#i can connect this all back to returntourgerardgender (my xenogender)

[apuff]

tbh that choice is so strange but it is also the only one that could possibly work.

the thing about danger days is that it is SO concept and story heavy that it exists in its own little fantasy comic universe that gerard made. it's unlike things like the black parade, because while they are both heavily focused on a story, the black parade can sort of go off and do unrelated stuff like teenagers (which as far as i know has no bearing on the plot).

danger days has its own characters with their own silly little names, locations, specific antagonists and units of antagonists, also with their own names, its own original places and lingo.

the black parade, or any of the other albums for that matter, do not take place in a specific world-- even with supernatural elements of the devil, vampires, and ghosts, it's "our world + thing + the cool story." not like danger days, which obviously is not our world. in the other albums, them going off and doing something unrelated to the plot isn't an issue, because it's going from a specific story in a general world to a general story in a general world.

now, in danger days, it's true that there are SOME tracks that don't seem to have too many specific ties to the pre-existing world & story- but they match it closely enough that it's fine. and additionally, since the rest of the album is so saturated with specificity, generic songs are flavored by those other songs automatically. again, i feel like this is different from some other albums, where i legitimately struggle to find ANYTHING the "off-concept" songs could have to do with the plot. (think: skylines and turnstiles)

now. back to vampire money. vampire money takes place in a generic world, seemingly without the danger days™️ markers of existing in the world of the album. HOWEVER it does share in almost exactly the same vibes are everything else there, so it fits right along if you're just jamming and not digging in super deep to anything.

now, the concept of vampire money is based off the time mcr was offered to make a song for twilight, and they refused to buy into it. (vampires= twilight). hence, the song is in a reality where they did buy into it, "selling out" for big movie fame and hollywood life of energetic excess.

[this isn't a vampire money analysis specifically, but i just can't help pointing out that "the kids don't care if you're all right, honey, pills don't help but it sure is funny, gimme gimme some of that vampire money" seems to be a reference to how living this life of "selling out" would be bad for their health, but their fans wouldn't care about that at all. next line seems to be about them turning to coping mechanisms in the form of drugs, which obviously do not work, and then simply go back to wanting more money. anyways full vampire money analysis coming soon.?./?]

hopefully you can see why this is so incongruous with the rest of danger days. this is a SPECIFIC plot that not only has nothing to do with the other plot, it's a direct contradiction. now, it makes sense that if they REALLY wanted to include this song is such a concept-heavy, insular story, they would have NO OTHER place to put it than at the end. i mean, think about it- it can't go in the beginning, since that would ruin look alive sunshine, and it can't go in the middle, since that would ruin the flow of the story, and it can't be a secret/bonus track because it's fire and deserves to be heard by everyone. so, it goes at the end.

now. something else i think is neat. i consider goodnite dr. death to be the "ending" of the danger days story. the radio host that has been guiding us through the story and the world the whole album says he needs to leave (plus it's sort of implied this is because the fabulous four died and lost, which is deffo the end), and gives a final message to all the rookie killjoys listening. then the earrape national anthem plays, which i'm sure has an extremely deep meaning i don't have time to get into right now. but anyways- that's the end, sending us off with a radio segment just how we started with one. the lights are out and the party's over

then vampire money comes on.

the VERY first thing vampire money does is break the immersion, and i'm certain this is intentionally. gerard (not party poison this time, GERARD) calls on their bandmates --using their real, actual names, not the silly killjoys names-- to start up the song. so the message we are supposed to be getting from this is letting us know, "this is not part of the story, and we know that. just think of it as its own thing."

so, now that i've explained how vampire money distinguishes itself from the overall story, i can get into why it fits.

so...something i've been thinking about for months now is "what is danger days ABOUT." I can come up with very simple words or phrases that describe what i believe to be the "point" of the other concepts. the black parade is about mortality. three cheers for sweet revenge is about redemption, revenge, and crime. bullets is about vampire horror. What on earth is danger days about?

it just has this specific VIBE to it that i feel like i can clock from a mile away, just a few seconds of any point in a danger days song and you feel it. and it certainly has some things it's "about," like the concept of rebellion against a dystopia, about being jaded, about leading revolutions, about fucking it all and just doing crimes for fun. but like....this is the issue. these are mostly feelings. vibes that you have when you sing those songs. not really concrete ideas. so can they really be themes? i don't know, i haven't taken a media studies class yet.

