You can’t convince me that milkvans, the GA, or Stranger Things Redditors actually like or care about Mike Wheeler. Not the ACTUAL Mike Wheeler at least, with all his nuances and complexity. The Mike Wheeler they love is generic adventure story protagonist #176 who doesn’t have any defining traits and whose job is to just exist and be heroic and also have a girlfriend.
Think about it, like, they remain unconvinced that anything truly interesting or revolutionary is going on with the direction of Mike’s character, and they want that and they’re okay with that. They don’t want to see Mike do anything especially subversive or different and actually rely on him to ground the show in normalcy and maintain the status quo. “Mike can’t love Will, he’s always loved Eleven.” “Mike can’t be queer, he’s the (obviously straight) main character.” They entrust that his job is to love El and that he’ll be taking a backseat to El in the narrative. They want him to be a stereotypical generic traitless pasty mc so bad. But he isn’t lol.
They specifically think that Mike is incapable of being queer BECAUSE he’s the main boy character and the main female character’s love interest. What a depressing and hateful thing to think that just bc of the long history of homophobia and exclusion of queer stories in mainstream media that it means we are incapable of ever getting a main character/story that represents us??? They are banking on Mike being the straight white male lead to hold down the fort whose only distinguishing feature is that he’s “nerdy” or an “outcast.” Well, they’re in for a rude awakening because the “Mike Wheeler” they love and are rooting for doesn’t fucking exist lmao Mike Wheeler is queeeeeeer bitch and they’re gonna have to deal with that!!! 😇😇😇
