I’m still not back you don’t see anything school starts in two weeks don’t look at me
To all the new, young MCR fans out there who are just finding them during this tour - you will never know what it was like to be a fan back before and during the hiatus.
And that's a good thing.
I have been following My Chemical Romance since I was ten years old. MCR was the band that the freaks liked. The band that young queer kids were called fags and dykes for liking. Someone once called them the "poster child for suicidal depression," and they aren't wrong. We watched the band struggle with drugs and drinking and idolized how much they were able to do while blackout on tour, because if they could do something so powerful at such a disadvantage, then maybe we could, too. We watched the popularization of "guyliner," because having a term for men wearing makeup could make it an ironic fashion statement instead of a deliberate choice that would get you left bloody and unconscious on the floor of a gas station bathroom. We watched these guys destroy themselves, and we saw ourselves in them because we were destroyed, too. We wanted to believe that we could be just as important, no matter how broken we were, and we found shared experiences at concerts and cafeterias and skate parks and libraries, with other fucked up kids that wanted to listen to the guys that didn't care if people called them gay. The guys that made out on stage to the jeers of thousands of people and got bottles of piss thrown at them but kept doing it anyway. The guys that played with gender and sexuality and everything on the fringes of acceptability, in their lyrics and their performance and the way they treated each other.
This was important. It was life-saving. It provided a comparatively safe space in an unsafe cultural environment for the freaks to find comfort in. It was also hugely and dangerously unhealthy.
I've talked at length to my friends about how healing and lifechanging this tour has been for me, and I want to illuminate that for these young fans that are falling in love with MCR like I did when I was their age. When we were kids, most of our heroes were already dead. They died young, had tragic lives, and we saw ourselves in them. I fully believed MCR would end up the same way. It would have been so easy to be martyrs - to die young and beautiful. Gerard said it himself, back in the day, that MCR was destined to die young in a car crash and stay beautiful forever, and I think he truly believed that.
So they broke up. And, like a miracle, things started to change. They got clean. Got married. Had kids. Not just Gee, but the lot of them. They aged out of the 27 club, and then out of their 30s, and they only seemed to continue to thrive. Today, in 2022, Gerard Way is 45 years old. He has wrinkles. He has a daughter who is older now than I was when she was born. And they are touring again.
The cultural change from when I was a teenager to now, when you guys are, is monumental. It's insane. It's fantastic. Back in the day, Gerard made some occasional comments about playing with gender presentation (that all us trans people, including those of us that didn't even know yet, hunted down and cherished and kept in our chests for safekeeping), but the idea of doing something so flagrant as headlining Riot Fest in a dress was ludicrous. It would have gotten him booed (still did, even now). It could have gotten him killed. The fact that Gerard Way has stepped on stage three separate times this tour in a dress (so far! it's not over!) is such an incredible, monumental change from when I was a kid and I am so, so happy for you to be experiencing it as kids.
I had a cry about this at a P!ATD concert in 2018, after seeing preteens running down the halls in pride flags, and I feel even more strongly about it now than I did then. That you're able to talk openly about Gerard's gender performance without fear, that you're able to hear them go by he/they pronouns, that you're able to interact with other young fans in the wake of MCR's revival in a safe environment and take in the messages that are at the core of what they stand for? These are beautiful fucking things.
You can't know what it was like, growing up with MCR back in the day. But you get to know what it's like to grow up with them now. Cherish that. In Detroit, Gerard told us to take our meds, and reminded us that we made it. They made it. They fought through the hard parts, fought the demons, and came out the other side better for it. As you watch them put those demons to rest from concert to concert, know that there are older fans cheering you on, so fucking happy to see you sharing this experience with us, and so excited to see what way this changes you. We know it changed us.
Check out my Carrd and see samples below!
(I love to draw OCs please let me draw your OCs)
It's hilarious to me when people complain about AO3 and its policies, and what they allow on the site - but it's ESPECIALLY funny when people complain like "Why can't the freaks make their own site and just go there?"
Sweetie... AO3 is the site for that. Y'all invaded our space.
Wattpad and FFN still exist. Go there. They're as shitty and G-rated as you want. You can't have the luxuries that AO3 offers if you're gonna be a little bitch about its policies. Imagine walking into a strip club and complaining about the alcohol and naked ladies when there's a god damn Dennys next door you could have gone to. Christ.
Fandom is so different now and it’s becoming un-fun with how quickly shit moves.
I just want to enjoy things. I don’t want to have to play a game of Artist-Race that seems to be afoot lately.
Ya’ll eat up fandoms, leave artists and writers bone dry and then move on so fucking quickly then fucking wonder where all the Good Fandom Stuff is.
Idk Maybe cherish some things for longer. Reblog stuff. Interact with people. Comment and share.
Fandom is Capitalism now and I’m not being nuanced.
people also seem obsessed with only Doing Fandom about currently active works?
“oh, I’m so sad that show ended! I really miss the fandom!” who said you have to leave, coward
βVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATION β
Hello, my fellow fanwork creators. Sorry to interrupt, but there's an important information you all should pay attention to.
In short, everyone who is eligible to vote for the election of OTW (they run AO3 and Fanlore), should vote against the candidate Tiffany G. If you have donated over 10$ to AO3 in the past year, you are eligible to vote for yourself, and for us, for every Archive of Our Own user, especially the creators in China. This is a very serious question.
In Tiffany's statement, they want to build a more strict censorship policy in AO3. They also talked about limiting the adult content so this website would "have a better image to public". And they said China banned AO3 because of "pedophilic content" but as a Chinese myself, we all know it's just because my country prohibits any sex-related website. So basically, if this Tiffany succeed to get a seat of OTW, AO3 will face more strict censorship, limited adult content, and for we, for Chinese users, the result would be more catastrophic.
Tiffany G also mentioned that they work in a governmental organisation in China. Just consider why a pro-censorship, fandom newbie(Tiffany said it themself), and government staff wants to run for the election of an organisation that is holistically against their agenda. In my personal worst imagination, once they got the seat, they will immediately pack all the information of Chinese users in AO3 and report them to the Government. The consequence will be horrible.
Please, vote for yourself, for us, and for the future of our favourite fanwork site. If you are not an eligible voter and you wanna do something, please let more people receive this information. Thank you.
I am voting because there is a person running who in the chat transcripts really concerns me because it is anti language and I do not fucking want that anywhere near the board.
Tiffany is clearly very new to all of this and I think she is very VERY inexperienced in fandom places and fandom in general and doesnt seem to understand what the OTW is doing/what fandom really is/ how AO3 works, and why. She has no place on the OTW.
Yo, if you’re eligible to vote in the AO3 election, make sure you do so - to keep Tiffany G. from being on the board. This is very distressing.
Detecting multiple leviathan class lifeforms in the region. Are you certain whatever you’re doing is worth it?
is there ANYTHING more pure than a friend sharing their wip novel or their comic idea or literally any creative project of theirs with you……NO. you made that with your own two hands and if i could eat it i would (out of love respect and admiration obviously)
twinkfact0ry
readingreylo
nonegenderleftpain
sprockett-art
cheeziswin
thediktatortot
marzipanandminutiae
clawsofakiller
anarchycox
littlecofiegirl
paintedrecs
vultur-een
cindersart
blackjacktheboss
