#i did not get party poison and kobra kid but i did reunite them

[andoutofharm]

bad news from the zones tumbleweeds it looks like fun ghoul had a clap with a target employee that went all Costa Rica and uh got himself ghosted, dusted out on aisle E59. so it's time to hit the self checkout and up-thrust the volume out there. keep your bags tight keep your shopping cart close and die with your mask on if you've got to

here is the traffic

[always-and-forever-a-killjoy]

Chapter 3 is up!

Hey y’all! It’s time for the third and final chapter of let me be the one to save you, aka the chapter I’ve been promising will make up for all the pain! 

Chapter Title: Everything Is Going To Be Okay

Chapter Wordcount: 1588

Chapter Summary: Cherri Cola wakes up, makes some mildly ill-advised choices, and finally gets a fucking hug.

Warnings: Non-graphic descriptions of injury and stitches, hospital setting.

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link

Chapter 1 AO3 Link

Chapter 1 Tumblr Post

Chapter 2 AO3 Link

Chapter 2 Tumblr Post

(Actual fic under the cut)

When Cherri Cola wakes up again, he’s in a room he doesn’t recognize. The walls are whitewashed and plain, and his first thought is that he was captured on the mission to Battery City. Why they didn’t simply slap a drac mask on him is anyone’s guess, but the more pressing question is if the fabulous four made it safely out with the Girl.

Which he has no way of finding out. Great.

After a moment, he notices that the bed he’s lying in creaks, and the paint of the walls is far too chipped to be Battery City. Not to mention the thin layer of dust and sand coating everything, which confirms that this must be the desert. He struggles to sit up, sending shoots of pain through what feels like a hundred small cuts and bruises. Abruptly, he remembers what happened; Poison getting shot, Jet running with Motorbaby, smashing through that glass wall with Ghoul, Dr. Death Defying coming to save them in the van, all of it comes rushing back.

Cherri pushes himself further up, since knowing what happened at the bli building still doesn’t answer the question of exactly where he is, and carefully swings his legs over the side of the bed. His jacket, mask, and ray gun are gone, making him feel strangely vulnerable, but that’s not going to stop him.

What does ultimately stop him is the fact that he gets to his feet and immediately almost passes out. His head is spinning badly enough that he has to sit right back down, making the bedsprings creak even more as he tries to catch his breath. He must have gotten hurt worse than he thought, given his inability to even stand.

After a few moments, footsteps sound in the hall and then a tall, dower-faced person wearing the symbol of a medic walks in. They look Cherri Cola up and down, pursing their lips. “You’re awake already.”

“How long has it been?”

“Only a few hours. Did you try t’ get up?”

“I have to find my friends,” Cherri defends himself.

“Your friends are safe. You’re in the hospital in Zone 2,” They add. “Your friend, DJ Dr. Death Defying, brought you an’ another kid in.”

Cherri blinks, mildly baffled at being grouped in with Fun Ghoul as a ‘kid’. “I’m twenty-eight.”

“Sorry, you an’ a teenager in.”

“Is xe okay? And what about the other members of the fab four?”

“Xe will be fine, xe’s no worse off than you were. Xyr crewmates are all fine as well, although the redhead was in critical condition for a while.” They peel off the bandages on his arm and start examining a long cut he doesn’t remember getting, which is now neatly stitched. “Your friends said your name is Cherri Cola?”

He nods and regrets the movement as his head aches. “That’s me.”

The medic nods in return. “I’m Senior Medic Dowdy, pleased t’ meet you.” Their voice is professional, but they have the rough accent of someone who either grew up in the Zones or has lived here a long while.

Cherri manages to sit quietly as they check on varying slashes, which he assumes are from throwing himself through a glass door. That really was not his smartest idea.

Finally, they’re finished, and he dares open his mouth again. “Can I see my friends?”

“Only the ones who can walk on their own, ‘m not having you up and walking just yet. You lost a lot of blood.” Their voice softens slightly. “I’ll go get them, you stay right here.”

Ten minutes later, Jet Star enters and immediately goes to throw their arms around Cherri. He winces as his varying injuries scream out, but he doesn’t even think about pushing them away. While Jet Star is by far the most open of the Fabulous Four about expressing affection verbally, they’re restrained with physical affection. They’ll return hugs, but rarely initiate them, unless they think one of their crewmates needs one. And they never hug like this, raw and scared with no warning. So even though they’re taller than him by not an insignificant amount, Cherri holds them gently and lets them fall apart for a moment as they cling to him.

“Thank you,” Jet mumbles. “Thank you for coming with us. Thank you for saving Poison. Thank you for getting hurt to save Ghoul. Thank you.”

