#Feb. 2018

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

The Cranberries – Linger

[blinkandyoumissit]

15 FEB 2018 | SiriusXM • Everybody knows that @/falloutboy's song #Centuries samples @/suzyv's song Tom's Diner (right?) but do YOU know @/petewentz's birthdate? 🤔 Prove your stan status by acing this #falloutboy trivia!

[jinkieswouldyoulookatthis]

Anti-destiel Wank (sorry but I have to)

If you hardcore ship Destiel, please just scroll on by. Please.

Ok, I'm gonna get myself in trouble, I'm sure, but I gotta get this off my chest...

Destiel may be a perfectly fine ship,

but,

IT'S JUST A SHIP.

In the actual context of the show there IS NO ROMANTIC OR SEXUAL TENSION/RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DEAN AND CAS.*

Full fucking stop.

Subtext can be interpreted in ANY WAY YOU WANT. It is subjective. You will find whatever you look for in it. Please stop waving subtext interpretations around as if they were objective facts, they aren't. Subtext, by its very definition, relies on implied meaning and understanding, this means it is a subjective interpretation of the media that varies from viewer to viewer. The inherent variations are what make it fanon/headcanon instead of canon.

If you see tension of that sort there and it makes you happy to postulate the what if, then go ahead, that is what fanon and head canon and fan fiction is all about. But if the fact that the tension you think you see isn't being addressed in actual canon makes you grumpy, maybe you need to take some of the fanatic out of your fanning. If you are beginning to think the show creators are actively trying to repress Dean's "true sexuality and feelings" because they are evil, you might need to consider that you've dug in too deep.

Because, like I ship wincest. Yeah, I said it. But I am aware that canon doesn't actually include any level of sexual or romantic (in the modern sense) relationship between Sam and Dean. Wincest is not canon.

Now, are Sam and Dean the real "love" story of the show? Yes, yes they are. That has always been 100% the entire point of Supernatural, the great love story of two brothers struggling to save the world together. It's about family and everything that means, but at its heart, it is about Sam and Dean WInchester. Not all kisses and cuddles and sex kind of love, but love nonetheless. Full stop.

Now, the fact that Destiel is such a popular ship is not surprising to me in the least. Jensen and Misha are two gorgeous guys who share a lot of chemistry on screen and off. And, it is canon that Cas loves Dean. That has been evident since Lazarus Rising (4x01) when Cas was introduced. Castiel's love of Dean Winchester has been his character's main motivation all along and culminated with Cas sacrificing himself to save Dean, after telling him that he loved him in Despair (15x18)

But Dean's main motivation has always been to watch out for his brother. And though Castiel became Dean's best friend, he still comes second to Sam. Nothing against Cas, he just isn't Sam.

So why are so many people so absolutely convinced that Destiel is so real within the context of the story?

Well, I'm pretty sure that it is the same reason that they are so opposed to the idea of wincest.

As we all know, incest is bad, mmmkay? Incest is probably one of the biggest, strongest, cultural taboos we have. So it makes perfect sense that the idea of two blood-related brothers having sexual or romantic feelings for each other is considered icky. It's so off putting that it is a complete no go for even fantasizing about for most people. And that's probably a good thing, tbh, incest should be taboo. But where does that taboo spring from? Why is it so deeply off limits? There are several reasons, but the two main ones are:

That incest can lead to inbreeding.

That incest too often involves molestation or rape of children.

Both of these are seriously bad enough that we all pretty much collectively agree to avoid incestuous relationships. But, do either of these two reasons really apply in the case of Sam and Dean?

The short answer is no. Primarily this is because they are fictional characters that are being played by unrelated actors. But to humor the objectors we'll look at it closer.

We can take the first one right off the table. As two cis men, neither of them is capable of becoming pregnant, so outside of the mpreg (male pregnancy) or gender bending subsets of fanfic tropes, this is not applicable.

The second reason only becomes an issue when talking about the characters earlier in their lives, pre-show or flashbacks. Weecest or teencest, or whatever, are things, but these typically have separate ship names for a reason, because even when dealing with fictional characters this squicks a lot of folks who are otherwise down with the wincest ship. So most content is tagged or labeled as its specific flavor, so anyone can find it or avoid it. But wincest that involves adult Sam and Dean (the specific pairing I'm referring to in this post) doesn't apply to the second reason listed above.

So there really is nothing morally wrong with Sam and Dean having sex with each other. I know that statement is going to bother a whole lot of people, but it is true. Just because something is taboo does not automatically make it morally wrong. Being gay used to be taboo in our culture, and is still taboo for way too many people, even though there is nothing morally wrong with homosexuality.

