My Chemical Romance

RPF Fandom
Name(s):	My Chemical Romance (MCR, My Chem)
Scope/Focus:	Core band in Bandom
Date(s):	2001-2013; 2019-present (band), 2004-present (RPF)
See also:	Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Cobra Starship, Mindless Self Indulgence, The Used
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My Chemical Romance is a rock band from New Jersey that is considered one of the three core bands of Bandom, despite never having been signed to Fueled by Ramen or Decaydance.

The band was created in 2001 and broke up on March 22, 2013, but later reunited, playing their first show since 2013 on December 20, 2019. Their reunion was announced on Halloween 2019, which was followed by a reunion show at LA's Shrine Auditorium. Further tour dates were announced at the beginning of 2020, due to occur later in the year; the tour was then postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic and finally began in May 2022.

In its first 12 years, MCR released four studio albums – I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love, Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, The Black Parade, and Danger Days – and Conventional Weapons, a compilation album released as a series of singles shortly before their breakup. MCR was in the Warped Tour lineup in 2004 and 2005. See Wikipedia for more detail.

Band members Gerard Way (vocals), Mikey Way (bass), Frank Iero (rhythm guitar), and Ray Toro (lead guitar) are all featured prominently in fanfiction and other fanworks, as is ex-drummer Bob Bryar, who left the band in 2010, and Brian Schechter, the band's old tour manager.

Additionally, Matt Cortez, the band's guitar tech; Matt Pelissier, the band's original drummer from 2001 to 2004; and Alicia Simmons, Lyn-Z Ballato, and Jamia Nestor, wives of Mikey, Gerard, and Frank respectively, are also often featured, as are a variety of members of other Bandom bands. Matt Cortez has also filled in for Mikey Way, during part of their touring schedule after the release of The Black Parade, and for Frank Iero. Other touring band members included Mike Pedicone (drums, 2010-2011), Jarrod Alexander (drums, 2011-2013) and James Dewees (keyboards). Ray's wife is mentioned less often, probably because she has less of a public profile.

Related Bands

"The Subset Bandom Connection" flow chart by wistfuljane

MCR fanfiction often features members of other bands that MCR has gone on tour with or is known to have personal connections with. These bands include Fall Out Boy, Cobra Starship, The Used, and Mindless Self Indulgence. The bassists of Fall Out Boy and MCR famously hung out a lot during The Summer of Like (Warped Tour 2005). Gabe Saporta of Midtown and Cobra Starship is mentioned in the liner notes of MCR's first album, and MCR and Midtown toured together in 2003. As a result of MCR and Mindless Self Indulgence both being part of the lineup in the 2007 Projekt Revolution tour, MCR's singer and MSI's bassist (LynZ) got married. The two bands toured together again later, and a different member of MSI also provided a voice-over on MCR's fourth album. (Disgruntled old-school fans complained in 2007 that MSI and MCR had already known each other for years before Projekt Revolution, but that this was not common knowledge due to the majority entering the fandom in 2004 or later.)

There are several connections between MCR and The Used: the bands went on tour together in 2005, The Used and MCR's singers were briefly friends, MCR's manager Brian Schechter was The Used's tour manager, and MCR drummer Bob Bryar was The Used's sound guy.

MCR and Panic! at the Disco members sometimes appear in Bandom fanfic together, but they do not appear to have any significant connection except through Pete Wentz of Fall Out Boy.

Before the rise of Bandom, fans also sometimes wrote crossovers with other bands such as HIM, Green Day, and Simple Plan, along with plenty of The Used and Fall Out Boy crossovers. Fall Out Boy is the most commonly used band in crossover fanfiction with My Chemical Romance, and the stories often include the romantic pairing of Mikey Way (MCR's bassist) and Pete Wentz (FOB's bassist).