“Of course. You’re my friends. I’m always going to try to help,” he promises, and that’s a promise he can keep.

They let out a small sniffle. “Love you, Cola.”

“Love you too, Jet.”

It ends up being another day before Poison even wakes up, and another couple after that before Cherri is healed enough to go see them. During those days, he sees the Girl, who gives him sweet, little-kid hugs and whispers “thank you, Cola”, and Newsie, who gives him a ridiculous amount of shit for almost dying but grins fondly and says “I knew you’d make it, you lucky fucker.” Show Pony somehow manages to smuggle a cherry-flavored lollipop into the hospital for him (where ey got it is anyone’s guess), and gives him almost as much shit as Newsie for almost dying. Cherri just smiles, knowing that it’s eir way of saying that ey cares.

Dr. Death Defying also comes to visit, and the first words out of his mouth as he wheels in the door are “Never do that again. You could have died!”

Cherri almost laughs at how on-brand it is for D that the first thing he does after they’re reunited is scold Cherri for nearly dying. “I love you too, you worrier.”

D sighs. “I love you, even if you gave everyone a fright.”

“I did promise I would come back.”

“I didn’t believe you.”

Cherri knows. It wasn’t a promise he was sure he could keep either, but he’s certainly glad he did.

Although everyone else is able to visit, he doesn’t get to see Fun Ghoul, Party Poison, or Kobra Kid until he can walk on his own. While Kobra is mainly uninjured, he refuses to leave Poison’s side, and Cherri understands that.

The day Cherri finally goes to visit Party Poison is also the first time he sees Ghoul since the two of them were buying the rest time to run.

Actually, xe almost runs into him outside of Poison’s hospital room. “Oh! Cola!”

“Hey, Ghoul,” Cherri offers with a smile.

Xe fiddles with xyr hands. “Thanks for. Y’know. Savin’ me and all.”

“You did just as much,” he gently reminds xem.

“Yeah, but you didn’t have t’ throw yourself through a glass door an’ use your body to shield me from the glass.”

There’s no way he can possibly express, not with any words in his vocabulary, how impossible it would have been to stand by and not do something to help xem. Instead, he just gives Ghoul another small smile and hopes that his true meaning comes across. “I was only doing my best to help.”

Ghoul shakes xyr head. “Dr. D would say you don’t give yourself enough credit.”

“D is very kind, but really I was just doing what I could.”

He swears xe rolls xyr eyes at him as he opens the door and finally gets to see the last two members of the Fabulous Four. Poison looks much smaller and much younger than normal, sprawled out on the bed, but their playful grin is firmly set on their face, and most importantly, they’re alive. The rest of the crew is already arrayed around them; Jet Star is standing next to them, Kobra Kid sits on the bed by their other side, and Motorbaby is snuggled up next to them. Dr. Death Defying is sitting next to Jet, and Newsie grins from the corner, where she’s sitting with Pony.

“Cola! Up and walking, I see.”

“Slowly, but yes.”

“So I shouldn’t tackle-hug you.”

“Not unless you want to tear some of these stitches, no.”

She laughs and comes to give him a gentle hug. “I think the venom siblings have something to say to you. Right, Poison, Kobra?”

Kobra huffs a sigh. “Sorry we were assholes to you when you offered to help.”

“Yeah, we were scared for Motorbaby, but you didn’t deserve t’ be treated like a stranger,” Poison contributes.

It’s rare to hear either of them apologize for anything, so he has a feeling that there was some convincing from Newsie and D involved, but it’s an apology nonetheless. “It’s okay. You were scared and separated from someone you love, and I’m not exactly known for being a fighter.”

“’M really glad you were there,” Poison mumbles. “Kobes says you kicked Korse’s ass.”

“Swear jar!” Jet reminds as Cherri winces.

“I don’t know about that, but I did my best.”

“That’s good enough for us,” Ghoul puts in.

Cherri isn’t supposed to stand for too long, so they let him sit on the other side of the bed from Kobra, and Ghoul perches on the foot of the bed alongside Pony as Dr. Death Defying wheels close enough for Cherri Cola to lean a little on him, and NewsAGoGo and Jet Star do their utmost to gather all seven of the rest into a hug. And even though it all still hurts a bit, and even though there’s a long fight ahead of them, for those few minutes, surrounded by the people who have become his family, it feels like everything is going to be okay.

[vampire-himbos-of-santa-perdita]

the only mcr songs i’ve listed to r black parade and na na na na na but u make me wanna listen to them lol do u have any suggestions? what r ur favorite songs of theirs?

