Thinking about how Mike's story in stranger things is actually a tragedy. It's a prison he's locked himself in.
He starts out as this kid with a big mouth and a bigger heart. A kid that doesn't leave his friends behind and has nerdy hobbies. And he's bullied. In relatively quiet ways. Taunts built on presumption. And he wants to be weird and silly and play dnd and tell stories but he's told to be realistic, told to get serious and its stifling.
Then he tries to grow up too soon and wield emotions he's too young for and struggles with managing his feelings and friends and his girlfriend and that one boy he cant stop thinking about and it all explodes and hurts everyone around him, including himself.
And then he still tries and still fucks it up and he spends so much of s4 hurting himself and his people some more and he's lying to himself and being lied to about his feelings and he can only choke out confessions for his girlfriend when that one boy sears the words into him with his touch and his pretty doe eyes and oh right, he's supposed to be in love with his girlfriend.
And THEN. for a brief second in s5, the boy he doesn't know he loves is looking at him like he means something. He's touching him under the warm sunlight and whispers his name into his ear and he feels an unfamiliar hope that fades before he can make sense of it because he cant face the truth. He's too deeply stuck in the sad, predictable, mold he's carved for himself that is so different from the bright 12y/o he used to be and so, so similar to all the lifeless adults around him
He's Stuck in a prison of conformity. Of what could've been and he's forced to watch his loved ones find joy and move on while he sits in his lamp lit room, typing away stories he wishes he could live out but doesn't have the courage to. that painting on his wall is tattooed inside his eyes and he doesn't know why he can only hear the feelings of his dead girlfriend in the voice of the boy he's too scared to reach out to. He doesn't know and no one tells him the feelings he clings to belong to that boy he can't stop thinking about.
He's a storyteller and a dreamer but he's too scared to dream bigger than the walls he's known all his life. Now he's made his bed on his false, forced feelings for a girl he never knew how to love and the boy he never could stop loving. And when he lies down for the night, he can hear the soft, hushed whisper of his name, "Mike". It's the last time he felt those arms around him. It's a voice he'll never forget.
