Waycest

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Pairing
Pairing: Gerard Way/Mikey Way
Alternative name(s): Waycest
Gender category: m/m sibling incest
Fandom: My Chemical Romance
Canonical?: no
Prevalence:
Archives:
Other:
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Waycest is the popular term used by many Bandom fans to describe the slash relationship between the brothers Gerard and Mikey Way, respectively the singer and bass player in the band My Chemical Romance.

History & Popularity

Waycest is a relatively popular ship in MCR fandom. At the Archive of Our Own it is the second most popular ship for Gerard after Frank/Gerard (admittedly a distant second), with 806 fanworks in the pairing tag as of 2023.[1]

Waycest also occurs in fanworks as part of a threesome or OT3 pairing, most often involving Frank, or in Group Slut Fics.

The origin of the ship is likely the fact that they are close in real life. (Note that the canon information available also inspired gen fanworks and fanworks in which their relationship is depicted as platonic: see Gerard & Mikey Way.)

Waycest appeared very early in MCR fandom's history. The first LiveJournal comm dedicated to the pairing was geeheartmikey, created 31 August 2004. For comparison, the first general slash comm for MCR, mychemicalslash, wasn't created until a week later, and the first Frank/Gerard comm (gerardxfrankie) wasn't created until 18 March 2005.

The timing of the LJ comm creation suggests a few possibilities: 1) incestfic wasn't universally accepted and fans wanted a dedicated space for posting it, 2) fans started shipping the brothers first because they didn't have enough information about the other band members to construct a story, or 3) early MCR fandom was influenced by the prevalence of incest in Good Charlotte and Mest bandslash that was being posted without shame by teenage RPF fans in multiband communities like slashypunkboys, where some early MCR fic was also posted. In fact, in the author's notes for the first Waycest fic posted to slashypunkboys, the author states that the fic was rewritten for MCR from an earlier Good Charlotte draft.[2] (Incidentally, the author went on to mod mychemicalslash; early MCR fandom was tiny.)

In a January 2005 Room Thirteen interview[3][4], the band itself suggested that fans had been writing Waycest even earlier:

Well actually believe it or not the first fan fiction we heard about was incest fan fiction and that was before any of the stuff you're talking about. Like years ago, there was incest fan fiction... I don't know, we can't control it so, um, at least they're being creative.

In 2007 Mikey Way said during an Australian radio interview that he had found Waycest fanfic on the internet.[5] See also Bandom and the Fourth Wall.

Waycest had always been controversial within some parts of MCR fandom, such as at the chemicalromance community, where in 2005 members felt the need to point out that "Mikey and Gerard are not anything but brothers. If they were fucking, that would seriously gross me out."[6] A December 2007 anon meme included many comments both for and against Waycest.[7] The first secrets post at bandslashsecret in 2008 included a submission that read, "WAYCEST CREEPS ME THE FUCK OUT."[8]

On Twitter anti-Waycest sentiment may have increased starting around 2019-2020, when MCR announced a reunion tour. Tweets from fans requesting that Waycest shippers block them became more frequent starting in early 2020[9]. Waycest shippers noticed an increase in harassment.[10][11]

In November 2021, the new Bandom Big Bang mods banned incest from the challenge. Until that point Waycest had always been allowed in the big bang, and although fans didn't write Gerard/Mikey stories every year, one had appeared most recently in the 2021 collection. In response, Bandom Summer Blowout was started for 2022 by several past participants who were displeased by the new rules, and wanted their own version of the challenge with no content restrictions.[12]

In 2023, an anon at Fail_fandomanon expressed their surprise at contemporary Bandom:

line graph showing numbers of waycest works through the years, going from 2007 to 2023. 7 in 2007, 19 in 2008, 8 in 2009, 23 in 2010, 57 in 2011, 86 in 2012, 53 in 2013, 50 in 2014, 36 in 2015, 60 in 2016, 46 in 2017, 27 in 2018, 33 in 2019, 74 in 2020, 37 in 2021, 50 in 2022, and 167 in 2023
Graph by vampireshmu[13] showing the amount of works in the Gerard Way/Mikey Way tag on AO3 by year.
Not for me, but I’ve always felt fondly towards [Waycest] and thought of it as a charming part of the bandom ecosystem. Got back into MCR fandom this past year because of the tour and was surprised at the level of hate towards it. Maybe I shouldn’t have been because it is RPF incest after all, but my impression in the past was that most people in the fandom who didn’t ship it felt similarly to me. It really bums me out on the Waycest shippers' behalf![14]

Tropes

Example Fanworks

References

  1. ^ See the Relationship section of the filter sidebar on the Gerard tag. See also the Gerard/Mikey AO3 tag. (Accessed 11 October 2023.)
  2. ^ bjosie182. Escape Artists Never Die, Archived version, 2004-08-12.
  3. ^ Alison Aird. My Chemical Romance Interview, Room Thirteen, 8 February 2005.
  4. ^ According to a post in chemicalromance, the interview itself occurred in January. The interviewer also made known her intentions to ask the band about slash and incest fic. Some of the commenters asked her not to:comment thread started by mysti113 started 22 December 2004.
  5. ^ youtube link, February 2007. coleslaws created a gifset of the interview and posted it on tumblr in 2012[1].
  6. ^ prettygolucky. Ways To Stop Looking Like A Teenybopper (And Other Such Rants), posted to chemicalromance, 2005-05-28. archived.
  7. ^ Examples: "Waycest? Gag." Unpopular bandom opinions ahoy!: untappedbeauty, Archived version "waycest: it's delicious" Unpopular bandom opinions ahoy!: untappedbeauty, Archived version
  8. ^ Secret Post #1, Archived version, posted to bandslashsecret, 2008-01-13.
  9. ^ waycest block until:2021-01-01, twitter search, accessed 11 October 2023.
  10. ^ Us waycest shippers generally just want to be left alone but (especially recently) I have seen a rise in people sending rude or threatening messages to fellow shippers, along with calls to ‘kill ourselves’ or ‘get locked up’ and honestly, that’s out of line, Archived version, tweet by spookystuie, April 2020.
  11. ^ "I was a fan of MCR since just after Revenge came out and there has always been Gerard/Mikey fics but isn’t only been over the last year or so that this kind of behaviour (dogpilling, harassing, telling people to kill themselves [h]as become widespread. It’s disappointing. It’s embarrassing and it’s all around shitty behaviour." first tweet by spookystuie, Archived version, second tweet by spookystuie, Archived version, 23 August 2020.
  12. ^ https://bandomsummer.tumblr.com/post/669937631430377472/psa-this-mirror-is-big-enough-for-the-two-of-us
  13. ^ [2]
  14. ^ Re: Ships you want to defend although they're not your thing, Archived version, anonymous comment in fail_fandomanon, 2023-04-10.
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