#just bc that’s not how being depressed works

[booksandpaperss]

So, This may be depressing but.

I’m counting up moments in Stranger Things across the seasons where Mike has shown next to no regard (or simply none at all) for his own life… yall it’s concerning.

There are (so far) at least 3 glaringly loud instances where Mike has canonically not cared about his own life at all. We have:

-The cliff scene (s1)

-the scene where Mike hits flayed Billy on the head and is literally almost killed (s3)

-the shoot out scene where Mike throws himself in front of Will several times and even tries to do the same for Jonathan like one or two times (s4)

And ofc an argument can be made for *all of season 2* when Mike was willingly right by Will fully knowing that he was literally possessed by an otherworldly entity that wanted to kill everyone and yet Mike did not care at all, he was just focused on keeping Will safe hmmm

And these are just the biggest instances where it’s really clear, I’m sure if I actually got around to doing my ST rewatch I would notice subtler moments where Mike maybe wasn’t considering his own life as a primary or even secondary cause for concern.

Which brings me to my point: I’m REALLY worried for Mike in season 5. There are way too many hints that Vecna is gonna target him, and even some hints that vecna is ALREADY watching him in season 4. And with how his mental state has been lately, I really don’t think he would be able to emotionally handle dealing with vecna and fighting him off. I can say with 100% certainty that if vecna went for Mike RIGHT NOW, with where he’s mentally at as of the end of season 4, Mike would not make it out on his own; it doesn’t matter what song they would manage to find to play him, or what Will would be able say, because as of right now there is a part of Mike that wants to die. And as long as that’s the case, Mike will not be able to find it in himself to to choose to live despite vecna “persuading” him to die (that’s pretty much what he does), he just won’t. If he IS the one (ha 💀) that’s gonna get vecna’d on the flower field at the start of s5 instead of Will, El would HAVE to pull him out with her powers bc otherwise we’d lose Mike right at the start of the season and I really don’t think that’s gonna happen, the Mike angst is gonna be dragged tf outttt.

Most likely though, its gonna be Will in a Vecna trance at the start of the season, which is good (angsty as hell ofc but Yk, that’s gonna be the season 🥲) bc that gives Mike time to get to a better place mentally before it’s his turn. I’m thinking that by the time Vecna tries to kill Mike, he’ll be in a place to believe that he deserves to live, which means Will’s words WOULD be enough to save him.

This would also be such a beautiful message for people struggling with depression, it would be the same message as the running up that hill scene in s4 and let me tell u that scene had me SOBBING, and with Mike there would be the added layer of his mental health struggles being made worse by being queer and I just know that’s gonna hit home for a lot of ppl… god 😭😭