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unholyverse · 1 year

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waterparks // alternative press spring 2023

(full article text under the cut:)

TO THE MOON

With their new album INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, WATERPARKS are diving deeper than ever before. The result is an exorcism of deep trauma and the sweet afterglow of catharsis.

STORY: Alessandro DeCaro • PHOTOS: Jawn Rocha • Styling: Josh Madden

Between international flights, jet lag and no days off in between, it is a miracle that Awsten Knight isn’t face down in a pile of pillows. For the past two weeks, Knight and his band Waterparks have been head down in a run of massive shows throughout the U.K. supporting British rockers You Me At Six as well as a series of intimate appearances at record stores with some of the band’s most die-hard fans. It was a landmark run for a group who have hit the road relentlessly the past year-and-a-half, with sold-out North American and European headlining tours, a top slot at the 2022 Sad Summer Festival and even a “bucket list” opening slot for My Chemical Romance. Their latest milestone? They played to 10,000 people — their largest show in the U.K. region — at London’s historic Alexandra Palace. Exhaustion should be Knight's baseline, but instead, he's as chipper as ever when he hops on Zoom back home in Los Angeles. There's only one problem. The bandleader has been on vocal rest for days leading up to this very interview.

“Dude, my voice feels so shot,” Knight confesses from his living room couch. “We did 12 performances back to back, then combined with really short cut-up sleep on the flight, 1 just feel, ugh.” Sleep deprivation aside, Knight is almost at a loss for words (not from the vocal rest) but because the experimental pop trio he formed 12 years ago have unlocked another level of fandom where new listeners are still flocking by the droves. “It turns out there are a lot of people [in this world].” Knight quips, referring to his newfound fans. But in reality, global domination doesn’t really seem too far off.

Knight barely has time to slow down. The band are set to release their fifth studio album, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY (out April 14 via Fueled By Ramen). But the self-professed workaholic has never known any other way. “It's a really hard mentality to shake,” Knight reveals. “When we were a local band, we didn't have any family connections in the music industry, and no one cared, so you had to take on every role. Even though we are not local anymore and get to play arenas with our favorite bands, if I'm not actively doing stuff to push the music, then I don’t know if anyone else will."

In some ways, Knight fears downtime or stillness because that's when he feels like his brain will start to turn on him. He admittedly functions better when he's working on something creative, whether that’s writing a new song or simply designing streetwear for his clothing brand hii-def. “It's not necessarily the most healthy thing in the long run, but people have worse coping mechanisms,” he laughs nervously.

But Waterparks remain his main focus. The trio, which initially formed in 2011, began to truly put the pieces together the following year when Knight enlisted his now-best friends, guitarist Geoff Wigington and drummer Otto Wood, to round out the lineup. “Otto loved classic rock and bands like La Dispute and Touché Amoré, whereas Geoff was all about EDM," Knight recalls. “We all had different tastes, but at the core of it, it's guitar and drums.” Their individual musical backgrounds helped craft the genre-less sound they have now cultivated.

"THE BIGGEST REASON I didn’t want that pop-punk label is that I know exactly what we are capable of." - AWSTEN KNIGHT

It wasn't until 2016 when Waterparks finally released their debut album, Double Dare — an intentional choice. “I always felt like if no one was looking at us, why put out a large body of work? I wanted to do cool shit as opposed to oversaturating and waiting until enough people [actually] wanted to hear it.” There is a common adage that you have your entire life to write your first record and six months to write your second, to which Knight agrees, and from there, the band began making records like clockwork.

With those albums came carefully curated eras — a moment in time with a clear aesthetic, theme and overall mission statement. While always writing music from a subversive and experimental perspective, it was when the band released both FANDOM (2019) and Greatest Hits (2021) that they began to stray from the confinement of genre and inaccurate labels. Knight himself spoke out vehemently about being boxed in by the term “pop punk. “I learned [during that time that] you can’t control everybody, and you can only frame the narrative so much,” Knight explains. “Obviously, we grew up loving and still loving blink-182, Green Day, Sum 41 and Good Charlotte, so it’s in our DNA to a degree, but I just don't want that label because it’s so synonymous with the past and what cynical dickheads or mega naysayers say is just for preteens and kids. However, the biggest reason I didn’t want that label is that I know [exactly] what we are capable of and what our output is.”

Take, for example, the breakbeat madness of the FANDOM single “Turbulent” or the distorted experimentation of “Numb” from Greatest Hits. Nothing is off the table for Waterparks. The group join a cohort of other trailblazing acts like Bring Me the Horizon and Paramore, who both successfully pivoted away from the late Warped Tour circuit in favor of mainstream appeal without losing any substance. “There's a song for everybody, and I once tweeted that anyone who doesn't like Waterparks just doesn't like Waterparks yet,” Knight says confidently.

If you have yet to be on board with the band's music, you've at the very least been entertained by — or seen — Knight's fiery social media presence.

It's undeniable that Waterparks’ meteoric rise has stemmed from the bandleader’s unofficial side hustle as a social media celebrity. And at times, his online presence can feel truly monolithic in scale, something Knight has attempted to analyze over the years in many songs, including the aptly titled “You'd Be Paranoid Too (If Everyone Was Out To Get You)" When asked if his status as an extremely online figure has influenced the band’s latest album, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, Knight isn't entirely sure but reveals that he has had to set boundaries nonetheless, as someone who's regularly met with constant praise and vicious internet trolls. “I try not to let it influence things too much [lately], and with therapy, I've learned that you can only control yourself. However, that doesn’t mean I'm not still vulnerable in the music that I write.”

He tackles the subject on INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY with closer "A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH" and parts of the song “RITUAL,” where he recalls when he felt things were “caving in" around him due to the pressures of constant attention. “There are people who listen to Waterparks who aren't on Twitter. and then there are those who view the band in this bubble where it's just them and the people who reply to the tweets,” Knight resigns.

But beyond the topic of social media, Knight gets admittedly “introspective” on the record. When asked to discuss the overall lyrical themes and concepts behind INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, he takes a deep breath and delivers a warning: Things might get a little turbulent.

“There is a love story throughout the record that is expressive to and for other people, but the album itself has to do with overcoming, unlearning and growing past religious guilt,” Knight explains. “It's something that I've struggled with for a long time.” On “FUNERAL GREY," he delivers the punchy line “baptized in my spit,” which is a playful twist on a weighted subject. The theme of religious guilt doesn’t just apply to the overall lyrics of the record but also extends to the album's striking cover art, which at first glance appears to be an image of a blue frog over a red backdrop; in actuality, it possesses a much more poignant meaning.

“Frogs have always been one of my favorite animals,” Knight reflects. “However, when I learned that frogs were seen as dirty and unclean in a biblical context, it was interesting to me that something that I saw as so good, natural and beautiful could also be seen as a bad thing through a biblical lens.” In other words, the concept of shame plagued the charismatic bandleader for as long as he can remember, and INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY was the moment for Knight to finally face his trauma head-on and “come to terms with himself” once and for all. That explains why a majority of the new songs possess “hypersexualized” energy — a conscious rebellion against a conservative past. “Growing up in church, you're taught that everything is so wrong and bad. I always felt like shit, so [this album] is the breakaway from that specifically.”

By overcoming his religious guilt, Knight was able to tap into an evolved sense of self-worth that he’s since applied to his very own love life, which he details on the album's stripped-down ballad “CLOSER.” “My concept of love has changed throughout the years, and that song is about [looking at the past] and realizing that when I was younger, it was maybe more of an obsession. Now I'm taking it apart and learning more about love and the way I present the current version of myself to other people.” Inversely, there is the alt-radio-ready anthem “BRAINWASHED,” where Knight admits that he still wrestles with the idea of true love, constantly making sure that he’s not just wrapped up in the “honeymoon phase.” Knight jokes that this track and “FUCK ABOUT IT” which features a guest vocal spot from blackbear, are “polar opposites,” as the latter couldn't be further from the “hyperfixation” he details in “BRAINWASHED.," once again proving that he feels the most comfortable when inserting juxtaposition wherever he can.

