This might be a weird or controversial take, i dunno, but I kinda need to get it off my chest.
In so many posts and fanfics it's always this thing of 'oh will is in love with his sisters boyfriend' and 'el would feel weird about her ex dating her brother' and like I kinda get it, but I think this kind of simplifies the dynamic between the three of them in a way that does them a disservice?
Like I'm sorry to say it but El and Will are not that close. I'm not saying they don't care about each other, but they were living together for what, six months? We never see them bond or be that close, the only thing was Will trying to console her after her presentation, but it's kinda obvious she is not really letting him in emotionally. In the show both of them are shown to be emotionally closer to Mike than to each other. They are not open with each other even if they care about one another, which makes their dynamic interesting and unique in its own way.
And I think they both know to some degree that Mike is the big unspoken thing standing between them. El is not dumb, she knows how much Will means to Mike, and subconsciously I can see her being jealous of it. And she cares about Will, too, but she also has so so much of her own emotional baggage to deal with, so it probably feels safer for her to keep him at a certain distance. Before S4 they have barely spoken to each other and Will was actively resenting her in S3. To just turn around and make their dynamic into that of close siblings is just off to me, especially in regards to the whole Mike thing that's been sitting between them before they ever lived together. And to pretend like these feelings of resentment and jealousy they have of each other, because they know how much the other means to Mike, would just disappear because they live together as siblings just doesn't feel realistic to me? Like it's so much more complicated than just 'oh we live together and we're siblings now, so it would weird if you're close with Mike', when Will and Mike were close first??? And El knows this! I don't think Will as her brother and Mike as her boyfriend are these seperated things for her, she is very aware of the bond between them.
I don't know, I just don't think El is as oblivious to Mike's feelings towards Will as a lot of people think, and to me it seems like it's a big part of why she is not as close to Will as people make it seem. Like I think to her Will is Mike's best friend first and foremost, the one he so desperately wanted to find when he was missing in S1, before she considers him her brother.
I hope this makes any sense, lol, and obviously everyone can explore these dynamics in fanfictions as they want, but I think this gets oversimplified sometimes and to me this kinda takes away from how interesting and complicated and kinda sad El and Will's relationship actually is.