Fandom History

See also: History of Bandom

In terms of sustained popularity within Bandom, MCR had the advantage of having formed long before Panic! At the Disco and not having broken up in 2009 like Fall Out Boy. PATD may have been considerably more popular during its brief heyday before the 2009 split, but even though MCR had a four-year gap between albums, they were on tour until mid 2008 and had told fans to expect an album in 2009. The 2009 album fell through, and MCR didn't get a new wave of fans until the 2010 release of Danger Days, at which point it was the only major Bandom band left standing. (Reportedly a lot of the existing fanbase did not like Danger Days, so the composition of the active fandom in 2011 was probably very different from the fandom in 2006-2009.)

As of 2017 MCR has 1.5 times as many fanworks on AO3 as Fall Out Boy, despite FOB having gotten back together in 2013. (FOB is gaining on MCR though.) PATD comes in third. AO3 went into open beta in 2009, and was increasingly adopted by fandom circa 2012-2013. However, for the majority of its existence, MCR fandom was on livejournal, where popularity is harder to track (especially since many posts and accounts have since been deleted). A very rough comparison can be made using PATD and MCR's general slash communities--at 22K posts, slashatthedisco beat mychemicalslash's 17K--but FOB slash seems to have been spread out more to general bandslash communities and pairing-specific communities, so accurate numbers are hard to come by (it was probably smaller though).

As of 2016, LiveJournal-era slash rec lists still online tend to include fic posted 2007-2012, but the RPF fandom existed earlier, with some fic written before the advent of Bandom. The band's major label debut was in June 2004, and although their first MTV music video wasn't released until September, a few fans on slashypunkboys were beginning to show an interest in having fic for the band by July. mychemicalslash was created in September 2004, and the more exclusive (and locked) comm yeahchemical was created in June 2005. (The first LJ comm for MCR was chemicalromance, created in 2002, but it didn't allow fanfic.) After mychemicalslash, but before yeahchemical and the Summer of Like, people were already complaining about worn-out fic trends:

To fanfic writers - There's nothing wrong with a little fanfic since it's just another form of expression and escapism IMHO. But please stop using "Vampires Will Never Hurt You" and "I'm Not Okay" as titles. Also, a few different cross-overs wouldn't hurt either. Maybe some really off-the-wall people like the Hanson guys or something that could result in equal hilarity. Hell, Tori Amos or Billy Corgan cross-overs would be pretty cool to read as well.

In April 2007 a damnyouwentz mod recalled that MCR already had an active fic fandom in early 2006 and that other Bandom bands came later:

When DYW first started, there were maybe...two people writing really good fic in the Fall Out Boy fandom. (Three? Maybe three?) Nobody was writing good Panic! fic. Nobody was writing good The Academy Is... fic. Cobra Starship didn't yet exist as a band (dark days, kids, dark days). MCR, however, had a very active fandom. It had good writers. It had a community for good writers (yeahchemical). If you wanted good MCR fic, you could find it. People were talking about them. The fandom existed, and it included people who had been in fandoms before, who had fandom experience, who wrote decent fic, and were good people.

By July 2007, a fan who came in on the 2007 wave of Bandom was having a friendly dispute with another DYW mod's characterization of MCR as a separate fandom from FBR/Wentz bandom. Their stories indicate that the two fandoms had thoroughly merged via cross-pollination: the DYW mod recounted that some MCR fans had moved into FBR fandom during the lull before The Black Parade's release, whereas the newer Bandom fan was seeing fans migrating in the opposite direction ("virtually all the MCR fans I know are also FBR fans, and came into MCR through the FBR bands, and that for all intents and purposes, none of them distinguish between MCR and FBR as being different fandoms").

Where the Fic Was

In the mid 2000s, MCR fanfic was posted in many places, not just LiveJournal. For example, The Immortality Project was a popular fansite that also had fanfic, and UMCRS was a forum where people also posted fanfic.