"I've learned that you can ONLY CONTROL YOURSELF. However, that doesn’t mean I'm not still vulnerable in the music that I write." - AWSTEN KNIGHT

Beyond the emotional clarity that Knight gained during the creation of INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY, it's the album's sonic risks and exploration that he is the most fired up about. Though Knight wanted the band to return to their more guitar-driven and organic roots for certain parts of the LP, much of the record ventures into eclectic territory, with hyperpop, trap, synthwave and even subtle elements of hard rock and nu metal. “RITUAL, ‘A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH, ‘REAL SUPER DARK’ and ‘ST*RFUCKER' are the craziest instrumentals we have done ever,” Knight exclaims. “I love the idea of taking something like a guitar or my voice and making it sound entirely like something else” “A NIGHT OUT ON EARTH,” however, is what Knight describes as “the biggest production flex,” and it most definitely shows. “There's fucking elephant sounds in there and weird Batman villain-sounding horns — it's evil and heavy, and not to mention, the outro is just game over,” he says.

Beyond production, Knight pushes his voice and stretches the idea of what constitutes a strong hook on INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY. With “END OF THE WATER (FEEL),” Knight is at his most “bombastic,” in a “cartoon-like” state, weaving falsetto melodies that are meant to shock. “I always make a mental note when I hear a song that makes me go…" He pauses, imitating an explosion. “For me, that's when I hear some high-ass vocals that I'm not expecting.” Even on the first day of demoing “END OF THE WATER (FEEL)” in his home studio, Knight was already so confident in the song that he called longtime producer and collaborator Zakk Cervini and “essentially” forced him to come over to his house right then to help finish it. “I also want the record to show that I had a mustache [during this time], too,” Knight laughs.

With collaboration on the brain, Knight is the first to admit that for many years, he was precious about his art and was hesitant to work with others. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine, Knight changed his mind, which was evident on Waterparks’ previous album, Greatest Hits. This time around, Knight, who's an outspoken fan of the U.K. boy band One Direction, finally got a chance to live out one of his dreams by working with esteemed songwriter Julian Bunetta, who co-wrote beloved One Direction classics like “Olivia,” “Infinity” and “Best Song Ever,” among others. “I flew to [Julian's] place in Nashville, and we ended up making five songs together, two of them being ‘FUNERAL GREY" and ‘BRAINWASHED,” Knight recalls. And while he still plans to keep the majority of his music close to his chest long term, he won't rule anything out. Knight would undoubtedly jump at the chance to work with everyone from Post Malone and Damon Albarn to Donald Glover and Toby Keith.

"I'd rather make the coolest f*cking thing, RATHER THAN HOLD BACK and make something that wasn't that good." -AWSTEN KNIGHT

Now, with the band's new LP incoming, there raises the question: Does Knight feel a sense of relief after both exorcising his deepest traumas and inviting listeners on his journey to self- discovery? "I still feel pressure with it," Knight concedes. “It would be a lot easier if only strangers heard this, but everyone in my whole fucking life is going to hear this album, so that's what makes it strange." But he's never let any awkwardness or controversy hinder the artistic output. "I wasn't not in trouble when I put out a song like [2018's] 'TANTRUM' where I listed a bunch of dudes I wanted to kill, calling out by name," Knight acknowledges. Though his lyrical choices have sometimes resulted in strong reactions, even within his close circle of friends, Knight can't help but accept that he is meant to be unapologetic. "At the end of the day, I'd rather make the coolest fucking thing, rather than hold back and make something that wasn't that good."

Pressures of lyrical vulnerability and transparency aside, INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY is Knight's attempt to "normalize” the catharsis he finds within songwriting, which ties into the album title itself. "Intellectual property is the mental space you give to something in your head. The 'property' may be the thing that you are struggling with. By materializing it and giving it its own world, it's actually a great way to express it and then, eventually, expel it,” he explains. "I want this album to go to the fucking moon." ALT

#whoever designed the page layout for this. i don't like you #waterparks #awsten knight #otto wood #geoff wigington #i.zip

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cyber-corp · 6 months

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Have you heard the sweet tunes of American Rock Band ‘My Chemical Romance’ ?!?

I know this one song, and that is it. I really like it though, really need to listen to their other stuff

#music #mcr #my chemical romance #the title is funny as shit though #‘hey what’s that one song that goes na na na na na?’#‘you mean mcr?’ ‘oh yeah’#gecko boy #asks

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lostkidmustnotdie · 1 year

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In case anyone needs in-depth revenge lore here’s my masterpost:

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge by American rock band My Chemical Romance is a concept album, following the Demolition Man, the Demolition Woman, the Devil, and a thousand evil men. The story begins in the last song, Demolition Lovers, of the prior album, I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.

Context and Controversy: There is some explaining needed before we get into the plot of Revenge. Gerard Way says in an interview that “Revenge is the story of a man and a woman who are separated by death in a gunfight. And he goes to hell, only to realize by the devil telling him that she’s still alive (There is debate on this, it will be discussed). The devil says he can be with her again if he brings the devil the souls of a thousand evil men, and the man agrees to do it, and so the devil hands him a gun and says ‘go do it.’” (Gerard Way, AOL Sessions Interview, 2004) “So obviously he kills 999 evil men, and then he realizes that the last evil man he has to kill is himself.” (Gerard Way). There is some debate, however, on the actual whereabouts of the Demolition Woman. There are no completely clear answers, it really is all up to interpretation. One theory is that the Demolition Woman is in Heaven, another is that she has survived the shootout on the highway and is alive somewhere on earth, and another theory is that the Devil has lied to the Demolition man and told him that the woman has died and gone to heaven when really, she has survived the shootout or vice versa. There are lines to prove and disprove each theory, so it really is up to interpretation.

Gerard did a drawing of the Demolition Woman on what could either be an operating table or an autopsy table (see right). There is blood on the blanket or sheet that covers her below the shoulders, which could mean she’s dead or could mean she has survived, there’s really no way to tell. Either way, in any of the three theories, they are separated, and the man has agreed to kill a thousand evil men to get back to his lover. Another source of controversy or debate is track order. In My Chemical Romance’s third album, The Black Parade, which is also a concept album, the tracks are chronologically out of order. Lastly, it is also debated whether songs Helena and I’m Not Okay (I Promise) belong in the story canonically. These topics will all be discussed as I go through the story.

Act One

Demolition Lovers: This song serves as essentially a prologue to the story of Revenge. We are introduced to the Demolition Lovers (debatably, depending on your analysis of bullets. However, I’m choosing to ignore any events that happened in bullets aside from Demolition Lovers because that’s not what this master doc is about). All we know about them is that the Demolition Man is wearing a suit, the Demolition Woman’s outfit, though unclear, may be some sort of wedding dress (see right), and they have been shot to death on a highway.

“Hand in mine, into your icy blues / and then I’d say to you, ‘we could take to the highway’... / I’d end my days with you in a hail of bullets... / and we grow cold.” (Demolition Lovers). This sets up the beginning of the plot. We know the characters have died, and we know they died from bullets. Other lines throughout the song, however, introduce us to the relationship between our characters, which is obviously romantic. “...I’m trying / to let you know how much you mean ... / Know how much I want to show you [that] you’re the only one / and as we’re falling down, and in this pool of blood / and as we’re touching hands... / I'll see your eyes, and in this pool of blood, I’ll meet your eyes / I mean this forever.” (Demolition Lovers). This clarifies, even though it was obvious, that our characters are lovers and they obviously mean quite a lot to each other.

Importantly, the setup for the plot of Revenge is mentioned a lot in this song. “But this time, I mean it, I’ll let you know just how much you mean to me / but this time we’ll show them... all how much we mean / like a bed of roses, there’s a dozen reasons in this gun.” (Demolition Lovers). This really begins to bring up the idea of revenge and avenging their own deaths, which is exactly what the Demolition Man does in the album.

Give Em’ Hell Kid: This is the second track on the album. I believe that Helena, the first track, comes later in the story if it’s even canonically involved at all.

And so it begins. This song takes place right after the Demolition Man has agreed to this mission, this quest to kill a thousand evil men. He leaves from New Orleans, takes a dose of ephedrine (a stimulant used to increase alertness), and starts his life on the run. “Took a train outta New Orleans, and they shot me full of ephedrine / this is how we like to do it in the murder scene, can we settle up the score?” He has taken on this brand new role of mass murderer, taken stimulatory drugs to increase his efficiency, and declared that that is how it rolls for a life like this.

