(To Die Will Be) An Awfully Big Adventure

Fanfiction
Title:	(To Die Will Be) An Awfully Big Adventure
Author(s):	FayJay
Date(s):	2011-03-06
Length:	72763 words
Genre(s):	slash, het, AU
Fandom(s):	My Chemical Romance, Bandom
Relationship(s):
External Links:	on AO3 fic tag on dreamwidth
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(To Die Will Be) An Awfully Big Adventure is a novel-length Bandom fic by FayJay that was crossposted to Dreamwidth and AO3. Gerard Way is turned into a vampire and discovers that people he knew were also supernatural beings, such as werewolves and fairies. Although the point of view character is Gerard, the story has an ensemble cast, with members of several bands featuring prominently. The two main pairings are Frank/Gerard and Gerard/Lindsey; side pairings include Pete Wentz/Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz/Patrick Stump.

FayJay describes it as "A story about love, family, metamorphosis, art, trust and geekery." The plot centers around Bert McCracken trying to stake Gerard through the heart, Gerard being on the run and getting help from old friends, and needing to travel to Fairyland to beg audience with the Fairie Queen (who is mysteriously unavailable); meanwhile, Gerard spends the whole time worrying about how to tell Lindsey that he's an undead fiend, o woe.

The fic features polyamory, which while still a minority in bandom fic, is one of the ways that bandslash reconciles canon het relationships with slash OTPs. Although Lindsey Way only appears at the end, her identity is central to the plot, and their marriage is never sidelined. This is in direct contrast to a lot of pre-Bandom slash fic that denigrated female characters to justify breaking up canon het couples.

As pointed out by characters within the story, Gerard becoming a vampire is a very MCR thing to do. Some of MCR's early photoshoots featured a vampiric Gerard, and their song lyrics contain several references to vampires. This story is one of many vampire-themed MCR fanworks.

Reactions/Reviews

As of 23 September 2015, the fic on AO3 has 10453 hits, 231 kudos, 54 bookmarks and 31 comments. It had the third highest kudos and hit counts for Gerard/Lindsey fic (out of 331). Some of the comments:

Okay, so I don't even know Bandom, but this story is just SO AWESOME even as origfic! Like, I love all the worldbuilding so much, especially the whole story behind the chymeras! And your descriptions of all the fairy world are just beautiful. And though my previous knowledge of all these people was like, "they're in a band?", I LOVE the characters you've created in this story so much (especially Gerard, I want to hug him forever).

MOTHER

FUCKING
PLOT
TWIST

On the Dreamwidth post:

This is absolutely wonderful! Gerard is the most adorably earnest vampire, Frank is so sweetly in love with him, and Lyn-Z is the awesomest! <3 All of your characters are amazing in fact, and I love the way you bring all their canon quirks and interests into the story and give them special meaning in the supernatural world.

I loved that Bert wasn't just the token bad guy but actually had a backstory, a reason for acting the way he did.... the supernatural roles you gave all the characters are brilliant. Lindsey is the Fairy Queen! Brendon and Ryan are fairy princes of opposing courts! Pete is a werewolf and Patrick is his alpha! It explains so much!

The fic was also listed on a few social cataloging and book review websites such as librarything, booklikes, and goodreads. On Goodreads it got two reviews, both by nonfans, one of whom criticized the fic for lack of character description, thus suggesting that the fanfic readers' claims that the fic worked as original fic might be incorrect.