transautisticmikewheeler

[transautisticmikewheeler]

★ time makes you bolder, even children get older

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was gonna wait til i finished this, but im abt to vanish for like 5 days so here’s a Will and Holly WIP in the meantime <3

[transautisticmikewheeler]

Its been to long since ive posted art here 😨

[transautisticmikewheeler]

Idc anymore, I need Mike Wheeler to get vecna’d this season. I need it!

[transautisticmikewheeler]

sometimes i remember that will canonically feels like he’s a mistake.

but then i remember that mike canonically makes will feel like he’s not a mistake at all. like he’s better for being different. and that gives him the courage to fight on.

[transautisticmikewheeler]

DnD Byler yayyy

I was so scared to post this because for some reason I literally

can’t reciprocate the fact that I drew this but whatever. The letters were handwritten + I tried drawing a background, that’s something I never ever do

[transautisticmikewheeler]

he came home!!

[transautisticmikewheeler]

what can i say? it‘s the prettiest shot from the ST5 teaser.

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goth byler. that’s all.

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every chance he gets, finn brings up the ramifications of mike's depression on his life/relationships, yet no one wants to talk ab how clearly they've set up a potential supernatural allegory with his character and mental health. every time an st fan reduces mike to his sexuality, an angel loses its wings.

[transautisticmikewheeler]

mike wheeler puppy eyes you will always be famous

[transautisticmikewheeler]

That is NOT an 'i love you face'. That's an 'Ive tried. I promise ive tried, but i can't. I still love you, just not the way you needed me to. Not the way i needed myself to' face. I do NOT care.

Also, the composition of that second shot is stunning. The frame of the door between them, separating them and putting them in different squares reminds me of the s3 ending closet frame that separated them too. Theyre closer now, they understand each other now. Its gentler. Yet theyre still not in the same frame, and thats ok. They can keep loving each other regardless even if its in a different way they had originally intended to.

(Also, why is the door sideways? 😭😭)

[transautisticmikewheeler]

ohhh, I have GOT to see you draw mike interacting with Robin after seeing her with will now PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE

[transautisticmikewheeler]

bear with me but mike being the shadow monster would be such a good twist?? and also so ironic because the entire point is that he wants to be a superhero he wants to feel secure in his abilities but when they're revealed it turns out that he's a monster instead??

honestly I haven't given much thought to the moral dimension of it beyond 'mike would want to kill himself over it' (the cliff scene) and 'everyone else would disagree' (obviously) (if the character wouldn't cover up a murder for their loved ones I don't want it - the only time I've seen a character explicitly NOT do that was in a cop show and it made the character look so LAME and BORING, like give me something COMPELLING here) but yeah it's like...

everyone talks about the queer aspect of mike's character, which, fine. within the time period I'm sure that being queer = people die and it's your fault has a leg to stand on, in terms of mike processing his surroundings and world events and how seeing that would impact him, even though the idea of being queer as being bad, of course, isn't actually true. because what's happening in the story is it's extrapolating feelings into the physical world, which seems to be a very genre specific thing but I'm not even remotely a horror fan so I can't comment on that. but for me it's so much clearer that mike's character is *about* clinical depression

like, he can't get the support he needs from his family, which is very important as a child character who can't really make those decisions on his own. even if he figures out exactly what's wrong, which would be very impressive before the internet was really a widespread thing, a 14 year old can't get himself treatment without them calling his parents. and even more importantly, looking at how important joyce is to will's character not getting pulled under by the weight of it all for example, there's no emotional support. even if mike says something's wrong no one believes him, there's a gap where the bridge of connection should be. it's like everyone thinks he's making things up, he's being dramatic, he's facing this invisible problem that exists only in his mind that no one else can see

and the gradual devolution of his character into acting like this abrasive asshole because he used to keep all that bad energy locked up inside and aimed at himself (again: the cliff scene, REFUSING to inadvertently cause harm to someone he cares about and choosing to ensure his own death instead) but over time it just builds and builds until the vat starts overflowing and leaks out of him like poison and it's trying to kill every relationship he cares about with the people he values most, and he's constantly fighting against his worst instincts to be better than that. because it's easy to act like that but it's not RIGHT, it's not who he is or who he wants to be, but it just keeps creeping up on him and weighing him down. it's not a one and done easy fix, it's a constant struggle

it just makes sense to me as a mental health thing, and this is definitely me bringing some of myself into the interpretation, but that's art for you. the idea of like. there is this Thing inside you. this Rot. it makes you a bad person and a bad friend and it will ruin your life if you don't do something drastic against it first. and you can't really save yourself from it, as much as you want to and feel like you should be able to, but it's bigger than you. in order to make any progress you need other people in your life to understand, which feels impossible because you get misunderstood at every turn, but you keep trying. it's not even really a choice, it's an instinctual desire for connection, a belief that people are supposed to act better than this, kinder than this, that you can't give up that quickly. you need to save yourself but you also need to be saved before you do too much damage to yourself or others. you need proof that you're more than the rot, that it doesn't define you. that's the angle through which this makes the most sense to me

[transautisticmikewheeler]

giving mike wheeler my pain like no period cramps are Not Enough right now, make his muscles need wrung out and his bones taken out to get cleaned then put back and maybe then he'll feel less pain bc he can't be too hot or too cold but can't move too much or move too little or it's Time To Cry

heating pads are a blessing but they need to be removed periodically so he doesn't get too warm and a fluffy blanket helps when the fan on him makes him too cold

sometimes he'll just pace to get in steps but he has to hang off someone so he doesn't fall bc his legs get a bit too weak sometimes and his body can't hold it's own weight but he Needs to move bc he's restless laying/sitting down so much

it's very good he has such cool friends bc they don't push him to do things but also do their best to include him in their normal activities even if he's being stubborn about how much he can actually do one of the few times of the month he isn't doing as bad as usual (he's not bedbound unless he's doing Really Bad but he does have a cane nearby most days, and he very rarely has days he leaves it behind completely)

[transautisticmikewheeler]

WILL BYERS AT THE FRONT THATS MY MAIN CHARACTER THATS MY PROTAGONIST THATS MY BABY

[transautisticmikewheeler]

jonathan probably spent a lot of time around mike the same way will spent a lot of time around nancy and i do think they both got a lot of the same kind of talk about their siblings but also i think will has made art for nancy and mike has tried to get jonathan to join their d&d games too

mike has jonathan's character sheet still stashed away in perfect condition bc jonathan asked him to keep it and nancy has a few of will's drawings in a personal album/memento box