Maybe This Is A Crazy Thought But In My Opinion Ive Never Seen Mike As Someone Who Has Trouble Expressing

maybe this is a crazy thought but in my opinion i’ve never seen mike as someone who has trouble expressing his feelings.

i feel like the main people that say this are melvins who say that the reason mike cant say i love you to el or that they get in fights all the time is because he’s someone that has trouble expressing his feelings. but i don’t see many bylers saying that.

i feel like this is cause mike doesn’t know how to express himself around el. when he’s with will he seems pretty good at telling him what’s going on in his head. he’s also that way with the party. he doesn’t really hesitate to tell them how he feels about a situation or how close they are.

just because mike gets awkward with his words doesn’t mean he has trouble expressing himself. he tells people what he wants them to hear and makes sure they understand what he’s saying even if it’s not in a typical way.

however when he’s around el it’s like he can never truly express himself, as if he’s walking in a tightrope. he’s always trying to find the right words to make sure things go a certain way rather than just saying what he wants to say despite the outcome, and it makes him look extremely awkward and out of place. like after their arguments it seems his apologies are always delivered as if he’s reading from a poorly written script. he’s trying tell el what she wants to hear but it doesn’t necessarily line up with what he actually believes, so it causes him to not be able to express his feelings properly.

when he’s with will he has no problem rambling on until he gets the words across that he wants to because he knows everything he’s saying is coming from the heart. mike doesn’t seem awkward in these situations because he’s freely expressing how he feels.

and outside of will, mike has never had problems making it known how he feels to others. for example he easily expresses anger towards his mom, el, and the party when it came to will’s disappearance; he openly cried to his mom when he thought will was dead; when dustin said that lucas was mike’s best friend and he couldn’t have two, mike said that dustin was his best friend anyways. in my eyes mike is a pretty blunt guy.

so to me mike isn’t someone that has a hard time expressing his feelings, i just think he gets that way when he’s with el, or basically in situations where he feels like he can’t be himself.

this is so fucking cool

Stranger Things 4 as an 90's anime (video), art by me 🖌️

im very likely in the minority here, but like personally, i honestly don’t believe mike would go thru the same amount of gay angst other characters might go thru, even despite the 80s setting. the boy was ready to jump of a literal cliff for his friend, he’s already been bullied his whole life for being “different” and he fully leans into BEING different once he gets to high school. he constantly tries to shout his parents down, he full on tells government officials he will lie to them, he OPENLY calls ppl out for things (regardless if he’s right, wrong, misinformed, misguided, whatever). i truly dont think he cares about other people’s opinions or views and thats a hard Fact™ in my opinion

what i think mike is afraid of most is LOSING people. and he oscillates wildly between pushing them away and holding them close because he can’t seem to figure out which is less painful: not caring as much so it doesnt matter when theyre gone (which is obviously a self-told lie) or having them taken away from you repeatedly, and maybe in the end even, permentantly.

turned the mike wheeler is getting vecna'd agenda into a 2 minute video because that is how i roll

Help he’s so cute

there’s something i noticed in this specific scene maybe i’m crazy

“i was worrying too much about el”

“i feel i lost you”

i feel like these specific pieces of dialogue showcase truly just how much mike wheeler really was up in his own head.

when mike goes to cali things are awkward between him and will while things seem relatively normal between him and el. mike was ignoring will because he was conflicted in his own head about his feelings for him, which lead him to overcompensating in his relationship with el.

it’s clear that mike was paying attention to will and possibly felt the distance that grew between them. i think he didn’t realize that he himself was the one that created this distance hence why the fight at the roller rink was so crucial to their development.

mike felt like he lost will because they weren’t as close as they once were, but mike never realized that will felt like he lost him too. mike was so focused on his own emotions that when will told him that he felt like he was losing his best friend, smth clicked in mike’s mind (after getting defensive ofc because that’s typically his initial reaction to be called out) that will was suffering just as much as he was.

this is what leads to their convo in will’s room. he tells will what was going on in his mind, probably without all the little details, to show that he never forgot about will. he’s reassuring will that he didn’t lose him and that he’s still here, that he’s sorry that he was the one that caused them to grow apart. he admits to being too worried about el and basically being up in his own head.

he tells will what he wants to hear not just because it’s smth will wants to hear, but because it’s smth he himself wants to hear too. and i think because of this mike will be more open about his feelings with will because he’s finally starting to see and understand the consequences his inner conflicts have on his relationships. and if one of those consequences include losing will as a friend, best friend, whatever he is to him, then that’s not a risk mike is willing to take.