Oh boy. Alright. Ok. Everybody sit down, we’re about to have a masterclass in everything MCR.

The thing about My Chemical Romance is they’re a concept album band, which means each of their albums tell a story as a whole. For that reason, I can’t just recommend my personal favourite songs because they’re all part of a big whole. I’ll do my best to break them down in order of personal preference.

TL;DNR: For those of you who don’t have all day to scroll through full album analyses:

My Faves:

(Absolute all time faves are in bold; *** indicate I love these songs too much for my own good and I must be stopped.)

The Black Parade:

***Teenagers***

***Mama***

***Welcome to the Black Parade***

Famous Last Words

Cancer

Disenchanted

The end. / Dead! (you can’t really listen to one without the other)

Kill All Your Friends (TBP B-side)

Heaven Help Us (TBP B-side)

Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge:

***Helena***

***I’m Not Ok (I Promise)***

Ghost of You

***Cemetery Drive***

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

Thank You For the Venom

To the End

The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You

Hang Em High

I Never Told You What I Did for a Living

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys:

***Planetary [Go!]***

***Na Na Na***

SING

Bulletproof Heart

The Only Hope For Me Is You

Party Poison

Vampire Money

Conventional Weapons:

***Tomorrow’s Money***

Boy Division

AMBULANCE

Kiss the Ring

Make Room!!!

Miscellaneous:

***Desolation Row***

Fake Your Death

Common People (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge Pulp cover)

***Hazy Shade of Winter***

Happy Together*

*these last two are just Gerard Way covers, but considering they’re featuring Ray Toro, that’s half the band right there…

The Black Parade

Concept: A man known as The Patient dies and accounts his life and death, dealing with his struggles with war and disease, and his fears about where he’s going to go in the afterlife.

Track Listing:

The end.

Dead!

This is How I Disappear

Sharpest Lives

Welcome to the Black Parade

I Don’t Love You

House of Wolves

Cancer

Mama

Sleep

Teenagers

Disenchanted

Famous Last Words

Blood

The whole album is honestly so good. It’s worth a listen from start to finish at least once. I’ve got absolutely no bad things to say about the songs that aren’t my faves, as they’re equally as explosive as everything else. That said…

Personal Faves:

Mama

Teenagers

Cancer

Famous Last Words

Welcome to the Black Parade

Dead!

Disenchanted

If you want the stuff that’ll psych you up/empower you, go for Welcome to the Black Parade, Teenagers, Famous Last Words, Mama, and Dead. If you want some real sad shit, go for Cancer, Disenchanted, and I Don’t Love You. I have yet to find out how to not weep all the way through WttBP, Famous Last Words, or Cancer, so you have been warned.

Dip your Toe in the Water With…

Welcome to the Black Parade

Teenagers

Famous Last Words

Things to Keep in Mind

Mama’s got an extra special guest appearance by one Liza Minnelli, and oh man, is it absolutely worth checking out. Next to Welcome to the Black Parade, this one might just be the most theatrical song in the entire album??? Bold statement, but I like to call it the Bohemian Rhapsody of MCR. It’s SO. GOOD.

Blood is the hidden track at the end of the album. There’s about 2 minutes of silence in the original album before it starts. If you want the version without the false start, nab the version from The Black Parade is Dead live album.

If you’re madly in love with this album, you can find their Black Parade concert live in Mexico, The Black Parade is Dead for free on their youtube channel. Throw it up on your tv screen and it’s like you’re there in person.

B-Sides

Kill All Your Friends

Heaven Help Us

My Way Home is Through You

All the Black Parade B-sides are great, but Kill All Your Friends is the real standout (and has the biggest connection to Umbrella Academy, if that excites you reference-wise).

Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge

Concept: This is a bit of a split narrative, partially a loving tribute following Gerard and Mikey Way’s grandmother’s passing, and partially a revenge plot. The full plot Gee had in mind took a bit of a backseat after they shifted focus on the grief side of things, but the full original concept is worth the price of admission either way. The revenge plot follows a man who makes a deal with the devil to reunite with his lost lover, if he can collect 1,000 evil souls. He sets out on his murder quest and finally reunites with the woman he loves, only to find she never loved him. He vows to take her down with him, but discovers he’s the 1,000th soul.

Track Listing:

Helena

Give ‘Em Hell, Kid

To the End

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

I’m Not Okay (I Promise)

The Ghost of You

The Jetset Life Is Gonna Kill You

Interlude

Thank You for the Venom

Hang 'Em High

It’s Not a Fashion Statement, It’s a Deathwish

Cemetery Drive

I Never Told You What I Do for a Living

This one is loud and dark, and fast as fuck. I use it almost exclusively as workout music because it will make you want to punch everything in the face. You wanna feel like you could take down all your enemies at once? Listen to this album. This one’s a lot easier to break down in terms of listening to songs here and there instead of all at once.