Despite this determination, he also talks about missing his lover. “If you were here, I’d never have a fear / so go on, live your life / but I miss you more than I did yesterday / you’re beautiful... / you’re so far away...” (Give Em’ Hell Kid). The second stanza is a line that contributes to the debate of whether the Demolition Woman is actually dead. If you choose to take it literally, he assumes she is alive. If you think she’s in heaven, or you think the devil lied about the man to her location, the line can be interpreted more among the lines of the Demolition Woman being happy in paradise (Heaven), which is mentioned a few more times throughout the album. It could go either way.

The Demolition Man, while steadfast, still doesn’t feel great about this deal. Who would? He experiences moral debates on it throughout the album, but very early on we can see him wondering if it’s worth it and if the Demolition Woman would do the same for him. “Well, I'm a total wreck and almost every day / like the firing squad or the mess you made... / We never wanted it to be this way / for all our lives / do you care at all?” (Give Em’ Hell Kid)

Lastly, there is the line: “Well, don’t I look pretty looking down the street in the best damn dress I own?” This could be taken metaphorically, the dress being some sort of determination-related confidence, but I see it more literally. I think he could have been in drag. There are a few things that lead me to believe this is true: both the fact that Gerard used to crossdress throughout college, and the line “What did you call me?” which leads me to believe the Demolition Man could have been called some sort of homophobic slur, which I can conclude from the next line, “Well, there’s no way I’m kissing that guy.” This take on it is interesting, because we see the Demolition Man struggle with a question of sexuality throughout the album as well, first explored in the next track on the album, To The End.

To The End: This song was originally based on William Faulkner’s short story A Rose for Emily. In this story, a woman, abandoned by her husband, lives a reclusive life in a house with her father. When her father dies, the coroners have to convince her to let them bury the body, which she has been keeping in the house for 3 days. After this, she rarely goes out, until years later when she meets Homer, a northerner, who is said to “like men” which could either be taken as homosexuality or that he likes to remain a bachelor. The story is from 1930, so it’s likely that it could have been phrased so vaguely on purpose, as Faulkner would have been arrested had it been a direct allusion to homosexuality. Rumors spread that Emily and Homer have married, and no one sees either of them for a long time, shut up inside the house together.

Until Emily goes out to buy poison, “for rats.”

When Emily dies, they break open a part of the house that has been shut off for years and find Homer’s long-decayed body in a bed. On the pillow next to him is a strand of Emily’s hair, implying that she was in the habit of sleeping next to the decomposed body.

The main takeaway of why this story is important, is Emily is upset that her husband did not love her, either due to the fact that he was gay or that he was simply not interested in marriage.

This same double meaning is exhibited in To The End, in which the Demolition Man murders an entire wedding reception.

It’s clear in this song that the Demolition Man is getting a little out of control with this killing spree, maybe even beginning to enjoy himself. He goes to this mansion where a wedding is taking place and kills every person inside. Certainly, not all of these people were “evil men,” which means that the Demolition Man is on some sort of power high. “He calls the mansion, not a house, but a tomb / He's always choking from the stench and the fumes / The wedding party all collapsed in the room / So send my resignation to the bride and the groom.” (To The End). We can see that it's still in the beginning of his quest, though, because he is still not used to the smell of corpses or blood. Even though he has killed probably hundreds by now, that’s still out of a thousand. He’s got a long way to go.

He thinks of the house as “not a house, but a tomb,” implying that he does in fact plan to kill every person inside. This also can refer to A Rose for Emily, in that multiple people have died and decomposed in that house. Everyone is “collapsed,” either in that they are dead or they are on the ground begging him not to shoot. He’s gotten snarky with it, too, “send my resignation to the bride and the groom,” proof of this confidence that he’s good at his job, and he’s getting it done.

Here’s where the first hint at the sexuality crisis the Demolition Man experiences comes into play, with that same vague, double meaning as the one in A Rose for Emily. “He's not around, he's always looking at men / Down by the pool, he doesn't have many friends, as they are

/ Face down and bloated, snap a shot with the lens.” (To The End). This line could either mean he’s not present in his life, because he’s so focused on finding and hunting down all these evil men that it’s all he can think about, or that he’s not around his lover and he’s now made a habit of checking out other dudes. I personally think it means both, that this double meaning exists for a reason. It’s the same as A Rose For Emily- either meaning that you choose to accept means that the man is not present with his lover because of something in the way.

The second part of the line refers to him having no friends- understandably because he kills most of the people he interacts with.

The pre-chorus is him wondering again if the Demolition Woman would do this for him as well.

“If you marry me / Would you bury me? / Would you carry me to the end?” (To The End)

The chorus really confuses me. “(Say goodbye) to the vows you take / (And say goodbye) to the life you make / (And say goodbye) to the heart you break / And all the cyanide you drank.” (To the End). I really have no idea what’s going on here. “Say goodbye to the vows you take” could either be about him defying his morals and ethical values because he’s murdering all these people, or it could have something to do with marriage vows, which could be in relation to the Demolition Lovers or the people who were getting married that he murdered. The cyanide bit also confuses me; in A Rose For Emily, Emily uses arsenic to poison her husband. I don’t know. The chorus is up to interpretation.

“She keeps a picture of the body she lends / Got nasty blisters from the money she spends / She's got a life of her own and it shows by the Benz / She drives at 90 by the Barbie's and Ken's.” (To The End). I think this line is what the Demolition Man thinks the Demolition Woman is up to in heaven. Heaven is supposed to be paradise, so he thinks she’s having the time of her life (no pun intended) up there while he’s doing all this work to get her back. He shows bitterness about this topic multiple times throughout the album.

“If you ever say never, too late / I'll forget all the diamonds you ate / Lost in coma and covered in cake / Increase the medication / Share the vows at the wake (kiss the bride).” (To the End). This continues the bitterness, the Demolition Man saying he’ll forgive her for having fun up in heaven while he’s suffering down here if she marries him. This whole song, I think, speaking of weddings, is about the Demolition Man wanting to marry the woman. The song starts by taking place during a wedding, so it’s not unusual that the Demolition Man would be thinking about it. “If you ever say [it’s] never too late” is probably about her commitment, and so is the chorus, along with “share the vows at the wake,” which I think means he wants to get married as soon as he dies again to go back to the afterlife to be with her. While we can’t see much of the demolition woman’s outfit on the album cover, (See paragraph on Demolition Lovers) I believe it could be a wedding dress. It has sort of a lacy neckline and appears to be white, so it’s possible. The man is also wearing a suit, and they look like they're about to kiss, so it's entirely plausible.

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison: Featuring vocals of The Used’s Bert McCracken, is when the Demolition Man, with a hit to his belief that he is invincible, is caught by authorities and sent to prison.

“In the middle of a gunfight / In the center of a restaurant / They say, "Come with your arms raised high" / Well, they're never gonna get me / Like a bullet through a flock of doves.”

It’s a common pattern throughout the album; the Demolition Man starts to believe he is untouchable, godly almost, and then something sets him back and he completely breaks down. This is the first time his invincibility gets shattered, when he becomes incarcerated and it slows down his mission. “To wage this war against your faith in me.” (Prison). He’s had this huge halt in his progress, and he’s afraid Demolition Womanis losing hope that he’ll see her again (even though she doesn’t know he’s doing this in the first place), and that she’ll stay loyal to him. We see the first mentions of religious belief sprinkled throughout the song as well: “On your mother's eyes, say a prayer / Say a prayer / …as God had made us.” (Prison). This theme is explored more in coming tracks Interlude and Thank You For The Venom.

It is also the track that really begins to explore this sexuality crisis the Demolition Man is having. Let’s be real: Gay sex is not new for prisons. It’s really not. And we know he’s been questioning this identity for a while now (See Paragraph on To The End), so it was bound to happen sometime, especially when he’s trapped with only a bunch of other men in the same situation for an undetermined amount of time… “Now, but I can't, and I don't know / How we're just two men as God had made us / Well, I can't, well, I can, yeah.” (Prison). Forgive me but I cannot think of a heterosexual explanation for this. I really can’t. The last stanza is the Demolition Man having some sort of inner conflict with himself about morals, like, should I really be doing this? And while he feels guilty, he decides he clearly doesn't feel guilty enough because he keeps on doing it. “Too much, too late / Or just not enough of this pain in my heart for your dying wish / I'll kiss your lips again.” (Prison). In the last stanza, he could be talking either about the Demolition Woman or some guy that he’s formed some sort of sexual and/or romantic bond with inside the prison.