Now, I wasn't in the fandom back at the beginning of the show, but I've heard tell that the very first Sam/Dean fic was posted just a few hours after the pilot episode aired. A few hours, that's all it took for some highly motivated fan to type out a story where they were more than just brothers. The story is called Reunion. If you watch the pilot, even with your anti-incest goggles on, the chemistry between Jared and Jensen is palpable throughout. There is a reason the show lasted for 15 years, and that reason is that Sam and Dean just work on screen so well together. So if it only took one episode for that ship to be born, what did all the future destiel shippers do? Well I imagine they felt somewhat uncomfortable for the first 60 episodes.

Flash forward to season four and the introduction of Castiel. Finally there was another male character for fans squicked by the notion of sweet, sweet brother loving to focus on! Cas was clearly fixated on Dean more than Sam, which followed the plot since Cas had been instructed to rescue Dean from Hell. As it would turn out, the brothers were destined to be the meatsuits that Michael and Lucifer wore to the big prize fight to determine the fate of the world. Prepping Sam for Lucifer involved him consuming demon blood, which made most of the angelic host view him as an abomination, a factor that Cas had to learn to get past in his relationship with the younger brother. But Dean was ready to go right out of the box, no assembly required for Michael. Castiel, and many of his angelic brethren, as well as a lot of Demons, seem to be drawn to Dean in a way that they just aren't drawn to Sam. Is this fair? Hell no. But I mean, look at him! Jensen has sexual tension with literally everything he comes in contact with, people, food, his car, the man oozes sexual attraction. Don't get me wrong, Jared is a sexy fucking ball of sunshine, and our Sammy is a damned attractive man, but he tends to be more repressed and less openly sexual than his brother, so it is what it is.

Where was I going with this? That's a good question. I got a bit distracted, sorry. Oh right...

At its root, destiel is a reactive projection. There is undeniable tension between characters in the show. Since all of the main cast are male, that tension is highly homoerotic. The two main characters, who are undeniably emotionally enmeshed and co-dependent with each other (a very well established canon fact btw), happen to be blood-related brothers. Oh no! Where is all that tension coming from since we cannot admit or accept that it's coming from them? Ah ha! Here is a new male character that we like, yes, it is obviously coming from his interactions with one of the brothers, even though he wasn't in the first 60 episodes. Yes, it all makes perfect sense now, all that tension was merely foreshadowing.

I've read through all the destiel subtext posts. I've gone back and watched all the scenes they reference multiple times with the express purpose of finding destiel. I'm telling you it is just a fanon ship. Which is 100% fine and good, ship that ship, just stop declaring it more canon than canon, because it's not.

And if you don't like fictional incest, cool, cool, you don't have to. But the underlying sexual tension existed in the first 60 episodes prior to Misha being cast on the show, so it was coming from somewhere. And it'd be cooler if you learned how to scroll past people shipping wincest, like I'm sure you do for all the other weirdass, squicky shit that people post all over the internet. But if it makes your heart beat a little faster to imagine that Dean and Cas have eyesex but that Dean and Sam don't, that's fine. I think it's delusional because neither ship is actually canon and both are 100% A-Ok in fanon, and honestly Jensen doesn't seem to be able to control his eyes, which is not something anyone should feel bad about (it's fucking marvelous) but you do you.

*Castiel does love Dean. He confessed as much, but Dean did not reciprocate. What I am referencing is a mutual romance or attraction, which does not exist.

[mikeywayarchive]

x

Mikey Way: "Don’t be so preoccupied with yesterday and tomorrow, because there’s a whole today that you’re gonna miss"

Mikey Way opens up about the importance of staying present, his ambitious new album-and-graphic-novel project with Electric Century, and working with My Chemical Romance bandmate Ray Toro again.

February 26, 2021

Words: Emily Carter

Full interview under the cut:

“If this makes someone feel better for even an hour in a day, then I think I did my job,” smiles Mikey Way. “Even if it’s one person that loves it.”

The My Chemical Romance bassist is currently unpacking the wonderful self-titled second record from his side-project with Sleep Station’s David Debiak, Electric Century. Released alongside an accompanying graphic novel and a whole new world for fans to dive in to, Mikey is aware that his latest ambitious undertaking could serve as a welcome break from the strange times we’re all living in right now… not that it was initially planned that way. That’s simply how Electric Century have always been since their inception.

“The benefit of this project is that it is a pandemic, and people aren’t able to do conventional things to release art, so it’s pretty cool – this was going to be unconventional anyway, but I think people are now more open to something unconventional,” Mikey enthuses. “We didn’t plan on touring on this. We maybe were going to play some shows – in fact, there was one that we were going to do at San Diego Comic Con. But we weren’t really going to tour on this, especially in light of, you know, I have something else going on that is touring.

