#like let's go back to saving the music bc also why was Pierce the veil on a metal playlist

[halalgirlmeg]

Tbh you know who also is on metal Playlist and is more punk imo? Body count

[justmysicklypride]

P-P-P-Play that shit: ptv analysis - Part 2

 Hi what’s up everyone and welcome to this week’s pew news. This is a continuation of my last post where I pretty much summed up Pierce The Veil’s career from the beginning to present and gave an overview of their rise and downfall. You can check it out here, but if you already know about everything or have read it already then feel free to ignore it. In any case, I was originally gonna make these two posts as one but ran out of room bc who the hell would read that much text in a blog post (me) so here you go - part two of this fucking conspiracy theory because I didn’t even get to share any of my thoughts in the last one. (I also forgot to put headers with each new topic smh apologies to the English language)

Edit: it’s been fucking eons since I wrote the last one/started writing this one like legit I even changed my user. The reason why this has been put off for so long will be explained later but yh smh

Gigantic obligatory disclaimer: Everything that I will discuss whether it be in this post or my last, or any future posts that relate to this subject IS NOT going to touch on the subject of the “sexual relations with a minor” incident in itself. I will not go into detail about my own views on this specific matter as there is literally no way to win because whatever I say could be taken out of context by literally anyone. That being said, I do not condone pedophilia, I do not condone sexual harassment or rape, and I do not undermine the importance of consent. I respect the laws of different states, as I know they vary with time and place, and I understand that everyone has their own opinions and I do not wish to impose my own onto others.

In regards to this, however, I do have to acknowledge that I, first and foremost, do not think that Mike Fuentes is innocent, and I strongly believe that how the band handled this situation was just plain terrible, but I do also have to acknowledge the fact that this situation is to stay between the accuser and the victim, as well as their respective legal teams and that I should not go nosedive headfirst into anything like this when it does not directly affect or require my judgement as a necessity, lest I face any legalities or blacklash as a result. Furthermore, everything that I will be talking about are conspiracies only and I do not in any way assume or imply that any of this is true.

In other words, I don’t mean to offend anyone but if you end up getting offended then that’s on you, not me. Let’s begin.

Introduction 

The points that I am trying to highlight in this essay post is, in simple words, that Pierce The Veil’s... well, everything, comes off as kind of a conspiracy, almost, to me. I have had these thoughts for a long-ish time, and so this post is basically me finally making a post that covers all things that I have been thinking of in the past. Unlike my previous post, this one is a lot less fact-based and a lot more opinionated, so if you’re not into that, then that’s fair. Otherwise, I will be discussing the following things (in this order): the topic of kellic, Misadventures, and the accusation + response.

When Life Gives You Lemons, You Ship Them Together And Call It Lemonade

I refer to my last post and assume that everyone understands how “kellic” came to be and what it means. To summarise to the bare minimum best of my abilities, it’s the ship name of Vic Fuentes and Kellin Quinn, aka what people call it when someone wants or is keen on the idea of these two frontmen having an affair with each other in a (typically) fictional setting. It happens all the time, especially in this day and age where you can easily just find someone with the same obsession as you with a click of a button. That’s why King For A Day, and inadvertently Collide With The Sky, became such a huge success. It appealed to the right demographic of teenagers and tweens who were ecstatic at the prospect of shipping, and went on to achieve even more impressive feats following that. How you ask? Well, by going on a tour around the world of course. Together. Playing shows every night that ends with one of them literally carrying the other off the stage. Gotta give the people what they want, hey?

I have a strong belief that the key to success is through beating the system at its own game. In this case, the game is simple - get fans, get money. Unfortunately, as we all know, getting fame isn’t as easy as simply earning it through grit and determination. To achieve fame, one must find a way to do something at the right time in the right way so that people will notice. If one person does, and your fire doesn’t die out right away, then you’ve got yourself a forest fire. Then later on, all you gotta do is keep this forrest fire going, but assuming that there isn’t someone standing on the other side with the whole fire department’s resources in tow, then the only thing stopping this fire is itself, because with all things in life, fire dies out, and fame stops accumulating after a while if nothing is done about it. Humans need entertainment. If something starts to fail to pique their interests, then they move on. That’s why YouTubers are required to change up their content every now and again in order to try and relight that spark they once had, and even then there’s a good chance that they won’t. 