Unfortunately, while consensual sex is not new for prison, neither is non-consensual. It can be inferred that the Demolition Man experienced this during his incarceration with these lines: “My cellmate's a killer, they make me do push-ups in drag / …What they ask of you will make you want to say, "So long" / Well, I don't remember / Why remember you?” (Prison). Something else common in prison is trying to effeminate one partner- to pretend like what they’re doing isn’t gay (it’s gay), which could explain the drag bit. We also see him mention a little bit of memory repression from this trauma that has been induced upon him.

Prison is also where he starts having his first mental decline, understandably. He’s become a mass murderer, he’s struggling with his identity, he’s away from everything he knows and loves, and it’s taking a toll on him mentally; he’s even beginning to toy with the notion of his own death, whether sentenced by law or by suicide. “But nobody cares if you're losing yourself / Am I losing myself? / Well, I miss my mom / Will they give me the chair? / Or lethal injection, or swing from a rope, if you dare? / Nobody knows all the trouble I've seen / …Life is but a dream for the dead.” (Prison). The last stanza has a double meaning: It could continue the theme of wishing he were dead, or it could continue the theme of bitterness toward his lover, who to his knowledge, is having a great time in heaven.

At the end of the song, the Demolition Man and presumably some of his prison friends break out of the jail. “Do you have the keys to the hotel? 'Cause I'm gonna string this motherfucker on fire / …And well, I, I won't go down by myself / But I'll go down with my friends.” (Prison). “The hotel” could be referring to where he’ll stay when he gets out of the prison, referenced later in the album: “Check into the hotel Bella Muerte…” (The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You) (which may also be a metaphor, more on that when we get to Jetset Life.) So it can be assumed that there was a breakout, the fire being literal or metaphorical, either way meaning they’re leaving the place in shambles. The last stanza may also have a double meaning, potentially being a sexual innuendo as well as a declaration of camaraderie.

Interlude: This track on the album actually comes after The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You, but I think it makes more sense after Prison. A very climactic, high-intensity part of the story has just occurred, everything’s a mess, he’s just broken out of prison, what’s going on with the Demolition Woman… leaving us wondering what will happen next, which seems like the perfect time for an intermission. Yes, I agree that typically, the intermission is more toward the middle or ⅔ mark, but to me this is the best placement for it.

Interlude only has three lines: “Saints protect her now / Come angels of the Lord / Come angels of unknown.” (Interlude). This is the Demolition Man praying to any higher being that he can think of to protect his lover and keep her safe. Thus, the end of Act One.

Act Two

The Ghost of You: This song is sort of a duet between the Demolition Lovers, the lines changing perspective from the woman and from the man. Gerard has done this in other songs as well, such as Famous Last Words, where there is a conversation happening between two different people, but the switches between speakers are unmarked. I’ll mark who I think said what for each mentioned line.

DW: “I never said I'd lie and wait forever.”

DM: “If I died / We'd be together / I can't always just forget her / But she could try.”

DW “At the end of the world / Or the last thing I see / You are never coming home, never coming home / Could I? Should I?”

I think the last line from the Demolition Woman is her wondering if it’s okay for her to let the man go. To reach some sort of acceptance that she’s never going to see him again.

DM: “Ever get the feeling that you're never all alone? / And I remember now / At the top of my lungs in my arms, she dies.” This, to some, is confirmation that the Demolition Woman is in fact dead. It could also be argued, however, that the line “If I died, we’d be together” could have come from the woman and not the man, which contradicts itself with the “she dies” lyric. These contradicting lines can be placed into either the alive or heaven theory by rearranging who said what, or it can be placed in the category of “the devil lied to the demolition man” if you say the woman said “If I died we’d be together.” Any of them work for the story; the point is, she misses him and wonders if it's messed up of her to try and accept the loss of him.

Throughout the album, the Demolition Man has this constant fear of “falling,” which I think means dying or failing his mission. “If I fall…” It’s mentioned more later on in the album, but it brings up the point that he still could fail the mission. He could still die. This is not a guaranteed win for him, so maybe it’s not all that bad of an idea for the Demolition Woman to reach some type of acceptance…

The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You: Back to the story. The last song was more just about emotions and how everyone is feeling and how things are going up in Heaven but now we’re getting back into the plot, shortly after the Demolition Man has escaped prison and checked into a hotel somewhere, called the hotel Bella Muerte (Beautiful Death in original Spanish). This hotel could also be metaphorical… more when we get to that line. The song starts with him missing her and looking at how much longer he has to go before he’ll complete this mission. “Gaze into her killing jar I'd sometimes stare for hours… / And for the last night I lie / Could I lie with you?” (Jetset Life). While he’s missing her, though, he’s also starting to resent her just the tiniest bit for making him (even though she didn’t make him) do all of this miserable awful stuff to get back to her when he doesn’t even know if she still believes in him anymore. “When holding on / Oh, I hope you do the same / Aww, sugar / Slip into the tragedy / You've spun this chamber dry.”

This song is also when the Demolition Man starts turning to drugs to numb the pain of everything going on. “I'm lost in the prescription / …It gives the weak flight / It gives the blind sight / Until the cops come.” His drug use is making him sloppy with his work and it’s almost getting him caught. (Side note, these are probably expensive drugs he’s using. The word Jetset means basically “rich and fancy” and he says the jetset life will kill you, (as drugs can)). This is where the potential metaphor of “Hotel Bella Muerte” comes into play- it’s mentioned right after the “lost in the prescription” line, and “checking into the hotel Beautiful Death” could represent actually dying due to this drug use. It could get him caught, it could kill him through an overdose. This metaphor could be continued (well, started) in Prison too, when Bert yells the line “Do you have the keys to the hotel? 'Cause I'm gonna string this motherfucker on fire!” (Prison) it could have meant “are you ready to die?”

Cemetery Drive: So, the Demolition Man is taking a break and recovering from prison. He’s visiting presumably his hometown, feeling, not gonna lie, a little suicidal. “Back home, off the run / Singing songs that make you slit your wrists / It isn't that much fun / Staring down a loaded gun.” (Cemetery Drive).

He then makes the very bad decision to go find his lover’s grave. “This night, walk the dead in a solitary style / And crash the cemetery gates.” (Cemetery Drive). He starts getting really sad because of this and starts reminiscing and just talking about how much he misses the woman. “I miss you / I miss you, so far / And the collision of your kiss / That made it so hard.” (Cemetery Drive). He also has another one of those moments of “is it worth it?” when he says “So, I won't stop dying, won't stop lying / If you want, I'll keep on crying / Did you get what you deserve? / Is this what you always want me for?” (Cemetery Drive). The rest of the song is very repetitive, but the line “way down” is repeated many many times. It could be talking about hell, it could be talking about the woman under the ground, it could be talking about this “fall” he’s constantly afraid of, it could be anything, really. The main important part of this song is that it leads to another change in identity: in religion.

Thank You For The Venom: This is when things mentally really start to go downhill for the Demolition Lover. He has just visited his dead lover’s grave, he’s by himself, and this is when he decides, ultimately: Fuck God. He’s given up on religion. He knows it’s real, because he’s literally on a quest from Satan himself, but he has no faith in it anymore. “Sister, I'm not much a poet, but a criminal / And you never had a chance / Love it, or leave it, you can't understand / …Preach all you want but who's gonna save me? / I keep a gun on the book you gave me, hallelujah, lock and load” (Venom).

I think maybe a nun has tried to “save” him; he could also be talking about religious people in general, but for story’s sake we’ll say a nun tried to “save” him. We know he’s had religious beliefs in the past, like when he says he was how God made him, or when he prayed to the angels to protect his lover, but he’s done. He’s like, “fuck God, fuck religion, fuck this nun.” (He does end up killing the nun: “Love is the red of the rose on your coffin door / What's life like, bleeding on the floor?”) He really doesn't care at all if people know about this aversion to religion: “I wear this on my sleeve / Give me a reason to believe.” He even contradicts his line from earlier in the album: “We’re just two men as God had made us” (Prison), with “I'm just the way that the doctor made me.” (Venom).