In answer to a 2006 chemicalromance post asking where the good fic was, fans offered links to a variety of places: LJ reccers and communities like mychemicalslash, Quizilla, fandomination.net, and a message board (www.mychemicalromanceforum.com). In March 2007, another fan in the same community mentioned reading badfic on mibba and LJ. The Fan History Wiki reported that by August 2007, Quizilla had over 20K stories tagged mcr and 22K stories tagged mychemicalromance, though if the numbers are accurate, posting slowed down considerably after that. Unfortunately, some of these platforms, such as Quizilla and the message board, have since been taken offline.

In December 2007, someone at wolfshirts asked, "where do all the cool kids post their MCR-fic these days?" and was pointed to bandslashmania and slowbirds.

Wank and Controversy

• September 2007 Stage gay wank and Bandom fans' response to it. The wank involved Bandom more generally, not just MCR, but it did occur immediately after MCR's infamous Projekt Revolution aka Projekt Gaymolution tour ended.

Personally? I think that the fact that middle schoolers will look at a picture of two boys kissing and say "hot!" instead of "eww!" is fucking amazing. That is awesome. And MCR and FOB didn't come around to take advantage of that – they created that.

Even with all those screaming fans, though, our band boys constantly get shit for acting "gay." Constantly! Magazines, TV shows, smug radio hosts, guys in bars, people on the street, bloggers, all of them smirk and call these guys big queers. There are many, many men and boys who will not get into their music because those bands are so fucking gay. Recently, at Download, MCR were getting heavily bottled by angry metal fans, and someone up front yelled, "Faggots!" In response to which Frank Iero stalked up to Gerard Way, grabbed his hair, and stuck his tongue down his throat while he was trying to sing. (This is not an exaggeration.) Consistently, over and over again, My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy have responded to "fags!" with "hell yeah, motherfucker, now deal with it." They don't say, "No, but we're really straight!"

• Ongoing Fourth wall issues: people sending fanfic to them, writing about non-famous Wives (Alicia, Lyn-Z and Jamia are all somewhat famous in their own right, but Christa isn't), the fanfic interview where Ray praises the fans' creativity and Mikey objects to the incest fic. See: Bandom and the Fourth Wall.

• Since before bandslash was a thing, MCR fans had opinions about new developments related to the band: see chemicalromance and mcrumorcontrol on livejournal. Signing to a major label, the first drummer getting fired, MTV, opinions about girlfriends, opinions about sudden marriages, tabloid "emo cult" moral panic, the fall of Pedicone, the band breaking up....
• Since roughly 2020, Lindsey Way has become an overtly controversial figure. Lynzuglyliar (a blog dedicated to "exposing" Lindsey) had been running for years before 2020, but regained attention around this time when Lindsey made tweets that dodged allegations of sexual misconduct by her bandmate Jimmy Urine, and clumsily discussed the Black Lives Matter protests occurring at the time. Following backlash from fans, said tweets were quickly deleted and Lindsey departed from Twitter.

Breakup

On March 22, 2013, MCR announced that they were breaking up. MCR fandom was extremely upset by the news, and that event, combined with the Mikey Way cheating scandal a month earlier, caused many in the RPF side of fandom to leave, abandoning their WIPs. MCR's last tour ended in 2011, so the fandom may already have been at a low ebb. However, although some fans migrated to other fandoms such as One Direction or Hockey RPF, not everyone left, and in the meantime a new wave of younger fans appears to have discovered the band and started posting fanworks on Deviantart, Tumblr, AO3, and Wattpad. In the post-band era, there is interest in bandmembers' solo projects, but also still plenty of interest in the history of the band.

Reunion

In 2019 there was an announcement on the 31st of October of a single reunion show at LA's Shrine Hall. This was followed by subsequent posts by the band that confirmed such a thing to have been in the works since 2017. This drew mass media and fan attention. A reunion show took place on the 20th of December 2019 at LA's Shrine Auditorium, tickets for which sold out almost instantly. Further tour dates were announced at the beginning of 2020, due to occur later in the year, but were subsequently been postponed due to COVID-19 concerns.

