#like i guess i was put in the more masc-coded role there and it was just.. Not For Me

[strangeswift]

Mike is Graham.

MIKE IS NOT GRAHAM ok listen.

(for anyone clueless this in in reference to a byler but i'm a cheerleader au)

i Understand why you would think mike is graham. but let me tell you why that is wrong. putting a readmore bc i went off

ok first my arguments for will as graham. first of all you people always wanna make mike the edgy one bc finn is cool and he has long hair but listen up. will byers is the one who is into punk music and while they both hold anticonformist ideals will is the one who puts his money where his mouth is while mike is out here "trying to be as normal as possible" (finn's words) by getting a girlfriend, not wanting to play dnd anymore in s3, etc. meanwhile when he asks will if he thought they were never gonna get girlfriends and just play dnd for the rest of their lives, HE SAID YES. okay that is Bold as Hell and very much a graham move. he is still emotionally vulnerable and he still does art, two things that caused people to see him as gay in the past and yet he continues to do them bc that's Who He Is. graham is more masc presenting which would cause her to be seen as gay and at the beginning she is Unapologetically gay, which is way more will than mike. (i could keep going but i won't)

ok now here is why mike is megan. at the beginning of the movie she doesn't know she's a lesbian, she just surrounds herself with girls, and hangs up posters of girls (hello buff dragon poster + the superman obsession), and has a boyfriend she makes out with but doesn't enjoy it (hello mi1even). in My Opinion will realizes that he's gay before mike does (i know we all have different opinions on When he realized). plus i just strongly prefer mike being the one having a Big Gay Realization in fics. AND megan literally rescues graham HELLO PALADIN CODED MUCH SHE LITERALLY SNEAKS INTO THE GRADUATION AND RESCUES HER HELLOOOOOOOOO JUST LIKE MIKE IS ALWAYS OUT TO RESCUE WILL i am not calling will a damsel in distress by any means bc graham certainly isn't. in different ways they save each other. but the heroics are down to megan. WHICH. IS. MIKE.

now here's how the girls family lives would translate. so megan has parents that are avid church goers and they act as if they care So much for megan, but when push comes to shove they abandon her. that said, they're not as outwardly disgusted by her being gay as graham's parents are. graham's dad uses the f slur and is definitely the most lonnie coded of all the parents. but you might be asking "what about graham's mom. joyce would never go along with that" WELL GUESS WHAT GRAHAM'S MOM ISN'T IN THE MOVIE ONLY HER STEP-MOM. so in this universe something happened idk joyce lost custody or . died or something. (don't get mad at me she can't be megan's parents either they also suck. better to have her out of the picture altogether). ok back to megan's parents. so in the movie her dad cares way more about her than her mom does, her mom is just kinda there. so. switch it flip it and reverse it and that's ted and karen. ted is the disinterested father who only offers occasional unhelpful outbursts (i mean come on sitting there silently during the gay intervention then interrupting the dad's gentle speech by yelling "honey we think you're a lesbian" is so ted coded.) while Karen is more playing the role of megan's dad, who is supportive and doting and very "you can tell us anything" Except again, when it comes down to it, they abandon their child. (personally i don't think canon karen would kick mike out for being gay i do think she would Not be thrilled about it initially, but ofc any au needs allowances to be made)

ok that is all for now.

#byler but i'm a cheerleader #<- making a tag bc maybe i Will write it. eventually.. #asks #byler

[adamsvanrhijn]

i know there are approx. 4875837583 legit reasons to hate thomas/jimmy as a ship, but tbh my #1 petty personal problem with it is the fact thomas is so obviously coded as feminine throughout the show but that ship always makes him out to be this masculine aggressor type hunting down prey and it just !!! does NOT work !!! (my eng is bad, masc/fem possibly aren't the right technical terms for this but you get me right, you and your big brain must get me)

haha well nobody needs legit reasons to hate like or dislike anything, so there’s that! 

i think i do understand how you’re coming at this but yes, i’d agree those are loaded/not entirely accurate words to use in this case. 

but yeah, i have definitely noticed that in thomas/jimmy fanwork, thomas tends to slide very neatly into a very particular role of being the older, more masculine partner (espec as regards sexual roles and activity), as well as i think kind of spinning off the predatory dynamic in the show. 

which is interesting to me, because we know canonically that 1920-1921 for jimmy is Open Season On Thomas’s (Lack Of) Masculinity and that he continues to treat thomas like a Different Kind Of Man in what i interpret as a lesser way, although i’ll give that there are very different experiences of his character and plotlines... but i guess i’ve also seen content that uses thomas proving his masculinity to jimmy as a sex device so who knows really. not my thing.

my perception is that straight thomas/jimmy fans in particular tend to.... view masculinity, femininity and sexuality very differently than i do in general, to say the least, and i think that is part of why our character interpretations are so wildly different. also i’ve noticed that a lot of old school thomas/jimmy fans tend to dislike and often not incorporate thomas’s development & characterisation in the latter seasons, so that’s huge, too. 

as someone who watched the series after the film & all at once in september of last year, i personally put a lot of weight into s5 and s6 thomas in ways it seems some older, more Tired fans do not haha.