Seeing the green yuri lesbyler aus people make is great, it’s just it shows a lot about how the byler fandom will prefer mischaracterization if it suits their fem Will agenda.
This also applies to how I’ve seen bylers view lesbyler in general.
Before I start, I wanna say that if some of this is jumbled then that is my fault. My blood sugar has been under 60 the entirety of writing this.
Mitsuki and Aya in canon (I believe, but if not then it is heavily implied) are butch and femme.
Femmes are what were considered “straight passing” or appeared in what was considered a feminine way. Femmes challenge the ideas of what makes a person feminine, such as equating femininity to being vulnerable. They don’t identify with the heteronormative system of femininity, and push back on the misogynistic ideas that feminine people are defined through.
Femmes tend to use the fact they pass as straight to stand up for butches who were a big social and physical target for not being what was considered “straight passing”.
Butches on the other hand are more masculine in their presentation, and challenge gender conventions of its time as well as speaking to working-class lesbian experience.
They were/are seen as not doing women “right”, and that they’re trying to be/act like a man.
The red-orange stripe in the butch flag represents courage, since being butch is stigmatized. It symbolizes the strength they share in learning to find and love themselves.
Mitsuki is a more reserved person. She gets nervous when in the spotlight, is prone to anxiety, and has low self-esteem.
She is a caring person who tends to prioritize others over herself. She also faced bullying as a kid for not presenting herself as typically feminine.
Aya is an extroverted person that is good at blending in. She feels strongly, but struggles to verbalize it. She avoids confrontation out of fear of hurting others or herself.
Mitsuki’s patience allows Aya to grow without pressure. Their bond is built on understanding.
We also see in the third manga that Aya is loud about defending Mitsuki. Such as when the boy in class finds Mitsuki’s song book and is being cruel and teasing about it, which causes Mitsuki to shut down and run out. Aya jumps to her defense quickly. She shouts at the guy, gets Mitsuki’s journal back, and openly worries when Mitsuki doesn’t return for a while.
Aya also goes out of her way to make social situations more comfortable for Mitsuki. She cares a lot for Mitsuki, and is shown defensive of her. Not to mention how encouraging she is of Mitsuki. She wants Mitsuki to succeed.
Mitsuki has been shown to downplay herself, Aya has been quick to uplift her.
How does this relate to byler?
Let’s start with byler themselves in canon.
Mike is openly quick to jump to Will’s defense. He is louder, and more outspoken than Will is. Will is soft spoken, amicable, and sweet. His interests, and how he presents himself, have led to bullying most if not all of his life. He also deals with feelings of being alienated from peers, and friends. He puts others before himself, and is committed to helping friends and family.
Mike in the context of being queer is a prime definition of being compulsory heterosexuality. He tries to keep his presentation on the masculine side, and doesn’t want to draw attention to anything else. The only time we see him actively defy those expectations—conformity—is in season 4.
Say we swap their genders.
Would that not keep their stories similar?
Female Mike—who I’m going to call Michelle—would present herself in a stereotypically feminine way, but I would assume she would be just as defensive of Willow—Will—as she is in canon, no?
Female Will—who I’m going to refer to as Willow—wouldn’t have the same kind of story as in canon if she was stereotypically feminine. If Will in canon was targeted for not being typically masculine, then wouldn’t it make more sense for Willow to be targeted for not being typically feminine?
In the context of green yuri, people like to make Michelle the Mitsuki of the au, and Willow the Aya of their au. Except based on everything I’ve talked about would it not make more sense the opposite way? In terms of Michelle and Willow it would make more sense with Michelle being a femme, and Willow being butch.
Here’s the thing about the byler fandom though. They don’t like it when Will is anything BUT feminine. They don’t like when you mention how both Will and Mike have gender non-conforming aspects to their characters.
So when we talk about how it would make more sense for Willow to be masculine, they don’t want to hear it.
Let’s talk about lawless byler while we are at it.
Lawless byler has done a LOT of damage to the byler community. Not just in how people view their stories and characterize them, but also in how they treat other peoe in the byler community who might have differences in opinions than them.
Before lawless byler went mainstream, it was a chill community. Nobody cared if your preferences of bottom or top didn’t match theirs, it was a don’t like don’t interact system. Even then people in the community liked to support others regardless of if they had shared opinions on the matter.
Now that lawless byler is mainstream, that system has changed.
If you even dare to mention the idea of Mike not being their buff masculine stereotype (which he in canon does not fit with) they will be so quick to argue instead of hearing you out. Not even talking about the top/bottom conversation.
If you happen to prefer bottom!Mike, the bullying is immediate. I’ve seen twitter posts where people talk about it, and they get harassed for it.
I saw a specific twt post where someone commented on the bullying the bottom!Mike community gets, and the most liked comment under it was that “they should bully the community more”.
There’s my rant, I’m so sick of how the byler community is acting nowadays. It’s truly pushing me away from the community I used to adore.
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