His drug use has gotten worse since Jetset Life: “So give me all your poison / And give me all your pills / And give me all your hopeless hearts / And make me ill.” (Venom). And the man still thinks he’s untouchable too, whether that means they can't convert him or he can’t be stopped in his mission or both. “You're running after something / That you'll never kill / If this is what you want / Then fire at will.” (Venom) This is also where he really starts to not give a shit if he even finishes out the mission: he’s like, fine, kill me, I don’t even know if this is worth it anyway. This attitude only gets stronger in our next track: Hang Em’ High.

Hang Em’ High: The Demolition Lover, with this new “Fuck It” mindset, is now picking up speed on his killing spree, barely caring if he gets killed himself in the process. This entire song is basically about him hunting down the men on the list and killing like a machine, a ruthless rampage that takes on the sound of an old western. “Grab your six-gun from your back / Throttle the ignition / Would I die for you? / Well, here's your answer in spades / Shotgun sinners / Wild-eyed jokers / Got you in my sights / Gun it while I'm holding on.” (Hang Em’ High). You can note the tone of resentment toward the Demolition Woman as well. There’s sort of been this underlying question of “will she still love me after what I’ve done?” and this song really hits the point of “I don’t care what she thinks I’m doing it the fuck anyway.” He’s real sarcastic about it too, but that’s nothing new: “After all is said and done / Climb out from the pine box / Well, I'm asking you / 'Cause she's got nothing to say / …She won't stop me, put it down / So get your gun and meet me by the door.” (Hang em’ High.) This song is also where that theme of “falling” comes again. In this song, he sort of says “If I die, I die, and we’ll both move on.” “If I fall and don't look back / Oh, baby, don't stop / Bury me and fade to black.” (Hang em’ High). This is very different from The Ghost of You, where he’s a little more afraid of this “fall.” It’s really better explained in the tone of the song. In The Ghost of You, the line about falling is very isolated, warningly ominous, and is followed by a heavy chorus of basically just wailing, so it seems like a big fear of his. In Hang ‘Em High, the “fall” is much more casually mentioned and is followed by “don’t stop and bury me,” AKA, “get over it.”

It’s Not A Fashion Statement, It’s A Fucking Deathwish: This song is very important to the story because it exhibits a large change in character. This song is about the Demolition Man hunting down one or more of the people who murdered him. “For what you did to me / And what I'll do to you / You get, what everyone else gets / You get a lifetime / …I'm coming back from the dead / And I'll take you home with me / I'm taking back the life you stole / …I will avenge my ghost with every breath I take / …This hole that you put me in / Wasn't deep enough / And I'm climbing out right now / You’re running out of places to hide from me.” (Fashion Statement).

This song contains a very crucial part in the album. This is the song where he fully accepts that he may fail his mission by dying. In Ghost of You it was his greatest fear, in Hang Em’ High it was maybe-a-thing-that-could-happen-but-I’m-not-going-to-think-about-it-right-now-just-gonna -kill-a-bunch-of-people. In this song, he knows it’s possible. He’s reached full acceptance that he may never see his lover again. This, right here, is one of the most important lines in the album: “I lost my fear of falling.” (Fashion Statement)

Obviously, he’s going to keep trying, though. Don’t get me wrong, he’s still very determined to be with the woman again, but he’s setting his bar realistically in that he may not make it. “If living was the hardest part / We'll then one day be together / …When you go / Just know that I will remember you / I lost my fear of falling / I will be with you, I will be with you.”

And thus, with his determination and preparation in his mind, we arrive at the finale.

I Never Told You What I Do For A Living:

This is the last song in the story of the Demolition Lovers. The Demolition has almost made it to the end of the mission, and he is absolutely ready to kill the last person and see his lover again. “Another night and I'll see you / Another night and I'll be you.” (Never Told You). He is going down the list, going on this rampant spree trying to hunt down the last men on the list. “Another knife in my hands /…I keep a book of the names and those / Only go so far 'til you bury them / So deep and down we go.” (Never Told You).

The only thing he’s worried about is if, one: the woman will still love him after what he’s done, and two: how he’ll deal with the guilt. He’s hoping getting into heaven and seeing the woman will cleanse him of his sins: “Another knife in my hands / A stain that never comes off the sheets / Clean me off / I'm so dirty babe / The kind of dirty where the water never cleans off the clothes

/…Touched by angels, though I fall out of grace / I did it all so maybe I'd live this every day.” (Never Told You). The first five stanzas are about the “seeing the woman will cleanse him” thing. The rest is about his guilt. If he’ll think about it day after day once he’s in heaven, and if he’s ruined his chance at religion because he’s fallen “out of grace.” The part about the woman not loving him anymore is a valid concern, really. I mean, think about it. He’s not the same guy anymore. He has killed one thousand people. That’s too large of a number for us to even comprehend in this context, but try. That shit would change you, for sure.

We have another chorus, after which he simply says the word “down,” which I have to assume means he has just killed the 999th person.

And here’s where everything falls apart.

The devil has just told the Demolition Man that the last evil man he must kill is himself.

He’s been hunting down man after man making kill after kill for at least a year in completely dismal conditions, dirtying his conscience and completely uprooting his life and mind as he knows it. He’s suffered through this all just to get back to the Demolition Woman… and now he can’t. It was all for nothing.

“And we all fall down / I tried /I tried.”

I strongly suggest you actually listen to this part, because just the quote definitely does not get the tone across. It’s at about 1:40 in the song. Gerard is screaming and wailing, really capturing the anguish that his character is feeling, knowing his work was for nothing and knowing that he’ll never see the Demolition Woman again.

However, he does accept this fate.

“And we'll all dance alone to the tune of your death / We'll love again, we'll laugh again / and it's better off this way.” (Never Told You)

Those worries of guilt, the worries that he’s changed too much as a person, the worries that the woman won’t love him anymore, are released. The fact that he says “we’ll all” instead of just “I’ll” is really interesting. He does it in other places throughout the song as well. I have to assume he’s referring to the other 999 people he’s killed, which is a very cool image, all of these people that have died because the Demolition Woman has died, the man soon to join them. It’s an image Gerard creates in the third album as well, an army of ghosts rallying for a final hurrah: “We're damned after all / Through fortune and flame we fall.” (Mama).

He says it’s “better off this way” which is an interesting choice in wording because it’s the same phrase he uses in I’m Not Okay (I Promise), which is not a song I’ve talked about yet. “I never want to let you down / Or have you go, it's better off this way.” (I’m Not Okay).

The second stanza I suppose means that they’ll move on. They’ll learn to “live” without each other in the afterlife.

However, this acceptance comes very quickly after the breakdown, which implies that it was sort of that “quick fix reasoning” we tend to do- something bad happens and we instantly try to reassure ourselves that it’s going to be okay by conjuring up the first solution or remedy we can think of.

I can infer this because the Demolition Man starts reminiscing about the day they were shot, repeating these lines: “And never again, and never again / They gave us two shots to the back of the head / And we're all dead now,” twice, increasing in desperation and emotion the second time around, and then he starts wailing again. “Well I tried / One more night / One more night / Well I'm laughin' out, cryin' out, laughin' out loud / I tried, well I tried, well I tried / 'Cause I tried, but I lied.” (Never Told You)

He’s losing his mind. He’s freaking the fuck out, the whole impact of what has happened is hitting him, and he’s no longer trying to quickly reassure himself, but just insisting that he “tried” over and over again, even to the point of laughing, he’s so far out of it. He just keeps saying “One more night,” knowing he was that close to seeing the woman again.

He repeats “I tried” a few more times, and then he tries to assure himself again with the lines about it being “better off.” He’s jumping back and forth, his touch on what he knows loosening. He does understand one thing, though. This guilt will haunt him, Demolition Woman or not. “And it's better off this way / So much better off this way / I can't clean the blood off the sheets in my bed!” (Never Told You.) I feel like it’s important to note that during these shifts in thoughts, Gerard switches between more calmly singing and completely screaming which probably accurately represents this complete breakdown the Demolition Man is having.

The song ends with a final reminiscence of the night of the Demolition Lovers’ death, as the Demolition Man does what the devil has asked of him and joins his list of the dead.

“And never again, and never again / They gave us two shots to the back of the head / And we're all… dead… now.”

***

The End? Not quite. You may have noticed that I’ve neglected I’m Not Okay (I Promise), Helena, and the bonus tracks from the live recording collection: Life on the Murder Scene.