“But I still felt so strongly about this album and the graphic novel that I wanted it to be exciting, and I wanted it to be fun. And I think people are ready to be immersed anywhere else – people need escapism right now. And not only that, but they also need emotional release, and I think you’ve got both: escapism is the graphic novel, and I think the music is the emotional release.”

The self-titled follow-up to 2016’s excellent For The Night Control, Electric Century does indeed provide both of those things. An 11-track effort produced by Mikey’s MCR bandmate Ray Toro, the record takes in the infectious ’80s new wave of their debut, and ramps things up even further, packing in finely-tuned musical ideas while tying in cohesively with the story of the graphic novel.

“We kept going back and revising things, and then we would sit with things for a while, and we’d add to it,” the bassist explains of why the partly-fictitious and partly-autobiographical (“That’s my sweet spot!” says Mikey, “I love mixing music with fiction”) album has taken such a long time. “One of the things that extended this project was that we wanted the graphic novel to be as great as it could possibly be, and great things take time. The graphic novel gave us the time to perfect the music, and we were able to really make sure that this is the statement we wanted to make. Even until two weeks ago we were still tweaking songs! So I think the graphic novel gave us the freedom to really make the music everything we wanted it to be.”

Here, Mikey dives into all things Electric Century – from the album’s creation, to working with Ray again, to keeping the project open-ended and continuing the story…

Was the album all created remotely or were you able to get into rooms with both Dave and Ray at various points before – or even during – the pandemic? “It was all mostly before the pandemic that we did the brunt of it; I think some time in 2018 me, Dave and Ray got together in Los Angeles and did a big chunk of it. And then the rest was done with Dave sending stuff to Ray, and me going to Ray’s house, or us sending stuff to Ray and him sending it back. We got to do it in a way that a lot of projects are done in the pandemic nowadays! That’s how this project was done before the pandemic: it was done mostly remote. There was only one time where we were all in a room together, and in fact me and Dave, before we went to Ray’s, were never in a room together. He would demo stuff, send it to me, I’d give him feedback and make edits, send it back… And then once Ray became part of the project, he joined in on this process where we were sending him things. And then it all came to a culmination of us going to Ray and recording.

“I always joke with people that me and Dave have never really played any of these songs together in a room – we’ve rarely even been in the same room when we’re creating things. And maybe that makes something special… maybe we’ve stumbled upon something where we’re making something special, far apart.”

When Dave sends you an idea or demo, is there anything in particular that you’re really listening out for? “Most artists will tell you about this thing that happens and it’s like you get this feeling in your chest or your throat when you hear something. I kinda listen for that. I want to feel something when I hear it, and stuff will jump out to me and I’ll be like, ‘Dave, that’s the one we need to hone in on.’ I know what Dave’s great at, and when I hear him reach that point I’m like, ‘Let’s explore that.’ Maybe internally it’s hard for a human being to point out what they’re great at, and I feel like I’m great at finding what’s great out of what Dave’s doing. I talk to a lot of musicians and they kinda feel the same way: it’s like, ‘Ah, man, I know what you mean!’ Most musicians have this sixth sense where, if you feel something and you know it speaks to you, then maybe it’ll speak to other people, too.”

What have you learned from working with Dave? “What I’ve learned from Dave is to just be relentless! He’s relentless; he just doesn’t stop. At any given time there will be 40 demos that he’s sent me – and even over the past few months he’s sent me a bunch. He just tirelessly makes music, and I think there’s something admirable about that. His work ethic is amazing, and I think that’s what he taught me. I mean, I knew it before, but he’s really taught me to be tenacious with things.”

You’ve spoken about needing to stay creative, always. But what was the driving force that was pulling you back to this whole concept in particular? “When Electric Century was all about to kick off, I went to rehab [in 2014], and by the end of that 30 days, I was like, ‘I don’t wanna tour anymore.’ I wanted to take care of myself, and I think it kind of set the stage for this project – in my head, it was like, ‘How can I make this fun and not have a conventional record cycle?’ I always respected what Gorillaz did and thought, ‘Well, they make it work and they’re living in a ‘fictional’ world…’ And it made me realise that it could be done. I put a pin in that for a bit, and then around 2018, towards the end of the year, Z2 reached out and were like, ‘Hey, we’d like to make a graphic novel for the next Electric Century album,’ and I was listening to them pitching it to me and the guy said, ‘Hey, I kinda see this project as something like the Gorillaz!’ and it hit me like a lightning bolt, as I’d never said that to anybody before. From that moment on I was like, ‘This is what we need to do,’ and it kind of informed the project. I want Electric Century to exist in this almost Twilight Zone world.”

Did having such a big project to meld together drive you a bit mad at points?! “Um… no! I had a lot of help from people – one of my best friends Shaun Simon co-wrote the comic with me, Dave and Ray were there to help me make the music… I feel like with an ambitious project like this, I also had ambitious people with me. Some of the most creative, hard-working people I know worked on this, so I never felt overwhelmed. I felt like, if there was ever a moment for me to feel overwhelmed, somebody would be like, ‘Yo, I’m gonna help you out!’ It was a great tag-team effort.”

How did Ray get involved when it came to production? “We were unsure of what we were going to do with it. Dave had somebody that he loved working with, but they both felt it wasn’t a good match for the project – it was a mutual thing, which is fine. So then the first name that popped into my head was Ray – I was like, ‘Oh, Ray! He can do this!’ He did a tester song with Alive, and Dave was sold – we were just blown away. It’s funny about that song, too, because when I was in rehab [in 2014], Dave came to visit me – he brought a tape recorder with a cassette in it with Alive, and it was just him and an acoustic guitar. And I listened to that thing for probably a month straight – I was just lost in it, and I kept imagining all the things we could do with it. I kept roadmapping it in my head. That was the one that I kept going back to – I was like, ‘It’s got to be the song.’ And I think we succeeded with that; I think Alive is the anchor of the whole thing.”

Were there any conversations with Ray about, ‘Hey, you can tweak things as much as you see fit’ because you have so much trust in him? “Oh yeah, we let Ray do whatever he wanted! We were like, ‘Get as crazy as you want.’ We were excited to get his guitar on there, and his vocals are on there a lot as well. There’s a ton of Ray Toro on that album, and I’m super-excited about it. Just getting to hear his solos makes me happy – he’s one of the greatest guitar players on planet earth, doing what he does best. Getting to hear that on a record again made me so happy. He’s one of the best there is, and everybody knows that.”

What made Till We’re Gone the first song to show people ahead of release – was it a case of it opens the album and welcomes people into this world, so it was always going to be the first song people would hear? “For me, Till We’re Gone is a great way to explain our sound, if you listen to it. It sets the stage – like when you watch a movie and you see the opening credits, and all the actors’ names cycle through! I feel like, when I listen to that song, I picture a movie starting. And not only that, but just sonically it’s everything that Electric Century does best, I think, in one song. And it’s also short and sweet. It’s got a very traditional song structure, and I feel like that’s the best first taste for this album.”

When we last spoke, you mentioned how the album sort of came before the graphic novel, and you had to create the story around that. Was the album tracklist quite easy to fit together, or did you have to rearrange songs to fit in with the story to make everything cohesive? “What’s interesting is – and when I look back on it all – when we did that initial interview, the album has changed since then. I feel like we were able to use that time to fix things. So there’s a bunch of songs we added, there’s a bunch of songs we fixed. I think that time allowed us to properly marry the two things, and make the songs fit the story that we’d written and vice-versa. When we did those initial interviews, the album was a little bit different, and a whole bunch of songs got added.”

The album begins with these thumping drums on Till We’re Gone, but then it ends on Someday We Will Sing Again which is so stripped back, and the complete opposite of the opener. What was the process of creating that musical journey? “I like the concept of this big, bombastic opening, and this stripped-back, raw ending. I feel like that’s how we’re put on this earth: we’re loud and bombastic as babies, and then we’re frail and raw when we’re elderly. I feel like that’s a good story arc for an album, and I felt being raw and exposed on that last album was a good juxtaposition for everything you’re gonna hear when you go through the journey. And then it’s the same thing with the story: the story kind of follows a similar arc as well.”

Would you say that this is a more emotional album than For The Night To Control? “A lot of emotion was channelled into this record, in all its forms. Dave was going through a lot – but of course that’s for him to talk about. But that is exactly what art is: you use it as an outlet to work out your feelings, both positive and negative. Ultimately that is what makes what you create whole and hopefully what the listener can relate to.”

You’ve spoken about mixing fiction with real life in your work – is there any song that you could pinpoint as the most autobiographical on Electric Century? “Alive – that’s a good one that I just like to kind of remind myself: be present, be alive. That whole sentiment of, ‘Your best moments are actually right here, right now.’ And that’s one of the themes of the graphic novel as well. People kind of romanticise about ‘the good old days’, or ‘when we were kids or teenagers it was so cool…’ but maybe the best days are right here, and maybe you’ve been wishing to be where you’re standing right now and you don’t even realise it. That’s the theme of the graphic novel, and that song especially. It’s a simple thing: be alive. I feel like that’s something I try to remind myself on a daily basis. And especially in light of what’s happening in the world. A lot of people feel like they’re in some strange purgatory – I think everyone feels that. And I think that song is going to speak to a lot of people.”

Is there anything that this project taught you about yourself? In terms of the storyline and putting yourself in that nostalgic headspace, did it make you realise anything? “It’s something that I’ve always suspected, but I’ve talked at length with people about it, where it’s like, ‘Don’t be so preoccupied with yesterday and tomorrow, because there’s a whole today that you’re gonna miss. There’s a whole today going on.’ We’re all guilty of that – and especially now when we’re all stuck inside and we can’t go anywhere, or do anything that we used to love on the outside world. And it’s like, ‘Well, maybe right here is where we’re supposed to be right now.’ You have to kind of hop into that perspective and realise that we’re all here for some reason, and we have to roll with it and make the best out of the situation right now.”

For people who’ve listened to For The Night To Control this is obviously just the next logical step, but are you nervous in any way, or is it more like, ‘Yep, of course people are gonna like it if they liked the last one’? “That’s kind of what I feel about this: if you liked the last album then you’re going to love this one even more, you know? We had a lot more time to do it, and I feel like we’re all older and wiser. I’m 40 now – I was in my early 30s when we made the last one! It’s almost a decade on from when Electric Century started, and I feel this is the complete sentence. The last one was like we were getting our feet wet and figuring it out, and this one feels like we figured it out.”

Is that your proudest takeaway about this entire project? “Well, what I’m proud about is that I didn’t expect this! I didn’t expect to make an album and graphic novel – it started out as an album and as time went on it grew and grew, and it’s something I’m proud of. It’s very ambitious, and I didn’t see it coming. It was that fateful call with Z2 – they said things to me and I was like, ‘That’s what we need to do.’ I’m proud of that, and I feel like it’s mission accomplished in terms of what I want Electric Century to sound like. I feel like we’ve reached the point I wanted it to be – it sounds exactly as I wanted it to sound.” 

Could you see a sequel – both musically and with the graphic novel – happening some day down the line? “Yeah! Honestly, the graphic novel leaves everything wide open. It introduces us to a world, and you can easily revisit this world. And that’s another beauty of this project. I was blessed to work with a lot of amazing professionals, and this whole thing never once felt like a drain or a drag. It was a delight from the beginning to the end, and it’s somewhere we can revisit if we want to!”

Electric Century is out now along with an original graphic novel published by Z2 Comics.

[buddiebeginz]

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers; thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance, risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body. I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride; so I love you because I know no other way than this: where I does not exist, nor you, so close that your hand on my chest is my hand, so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep. — Pablo Neruda (desktop wallpaper | phone)

[happybirthdayxalbum]

happy 6th birthday to...

Twin Fantasy (Face to Face) by Car Seat Headrest!!

[robronrewatch]

aaron dingle really spent valentine’s day 2018 with his ex husband. literally having his ex cook a meal for him and his current bf all the while making heart eyes at his him and taking the mick out of his bfs taste in films telling his ex he misses him AND then if that’s not enough he invites his ex husband to stay and eat the dinner that he just prepared for him and his bf instead of saving it for when his bf finished work like his ex suggested…… and THEN he leans in to kiss his ex husband and fakes an illness to his current DOCTOR bf so he’d fuck off and leave so he can think about and ‘pocket dial’ his ex husband who he’s still in love with…… i have never respected him more

[aeolianblues]

I think that Father Of All… would’ve probably been considered a really good album if it was anyone BUT Green Day’s album. Seemed kinda foreshadowed by Green Day’s own legacy, it was a catchy album. Were this a new band we’d have been talking about how cool the dance punk vibe was. Or maybe we weren’t yet that into ‘new rock’. A lot of that seemed to happen through and after the pandemic.

[mofffun]

yuzuki singing from early 2023

[teddy-bear-naps-and-random-snaps]

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

2Pac - Keep Ya Head Up

[pechebeche]

what if i make my own edit meme for f/f relationships. as a fun little treat for me. someone who still likes those edit meme from 2014

[zootoo]

Deer Safari, Anna Zoological Park, India by RVK Photography

[ask-doopliss]

Doopliss. How did you die?

DOOPLISS: Yeesh, that's a bit invasive, dont'cha think?

[altruistic-meme]

the way you can actually SEE the moment i started doing completely lowercase fic titles sdgsdgsg