#and like han mike wants to prove himself by doing something useful because he thinks he'll finally mean something to people

[allonzy]

el hopper is luke skywalker, will byers is leia organa and mike wheeler is han solo. i will take no criticisms because i know i am right.

[megaphonemonday]

The thing that gets me is that...Is Mike Lawson that hung up to the idea of having a family that he signed along term deal with the Padres and probably forfeited more than 10 million a year to stay there? Padres have never paid a player more than 11 million a year. Assume Mike is like...a Lester level of a player. Lester makes 25 million a year. Is Mike that desperate to make a stable home for himself that he let go of that kind of earning potential?

Huh. That’s interesting to think about. I mean, Mike is clearly the franchise player of the San Diego Padres. (Potentially up until Ginny comes along, but since Mike is pretty clearly positioned as the second coming of Mr. Padre, it probably lasts long after she’s called up, too.) It’s his face on the flags outside Petco, his final game that packs the stands. My guess is there’s a wildly successful Mike Lawson bobblehead promotion every season and he’s got every single one of them on display somewhere in that weird house of his. (He’s particularly proud of the Star Wars Night one of him dressed as Han Solo because of course he is.)

This got kind of long, so I’m putting the rest behind the cut, but it includes: Mike vs real MLB players, Mike’s salary, and what makes him stay in San Diego. Also a gif of his face because why not?

I guess it’s hard to measure him against a pitcher like Lester because there aren’t really any stats that a position player and pitcher share, but I’d assume it’s not an unfair comparison to make? Jon Lester is one of the elite starters in the National League, a 5x All-Star, and the stats we get for Mike make it clear he’s an elite offensive asset—130 runs a season is nothing to sneeze at, especially when those all come in the regular season—to say nothing of his experience calling games.

For anyone interested, the analog for Mike that I usually use is Joe Mauer. Hometown hero who’s played with one club his whole career, aging slugger and catcher (though Mauer’s moved out to first by now); and he gets paid $23 million a year off a very long contract with the Twins. 

There is, funny enough, some info on Mike’s actual salary. In “Alfonzo Guzman-Chavez,” it’s up on the board in the trade war room, so we know he gets paid $16 million a year. 

Which is still significantly less than Lester or Mauer, and still raises the question of why he’d stick around San Diego when there are plenty of teams who’d pay him even more obscene amounts of money to come pad out their lineup. 

My guess: Yeah. Mike Lawson is exactly that desperate to build a home and a family. Obviously, he thought that was going to be with Rachel (which for me, begs the question of why he didn’t angle for a trade to the Dodgers since they clearly owned a home in LA, but) and their future children, and we all know how that turned out. Since he doesn’t have a family of his own, the closest thing he’s got is the team. They’re his in a way that he doesn’t want to/won’t give up. Also, for the physical aspect of it, he didn’t have to buy that big spaceship/aquarium of a house for just himself or gone so hard on the bachelor aesthetic as he had it decorated, but having an actual home to come back to probably means a lot to him. 

More than trying to build himself the kind of stable home he probably didn’t experience as a kid, though, I think the decision to stay in San Diego is about proving something. Not necessarily to himself, though I’m sure the idea of carrying an entire club on the strength of his performance alone appeals to his ego. Maybe it does have something to do with his dad, a convenient half hour drive away and sure to hear about that Mike Lawson from time to time. Maybe it has something to do with Rachel, who possibly threw his attachment to his team in his face as she left. 

I’m not sure what it’s about, to be honest, but I do know all this ambiguity is what makes him such an interesting character to write (and sometimes cry incoherently) about.

[wazowskiofthemikevariety]

BDRP wrimo Day 5: Hogwarts House Aesthetic

To be QUITE honest I spent several hours the other day trying to figure out what in God’s name my three knuckle head were over at the Sorting Hat Chats, that you lovely people exposed me to, and may I just say I have not a clue if this is right but from my understanding of Mike, he is a Slytherin primary and a Ravenclaw secondary. 