Personal Faves:

Cemetery Drive

You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison

Thank You For the Venom

I’m Not Ok (I Promise)

Helena

Ghost of You

Some Underrated Gems:

The Jetset Life is Gonna Kill You

To the End

Hang Em High

I Never Told You What I Did for a Living

Dip Your Toe in the Water With…

Helena

I’m Not Ok (I Promise)

Ghost of You

Things to Keep in Mind

Helena is essentially what got the band off the ground. The music video is really something and really set the tone for what early 2000s emo culture would become. If I didn’t love The Black Parade as much as I did, I’d recommend starting with Helena above everything else.

The Ghost of You music video is also a masterpiece. Gerard went to his director and asked for Saving Private Ryan, and that’s what he got! This video also happened to come out around the same time Green Day’s Wake Me Up When September Ends video came out and Gee was worried the anti-war rethorics in both would be too similar, but Billie Joe Armstrong sat him down and gave him a pep talk about how even though their concepts are similar, they’re always going to be coming at it in different ways. 

If you want to get a really solid insight into where the band came from, see the boys goofing off, and see how Gerard’s struggles with mental health and addiction drives so much of what he does, check out Life on the Murder Scene, also free on youtube. It also gives a brief sneaky peek about early days concepts for the Umbrella Academy comics!

Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys

Concept: In a post-apocalyptic California in 2019(!!!), four rebels who call themselves the Killjoys (Party Poison, Fun Ghoul, Kobra Kid, and Jet-Star) set out to recover a young girl from the evil corporation, BL/ind. Their progress is narrated by Dr. Death Defy, a radio dj who maintains public morale in an otherwise gloomy new world where electricity is a rare commodity and people worship at the hands of Destroya, a giant dormant robot expected to deliver everyone from evil.

Track Listing:

Look Alive, Sunshine

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

Bulletproof Heart

SING

Planetary (GO!)

The Only Hope For Me Is You

Jet-Star And The Kobra Kid/Traffic Report

Party Poison

Save Yourself, I’ll Hold Them Back

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W

Summertime

DESTROYA

The Kids From Yesterday

Goodnite, Dr. Death

Vampire Money

This album is radically different than the others in that it’s much mellower. The songs are interspersed with narrative interludes by Dr. Death Defy to better explain the storyline. Danger Days came after one scrapped compilation album (which I’ll get to soon enough…) At this point, Gee’s comic career had started to take off with Umbrella Academy, and things had started to naturally wind down with the band. Gee’s mindspace was clearly in comic-mode, and he upcycled a comic book idea he had kicking around with a comic writer friend of his, Shaun Simon for the new album. After the band’s breakup, Gerard took whatever concepts they couldn’t realize through the lyrics and music videos back to Shaun Simon to make a Killjoys comic. Much of the concept backstory explained above is pulled from this.

Personal Faves:

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

Bulletproof Heart

SING

Planetary [GO!]

The Only Hope For Me Is You

Party Poison

Vampire Money

This is the album where I tend to get bored halfway through and switch over to The Black Parade (whoops…) But it is 100% worth listening to it from start to finish, again, at least once, if anything, because Destroya and Vampire Money are something else… Bulletproof Heart, SING, and The Only Hope for Me Is You are, at least in my opinion, the standouts of the more mellow songs. S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W, Summertime, and The Kids From Yesterday are also super mellow if you’re into the vibe of the previous three and want more of that. 

Planetary Go! is… possibly one of my favourite MCR songs of all time??? (Considering how much I love The Black Parade, that’s a pretty bold statement). It’s the only dance track they ever made, and is it ever a Bop. This is one of my go-to’s when I just need to take a break from whatever’s stressing me out and have a silly little dance party. 

Dip Your Toe in the Water With:

Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)

SING

Planetary [Go!]

The Only Hope for me is You

Bulletproof Heart

Things to Keep In Mind:

Danger Days is an incredibly visual album! You really need the music videos to get the whole story. Na Na Na and SING tell the whole story pretty succinctly.

If you’re really feeling that cliffhanger from the end of the SING music video, check out the Killjoys comics. It’s a single volume under the same name as the album, following The Girl a few years after the music videos’ timeline.

S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W was inspired by Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds by the Beatles, which really speaks to the overall vibe of the song.

