The Real Mike: Dess' Microphone
So. Mike, huh. Ever since Chapter 4 dropped and gave us the Mikepersonators, a fun boss fight and a wacky parody of the fandom's theories, it seems like most fans went with the decision that Mike was not important, just a one-off line the fans took seriously, and Toby decided to poke fun at the community for overthinking things.
And to be fair, I agree completely. But I'm still in that small club of people who think there was a Mike. That Tenna didn't imagine a nonexistent friend in his head, that he's not some inside joke between Tenna and Spamton, but that there was a genuine guy called Mike in Tenna's crew at some point in time before disappearing and leaving the Mikepersonators to carry on the mantle.
And I think I maybe found him.
First off, what do we know about Mike? He the guy running the backstage of TV Time with Tenna often bossing him around to do things. Officially he's not Tenna's right hand since Lanino and Elnina are supposed to be filling out that role, but Tenna more or less treats him like one in practice. He's also a complete enigma; Tenna and Spamton see him as a close friend, but no one else (or at least, not the Mikepersonators) has ever actually seen him. He's never been in his room, never been seen anywhere, he stays as the off-screen guy running things backstage.
But he does seem to be a microphone-based Darkner. Despite the Mikepersonators being a bunch of crazy conspiracists with the most insane ideas as to who Mike might be - Tenna's split personality, a cowboy, possibly more - they seem to be in agreement he's a microphone. And while they are a pack of incompetent idiots, they still somehow learned about FRIEND.
So while they might not be good actors or fighters, they're damn fine detectives to have learned about him. So the fact they're fully confident Mike is a microphone means they're probably right.
And - to my knowledge - there is only one place throughout the entire game that we see a microphone.
December's room.
And it's not a completely baseless assumption to say Dess brought her microphone to the Dreemurr residence! First off, we know she often came over to sing and play the guitar to the music channel. Tenna only ever mentions a guitar, but her bringing a mic too isn't out of the question.
What's more is that we already know Dess would play together with Kris, and that's how everyone from the Card Kingdom, Cyber World and TV World got to know eachother.
For clarification, yes that is most likely Dess. If it was Noelle then I'd doubt Toby wouldn't have just namedropped her, but the fact King (and implicitly the other Card Kingdom citizens) was here is what further makes me certain this was Dess' doing.
King is from the abandoned classroom. The classroom that likely belonged to Gerson, given that there is a drawing of Gerson signed by Alvin, it wouldn't make sense for it to be abandoned unless the school lacks a third teacher to run that classroom, and - most importantly of all - King gives himself the same "X of Justice" title Gerson and his students have.
And Dess (and Azzy, and a few others) was most likely Gerson's student. Not only are there two monsters in QC's that are likely around her/Azzy's age and directly mention being taught by him...
(sorry for the poor quality pic but i couldn't find anything better than this đ)
... but after his boss fight Gerson claims Susie reminds him of someone he once knew, before trying to brush it off as a Lord of the Hammer character.
But Gerson couldn't possibly have met/"known" a fictional character. They weren't real, just stories he wrote. He was most likely talking about Dess before masking it with The Dragon.
ALSO I fucking KNOW that Asriel has a photo of Seam as his PC desktop background BUT I HAVE NO SCREENSHOT TO PROVE IT!!! I KNOW it's real I fucking saw it with my own eyes. At the beginning of Chapter 4 go to Asriel's PC with Susie and interact with it like once or twice. IT'S THERE I SWEAR I JUST DON'T HAVE A PICTURE GRRRAAAHHHHH
ANYWAYS, now that we're back on topic and not making a Gerson-related sidequest, It's a very safe assumption to make that Gerson was Dess's teacher and that the abandoned classroom was where Dess was being taught by him. Which explains why she brought King to the Dreemurr residence (and why Asriel has that FUCKING Seam picture), because Gerson likely allowed his students to play with the toys in his classroom.
Since we know Dess played pretend with Kris and is willing to use things like laptops as toys, who says she couldn't have brought her microphone and treated it like a toy too? That would explain why both Spamton and Tenna know Mike and trust him so much; he was there in the good days before everything went to shit, likely a close friend of theirs. Hell, Mike being an off-screen presence that no one's ever seen could be explained by Dess taking him to the Dreemurrs and then back to her house repeatedly! Tenna got used to Mike sometimes being there, but sometimes not.
But one day, Dess took Mike back home with her, and never returned. Mike never returned.
And this also lines up well with what we know about the Real Mike from the Mikepersonators... or rather, Battat quoting Tenna.
Spamton left, and Mike started acting different. I don't think "leave" is about simply Spamton divorcing Tenna, I think this is specifically about the laptop being taken back to the library, separating Cyber World's inhabitants from TV World. Spamton literally left TV World to never come back. After all, Dess was gone, no one was around to play with Kris anymore, so they never had a reason to take the laptop back home again.
Except Dess disappearing means no one was there to take Mike back to the TV World, either. Mike started 'acting different' once Spamton left because both Mike and Spamton left at the same time. But since Tenna got used to Mike not really being there - because he was both the backstage guy and often went back-and-forth from Holiday Manor to TV World - then he never noticed that Mike is gone, forever. Or maybe he did notice and is just in denial about it, and that's why he takes his anger out on his workers, because he hates being reminded Mike won't come back.
And that's when the Mikepersonators come in. Since they're pretty good detectives, they figure out Mike is/was a microphone and steal his identity.
... and that's pretty much it! I do think there is a bigger story to Mike beyond a one-off gag boss fight, and so far I do think I've cracked it. Unless Mike is fucking FRIEND or smth idk