Helena: Helena was written following the death of the Grandmother of Gerard and Mikey Way (Bassist). Gerard has described this song as “an angry, open letter to himself.” The lyrics are more than anything about the Ways’ Grandmother, Elena, than the story, but if we must find a way to connect it, I believe it would be from the Demolition Woman’s perspective (It could also be about what the Demolition Man thinks the woman is thinking). “What's the worst that I can say? / Things are better if I stay / So long and goodnight / …Well, if you carry on this way / Things are better if I stay / So long and goodnight/” (Helena). This can be the Demolition Woman saying she’s better off in heaven after she’s seen what the Demolition Man has done and who he’s become.

The whole song is about grief, which means it could take place pretty much anywhere in the timeline, that is, if the song fits with the story at all.

I’m Not Okay (I Promise): I’m pretty sure this song takes place before they die. I think it’s about both of them having some mental health issues and problems with each other, which means their relationship was a little rocky. Don’t get me wrong, they were still totally in love with each other, I mean, obviously, he killed 1000 men for her, but they had some issues. This can also be concluded from some lines in Demolition Lovers: “And after all the things we put each other through…” (Demolition Lovers). It’s largely unimportant, I think. The lyrics are not really of substance, except that neither of them are okay and they kind of fought sometimes, but they won’t break up because being a little bit unhappy with each other is better than not being with each other at all: ““I never want to let you down / Or have you go, it's better off this way.” (I’m Not Okay). That’s about all I could take away from this track.

Desert Song: One of the two bonus tracks from this album, found on the live recording collection Life on the Murder Scene. I’m not gonna lie, the analysis of this song is very simple: We died, that’s sad, I miss you.

It’s pretty much the entire story’s plot (feelings-wise) in one song. There’s an allusion to I Never Told You What I Do For a Living: “And did you come to stare or wash away the blood?” (Like the line “Clean me off / I'm so dirty babe / The kind of dirty where the water never cleans off the clothes” (Never Told You)). It details the journey of their bodies: “From the earth to the morgue /

Morgue, morgue, morgue!” (Desert Song) and talks about the woman living in heaven or mourning him or both: “Spend the rest of your days rockin' out / Just for the dead.” It’s not a very eventful song, and I have to assume that much of it is written about Gerard Way’s real life more than the Demolition Lovers.

Bury Me in Black: My personal favorite. Also found on Life on the Murder Scene, this song has got to be the angriest on the album.

There’s proof that it could be directed toward the Demolition Woman, and theories that it could be directed toward the devil, but I think it’s both. It takes place sometime during his mission, I assume around the 400 mark where he’s probably extremely fed up with this mission and just angry as hell. “I wanna see what your insides look like (I wanna see what your insides look like)/ I bet you're not fucking pretty on the inside (not so pretty) / I wanna see what your insides look like (not so pretty, baby)” (Bury Me in Black). Yeah, he’s mad. He’s extremely violent, either toward his lover or toward the devil, we don’t know. But he’s been killing for so long now that violence is all he knows…

There’s some maybe-proof that it’s toward the woman: “I said, ‘We'll drown ourselves in misery tonight’ / White lies, you've worn out all your dancing shoes this time,” which I think is bitterness that the woman is in heaven. He’s completely miserable, and he wants her to be miserable too, not having fun in paradise.

The part that makes me think it’s the devil is here: “I've been calling you all week for my

Shotgun / Pick up the phone / Pick up the phone, fucker.” He has to be in some sort of communication with the devil to let him know what’s going on, which makes me think he doesn’t have the materials or information he needs, which is halting his mission, AKA frustrating him enough that he wants to literally gut Satan.

This is also another look at just how miserable he is. He’s drinking to numb the pain: “These eyes have had too much to drink again tonight,” He’s feeling suicidal: ‘Black skies, we'll douse ourselves in high explosive light,” He’s physically injured from fights: “And well, I can't explain / What happened to my face / Late last night,” He’s homeless: “I sleep in empty pools, and vacant alleyways,” and he’s having a sexuality crisis: “And what I'm going through / Shot lip gloss through my veins.” (Bury Me in Black). It is another song that fits pretty much anywhere in the timeline.

The End: Thank you for reading this stupid bullshit if you made it this far. Yes, I wrote all of this and if you are for some reason crazy enough to use it for anything please credit me; I spent far too long working on this to get robbed. It is December 25, 2022, 12:52 am, thus concluding my first completed masterdoc: The Story Behind My Chemical Romance’s: Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge. Thanks for reading.

#three cheers for sweet revenge #three cheers era #tcfsr #my chemical fucking romance #my chemical romance #mcr lore #please i worked so hard #thank you for the reblogs i very appreciate it

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homophobicgerardwayau · 8 months

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Kay just my two cents. I highly doubt that Eagles will be released as a single. It is not a song, it is an interlude. It could be re-arranged and expanded on, absolutely…but I really don’t see why the band would invest creative energy into something that already works well for what it is, especially when its central musical idea is very similar to the breakdown in Foundations of Decay. It doesn’t have a chorus. The ‘centipede’ section works as a spoken bridge of sorts but does not work as a chorus.

You know what would be really fucking sick though? Re-arranging both tracks so that that particular riff/progression is an intentional re-occuring musical motif. I would love to see black sabbath come back in a big way on this album and I think that the ‘cage all the animals’ ‘she got a lotta legs’ guitar progression really gets at the core darkness that the sabbath influence brings.

Imagine: The album opens with Foundations (re-mastered because I’m one of those), we ease into a couple of faster punky tracks, then song number 4 is Eagles and get ‘cause everyone. Everyone. Everyone.’ And instead of the track ringing out we hard cut to the next track which is same progression but slow, sludgy, guitars layer upon layer.

Dah Dah Dah DUUUUUUM Dah Dah Dah DUUUUUUM!!

Half time drums crashing, gerard screaming. Mikey’s bass using heavy overdrive.

Basically, the album could use the same chord progression reinterpolated 3-4 times in different tracks a la dark side of the moon. Such an Mcr album I think would manage to harken back to the progressive rock references seen on the black parade but in a different way. All the while addressing the big meta question that looms over this Schrödinger’s record: And now what?

Everything going forward is forced to be backward looking, (which mcr’s music has always has been) but now it has to be extremely aware of its own back catalogue because enough time has passed for three cheers and black parade to be considered classic albums.

The reoccurring riff idea could work metatextually in that it is self referential, outwardly referential and is about taking something familiar and making it new.

Anyway

Please American Rock Band My Chemical Romance drop something I love you

#mcr5 #mcr5 truthing #mcr5 is real #mcr5 is simultaneously unreal #my chemical romance #mcr return #discourse #nancy

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apuff · 3 months

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pinned post under construction :3

hello it is i. apuff. if you don't know me, you can call me puff or apuff, and if you do know me, you can also call me puff or apuff. if you know my actual name due to being friends (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE), you can use ann as a substitute

i like albums, concept albums, concepts, conceptual art, concept art, and art, and i also liked making that sentence

in case you couldn't already tell, i am obsessed with my chemical romance, it basically eclipses my entire waking mind

i also like webcomics like unfamiliar, castoff, aurora, i want to be a cute anime girl, heartstopper, and laika's comet

blog organization + tags vv

i have a few different tags for various things in my blog, like:

art (some old art of others' is on here, but it's mostly my art)

apuff's inane ramblings (inconsequential text posts)

mcr (My Chemical Romance is an American rock band from Newark, Ne)

dungeon meshi (you know what this is you're on tumblr)

miku (HATSUNE MIKUUUUU)

art save (things that are pretty, i'm trying to keep tutorials out of this now but i might forget)

save (like..general useful stuff, good websites, not very specific)

things i want to draw (self-explanatory, more for text posts that inspire me than images, which is "art save")

picrew (picrew chains. i reblog the picrew of people that i tag in these because otherwise i can't find them ever)

long post (posts that are long, this is mostly for blacklisting)

free palestine (self-explanatory)

remember this (desperate plea. i don't even know what i use this for)

art tutorials (TAG I JUST MADE UP NOW!!! i probably won't retroactively tag things as this)

-----

ok so for starters for trigger/blacklist tagging i'm using the format of just the thing in the tag, not "cw" or "tw" before or after it. for example, something with blood would just be "blood" not "tw blood."

for bright colors, i'm doing "eyestrain." i'm tagging things with flashing/strobing colors, lights, or light n darkness "flashing lights" if you're sensitive to that, please make sure you have it blocked since i can't cover the absolute myriad of the unstandardized tags for that specific thing on every reblog with it.

let me know if there's something i need to tag on a post, i forget a lot of stuff/autoreblog plus there's fears i don't know about and things

now palestine/gaza related posts are sort of a whole different beast in terms of tagging? i'm trying to put down "free palestine" on every post i reblog about the topic (cause you actually need to do that to get tags to trending) (plus overall blog sorting is good)

now obviously, the entire GENERAL CONCEPT of the current genocide is dark and upsetting, so know that i really can't tag every possible thing that could be upsetting. but, i'm trying to make a system of particularly upsetting things, especially pertaining to images & videos

ok so. for images/videos of children being actively harmed, as well as graphic text descriptions, i'm doing "child harm" this does not cover statistics of children killed or general comments on the fact

things like videos/images of gunfire, shooting and bombing, i'm doing "violence" like the other one this doesn't cover descriptions of those things happening.