Something I literally just discovered now, looking up the album, there’s an EP of basically fight scene tracks off a special edition of Danger Days called The Mad Gear and Missile Kid. I’ve not listened to them yet, but from the looks of things, it’s got a pure punk rock vibe and they’re apparently what the band imagined the killjoys listened to on the road.

Fun trivia that I personally get a kick out of: Vampire Money was written out of spite after Gerard refused to contribute a song to the New Moon soundtrack for Twilight (Stephenie Meyer was a huge MCR fan and approached them numerous times to get involved in the films). 

Conventional Weapons

Here it is! The scrapped compilation album! These songs were written pre-Danger Days and were presented at a concert in Japan, at which point, Gerard realized it wasn’t the sound they were after and it was promptly nixed. It’s a real shame, because there are some jams up in here, but at least they (or their record label, I can’t remember which at this point) eventually did decide to release the full “album” in 5 two-single EPs at a time.

Number One:

Boy Division

Tomorrow’s Money

Number Two:

AMBULANCE

Gun.

Number Three:

The World is Ugly

The Light Behind Your Eyes

Number Four:

Kiss the Ring

Make Room!!!

Number Five:

Surrender the Night

Burn Bright

Personal Faves:

Tomorrow’s Money

Boy Division

AMBULANCE

Kiss the Ring

Make Room!!!

Things to Keep in Mind:

I often like to give a shout out to AMBULANCE and Kiss the Ring for having opening chords that sound exactly like they’ve come straight off a Queen and Green Day album respectively.

See Tomorrow’s Money for the spectacular way they rhyme “vampire/empire/brush fire/tap wire” all in one verse.

See also Gun. for the far sillier way they rhyme “gun/sun/fun/run”. 

You can tell with some of these songs that there was the stirrings of Danger Days in here. Make Room!!! is the most obvious, with the same mantra of “everybody wants to change the world” from Na Na Na making an appearance toward the end.

I think in some iteration between Conventional Weapons and Danger Days, there were some songs that did make it to the Danger Days album that were called something else. Party Poison, for example, had originally been Death Before Disco.

Covers

My Chemical Romance, in one form or another, have done some spectacular covers over the years. I’m including the Umbrella Academy covers Gerard did with Ray because that’s basically half the band right there.

Desolation Row (Watchmen soundtrack)

Hazy Shade of Winter (Umbrella Academy)

Happy Together (Umbrella Academy)

Common People (BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge)

Under Pressure (ft. The Used)

Those are the ones I’m aware of. If there are more good-quality covers I’m missing, please, send them my way– I would love that!

I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love

Ok, look, I’m gonna upset some people by having this on the bottom of my list. I’m sorry, I feel bad about it, but the fact of the matter is, I’m only now getting into their earliest stuff. Bullets is a bit of an acquired taste because it’s incredibly raw both sound-wise and in terms of content. They recorded it before they had the resources to really put out a crisp sounding album, and they were still learning about how to construct songs, but there’s still a lot of beauty in that that I know plenty people appreciate far more than I do. MCR wouldn’t have gained an underground following without this album, after all!

I have exactly zero stakes in this album, so I’m sure someone else out there has a better grasp of this one than I do.

Concept: I know very little about what’s going on in this album, aside from the fact that Gerard was driven to create the band after being in New York, watching the Twin Towers fall during 9/11. A bunch of his more end of the world storylines from many of his works (including Umbrella Academy) are inspired by 9/11. This is a prevalent thread throughout the album, though I’m not familiar with the how beyond Skylines and Turnstiles.

Track Listing:

Romance

Honey, This Mirror Isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Drowning Lessons

Our Lady of Sorrows

Headfirst for Halos

Skylines and Turnstiles

Early Sunsets Over Monroeville

This Is the Best Day Ever

Cubicles

Demolition Lovers

Personal Faves:

Headfirst for Halos

Honey, This Mirror isn’t Big Enough for the Two of Us

Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Our Lady of Sorrows

I’m playing fast and loose with my faves here. I’ve only heard these songs a handful of times, but they’re the ones I’m inclined to at least listen to for the guitar work, which at times, is quite fantastic. I will say though, from what I’ve seen of the lyrics, there’s some stellar stuff in here I hope to properly get into some time soon.

All the guys are still plugging away and releasing music either in their own bands (most recently, Frank Iero andthe Patience and Mikey Way’s band, Electric Century) or solo (in the case of Gerard Way and Ray Toro). I wish I was more well-versed in their goings-ons, but I’ve not been following their musical careers beyond Gerard’s (come back and talk to me if you want to get into his Hesitant Alien solo album and his more recent releases).

And that is your crash course in all things MCR.