I was originally going to write another blog essay about this whole YouTube analogy thing but quickly realised that for one, I don’t have time bc I’m getting my ass fucked by university on a daily basis; and that for another, there’s most likely a billion other videos or essays about this topic as is, so I’ll just link one or two of them here. I haven’t watched them all yet or I don’t remember much of them, but all they do is pretty much summarise up stuff like how YouTubers become successful and their downfalls and all that, and even though they kinda focus on a specific person or group of people, I feel like it could be generalised.

Even without the YouTube metaphor, we know shipping works. It is evident in multiple works across various media that giving the fans what they want is often what gives these people their continued success, such as Dan Howell and Phil Lester, who have all but stopped trying to create their own individual branding (save for their separate merch stores that are probably there just to get more people to buy their overpriced clothing), and who at this point have become such an overused example that I actually hesitated writing that. Why do you think movies and shows and cartoons mostly have a romantic subplot? Romance is an essential trope in literature and easily one of the most popular genre out there for various reasons. According to a Bustle article written in 2016, romance often gives the readers a sense of hope or gives them a way to live out their fantasies in the easiest way possible, and while this may not apply to everyone, (personally I’m not a romance fan much at all but I can appreciate good literature), it’s hard to deny the phrase “sex sells”.

Given that, you’d think that any company with half a brain would learn to exploit it, but for some reason this wasn’t the case in Pierce The Veil’s management, and no matter how I look at it, I can’t really see the reason why. It’s not like the band members are uncomfortable with the ship - Jaime Preciado has been seen kissing Vic Fuentes on stage (not on the lips guys chill) (I had forgotten how fucking difficult it takes to find this one specific clip so here’s a couple different fuenciado pictures instead to make up for it smfh), and Vic Fuentes has mentioned kellic in a live stream once jokingly - and Kellin Quinn is notoriously known for being completely okay with it (so long as he doesn’t have to look at it), so just what is the reason?

This Ain’t A Hiatus, It’s A Goddamned Arms Race

I’d be lying if I didn’t miss all the memes that all stemmed from the Pierce The Veil boys not being able to release an album when they’d promised, before postponing said album yet again and disappearing off of the face of the earth digitally for another year or two, giving them a total of four years as their unofficial, unannounced hiatus. For this, I have several questions.

We all know Vic Fuentes loves taking his sweet ass time releasing music - he’s admitted to remaking his first album a second time before releasing it, as stated an interview a couple years back - but you can’t honestly tell me their management just let them get away with it. Sure, through this time they’ve been pushing out new merch to no end, but something tells me that this giant gap they’ve wedged between the new album and Collide With The Sky isn’t gonna be good publicity, despite all the memes that’ve sprouted from it. There’s been fans who stopped taking interest in this band because of it, as well as fans who have just gotten fed up with having to wait so long. They scrapped a whole completed album in the process of creating Misadventures too, and while it’s not uncommon for bands to throw away near-completed ideas at whim, it’s also not unlikely for there to be some external factors or reasoning behind why they did it. Could it be that the album they threw away stayed too close to their roots and management or some other person told the band to start again, so that they can create something more appealing to this day and age? Or could it be something else that is hard to see at face-value?

You’ll Never Get Ahold Of Me Now

Finally, I’m gonna address the overdue elephant in the room. If you want to read the full thing, here it is because I’m tired of having to reiterate what happened. Mike Fuentes received a sexual allegation by some girl(s) and the band released a shitty statement that has since gotten deleted - that’s the general gist of it. 

Like I said, it’s been literal months (or weeks idk my perception of time is severely fucked) since I actually started making this post so literally no one cares anymore, but regardless of what past me has promised or written down, I’m not going to be discussing the allegation in itself, but rather what and/or how the band and their subsequent management has handled it, in that they handled it so bad that I honestly can’t believe they did it like that. 

Edit: I wasn’t gonna bother finding another copy of the statement bc no one’s gonna give a shit but then I’d be doing some baseless shit and I honestly can’t stand people who half ass these things, despite my growing urge to do the same thing, so here’s the statement. 

For starters, who the hell waits one whole month before releasing a statement? From what I can remember, their excuse was allegedly that pretty much management forbade them to talk or make a statement about it earlier for... reasons? (Just realised I don’t actually have the source for this so idk take it with a grain of salt I guess because I was sure I had read this somewhere but I can’t back it up.) 

That’s not even the worst part, either. The statement itself gave zero closure to literally everything. Yes, they acknowledged the allegation, but that’s just about as far as they went. The whole point of a statement is to clear things up, whether the accuser was right or wrong, and what steps will be taken from there, whether an apology is to be issued or not. No shit you know about the incident, who in the fandom wouldn’t? Instead pointing out the straight up obvious, what they should’ve done was 1) not waited an entire fucking month before talking about it, most likely hoping the whole thing to blow over by then and 2) actually talked about the incident in their statement instead of tiptoeing around the subject like some sort of time bomb ready to go off. There is no right or wrong answer, because literally all they had to do was tell the truth - as in write down a statement from Mike (not the whole fucking band mind you) about his take on the whole thing or get him to say what had happened from his point of view. Then resolve it privately with your legal team and whatnot if they really feel the need. Hell, all he needed to do was apologise. Whether something like that classifies as assault or rape or whatever is up to you but the fact of the matter is that she’s underaged at that point in time. Even if she was fully aware of the risks and whatnot and gave legitimate consent, under the eyes of the law and pretty much 80% of the people reacting to this incident, it will be deemed illegal and inappropriate behaviour. All these people had to do was literally just be open and honest about it regardless of whatever the hell happened, because this is all happening on a public platform where everyone can see/read it to their hearts’ content. Viewers can’t judge or make a decision to support or not support you if you don’t tell them your side of the story, so for the love of god, why the hell didn’t they?

The statement was filled with bullshit about how they love the fans and all that shit, and honestly my thoughts can be accurately summed up in this video right here. So much backlash could have potentially been avoided had they just told it as it is, because now all we have is a vague ass response that gives no closure and tell us nothing as to whether Mike actually did it or not, because in the statement he manage to spout some bullshit about how he’s “never intentionally manipulated or abused anyone in [his] life” and that he’s just a ball of empathy which at first glance could suggest he at least thinks he’s innocent, but then they go on to say how Mike’s taking a temporary leave from the band for, you guessed it, absolutely no reason. At least, no reason that they’ve given us (what else is new) (I’m becoming more petty as the night drags on it’s literally 1am). Honestly, .@piercetheveil, please tell me why the honest to god fuck did you have him leave just after suggesting that he might be innocent? I know the world isn’t black and white but when you’re making a stance and defending yourself or admitting to something, it really is - black and white that is. Either you’re innocent or believe that you’re innocent and stand your ground by not leaving the band, or you admit that you are guilty, in which case your leaving of the band would actually feel justified, because now it’s like you’re gonna come back as well, so what does that even mean? Mike isn’t gone indefinitely, he hasn’t pleaded guilty or innocent, and now the band is telling us they love us? Fuck out of here with that bullshit.

Yes, I support the band’s decision to pull out of the All Time Low tour and to not have Mike out there in case fans feel threatened or unsafe or whatnot, but if you’re pleading innocent, then honestly the whole band should’ve just said “hey we’re gonna go on hiatus for a while until our legal team’s finished with taking care of everything”, and not just said hey guys we’re gonna kick him out because he may or may not have done something that we’re not gonna tell you because we’re shady fuckers like that. I know they are on hiatus right now, but at the “start”, they only said that Mike would be withdrawing temporarily or whatever so it’s kind of like, okay? Sure? It’s a right mess I assure you. Honestly, throughout this whole incident, it was this statement part that made me really fed up with this band. My interest in them had died down significantly from since I hit fifteen all those three years ago, and right now when I dug up an old iPod shuffle to bring with me to university to save my phone battery throughout the day, I can honestly say that I won’t be adding any Pierce The Veil songs onto it anytime soon unless I get peer pressured to. Personally, I feel like that’s kind of the mentality of a lot of had-been Pierce The Veil fans, too.

That’s Great And All But What’s Your Point?

Pierce The Veil’s management sucks ass.

There’s no easy, lawsuit-prone way for me to say it but, and this is just a conspiracy theory I swear to god if I get the fucking ASIS kicking down my door in the middle of the night you better read the fucking disclaimer, there’s obviously some shady shit going on in there no matter what way you slice it. Either they’re sabotaging Pierce The Veil’s success or whether it’s all some big confusion or misunderstanding, or if they’re just plain dumb, we can all agree that this whole thing - the kellic fan service, album making, allegations and subsequent statements - should’ve and could’ve been handled a hell of a lot more gracefully and professionally. Believe it or not, waiting until things blow over is frankly just childish and solves literally nothing, so either they can pull their act together quickly with this next “special secret” album to redeem what little quality/dignity they have left, or they can just fade away into irrelevancy and become a band that no one cares about anymore. 

History repeats itself. This band is quickly becoming just another Leafyishere, and as ominous as that sounds, it’s honestly not unlikely at this point. I am intrigued as to where they go from here, because if they manage to breakthrough again, then I would be very surprised given their current situation. I want to know how they choose to handle this - whether it’ll be the same or not, we’ll just have to wait and see.

Thank you so much if you read through this honestly like I am beyond happy that this is fucking over because I have a bunch of non-band related post essays I’ve been meaning to post but this one’s been nagging at the back of my mind for the past few months or however long it’s been. I’ve clocked in at around past 3k words for this one, and none of this is edited because I’m honestly so done with this you don’t understand. Like I said before, this took ages because I was gonna make another post talking about other shit that relates to this before realising that there’s way too many people that’ve addressed the whole YouTube thing so me doing it would literally be pointless, and even though no one really reads this shit, as big of a nerd as I am, I do enjoy writing bullshit because maybe then I’ll stop ranting to my friends and family about topics they don’t care about.

Regardless, that’s it for this two parter thing, and until next time or whatever.

Catch’ya x

[therosewoods]

you've been pretty quiet about the whole ptv thing and the drama with mike. what are your thoughts about it? you used to be a big ptv blog, right?

lol yes is definitely used to be a ptv blog!! 

ok so i’ve been pretty vocal about this on my twitter and my private instagram account (as well as in my real life lol) but you’re right i haven’t really said anything here. i don’t really have a reason for that, i just haven’t had the motivation to write out a big post since my opinion is very much out there on other platforms. that being said, i will throw in my thoughts now that i’ve been asked about them:

okay, so like you mentioned, i was a HUGE ptv fan. i still very much am, but it used to be my entire life. these guys are the reason i’m in the scene at all and they were my first ever concert. i’ve been listening to them for nearly five years (seventh grade to junior in high school). i’ve seen them live ten times and i’ve saved every piece of confetti and every ticket i’ve ever gotten from going to their shows. i even have tony’s pick (which i picked up from the ground and stuck IN MY MOUTH so i wouldn’t lose it until i got to my hotel room) so, huge fan right? right. 

just before all of this happened, i saw them at the same place, same festival i saw them at for the first time, over four years ago. i was on top of the world bc this show reminded me again how much of a ride or die i am for these guys. with all of the shit about gross band guys coming out, i though about how lucky i was that this would never happen to my band (lol). like, i’ve always thought that i was lucky this way, bc when all of that shit with front porch step back in the day, ptv were my guys and they’d never done anything wrong up to that point so i was okay. 

then this stuff with mike happened. i saw someone vague tweet about it, so i was confused and i had to dig through twitter to find the original post. when i read it, i felt sick. at first i completely doubted it, but as i kept re-reading it and going through the thread, the more i started to believe it. i didn’t want to think that someone i loved for so long could be so irresponsible, but it kind of added up to me. 

my school has late starts on wednesday, so instead of going in at 8 like i usually do, i went in at like 9:30. and i was so sick and upset that i ended up going home early bc i just… couldn’t handle it. like… one of my favorite people was now completely different to me and i couldn’t deal. 

now, one thing that really bothered me about this whole thing was how long it took them (or anyone else!*) to make a statement. I completely understand that it does take time for people to release statements, but in my opinion this took too long. i mean i can somewhat understand because it was around thanksgiving but it REALLY rubbed me the wrong way when they were posting about their black friday sales while keeping the whole situation hush, hush. it may have been their team doing that for them, but it looked really shady and like they were brushing this under the rug so as not to interfere with the most profitable time of the year.