"injuries" is self-explanatory- burns, bloody injuries, face trauma, etc, you get the drill (even blurred/pixely censored ones)

"dead body" is also self-explanatory, doesn't include body bags except if they have visible body part sticking out

tags that could mostly apply to anything (like "gun" or "blood") don't have any special tags, i just use the generic ones like i said above

still thinking of a tag for people being distressed about their situation/ their dead loved ones since things like "death"' are too vague and would cause overfiltering but i can't think of something accurate. if you have any suggestions, let me know.

#i just need to add some tags to this so tumblr doesn't keep prompting me to add tags

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fagexe · 2 years

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No, I don't want to go to bed! I want to eat a bagel and listen to I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love by the American rock band My Chemical Romance!

#no I don't care if it's 3: 20am #I'm going to eat a bagel!#and I'm going to listen to the only album ever created #I brought you my bullets you brought me your love #in honor of its birthday and the subsequent birth of music #you know the one #the only album that exists?#yeah yeah that one #by the American rock band My Chemical Romance #my chem #you must felix your heart #my chemical romance #mcr

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yourdyingwish · 5 months

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who are your favorite bands? other than mcr ofc

Ooh good question. I will say outside of a few notable exceptions, which I'll list, I'm not really a "bands" person usually? I tend to be more of an album listener, and before MCR got me back into rock music I listened to a lot of singer-songwriters. I like bands, just not in a...bandom way. Like, I could say that Neutral Milk Hotel or My Bloody Valentine or Slint have been some of my favorite bands since high school and I guess it wouldn't be a lie, but I really think of them more in terms of the albums I like from them. I don't think I know the names of half the members. A subtle difference but one that makes sense in my brain!

That said here's a list of bands (mostly not individual artists, tried to weed those out) I like in alphabetical order because I made this list as I scrolled through my iTunes library in alphabetical order. Ones I like the most are bolded. This was fun to make :) Against Me!, American Football, Animal Collective, Backxwash, Bad Brains, Bauhaus, Between the Buried and Me, Black Sabbath, Broadcast, Can, The Cleaners from Venus, Cocteau Twins, The Contortions, Couch Slut, The Cranberries, The Cure, Dead Man's Bones, Death Grips, Elastica, The Fall, Fugazi, Fugees, Garbage, Gel, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Gulch, Helium, Hella, Hole, Hüsker Dü, iamamiwhoami, Ithaca, Japanese Breakfast, Jawbreaker, Joy Division, Joyce Manor, King Crimson, Led Zeppelin, Limp Wrist, The Magnetic Fields, The Microphones, Ministry, The Modern Lovers, Mudhoney, My Bloody Valentine, My Chemical Romance, Neutral Milk Hotel, New York Dolls, Nine Inch Nails, Nirvana, Outkast, Pinkshift, Pixies, Poison Girls, Pulp, Radiohead, Rites of Spring, The Rolling Stones, Roxy Music, Screaming Females, Seam, Sigur Rós, The Sisters of Mercy, Skating Polly, Skinny Puppy, Sleater-Kinney, Slint, Slowdive, The Smiths, Sonic Youth, Soul Glo, The Stooges, Talking Heads, Texas is the Reason, Thursday, A Tribe Called Quest, The Used, Vampire Weekend, The Velvet Underground, Veruca Salt, Wire, Zulu, 100 Gecs

One thing this list does not reveal is how much rap & folk music I listen to because those are genres that obviously usually center around a single artist instead of a band LOL. Or how much David Bowie, Nick Drake, and Sufjan Stevens I listen to. But it's a decent look into my music taste I think!

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sunsetsareformuggingz · 2 years

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It's so fun to think that I am part of this group of people who have been watching the clock and endlessly checking social media for updates. Messaging your friends when any new picture or audio is posted. Having this thing in common with people all over the world, literally one of the most exciting things this fandom has ever experienced. Knowing that and then knowing the person sitting next to you may quite literally have no clue what you are so hyped for. Counting down to the start of this first show like it's fucking New Years Eve. And it is our New Years Eve. It is the return of American Rock Band My Chemical Romance. And it should be a recognized holiday.

#my chemical romance #frank iero #my chem #mcr #gerard way #ray toro #mikey way

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im-tempted · 6 months

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The Black Parade is a rock opera concept album written by American rock band My Chemical Romance. It follows the story of a young, ex military, terminal cancer patient as he reckons with his life, death, and the impact his life really had. Many people like to rearrange the song order of the album to tell the story, however I think the order of all of the tracks in Black Parade are where they’re meant to be. MyChem’s other albums tell a cohesive story within their designated track orders and never need to be swapped around so I personally follow that rule as well when it comes to Black Parade.

Of course we start with The End narrating, rather sarcastically, the current situation of our protagonist. The End and Dead! are two tracks in this album that are the definition of DO NOT SEPARATE.

Generally I see The End and Dead! as the big opener,This Is How I Disappear as anger The Sharpest Lives as reckless self indulgence/destruction, Welcome to the Black Parade as a reflection in a moment of clarity almost like a broken promise the patient never wanted to break, I Don’t Love You is the patient speaking to his partner possibly trying to convince them to give up loving him because he's a dead man already.

House of Wolves is the religious guilt/anger of realizing that all the actions he took serving his country and how he lived his life were damning and not saving, while Welcome to the Black Parade is a hopeful look on the afterlife, House of Wolves is a negative. “Heaven” vs “Hell” maybe.

Cancer is pretty self explanatory, patient speaking to his loved ones nearing his end. Mama is A Lot. It’s a confession of sin from the war (this and blood and dead are where the military context comes from as well as the social political climate of when the album was released) it's a confession of sin in the personal life as well. “You should have raised a baby girl I could have been a better son” can take on a few meanings all of which are up for interpretation. Sleep is a sobering realization. It’s devoid of anger or passion or anything, like a quiet defeat.The opening tape recording is of Gerard describing to their therapist the nightmares they had while staying in a haunted house to write this album with his bandmates.

Teenagers I have not enough to say regarding the overall story but a banger. Disenchanted is in the title, it's the final result and reflection of the patient’s life. No matter what he did it was always going to end up this way. Nothing he could have done would have changed it.

Famous Last Words is an interesting one. Gerard originally wrote it for their brother Mikey, who was taking a short break from the band during the writing process to deal with various mental health going ons at the moment. When he returned and heard the song he asked for it (AND DISENCHANTED!) to be on the album. It fits thematically, and adds a hopeful note to the end of a tragedy.