In 2022, the MCR Reunion tour commenced and the band was regularly trending on Tumblr during and following their concerts. This possibly started during the American leg of their tour in August. There was increased fan activity, with fans creating fanart and fanfiction featuring the band. Some fanworks were inspired by video clips and images from MCR concerts.

Fanworks

MCR fandom has produced a fair amount of fanworks, including fanfic, fanart, podfic, dolls, nail art, and art drawn on shoes. In the LiveJournal era, some low-resolution gifs of MCR video footage were available; as of 2015 tumblr fans are creating much higher resolution gifs, but some of the older video footage they have to work with is low quality. Many gif makers have tried their hand at transforming certain popular video clips, like Gerard and Frank making out during Projekt Revolution.

In a 2011 MCR primer, livejournal fan anoneknewmoose compiled a list of "classic" MCR fanfics from 2008, noting that the 2006 video diary Life on the Murder Scene was the primary canon for "[even] fics that were written in 2008-2010" and that "LOTMS is old."

Fanfiction Tropes

Common tropes occurring in MCR fanfics can be divided between canon and fanon tropes, though of course these might interact and overlap within one story:

Canon

Many fanworks are based on the canon of the band's activities or performances. The band's dramatic albums and music videos offer fans richly detailed universes in which to play, giving birth to distinctive genres such as:

• "Ghost of You" Historical AUs set in the video's WWII universe,
• High School AUs based on the "I'm Not Okay" video,
• The Black Parade AUs set in the universe of the third album,
• Killjoys AUs set in the dystopian, apocalyptic universe of fourth album "Danger Days."

Other common tropes originating in canon include:

• Mental health issues, as several band members discussed battling depression and other conditions,
• Alcohol and substance abuse as well as working towards sobriety, often linked to the previous trope,
• Hurt/Comfort stories, often with Frank as the hurt character due to his canon fragile health and frequent injuries,
• Crossdressing, either as a one-off or as a lifestyle choice, based on Gerard mentionning dressing in drag for a day at college and an interview where the band discusses putting on makeup,
• Artist!Gerard (based on his background in visual arts and release of his Umbrella Academy comic).
• Paramour Fic - stories about the band's stay at the Paramour Mansion in Los Angeles during the production of The Black Parade.

Fanon

Common fanon tropes include:

• Mundane AUs where the band doesn't exist and the members have various jobs,
• Genderswap where one or more members are or turn into women,
• Bodyswap where two or more band members exchange bodies,
• Barista AUs and Bakery AUs, where one or more members works in a coffee shop or as a baker,
• A variety of supernatural or magic AUs, such as wingfic, werewolf fic, vampire fic and ghost stories. Horror elements, especially vampires, are technically also canon-based, as MCR lyrics contain several references to vampires and band members are known to be horror fans.

Fanart

"LIFE ON THE MURDERSCENE" by XBlackFerretX (2011)

"Every Snowflake is Different" by MoochingLeach (2011)

The video and album-based AUs listed above are common in fanart as well. Vampires, genderswap, wings, and anything else that can be rendered visually also occur in fanart. A lot of fanart is directly inspired by the distinct visual design of the band, from the album art to the videos to the tour costumes. Many pieces on deviantart reflect a blood-spattered morbid aesthetic reminiscent of several early photoshoots of the band covered in blood, not to mention the album art for Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge. However, many cute and cartoonified depictions of MCR can also be found.

Fanart Examples

Mainly group portraits; see character and relationship pages for more.