Now let’s get into why I think this and me trying to justify my thought process. (but, if you did click the read more, PLEASE help me and call me out if I’m wrong because I sincerely want to know!! Like please!!)

OKAY: I think he’s a Slytherin primary becauSE in his heart of hearts he is someone who would do anything for the people closest to him. But that’s what is kind of the worst part, he doesn’t have those people. Really only his family. No one has given him the chance for him to get to know them and build that loyalty. But if it came down to it he could be beside the people he loves through all of it. Like ALL of it. He would be the guy who was trying to figure out what to do in order to keep the person he loves most afloat because his loyalty is to them, not the world or anyone else. Mike would be like OFFENDED to see someone betray their friends cause like?? You have friends?? And you would dare to do them dirty like that??? After you pledged your friendship to one another?? HE WAS SEETHING when Lando fucked over Han and Leia, and he hated Civil War with a PASSION for the rift between the friendship.  

At this point in his life, he hasn’t had the opportunity to hand this out to anyone else but his family members, it would be more drastic if he ever does get that person(s) into his life. This is kinda where he fooled me into thinking he was a Hufflepuff because he’s very friendly and he likes to talk to people so I was like, oh okay so Hufflepuff, he values people, wants a group, wants to do right by them. But nah. Like if you watch Monster’s Inc. Mike was like, “I mean we fucked over the whole of the world but at least we had some laughs.” Like it didn’t matter to him that everyone would be mad, he had his best friend back and Boo was safe. Which is where I equate this from, that Mike would rather lose everything else, his job and comfortable life, but not the people he holds closest. 

And he does value himself. Like he holds himself above others because he tries so hard. He works for everything because what he wants can’t just be handed to him, it has to be earned. He does toot his own horn on the occasion because he’s proud of his work and of himself and all that he has accomplished. No one else seems to notice though. 

He’s an ambitious little shit. Mike has goals for himself and he wants to get them done! He loves that feeling of accomplishment and know that HE did that, adding more credentials to his name. He wants to be the best because it seems like that what he needs to be in order for people to notice him. Only that’s off putting to people. No one wants to be around someone who’s trying to one up everyone else, always shoving their accomplishments in their face, always trying to prove that he’s right! And he just does not get that. 

Ravenclaw secondary: This one took me like three read throughs to THINK i got right. Idk though uuHH

So from what I understand secondaries are how people take on the world, how they see it as it’s presented. And Ravenclaw secondaries are all about collecting knowledge and building things from that. That’s Mike! He loves learning things, he loves researching and when something pops up that he doesn’t know about he’ll go on an internet deep dive until it’s three in the morning and he needs to get up early in order to have that tucked into his tool belt for when it comes up later so that he’s prepared to discuss it and give his honest thoughts and opinions on the matter.  

He’s also not good with improvisation. Mike likes to be prepared, he doesn’t like to think of methods outside the bounds of the system he’s in. He doesn’t like to cheat the system, he likes to win knowing that he played fair and square and there are no if’s and’s or but’s about it because you can’t complain about someone who did it straight laced. You have to admit your defeat to him because he bested you fair and square, bitch! So when things don’t go to his plan or someone fucks with the system he’ll freak out. He learned he needed to rely on himself in life so he built himself a system and if someone messes with that system, takes it away from him in favor of telling him to wing it he will pANIC. 

He’s a planner, an organizer, he’s that person who ACTUALLY USES A CALENDAR and a planner and all the school supplies he buys. He likes to make to-do lists and he loves a good organized space, it’s what he thrives in. Even if it’s over the top, redundant, not needed, he does it anyways because it brings him comfort, it’s something he can have control of because he needs that, he can’t control the system itself since he can’t think to go outside the box, only to follow what’s inside, so he plays the game as needed. It makes him comfortable to know what he’s going into because then he can be prepared and not look like an idiot. 

His knowledge is specific to demonology, for the most part, and his hyper fixations within movies and media, so you could poke him for days on those topics. But he would also go to the ends of the Earth wanting to learn about something if someone asked it of him. 

Someone CHANGE MY MIND /holds up mug