THESE ARE MY INTERPRETATIONS I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR YOUR OWN IF YOU'VE GOT ANY. ABSOLUTELY AMAZING ALBUM

this became so much longer than i thought it would i am so sorry

ok finally have the time to sit down and respond to this idk how long this will get i have thoughts(tm) if theirs one thing I'm always thinking about it's death and SPECIFICALLY terminal illness which as someone who's actually had that will probably wildly influence my reading of the album (I know shock to everyone I've never been to war) as well as my big feelings about medical things in general (this album was made in a lab about me actually)

overarching it's always interesting to see stories where death is not only expected but something actively being waited for I feel like everyone and their mother knows they're going to die to the point it's joked about but I don't think many people actually understand that as someone who had to metaphorically stare down the barrel of a gun from birth it's always interesting to see others express that feeling of not quite apathy that I've always felt but the moment you stop trying to claw your way away from death and when you start just living with it always over you shoulder

anyways back to the actual album

there's something so visceral about giving your body to your country and having it not be able to save you back of sacrificing your safety for you to come back home just to die of something no one can save you from there is no atonement in death of chance you went somewhere and you hurt a lot of people and you come back and don't even have the chance to die of it you die of chance like all the others like people who weren't broken for a cause who didn't shape themselves into a weapon to serve

they say that they don't feel bad for the blood on their hands and should they? for getting sucked into the largest propaganda campaign for trying their best for being in the wrong place at the wrong time a dying man can feel no guilt at some point it's just to late there is no point in feeling bad for what brought you somewhere when you simply don't have time

I think this album is also particularly interesting when the singer is explicitly talking to others (like in mama) 'cuz even though the POV person seems to have come to terms with what they've done it's interesting to one of the hardest parts of dying is trying to explain to anyone else you are because no one will actually believe you I don't have to many thoughts on that right now but I just think that's a part of dying people don't talk about is when you've come to terms with it and no one else has

OVERALL I will be thinking about this album probably for a while and this isn't even close to all of my thoughts but I have so many posts I can make in the future so there's always that This one got a tad away from me I can talk about each song on it's own later if you want but for right now I think all the time about what it's like for someone to come to terms with the fact they are dying and what they had to make themselves to get there (< is so normal about this and hasn't based their whole life around it for almost two decades)

GREAT SONGS

#as I said this got away from me #and you should be grateful/j #love to hear your thoughts please ask me anything I love it so much #album of all time #stickers #adam fucking around #tw medical

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dangerliesbeforeyou · 4 months

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ok so i spent yesterday looking through and collecting data from ao3's rpf (real person fanfiction) collection (for no reason other than 'i was intrigued' lol...)

and i thought i'd go through some of the interesting finds!

(this is probably interesting to nobody but me but hey when has that ever stopped me lol!)

starting with a disclaimer that this is a judgement free zone! i may make a few jokes about things from time to time on here, but i am firmly of the 'ship and let ship' mindset so no hate meant in any of this at all lol <3

first interesting fact is that kpop is the highest rpf tag (with over 650k works!!), bts are obviously the boy group with the most fics, with twice being the highest girl group!

speaking of girls... so for every category i tried to find what the top f/f ship was and for a couple of the tags (most notably actors and music), the top f/f ships were actually male characters (which confused me until i saw the additional tags were genderbend and genderswap lol)... there are also a lot of fandoms where the top characters when you take out m/m ships is actually original female characters (or reader)!

unsurprisingly, taylor swift is the solo artist with the most fics written about her (many shipping her with various celebs, both men and women), but what i found interesting is that there are 140 of her songs and albums that are featured in fics, which is more than any other musician's work (even hozier lol!)

other music tag info is one direction as the non-kpop band with the most fics, with larry stylinson being the top ship (no one is shocked at this) and the highest rating being explicit! which is a bit surprising since most of these fandoms have either general or teen and up ratings as the top one... the only other umbrella rpf fandom that has explicit as the top rating is actors... oh and porn (duh)

my chemical romance deserve a mention as the band with the most fics under the rock music tag (and in the bandom tag), with gerard as the top character (good for them!)! queen also rank pretty highly, with a lot of the fics being specifically linked to the 2018 film bohemian rhapsody rather than specifically the band themselves (so it's like... rpf of rpf lol?)

i think the beatles are the oldest band/musician to have a lot of rpf about them but it's honestly a little hard to tell so don't quote me on this... they are also at the top of the 60's music scene, where the rolling stones take 2nd lol...

the rpf section that i went into the most blind was the sports tag, since my knowledge of sports is .......... yeh that's about all i know lol

men's football and hockey have a similar number of fics each (a little over 30k), though the top character in the sports tag is max verstappen who is actually a racing driver so ??? confused noises lol

anyway idrc about the men (this is a joke ofc @ men i love you), what i DO care about is that women's football (and this is specifically the soccer kind not the american lol) has the highest femslash fics, and i looked up tobin heath (who was the top character in this section) and lemme just say that i Get it lol...

wwe and formula 1 are some other sports that have a significant number of fics in the, filled with people i've never heard of before pfft... i will say that most of the sports have general as their top rating, except for hockey which has explicit (i feel like theirs some kinda joke i could make here about playing with sticks but i'm not gonna lol... especially since most sports already play with balls so?)

anyway enough about sports lol, let's return to something i'm much more comfortable with: youtubers!

youtube is actually the 2nd most written about category (next to kpop, with nearly 280k fics) with minecraft youtubers (the top character being tommyinnit) being the most written about!

what i found most fascinating about this is that 8 out of the 10 top ships in this tag are platonic (and 1 is actually just the 'no romantic relationships' tag lol... the top ship overall is still a slash pairing, but it's still interesting that such a big fandom has mainly platonic pairings!)

also even though the phandom have nowhere near the amount of fics as minecraft youtube, i found it kinda funny that there are (as of writing this) only 95 more fics featuring dan than phil (essentially saying that literally nearly 99% of the fics feature the both of them lol... phandom really said 'co-dependency' and i respect that lol)

moving on to actors, which i expected to have a lot more fics than it does given a lot of rpf involves the actors of characters in popular fictional ships (i mean there are still a lot, over 130k lol...) and supernatural takes the crown of having the most fics of this category! j2 is the top ship, though the 3rd top ship in the actors tag is actually tom hiddleston x original female character! i think because of this british actors are the highest subsection of actors, followed by chinese actors!

i think i did expect the chinese actors to have more fics, but i'm guessing the smaller number is because of the whole xiao zhan ao3 drama from a few years ago... wang yibo x xiao zhan still make up the most popular ship, plus there are plenty of other c-dramas and other chinese shows that have a big number of fics that don't fall under the chinese actor umbrella tag (so the number probably would be a lot larger if i went through and counted them... but i'm not gonna)... similar thing with thai actors, which only has a couple thousand fics in the tag, but there are a whole lot more fics dedicated to rpf of specific actors on specific shows (from a quick glance i think tharntype and kinnporsche are a couple of the highest fandoms? but i didn't go through everything cos i'd already been doing this for a few hours and i was getting sleeeeeby lol...)

one thing that intrigued me was the british comedy category (which is the top comedy category lol! we did it lads we finally came top with something!), where would i lie to you and taskmaster were the top fandoms! david mitchell was the top character and, kinda bizarrely imo, david x charlie brooker was the top ship (i feel like i'm missing some kinda big thing in the british comedy fandom ngl lol... but like really? you ship david with charlie brooker when robert webb, his actual comedy partney, is RIGHT there? or even lee mack i'm ??? ok ok i'm getting off topic pfft...)

oh greg davies and alex horne are also a popular ship in this category ofc (though they have less than 1000 fics lol!)

the final umbrella category of rpf that i could find was historical, which is the tag with the least amount of fics (under 20k), with alexander hamilton and various other american specific historical figures making up the bulk of the popular historical fics (these are mainly tired to the musical hamilton btw)!

the top characters and ship when narrowed down to just the f/f of the historical tag is mostly original female characters btw!

there are also fics of other public figures, like politics, porn, journalists and chefs, and probably the most intriguing facts i found from this section are that hillary clinton is the most popular character in the 21st century us politics section, joe biden and donald trump are the 4th most popular ship (with the reoccurring additional tag of 'crack fic' lol), and though it isn't in the top stats, when i went into the pundit and journalist tag the first few fics to pop up were ben shapiro x matt walsh explicit stuff which was... uh... interesting lol

final thing i'll note is that i stuck mainly to ao3 for this because though i know places like wattpad have a large rpf collection too, but it's so bloody HARD to find data about fics on that site pfft... though i think one thing that would be shown by looking into wattpad's rpf community is that whereas ao3 has a lot of shipping content (obviously), wattpad has a lot more reader x celebrity (but like take this with a pinch of salt since i've not actually done the research for this part pfft...)

anyway i hope you (all 0 of you) enjoyed this rambling take on the data i found on ao3's rpf collection lol!

i know people get really weird around rpf, but i just genuinely find it SO interesting how diverse the range of stuff people write about!

#honestly idk what to tag this pfft...#statistics #rpf statistics #ao3 stats #rpf #rambling #i've not put it into like a proper data list because i just kinda wanted to ramble about it pfft #i think all the stuff around the youtube section was what surprised me the most ngl!#anyway uh yeh i spent way too long on this when i should probably be trying to do some art pfft...

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