• MCR Scrapbook , February 2005
• series of MCR as Sims[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] by blinkcarouseltd (July-October 2005)
• MCR - 'Mama' animated storyboard by afoxart (Mar 13, 2008), which inspired a liveaction fanvid, Mama (We All Go To Hell) by justtothesea (2015-04-03)
• MCR - The Umbrella Academy by bunnyluz on deviantart, combining the band's Revenge!Era tour clothes with The Umbrella Academy (August 22, 2008)
• untitled art[13] by theopteryx, reposted to tumblr from livejournal. Fem!MCR from the I'm Not Okay video (circa 2009)
• Killjoys are here by MiiBT on deviantart. The band in character from the Danger Days videos rescues the deceased from the "Helena" video. (June 14, 2011)
• Keep running, Killjoys!_colored by mmrated. Cartoon-style digital art reminiscent of Adventure Time (February 5, 2012)
• TOURING IS A TOTAL PAIN WHEN YOU'RE A VAMPIRE NEST. by nuggetinator (October 22, 2012)
• I'm A Total Wreck And Almost Every Day by mychelromance (August 28, 2013)
• So Long and Good Night[14] by the-next-victim on tumblr, featuring Gerard outfitted with costume and design elements from as many albums and videos as possible (November 10, 2013)
• Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge[15] by mychemicaldoodle on tumblr. Based on a photoshoot where the band had blood tastefully dripping from their hands (2014)
• untitled art fill[16] by lamebxy on tumblr of happy Revenge!Era Fem!MCR. (August 25, 2015)

Podfic

MCR, as well as Bandom at large, is a big podfic fandom. The first MCR podfic ever created was probably Sing Ourselves To Sleep by inkjunket in 2007, but MCR didn't gain traction with podfic fandom as a whole until 2009-2010.

Examples:

• This Never Happened by klb (2011)
• On the Midtown Direct by argentumlupine (2012)
• Gerard Way, For Skeleton Crew Fashions by croissantkatie (2012)
• Might I Have a Bit of Earth by shiningartifact (2013)

Memes

macro found on ONTD, originally posted to tumblr. Note that although the lyric is from Danger Days, the base photo was taken during a Black Parade era concert

Several lyrics inspired memes that circulated in many fannish spaces (tumblr, twitter, livejournal, even pinterest):

• Gravity don't mean too much to me is a line from the song "Bulletproof Heart" on the album Danger Days, released on November 22, 2010. Image macros of Gerard in the air, captioned with the lyric, were in use as early as November 17, 2010. Not everyone thought this was lolarious: "if you weren’t on tumblr for danger days era when ppl would make memes out of the line 'gravity don’t mean too much to me' i hope you say your prayers every day and realize how lucky you are"
• To a lesser extent, These pigs are after me from the same song also proved inspirational.
• More evidence remains for the When I Was A Young Boy meme, based on a lyric from "Welcome to the Black Parade" on MCR's 2006 album The Black Parade. Most likely the meme itself does not date to 2006.
• The G note from the opening of "Welcome to the Black Parade" has become a meme in its own right.

MCR's breakup is itself a tumblr meme, as it is frequently brought up as the punchline to many jokes:

• twinkle twinkle little star where the fuck are mcr by melancholy-ghoul (July 13, 2013)
• knock-knock who's there? not mcr by cxptain-katie (July 2014)
• when i was a young boy my chEMICAL ROMANCE WAS STILL A BAND by joedeadman
• my chemical romance can do anything... except stay together, unrelated reblogged comments on the popular punk/laundry post (January 8, 2014)

Zines

• The Venom: A My Chemical Romance Fanzine
• Gerard Tweets
• UNKILLABLE: A Zine on Disability, Community, and My Chemical Romance

Shipping

• Frank/Gerard is the most popular pairing of MCR fandom. There was on-stage making out and mutual groping (stage gay), causing people to tinhat them despite their being married to women,
• Ray/Bob and Ray/Mikey often appear as side-pairings in Frank/Gerard stories,
• Frank/Bob and Frank/Mikey are relatively common,
• Waycest, a.k.a. Gerard/Mikey (incest pairing) is fairly popular, sometimes under the form of OT3 fics including another member (often Frank),
• Wives are also featured in canon het pairings, threesomes or moresomes (OT4),
• GSF also exists.

