themselves at different ages for a reason.
sometimes it takes one conversation. sometimes it takes years. sometimes it takes somebody directly pointing something out before it even crosses your mind.
i think that's what frustrates me about a lot of the hatred Mike gets.
not because i think he's perfect. he's not. but who is? not because i think Will isn't hurt. he is.
but because people often treat confusion like it's a moral failure. like not immediately understanding your feelings—or somebody else's feelings—is evidence of being selfish or cruel.
and i just don't think that's true.
i think most people are a lot more confused than they like to admit. i think most people spend a huge chunk of their lives trying to figure out what they're feeling and why.
and honestly, i think Mike's confusion feels a lot more realistic to me than the idea that he should have had all the answers from the beginning.