*and what i mean by “or anyone else!” is that Alternative Press, Kerrang!, and Rock Sound did not say ANYTHING about this situation until AFTER the statement came out. with other bands in the scene, they write articles almost immediately and update their readers as more information comes out, and then once a band finally releases a statement, they end with that. but they didn’t do anything with pierce the veil. the only websites i found talking about this was tiny underground music blogs that gain no traction and that i had to DIG to find. again, this makes it look shady and like they’re deliberately sweeping things under the rug. i don’t want to outright accuse them of doing that or anything, but it definitely looked bad.

anyway, i worried myself sick waiting for their statement. i checked literally every day and it was the biggest thing on my mind. i found out that they released a statement when someone on twitter posted about it. now, (and again this is gonna be over thinking things, blah, blah) but it does bother me a LITTLE that they only posted this on their facebook (and have since deleted the post), as a lot of people don’t use facebook. it would have reached more people if they had posted a link to the statement on their twitter and released the statement in full on their tumblr page (also pls feel free to correct me if they did post it on their tumblr and have since deleted it! i just can’t find it rn so maybe they did? idk.) because again, it makes it look like they are hiding this and deliberately making sure that it reaches less people. the only way i found the post was going to the Alt. Press twitter and scrolling down to find the like they posted. (which i have now noticed seems to be missing from their website…)

now, i don’t really have many issues with the statement, other than the fact that the way they worded it makes it sound like mike could be allowed back in the band. “So, I have decided to take a break and step away from my position in the band..,” and, “While away from the band…” these two phrases make it sound like he will come back, which, in my opinion, is a horrible move and could seriously jeopardize their careers. 

i mean, honestly, how many parents are going to allow their kids to go to these shows now that they know the drummer has been accused of sleeping with a minor? there is seriously no fucking way my parents are letting me go to their shows, and these are two people who have loved ptv along with me for years. it just doesn’t seem appropriate to have him back when the majority of their fanbase is the age the girl he “dated” was, or younger. also, doing so would completely change the dynamic of their tours. if he’s let back in, you can kiss meet and greets and fans pulled up on stage for Bulletproof, goodbye. those things won’t happen or be acceptable anymore. 

mike is one person of a four-piece band, and he is not the lead singer. yes, it is difficult because he is vic’s brother, and he is and incredible drummer, but he is replaceable. it would be ridiculous to allow him to ruin their careers, and if he truly cares about the other three in the band, he will permanently step away from the band so as not to tarnish their reputations as well. i sincerely doubt that at this point in time he needs the money he would get from being an active member in the band, and i’m sure that they would be more than capable of working out some sort of deal where he can still make a living off of his contributions to the band.

now, for all of the shitty comments that people give in order to justify his actions:

1) i do not care if the age of consent in [INSERT RANDOM COUNTRY/STATE NAME HERE] is lower than 18. in california, where this situation took place, the legal age of consent IS 18. Maybe you disagree with that, but the law in this state clearly states that it is illegal for an adult to be engaged in sexual acts with a minor. also, the way people are raised in different countries can be completely different to how they’re raised in a place like california. not to mention that even if this is the case, it still doesn’t automatically make it right for an adult to date a teenager.

2) stop bringing up the fact that vic and danielle have a ten year age difference. yes, they met when she was 18, but she was of age, and they weren’t in a committed relationship until she was twenty. this argument is void. next,

3) why would this girl be bringing this to light solely because she was jealous of him and was upset that their relationship had ended? wouldn’t she have done that as soon as they had ended things? also, how would she have known that they’d be at the height of their career right now? did you truly believe that 10 years ago, she thought to herself, “in 10 years i’ll get back at him for breaking my heart because that’s when they’re be really big” ??? like, they would have broken up around the time that their second album was coming out, and they were nowhere near the level of fame they are now. how was she to know that they’d be bigger than just some little local band who were barely making a name for themselves? come on.

4) you can support the band without supporting mike. they are not less of a band without him and they should not be reduced to having to live with his actions haunting them. supporting the other members of the band doesn’t automatically mean that you condone Mike’s actions. but it also doesn’t make you less any of a fan to not want him back. 

5) i dont care if you were 14 when you started dating your 20 year old boyfriend or whatever and so you think this was okay. it’s not and i’m sorry that your adult partner thinks it’s cool to date kids.

6) no, i do not believe that he is some evil, horrible, monster of a person. but i still don’t want him back in the band. he did something incredibly irresponsible and damaging some time ago, and these are his consequences. i believe that what he did was wrong, and i do not want him back. there is not changing my mind on this and if he is allowed back, i can no longer support the band. it breaks my heart to even think about that, but that is the way it has to be for me. here’s to hoping that it doesn’t have to come to that, but only time will tell.