In addition to the intra-band ships, frequent crossover pairings occur:

• Pete/Mikey, where Mikey is shipped with Fall Out Boy bassist Pete Wentz after an intense friendship made when touring in the 2005 Vans Warped Tour, now dubbed The Summer of Like,
• Bert/Gerard: in a number of early MCR fics, Gerard is shipped with Bert McCracken of The Used, or Bert features as a vilain due to their falling out,
• Mikey/Gabe Saporta of Cobra Starship, due to their canon acquaintance and some pictures of them hanging out,
• Bob/Patrick Stump due to their brief time as roommates,
• Frank and Gerard (+ wives) have also been shipped with Grant Morrison in various permutations, due to their friendship with Gerard and appearance in the Danger Days videos as the villain character Korse.
• Heypetekey (Chris Gutierrez (Arma Angelus), Pete Wentz (Fallout Boy) and Mikey Way)

Fandom Communities

Journal-based

See also Category:Bandom Journal Communities

Note that Livejournal-based communities have sharply declined in activity, both due to fandom's relocation/dispersal to AO3, dreamwidth, tumblr etc, and due to the band breaking up.

Challenges

• Ways Plus One a community for Waycest threesome fic
• Yo Bro That's Sick a community for Frank Iero sickfic

News and Discussion

• MCR Daily Flail LJ community.
• MCR Rumor Control LJ community.
• mcr_unofficial LJ community.
• Dotcoms Refresh LJ fandom newsletter.

Fanworks

• General fic: my_chemical_fic
• Slash: mychemicalslash, slashbucks, mcrslashfics, my_slashromance, better_mcrslash
• Frank/Gerard: gerardxfrankie, frankxgerard
• good_mcricons - MCR icons LJ community.

Fic Finders

• MCR Fic Finder Community - help finding specific MCR-related fics
• mcshearts - for general fic rec requests
• frerard_finder - finding Frank/Gerard fics

on Tumblr

• My Chemical Collective fansite/zine and Tumblr
• My Chemical Romance Fanfiction
• Frerad hub Stories, fanfic info and prompts
• frerardfics

Fannish Resources

Primers

• Bands That Make Me Happy: My Chemical Romance Picspam and Primer, ^{Archived version} by missmollyetc (May 2007)
• A Tribute to MCR Bandslash, ^{Archived version} primer by shipless (January 2008)
• My Chemical Romance primer at crack_van's Bandom Overview (last updated July 8, 2009)
• Bandom at newbieguide (2007)
• "Summer of Like" Primer/Manifesto by blushandrecover at bandom_ships - Mikey/Pete from Warped Tour 2005 (2008)
• projekt gaymolution picspam/primer by shrift - Frank/Gerard from the 2007 Projekt Revolution tour (2007)
• mcr primer the ridiculously detailed and footnoted mcr primer by moose - A more recent MCR Primer (November 2011)

Fanworks/Archives

• Bandom Podfic Masterlist 1—My Chemical Romance by klb (last edited 2012)
• Podfics tagged 'My Chemical Romance' at the audiofic archive
• My Chemical Romance tag @ Archive of Our Own
• Wattpad's mychemicalromance tag
• Quizilla's mychemicalromance and mcr tags in 2008
• mychemicalromancefanfiction.com online since at least 2012 and created by mibba admins

Reclists

• Bandom Core Curricula: A Study Guide for Newbies by alpheratz: themed fic recs (2012)
• Beginners Bandom Podfic List and Bandom Podfic Stage TWO by knight-tracer: themed podfic recs
• tearsandporn Tumblr: an mcr reclist
• Bandom tag at fanart_recs dreamwidth community
• Required Reading: Forgotten Fanfic Gems of 2005, ^{Archived version} by turlough (2010)

Other Resources

• official site
• official youtube channel
• Wikipedia article