#not tagging this w anything bc again i don't want to start discourse and i'm done talking about this for now

[mikesbasementbeets]

I disagree that bi mike wouldn’t make sense within the show’s canon. I strongly believe it would make MORE sense within the show’s canon for many different reasons, and that 99% of the evidence gay mike truthers try to twist to say explicitly confirms gay mike can coexist and be used to support bi mike without much adjusting. I think when you carefully analyze seasons 1 through 4 it’s pretty clear that mike had genuine romantic feelings for El at the beginning of the story. And there’s a lot of subtle things that support a bi mike reading. I think a significant portion of aggressive anti-bi mike theories are rooted in either biphobia, a misunderstanding of the nuances of what it means to be bi, or a desire to avoid having to accept mike’s early canon romantic feelings for El (enshrined into the scripts) cause that would mean accepting that it’s a love triangle. I think gay mike makes sense but it is in no way the only sound theory. And I’m not talking about headcanons, I’m talking about the text of the show

ok i know i said earlier i would respond to this in full but honestly there is WAY too much i could get into and this topic has been discussed to death at this point and i’m not interested in starting discourse again, so i’m really gonna try to be brief (spoiler alert, i failed). first of all, here’s my own gay mike analysis from months ago, back when i personally hadn’t seen any actual analysis about it yet and decided to just go through and analyze the show myself. many others have written much more thorough and articulate analyses, so i encourage anyone to seek those out if you’re really interested in developing an informed opinion about it. but if you’re already convinced one way or another, i’m probably not going to change any minds here, because this has all been said before.

the one thing i’m actually going to try to address here is the claim that mike was at some point genuinely romantically attracted to el, because as far as i can tell, that is the ONLY actual argument FOR bi mike. i haven’t seen anyone ever give evidence or try to argue that mike has shown attraction to any other specific woman or to women generally. if i’m wrong about that, please point me to that analysis (don’t tell me about bi flag colors around him though bc those three colors show up together everywhere in the show and are not specific to mike in any way, i don’t think that’s relevant “evidence”). also, i’m not looking at the scripts here, because i’m really only interested in ACTUAL CANON and the literal content of the show itself overrides any partial, text drafts of it, which is what scripts are. they are written for the specific purpose of filming the show and do not provide full and complete context (and what we are TOLD in this show does not always line up with what we are SHOWN).

just to be absolutely clear, i think that (disregarding the mountains of both textual and subtextual evidence of his LACK of attraction to women) mike having shown genuine romantic attraction to even one woman would be enough for him to be legitimately canonized as bisexual, but in all my understanding and analysis of the show, he has not.

from what i understand, bi mike truthers believe that mike had genuine romantic feelings for el in the earlier seasons that either faded over time or just never evolved past the initial childhood crush stage. i’ve addressed the latter idea before (in a post i can't find rn), but to sum up, crushes on people of a different gender, especially in youth, and during times when one is unsure of or figuring out one’s sexuality are COMMON among gay people. having a childhood crush is not the same thing as having genuine romantic feelings, and therefore is not valid evidence toward any particular sexuality. the insistence that it is concrete evidence of bisexuality is rooted in homophobia and a fundamental misunderstanding of the nuance of gay identity.

the first claim though, that he did have genuine romantic feelings in the beginning, but they faded over time, is what i’m going to focus on. i touched on this in my analysis linked above, but i’m going to try to explain again here. mike’s feelings for el have always been demonstrated with extreme consistency throughout the seasons. after their initial meeting and once mike learns to trust her, each time mike has been in a position to tell el how he feels about her, from season one all the way through to season four, he has behaved in the exact same way: he has struggled to put his feelings into words, refusing to outright claim romantic feeling or intent, and ultimately failed to communicate with el in a way she understands.

similarly, when faced with expressing romantic affection toward or about her, he has behaved with confusion, discomfort, and outright rejection of others’ assumptions of his romantic feelings. (read the analysis for more specifics on this)

each of these times is also rife with familial coding and parallels that subtextually explain WHY he is struggling to either voice or demonstrate romantic attraction. for just one specific example, in the first season, right before their first kiss, mike begins to excitedly describe the relationship that the two of them are about the have with each other (in not so many words) as one of a brother and sister. when el correctly infers this implication from his words, he grows confused, because he had been told previously by lucas, dustin, and even nancy, that his feelings for el were romantic. but he relents, and agrees that that is what his description meant. immediately after their first kiss, during which el is dressed in his sister's clothes, and which mike initiates when he can't find the words to express romantic attraction to her, his first word is.... "nancy." and later, when el is weak from killing the lab people who've been chasing them, mike repeats his earlier promise: that when all this is over, his family will become hers.

this is one thing that i genuinely can’t understand when it comes to the idea that mike ever truly liked el romantically. almost (if not) ALL of their interactions, especially in season one, have some sort of parallel to a familial relationship for one or both of them, on top of many of their interactions blatantly referencing the concept of the two of them being like family to one another. the absolute volume of these instances and the unyielding consistency of this pattern, again, beginning from the very first episode of season one and continuing all the way through season four, means that it is undoubtedly intentional. with that in mind, i cannot see any reading of their relationship that leaves room for genuine romantic feelings, when ALL of the subtext, FROM THE VERY BEGINNING, overwhelmingly presents them as family.

i’m not going to get way into the subject of compulsory heterosexuality because i could go on forever and i don’t want to, but the timeline of events in el and mike’s relationship arc makes it very clear that that's what’s happening. for el, her arc of independence is (not solely, but still) intrinsically tied to her relationship with mike. for mike, his struggle with his sexuality, specifically his lack of attraction to girls concurrent with his present attraction to boys (MOST presently Will), coincides directly with his relationship arc with el. i’m just going to link a couple of my screenshot posts where i've attempted to demonstrate this, bc i can't find it in me to explain all the nuances of comphet and the complex way these three characters' narratives have been intertwined (i'm bad at tagging so i can't find many, but here, here, here)

you might want to argue against my above points with scenes like the snowball dance, where he calls her beautiful and kisses her, or the make out scene in season three. but both the familial coding/parallels and the overarching themes of forced conformity (aka compulsory heterosexuality) associated with the snowball in my view completely changes the context behind the surface narrative of a “sweet romantic moment,” especially when you consider the coinciding narrative of mike’s relationship with will and the subtext of what that dance means for both of them. similarly, that make out scene, which can also be read as further evidence of mike’s discomfort with physical affection with el, as well as the overall arc of their entire season 3 relationship, is presented to be directly relevant to (specifically, in direct contrast with) mike’s evolving relationship with will, which IS genuinely romantic.

when i say that bi mike would be bad representation, this is what i mean. his “attraction” to el is consistently directly related to and contrasted with his relationship with will, coding his feelings for girls (most specifically the one girl for whom he has ever shown potential for romantic attraction) as lesser than his feelings for boys (specifically will, but ALSO OTHER MEN). bi rep that prioritizes and values attraction for one gender AT THE EXPENSE of attraction for another feels like an extremely problematic representation of bisexuality, if that's really what they are trying to portray. and this is not even getting into the countless subtextual clues that mike specifically DOES NOT LIKE GIRLS. (our son with a girl?, it’s not my fault you don’t like girls, el? sorry not interested, disgusted face next to “women in science,” blatant lack positive of response to “phoebe cates only hotter,” women’s room GET OUT, boys only, blatant and continued confusion over lucas and dustin’s attraction to max, "trying to solve the mystery of the female species" *LOUD BELCH* etc etc these are just off the dome and these are things that DO NOT WORK as queer coding if mike IS attracted to girls but VERY MUCH DO if he is gay. and there are SO MANY of them. more than that, if he is attracted to girls, then they are examples of the show consistently belittling that attraction, which again feels like a pretty shitty way to do bi representation)

god there’s so much more to this, but i can’t get into every little thing because it would take forever. literally there is SO MUCH evidence against it that i genuinely feel that the narrative would not make sense anymore if mike were revealed to be bi in season 5.

just to address a couple other things you said: i think the reason anti bi mike theory might sometimes come off as aggressive is because when one actually analyzes the entire content of the show, the evidence for specifically gay mike is OVERWHELMING and the claim that there is just as much evidence for bi mike remains unsupported, unsubstantiated, and at a certain point comes off as just willfully ignoring canon and even, at times, homophobic. i always see claims that some gay mike analysis is biphobic, and yet i have never seen any evidence of this. the claim that mike is not attracted to women, despite having been in a relationship with one, IS NOT biphobic. the claim that he is not bisexual, despite many people believing he is and wanting that representation, is NOT biphobic. the claim that his feelings for el have always been platonic and not romantic is NOT biphobic. it is an analytical conclusion based on the content of the show itself. i don’t doubt that some gay mike truthers have been biphobic, but i have not seen any actual gay mike ANALYSIS that is specifically biphobic (if you can provide concrete evidence, i will recant this, but i know that i and others have been careful not to resort to any sort of stereotyping or attempts at “analysis” that are rooted in biphobia). conversely, the claim that mike being in a romantic relationship with a woman and behaving romantically with her is PROOF that he is bisexual IS inherently rooted in homophobia and again, a misunderstanding of the nuance of what it means to be gay. i know (or assume, i guess) that most bi mike truthers aren’t outright thinking this way, and really believe mike’s romantic feelings to have been genuine, but as i and many others have tried to explain, when you do what the show is constantly telling you to do and look deeper than the surface level narrative, all of the canonical evidence from mike’s relationship with el actually explicitly and unambiguously points to the fact that his romantic interactions with her were NOT a result of genuine attraction, but rather a result of compulsory heterosexuality and a part of the natural process of figuring out his sexuality.

you also claim gay mike theorizing could come from "a desire to avoid having to accept mike’s early canon romantic feelings for El" but the fact is that it's not a desire for mike not to have had feelings for el (that assumption playing into the idea that gay mike truthers simply don't want him to be bi, hence the claims of biphobia) but what's actually happening is analysis that leads to the conclusion that he canonically did not have romantic feelings for el. the misconception is that gay mike truthers are simply projecting their own desires onto the text instead of what they're actually doing: critically analyzing it. i'd argue that bi mike truthers are the ones who want to avoid having to accept mike's lack of attraction to women, despite all of the evidence for it.

i've read a lot of analysis on here, from a lot of different perspectives, and i can truly say that every single comprehensive, good faith analysis of mike’s character i've ever seen has come to the same conclusion. he’s gay.

[oops-prow-did-it-again]

Update (please read)

This includes a general update about me, update about my sideblogs, tags, and also a small ask at the bottom w/ an art dump, so pls read all even tho it's a little long. I'd really appreciate it <3

so I finally decided to start using my queue system and stop feeling like such a pos all the time. this is part of my attempt at forcing myself to feel a little better on a daily basis. It's not that Im suddenly spending more time on Tumblr; I've ALWAYS been spending tons of time on Tumblr. I've just been in a bit of a funk for a long time where I was convinced I wasn't "good enough" (whatever that means) to interact with hardly anybody or anything.

But lol this is Tumblr..... if people don't like me interacting, they can block me. Ofc I'll try to respect DNIs and all but you get what I mean.

I'm going to try to clean up @undead-prowess and @plates-of-va as well and start posting to them more. I still am working on the next chapter of my Pokemon fanfic, but that has been delayed due to my cars needing a lot of work lately, and me having to help with that.

Also, my tags, explained (I promise this'll be the final time):

#oops prow queued again - queued post. the system posted it automatically. any tags were added when I queued it

#spicy prow - my custom nsfw tag. This just means a post that might be a little incendiary or not something you'd read in front of your grandparents. It doesn't mean that I think the post content is trashy or sexual or anything like that necessarily. It just means that if you're scrolling tumblr at work, you probably don't wanna see this post lol. This tag may also include discourse-y posts.

#nsfw-ish / #nsfwish - same story as the above, but more explicitly about specific language or sexual content. A post might offhandedly just say 'tits' and while that isn't, like, BAD, I just want to give people that are in compromising situations a choice to clean up their dash.

#here prow goes again - discourse tag. block it if you hate arguments. I try to avoid arguments honestly bc they're not worth the time but I'm not averse to posting them on occasion. I may also use a general 'discourse' tag.

#pin for prow pls - personal tag for stuff I really want to try to remember. helps narrow down posts for things I'd like to review later.

A lot of other tags (memes, videos, etc) are pretty self explanatory. I've moved away from my "non pokemon" tag, but if anyone really WANTS me to bring that back, I'm happy to bring it back. Just let me know.

Furthermore, ya boi is broke and currently waiting the 200+ average days for a decision on disability benefits, and even if I get them, they'll probably be garbage. If you can spare some change, it'd be greatly appreciated, even if it was like, a single dollar. I can also do art commissions, sfw or nsfw.

P@yPal || $silfurgames

My commission prices are flexible, but in general, for a single character, it's $10 for a sketch, $20 for a flat color w/ sketch, $30 for flat color w/ clean lines, $40 for shaded color w/ clean lines. For each additional character, add 35% of the price (so two characters for shaded color w/ clean lines would be $40+35%=$54).

I am willing to TRY to draw anything, but without references, I am best at animals (mammals, most reptiles, and many fictional creatures). With references I am willing to try anything.

Here's some samples of my work, not all of which I've posted here before: