nothing i say in here is a complaint, if that's not clear. i like you just the way you are, bandom.

[schmerica]

So there was a comment the other day basically saying "The reason some OTPs are written so much more than others is because there's more stuff to play with" -- which may well be true! But then it went on to say "If the other pairing did more canon stuff, more people would write that instead!" -- which I think is definitely NOT true, because it doesn't take into account the fact that Pairing A and Pairing B can do the exact same thing, and it's only the pairing that's already your OTP that's going to make you go "EEEE MORE CANON FOR SHIPPING."

Which is to say, even if Bob and Frank suddenly started being way more gay in public, it is not going to make a Frank/Gerard person switch over. REALLY GAY AND AWESOME CANON when it's your pairing = cute boys being friends with each other when it's not your pairing. Fact of life! I just read an interview where Mikey Way mentions getting an email from Pete Wentz, and my response was OMIGOD THEY'RE SO IN LOVE EEEEEEEEEEEE. Rationality has nothing to do with it.

(And thinking about it, who I actually feel sorry for are the Frank/Mikey shippers. There will never be any sort of canon for you that will not just make people go "Awww, look how much he likes his brother-in-law! That's so sweet.")

I was actually rereading a fuckload of Pete/Mikey stories today, because someone I love was asking for recs, and it was actually kind of depressing. People talk about them a lot more than they write them! And a lot of the stories tagged on del.icio.us with "pete/mikey" are really random Summer of Like stories that happen to have the two of them making out vaguely somewhere in the background. Also, I don't know, I feel like my preferences in regard to them tend to be kind of different from bandom as a whole. Like, I don't really get the EPIC TRAGEDY OH NOOOOOOOES vibe from them at all. Where are people getting evidence that they parted at the end of the summer anything but really good friends? Pete wearing his Mikey button was fall 2005, all the pictures/buzznet entries about old friends/away messages/myspaces things defending pete's nudity/etc are from early 2006. The HeyChris thing didn't actually have anything to do with Pete at all. Mikey was still mentioning Pete in interviews after The Black Parade came out. I'm pretty sure there was a FOB interview last year where Pete got asked about the last text message he'd received, and it was Mikeyway asking what was up.

I mean, it's possible I just missed something, but, uh. It seems like it would be a pretty big thing to miss.

Also, it's not like it matters. Anything even vaguely connected with Pete/Mikey I swallow up like candy and love you forever.

Anyway. It is past six pm already. This apparently happens when you sleep in all day. Now I have to decide if it is still worth walking down to the grocery store!

Comments

[impertinence.livejournal.com]

Being a rarepair fan is weird! You learn how to squee over, I don't know, two lines of fic.

And yeah, I don't think Pete and Mikey are really a huge tragedy. They stayed friends!

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Ahaha, it is like how me and Claire were saying in your journal last night how our Ray/Gerard desire is so all-encompassing largely because there's SO LITTLE. If people put more random BFF stuff in all the time, I would probably be shipping them even less, because I would be satisfied with their love for each other.

[impertinence.livejournal.com]

I'm worst with Frank/Mikey. I've reread the bike messenger au so many times.

[restless-jedi.livejournal.com]

I don't even ship Frank/Mikey, but I reread The Last Unicorn all the time.

[restless-jedi.livejournal.com]

It's true, people don't write Pete/Mikey near enough. And when they do, it's not happy fic often enough. Regardless of the canon on how they may or may not have parted (I figure there was a time of silence between them before they could be friends again, because that is usually how things work), the canon from during the summer says they were happy. They were happy and having a good time.

*sigh*

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Aw, man, now I feel a need to go reread that. NO. I MUST GO TO SAFEWAY. FOCUS, PEARL, FOCUS.

[jezrana.livejournal.com]

Anonymeme confession: The last post in this thread (http://bandomanon.livejournal.com/675.html?thread=528547#t528547) is mine, and I was just waiting for someone to comment with "yeah, but that's just Frank being playful! FRIENDS!" Which, okay, if there was footage of Frank trying to drag Gerard into bed, shippers would have a field day with it.

I'm the same way with not really getting the "falling-out of doooooooom!!" vibe with Pete and Mikey. Handholdy starry-eyed crushes can just die out on their own and leave a friendship intact.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

Ahahahah, ADMISSION TIME: the person you were directly replying to was me. :D

I don't know, there's always plenty of things to squee over if you're inclined to squee over them, if you know what I mean? Some OTPs have more stuff you can point to, is all.

[riflethrough.livejournal.com]

Hi!

You feel sorry for me? I feel sorry for me, too! I really love Frank/Mikey, but since it isn't often written, if at all, I usually default to lovin' on Frank/Bob.

And, I don't mind reading those EPIC TRAGEDY fics where it's just completely NOT POSSIBLE for Mikey and Pete to stay together and participate in a long distance relationship, but. I'd also really love a story where they were just really good friends that liked to make out every now and then, and maybe Pete asks Mikey for relationship advice sometimes? Heh, I don't know.

[warmingweather.livejournal.com]

I don't like endings, so the combination of the end of the Summer of Like and the end of Pete and Mikey's relationwhatever makes me sadface, even if they parted on good terms. Plus, since from what I understand Pete provided more of the canon through his blogs and namedrops than Mikey did, I think some people tend to assume that Pete was more invested in it than Mikey was, regardless of how true that was. And bandom is nothing if not concerned with Pete's happiness. :D

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

I guess part of it might just be that I don't think break-ups are necessarily, you know, that horrible? I don't know! Like I said, I'm a sucker for them any which way.

It always seems odd that there isn't more Frank/Mikey fic, considering everything together! The Gerard thing is the only explanation I can come up with.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

*grins* OVERINVESTMENT IN PETE WENTZ'S HAPPINESS SHOULD BE REQUIREMENT NUMBER ONE TO GET IN THE DOOR, FOR SERIOUS.

[sharpest_rose.livejournal.com]

From that Mikey interview: Actually, Gerard's single now. So, in theory, he would get all the chicks. He's not really into that, though.

Just wanted to quote that again.

[pearl-o.livejournal.com]

ahahahahhaaha OH GOD. I didn't even notice that my first time through. <3<3<3

[gigantic.livejournal.com]

I don't think Pete/Mikey is the kind of pairing that should make you want to go lie down in traffic or anything, but I have always kind of seen them as bittersweet? They're friends, but they aren't together, and then Pete makes posts about waiting in hotels for something he knows isn't going to happen or posts like these shortly after the Summer, and then there's "Bang The Doldrums." Maybe it's all actually about Jeanae, whatever, but for purposes of writing and weaving things around canon timelines, it's always made me imagine them (as a pairing) being sort of bittersweet, yeah.

[restless-jedi.livejournal.com]

It has to mean something that Frank thought he and Mikey were the favored pairing, right?

[queenofhell.livejournal.com]

Actually, I totally read the HeyChris/Mikey thing as a HUGE canon support for Pete/Mikey--I'll be honest, it totally made me put my tinhat on and BELIEVE that something actually happened between Pete and Mikey. Like, Chris' wanky posts have totally affected my view of Pete/Mikey because I think he was mocking what actually happened: Pete decided that he could maybe be a little gay for Mikey and went all over the top romantic about it, but couldn't follow through on the physical stuff so it fell apart. Mikey totally didn't take it that seriously since it was just a fling and non-physical, which is why he did the photo shoot with Chris and yet still defended Pete, while Pete totally took the whole thing seriously which is why his away message was "I hate the world" or something after the Mikey/Chris pictures debuted. Like, Pete knew he was being mocked for something he took really really seriously, but to Mikey it wasn't a big deal.

See? Tinhat. What this fandom does to me, I swear to god.

[lovesongwriter.livejournal.com]

Too bad the HeyChris thing wasn't even about Pete. I mean, HeyChris even told everyone what it was about.