in my adventures mentally categorizing and sorting mcr songs and albums, i consider there to be a spectrum of danger days songs. i have also analyzed these in my head in comparison to the two killjoys books gerard cowrote, which i am calling killjoys california and national anthem for brevity's sake.

on one end of the spectrum, we got songs like na na na, destroya, and the like, those which are more aligned to national anthem. these things seem to prioritize FUN first and foremost, doing whatever the fuck you want at any given second, sticking it to the man, shooting up places, feeling the adrenaline and the danger of driving down a highway at breakneck pace while blasting at draculoids behind you. this is the closest the fabulous four, in my opinion, get to being "rebels without a cause"- people who don't really believe in anything, and are just using anarchism and anti-establishment-ness as an excuse to hurt people and feel no consequences for their actions.

on the other end, we have stuff that make the killjoys seem like highly principled and caring activists, that feel sorrow and pain and want to protect the girl and keep BLI from hurting people. this is more in line with killjoys california, where the fabulous four are contrasted with val velocity, who just kills whoever the hell he wants and loves violence. i find this more in the "sadboy" songs like scarecrow, summertime, and kids from yesterday, as well as in sing and bulletproof heart to some extent.

so in my idea, those paragraphs are what danger days is "about," the space between rebels without a cause and the principled activists, but also filled with the most rambunctious high fun as possible.

so how does this relate to vampire money? well, in my wholesomeness x energy ranking spreadsheet (long story) i would consider it to be on more of the "rebel without a cause" side of things, and obviously is extremely high energy, in fact the highest in their whole discography. this is because vampire money really does seem to be on the side of the most dangerous and exhausting fun there is.

however.

let's go back to what vampire money is about. it presents a critique of movie star (and rock star, to some extent) culture by showing what happens when you sell out of your principles. you're "cool" but your satisfaction is empty: your fans don't care about your health, drugs only make things worse, and above all there's the repetition of ALWAYS wanting more, gimme, gimme somma that vampire money. but it's fun, it's SO fucking fun.

do you get what i'm going at here?

vampire money is giving rebel without a cause, but ONLY because it's fundamentally a criticism of it, that integrity-less and capitalistic life of fun.

do you get what i'm going at here?

thematically, vampire money fits RIGHT at home with the rest of danger days. it's perfect.

now, lemme talk a bit about the ending of that particular song, something i always thought was supremely goofy /pos

as all the themes i talked about earlier reach a crescendo, there is another immersion break like at the start. only this time, the break is between the sarcastic world of vampire money and the real world, instead of between the fantasy world of danger days and the sarcastic world of vampire money. gerard breaks in and apologizes for making a mistake with the performance ("that music is WAYYY to loud") and turns it down.

i can't help but interpret this as being a purposefully very real song amidst their concepts. i mean, with the ending i can't help being broken away from the immersion of this being a story, and now start imagining just some guys getting carried away while playing music, and accidentally making it too loud.

WHY did they make it so real? it's such an unorthodox choice, there's no way it's just an accident.

well, i propose something, based off some of my personal thoughts as to why danger days- and mcr as a whole- is so awesome.

it's obvious this album is a passion project, someone's brainchild, an idea someone had that they wanted to make real.

the black parade- a gritty, emo, monochrome angstfest of death and drama- got popular.

and what did they do next? more of the same thing? no, they did what they fucking wanted and created a colorful, silly, comic book story about blasting dudes with guns and having fun and loving people and everyone getting blown up. it's so clear just thinking about danger days that they loved every second of making it. and that shines through.

so, my theory is that vampire money is a response to people that might dislike the new direction of danger days. "you want us to keep making all the things we used to, just for the sake of money?" it asks, "well, this is the result, you sure you want that?"

i feel like the sarcasm and unseriousness across it is to that end as well. the idea of mcr doing that is just sort of ridiculous.

as an artist, that's really what i like to see. i'd never feel fully happy with a smashing album that they hated and made themselves miserable to do- or, dare i say, something they sold out to make.

imagine a world where they wanted to be movie stars, play the game and take the band real far. sold out, did what people expected them to do.

suffice to say, we'd probably have a lot less danger days and a lot more vampire money.

oh the things i was doing in the 10 minutes before class started