[queenofhell.livejournal.com]

Do you mean when he said that he just wanted to freak out his fans and see how they'd react? I mean, I believe that too, but I also think that if he was just grabbing any old random dude to freak out the kids, Fruity (or somebody else without a highly visible girlfriend) would have been a more believable fake gay lover. I mean, it's possible that Mikey was just the only one who agreed to go along with it, but especially given Pete's reaction, it def seemed to me that Chris choosing Mikey was at least in some ways a slap in the face to Pete.

Like I said, though: tinhat. *points to head* :)

[lovesongwriter.livejournal.com]

HeyChris told me in person Mikey was the one he was discussing it with.

It wasn't to "freak out" his fans. He was talking how he's seen fans throw around "gay" etc as an insult. And he wanted to push it in front of them if one of the people they thought was 'cool' or looked up to was gay, what would they do/how would they react.

He had an unfortunate timing, and he admits that. But they went in with the intention of getting people to think via action rather than just a blog about it.

Gerard ain't the only Way who has a radical agenda.

[besquared.livejournal.com]

oh god. i'm probably not a person who should be responding to this (seeing as i've written my own [to borrow ceej's word] bittersweet version of the end of their relationship (http://unprolific.livejournal.com/6837.html#cutid1)), but the general tone of interviews, blogs, etc, has given me the impression that things ended not so well between those kwazy kidz. i can't speak much further than that without sounding like an irrational tinhat who reads waaaaaay too much into said interviews, blogs, heychris posting pictures to make pete jealous, et cet. whether or not pete and mikey were romantically involved-- there's no knowing, because a) we don't know these people, and b) this was a friendship that pete, for whatever reason, wanted to keep under his ugly hat. i will speak generally and say that i think the very nature of intense friendships is that they're even harder to fall out of than romantic entanglements. and i for one would like to read more stories about what it was like for them to lose each other as best friends, not lovers.

also, i'd like to read sappy future-fic. because i'm ridiculous like that. :)))))))))

[lovesongwriter.livejournal.com]

I think they probably had a falling out at the end of the summer.

With ya know, the fact Pete cheated on Alicia, broke up with her, cheated on Jeanae, then rumored to have slept with Jac Vanek and Kate from The Fight.

I think people forget the hundred different things Pete was doing in the summer besides Mikey. That Warped he was rumored to be with A LOT of girls.

I think even if they were friends, Mikey was friends with Alicia as well. Then it all kinda went to hell.

I think they only started talking when, you know, Mikey realized Pete is Pete. And he's not gonna change and he isn't healthy for Mikey. Mikey on his own isn't healthy, but Pete is a fucking cargo bay of baggage.

[queenofhell.livejournal.com]

Ah. But see, I didn't know that, because what HeyChris says off the internet isn't available to me. It did seem like raising awareness and making people think was part of his intention, but he didn't express it very well--as much as it seemed to be social action, it wasn't done very well, especially since he didn't follow it up with much of anything beyond "ha, I got you, thanks for providing me with entertainment". It ended up coming off mostly as a fuck you and a joke, partially because of the timing (because yeah, revealing it on April 1st wasn't the best plan if he really wanted it to be taken seriously).

Oh, well. I'm still using it as canon for my fics, cause I like it. You did make me take off my tinhat, though. :)

[olivia-circe.livejournal.com]

So I always really like everything you say about Pete/Mikey, but it keeps making me think in New and Different Ways, which is a little dangerous (um, in a good way) when I am in the middle of writing a fairly substantial Pete/Mikey/Alicia post-Summer of Like story. Keep it up and I'm going to have to credit you for inspiration or something. \o/?

One of the things I fell hardest for first, in bandom, was the enormity of the cast of characters and the sheer number of pairing options. Sure, there are pairings that I get more excited about, but there is just so much awesome that I can never get bored, like, ever. Which is to say that any canon, however interpreted, really just adds to the fun, I think.

[foxxcub.livejournal.com]

REALLY GAY AND AWESOME CANON when it's your pairing = cute boys being friends with each other when it's not your pairing.

TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN.