I want to scream 'I love you' at the top of my lungs

The Mutt: an Andrew Shaw primer

2013-01-07T19:55:21Z

Andrew Shaw (aka Shawzer/Shawsy/Sauce/Mutt) is a ~~tiny~~ ~~adorable~~ ~~fighty~~ forward for the Chicago Blackhawks. Getting to the Blackhawks took him a while. It took him three rounds in the draft to get picked; he was passed over completely in his first two years and on his third go, the Blackhawks didn't take him until the fifth round.

But after starting the 2011-12 season with the Ice Hogs, Shaw finally got his call-up to the Blackhawks and played his first NHL game against the Flyers. On his first ever NHL shift, he got into a fight right off the whistle:

And after getting the huge bleeding gash in his forehead patched up, he came back in the second period to pull a Toews and score a goal off his first NHL career shot:

Like a lot of Hawks fans, I pretty much loved Shawsy at first fight, and through the rest of the season and a bunch more goals, fights and ridiculous antics with his teammates, it just got better.

There are two things that you notice immediately about Andrew Shaw. The first is that for a hockey player, at least, he's really short. (5'10", in fact; he's even shorter than Patrick Kane.)

Shawsy completely dwarfed by Blackhawks teammates

Shawsy with teammate and now housemate Jimmy Hayes.

The second is that he loves fighting - and either doesn't notice or doesn't care when he's picking fights with guys way taller than him.

That's Shaw fighting teammate Dan 'Carbomb' Carcillo in practice. It was, incidentally, Carcillo's injury that freed up a spot on the Blackhawks roster and gave Shawsy a chance to play.

Yeah, that's the fight from his first NHL game again. I just love the way Rinaldo skates all the way over from the other side of the faceoff just to punch on with Shawsy. The two of them fought a couple of times when they were teenagers in the OHL together, so it seems like there's some history there.

If you're thinking that this looks like the biggest case of small dog syndrome ever, I completely agree. His Blackhawks teammates actually call him 'Mutt'. That entire article is gold. Shawsy says “Why ‘The Mutt’? Maybe because I’m small? Small and cute and friendly?” I can only imagine the :D at the end. It also includes Kaner calling him a nineteenth-round draft pick and Shawsy describing himself as 'a blue collar guy' and pinpointing the one lone time in his entire hockey career that he's been scared.

But no more of that. SHAWSY ISN'T SCARED OF ANYONE!

Andrew Shaw comes from Belleville, Ontario, and grew up with two brothers who also play hockey. This Chicago Sun Times article tells you just about all you could want to know about Shaw's family and childhood. I'll try not to quote it because I will end up quoting the entire article, but here are the most pertinent #ShawFacts:

- He once punched a trash-talker when he was at some batting cages with his younger brother Jason.
- He once fought his older brother Josh during a ball hockey game because Josh hit Taylor Hall.
- When he was 11, he scored five goals in a single game with a broken hand.
- He was international street hockey player of the year in 2010. I didn't even know that was a thing.
- Okay, just one quote, from his mother: "He wants everything to be like a family." AWWWW.

As a teenager, Shaw played in the OHL for the Niagara Ice Dogs, where he got into enough ridiculous fights to inspire a five minute long fan video:

As you may notice from that video, he also experimented with some terrible hair.

I think this photo also dates from Shawsy's OHL days, though I'm afraid I don't know who his roommate is.

ILU TROLLY.

I'm throwing in an extra fight video here as it might be interesting in future. Here Andrew fighting Garrett "I do not want to punch your helmet" Ross, who was picked up by the Blackhawks in the 2012 draft and became a brief source of interest when he got into a fight at prospect camp.

This TV interview with IceDog!Shawsy is mostly unremarkable, but I love it for one of the questions right at the end: "If you were a dog, what kind of dog would you be?" He answers "chocolate labrador" really quickly and I just love that:
- someone even thought to ask that question;
- Shawsy has clearly thought about this;
- He is wrong, because he would obviously be a terrier, but it's kind of perfect anyway because it makes him a small dog who thinks he's a big dog.

Even though most information about Shaw from his Ice Dog career is about either fighting or being a dog, he obviously played some good hockey with them, even if he got passed over twice in the NHL draft. He got traded to the Owen Sound Attack for the 2010-11 season, where he scored a shitload of goals - many of them with his captain and newfound best bro Garrett Wilson.

This is literally the only photo I have of them together. Oh well.

I won't talk too much about Wilson here because all you really need to know about them is contained in this post. I will just add that I'm not convinced 'bromance' is a strong enough word for a relationship that regularly includes the words 'babe', 'i love u' and 'i miss ur sexy bod like if u never noticed i always stared at u in the room'.

The Attack had been a notoriously terrible team for years, but in 2010-11 they pretty much ruled. In May they actually won the cup and became OHL champions. Shaw didn't play in game 7 because he was suspended for fighting (#Shawtypical) but he was still a big part of getting the team there. Here he is looking slightly unimpressed with the Hardest Working Player award he got at some point during the season.

The Attack were in the Memorial Cup that year as well, but Wilson got concussed and everything went horribly wrong and we won't talk about that. The important thing is that after the 2011 season, SHAWSY FINALLY GOT DRAFTED.

He started the 2011 season with Chicago's AHL affiliate, the Rockford Ice Hogs. I'll come back to talking about the Ice Hogs later, since he's been playing for them again during the lockout. His early months with the Hogs did bring us this, uh, interesting fan story from tumblr:

And, well, this:

Whatever he was doing in Rockford must have worked, because in January 2012 he got called up to the Blackhawks!

He had the aforementioned awesome first game and had a good run for a few weeks after that, getting more minutes and at one point running up a four-game goal streak, including this magnificent one against Detroit:

While that's a particularly flukey example, that goal was pretty typical Shaw. He's good at crashing the net and scoring goals from close in or from rebounds. It's not the only thing he's good at, but it is a key part of his playing style. Along with hitting, chasing the puck relentlessly and insulting people. Here's a more typical example from later in the season, also against the Redwings:

As for positions, while he played as a center for both his OHL teams (and he's been third line center for the Ice Hogs during the lockout) the Blackhawks have pretty much always played him on the wing. Given the Blackhawks' notorious lack of depth at center I'm not entirely sure why they do this, but hey, I'm not an NHL coach.

At any rate, playing on the wing still seems to work for him, because he kicked a lot of NHL ass. Blackhawks fans took to him really quickly and started the Chuck Norris-esque #ShawFacts on twitter, which culminated in Shaw himself tweeting Andrew Shaw loves Chicago and doesn't want to leave. #ShawFact

Unfortunately he did have to leave as he hit a run of bad luck, going scoreless for twelve games and getting sent back to Rockford mid-February. But he made it back in by the end of February and scored Chicago's first goal in his first game back! This time he was also joined by Rockford buddy Brandon Bollig, with whom he hung out and kicked ass and posed for the greatest photoshoot ever.

In one of my favourite moments in the whole 2011-12 season, he and Johnny Oduya scored the game-winning overtime goal against Vancouver in March:

AND THEN THEY HUGGED AND LAUGHED IN LUONGO'S FACE.

As awesome as that game was, things were less awesome during the playoffs in April. The Blackhawks lost their first playoff game against the Phoenix Coyotes, and in game two, Shawsy had a now-infamous run-in with Coyotes goaltender Mike Smith.

Shawsy got suspended three games for the hit, which turned into a HUGE CONTROVERSY because at the time everyone was up in arms about how much violence there'd been in the playoffs so far and whether Brendan Shanahan was doing discipline all wrong but on the other hand maybe penalising a rookie three games for a hit that didn't even injure a guy was overkill. If you want you can watch the Shanaban video and there are a bunch of articles out there about it if you really want; Puck Daddy were pretty even handed, though Bleacher Report were really pissed off. Really.

Shaw was back to playing in Game 6, but the Blackhawks lost and that was the end of their season. SADNESS. Ugh. Let's just look at this photo of Shawsy and Duncan Keith to cheer up:

Much better.

The upside to this is that Shawsy went off to his much-loved cottage in Belleville for the summer, and periodically invited other Blackhawks up to party and go fishing with him at the cottage, so we got lots of photos like this:

And also this:

Sometimes I scroll past that photo when it turns up on my tumblr dash because I have trouble looking directly at it. IT IS TOO MUCH ~~ASS~~ AWESOME FOR ME TO HANDLE.

After summer, of course, the Blackhawks have been locked out, but Shawsy's one of a whole lot of young Hawks who got reassigned to Rockford in the AHL - which has been a whole lot of fun. Shawsy moved into a house with Jimmy Hayes and Nick Leddy (and possibly Marcus Kruger? I'm not sure if he lives there or just visits a lot) which has resulted in many delightful shenanigans.

Visiting factories!

Go karts!

Tweeting photos of Jimmy Hayes while he's asleep! Shaw captioned this one "Don't wake the bear! #cute"

And then they started some kind of rivalry with the Stanton/Pirri/Morin household that involved cook-offs, staring contests and laser tag. Good times. The cookoff part started because Shawsy's housemates and eventually half the team seem to think he is an absolutely amazing cook. If the foodtweets are anything to go by, all his cooking looks exactly like this:

When they aren't busy beating each other at cooking or laser tag, the Ice Hogs sometimes play hockey! Their season's been a bit up and down; they started the season with two losses to the Chicago Wolves and lost a lot to start with, but at one point they worked their way up to the top of their division. And then dropped again. Oh well.

The funny thing is, I'm tempted to say Shaw's been keeping out of trouble this season. He kind of has! He's had way more points than he has fights! It's just that, well, when he did fight he really went all the way.

Yep, he wasn't even on the ice - he jumped the bench to fight when Bordeleau started laying into Dylan Olsen. And then tried to fight off the two refs holding him back. Wade Brookbank, who also left the bench after Shaw did, got a one-game suspension out of it, but Shaw was hit with a whopping six games. As far as I can tell, he mainly used the break to whine about not getting to play hockey. MAYBE DON'T JUMP THE BENCH THEN.

It wasn't all bad, though - he used the time wisely to go visit some hockey players even shorter than him.

And he seemed to like hanging out with Bollig on the sidelines for a few games.

Then he came back and went on a four-game scoring streak. It was awesome. EXCEPT THEN HE GOT SUSPENDED AGAIN UGH. But at least that was the end of the suspensions. He hasn't had the goal streak back, but at least he's NOT SUSPENDED. Meanwhile, Bollig's always racked up a lot of fights, but lately he seems to throw down with anyone who hits Shaw. Okay then, Bollig.

With the lockout coming to an end and training camps about to start, we don't know yet whether Shaw's going to be back on the Blackhawks roster or sticking it out in Rockford for a bit longer. I know that my favourite scrappy, yappy, tiny mutt of a hockey player will be taking hits and scoring goals somewhere, though. For now, in this time of joy and uncertainty, I'll leave you with the spectacularly awful Rockford Ice Hogs Christmas video, in which Shaw wears a leather jacket and a Santa hat and whines about his suspension again.

HAPPY NEW CBA! Okay, fine, a gif for those of you who for some reason don't want to sit through several minutes of hockey players singing.

I mean, how could you not believe that face?

This entry was originally posted at http://halfeatenmoon.dreamwidth.org/503597.html.

A Melbourne Ice primer

2012-06-13T12:00:19Z

As much fun as it is going to Melbourne Ice games and meeting players and everything else jamethiel_bane and I have been getting up to, sometimes I just want to flail like a fangirl. And that's hard to do at the Harbourtown after a game when you can't say "OMG I LOVE JASON BACLIG" without a fair risk of Jason Baclig overhearing you. So this is kind of an opportunity to do that, as well as a primer about the Melbourne Ice and the individuals that make it up.

They play hockey in Australia?

Yes, we do! And the best of all the teams are the unimaginatively named Melbourne Ice. It's a semi-professional team (which basically means "they're really good but they don't make any money") and made up of mostly Australian players with a few imports. In this primer you will find all these things, along with beards, fights, aspiring musicians and my embarrassing crush on Doug Wilson Jr.

The team was formed ten years ago, but until 2010 had never won a championship. When they finally did they discovered it was so much fun that they did it again the next year.

I tried to figure out a logical order to put all these players in, but then, well, I gave up. Let's just go with it.

#7 - Captain Vinnie Hughes (Defense)

This is our captain, Vinnie Hughes! He's been a member of the team ever since it started in 2002.

He's a defenseman and is generally just loved by everyone. He also loves his team like crazy. If anything he may actually love his team a bit too much. Which is why the first thing that comes up when you do a Google Image search for 'Vinnie Hughes' is this:

That's Vinnie beating up Perth Thunder's Sam Wilson, after Sam laid a pretty heavy hit on the Melbourne Ice goalie, Stu Denman. Vinnie didn't just punch the guy - he leapt off the bench, threw down not one but two officials who tried to hold him back and punched Wilson in the face over the shoulder of the referee trying to escort Wilson to the penalty box before he finally got Wilson clear of the refs and just laid into him. YEP, TOTALLY NORMAL WAY TO REACT TO SOMEONE RUNNING YOUR GOALIE BFF. Way to go, captain.

What's more, Australian ice hockey is way harsher on fighting than in most countries; it carries an automatic two-game suspension. With all the jumping the bench/throwing the refs/other guy didn't get a punch in considerations, Vinnie Hughes was suspended for six games, so I haven't seen him play in aaaages. Setting a really good example there, skipper. BUT HE'S COMING BACK! I expect to see ♥#7 signs all around the rink on Sunday.

#1 - Stu Denman (Goal)

Like Vinnie, Stu has been with the Melbourne Ice since its inception in 2002, which might help to explain why Vinnie went so nuts at someone knocking Stu over.

As is often the case with goalies, particularly in a league that gets next to no media coverage, it's REALLY HARD to get a photo of his face. But there you are! Success! Denman has been the Melbourne Ice starting goalie for a long time, but this year he's more or less splitting the duty with young recruit Dahlen Phillips. (IMO Phillips is clearly the better goalie, but Denman's been with the team for ages and there are club politics involved. BLAH BLAH WHO CARES LET'S LOOK AT PHOTOS MORE.)

The fellow with Denman in both those photos is Tommy Powell. I WILL DISCUSS HIM SHORTLY. (and I didn't realise how many photos there were of Tommy patting Stu while they both laugh. Okay then.) For now, here is Denman in action:

And here is Denman shaking hands with the losing goalie from last year's Grand Final:

#12 - Tommy Powell (Forward)

Tommy Powell is, by all reports, an awesome forward.

Sadly, I have never seen him play because he's been scratched ever since he did his knee at Worlds earlier this year. Yes! Australia competes in the IIHF world championships. Look at all the Melbourne Ice players on the national team!

Joey Hughes, Todd Graham, Lliam Webster and Tommy Powell. We'll meet the other three shortly.

The long term injury sucks, although his boredom has been entertaining as he follows the team around and tweets photos of them in Gold Coast car parks. (Though I can't find the one of the Gold Coast rink's 'showers', a couple of barrels of water stuck on the roof of a shed.) He also tweets a lot of photos of his cat, and Olivier Martin of the North Stars calls him 'crazy cat man'. If you're starting to think Tommy Powell is lovely, I can harsh that by telling you that he is one of the many, many Australian hockey players who horrifies me with his frequent admiration of mullet haircuts.

But like Vinnie, this week Tommy is gonna be baaaaack! This weekend's game is going to be MASSIVE. (Especially with all the... baggage we have with the Blue Tongues last time we played them in Melbourne. I WANT TO SEE THE TONGUES GO DOWN HARD.) (#hockeyporn?)

#21 - Joey Hughes (Forward)

Vinnie has a hockey-playing brother.

A really attractive brother.

Frankly I think Joey is inarguably the prettiest guy on the team. Roughly a third of my Melbourne Ice photo folder is Joey Hughes.

Oh, you want to know about his play? He's a forward, has stellar stickhandling skills, and is a winger on the team's first forward line. He's also the current leading scorer for the team. I will shortly tell you about the other members of that line.

But first some more Joey photos. Look, I have so many. I have to use them up somehow.

Joey also runs a training program called Next Level Hockey at Melbourne's older, dodgier rink in Oakleigh. His @NextLevelHockey twitter account also offers personal training advice and exercise encouragement. And will check up on you. Just ask jamethiel_bane.

#16 - Matt Armstrong (Forward)

Army is one of the team's long-term import players and hails from Canada. He's the other winger on the first forward line.

He's huge and sometimes kinda scary. Secretly I think he is actually made of bricks. Opposing players try to check him and they just fall down. At the start of the season I thought he was more or less on the team for his brute strength rather than finer skills, but over the last few weeks his goal-scoring has skyrocketed and he's made some absolutely stunning plays.

And in an example of the low-tech nature of Australian hockey, here is Army taking the AIHL version of an ice bath.

ILU ARMY.

#57 - Jason Baclig (Forward)

Jason Baclig is also Canadian and a long-term import. He started playing with the team in 2009 or 2010 (I forget which) thinking that he'd play for a season and then go home to Canada. He hasn't left yet.

Baclig is the first-line center and an alternate captain. He's been taking on the majority of on-ice leadership duties while Hughes has been suspended. And he's a goddamn wizard on the ice, even though he's tiny.

But he has this incredible single-minded focus on the puck that somehow leads him to shoulder aside guys far bigger and stronger than him, steal the puck and score goals all over the place.

Most of my photos, however, are of his hilarious finals hairdo from last year.

Baclig is also the team's resident musician. Yes, really. After games, he performs at the pub as one half of the musicial duo Me & Him. (The other half is his Olympic speed-skating buddy Lachlan Hay.)

According to one dedicated Baclig fangirl I met at a game a few weeks ago, he paints, too. HOW IS HE SO FREAKING TALENTED?

If you want to actually see some hockey action, one of my favourites is this highlights video from a game against Adelaide in May.

At about 2:50, Adelaide's Josef Rezek (#19) goes down HARD after what looks like a mere tap from Jason Baclig. HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE? BACLIG IS TINY. Starting at 6 minutes in, though, you can see Rezek taking the first shot in the shootout. Baclig takes the game-winning shootout goal at 7:23 though, and then disappears under a pile of teammates.

Finally, a photo from his pre-Melbourne-Ice career.

Yep.

#2 - Lliam Webster (Forward)

Lliam Webster is a forward, but if you watched a game, you'd be forgiven for thinking he actually played defence. He's an incredibly flexible two-way player. That is, if you can even see his playing past his beard.

Here is a video from 2010, when Webster was captain. Shockingly, in this video he is beardless, but the media crew stuck a microphone on him for a game and the results were hilarious, if... possibly not what they hoped for.

Player Cam - Lliam Webster from Melbourne Ice on Vimeo.

My favourite bits:
- Asking a Knights player if he was going out tonight
- Yelling a lot of cliched bits of encouragement
- When he scores a goal he whoops once and then congratulates the guy who gave him the assist
- When he gets into a fight, he gets in a few good punches and then says "I'm done, boys!" to the linesmen, then takes himself off to the locker rooms without another word.

#3 - Todd Graham

Todd Graham is a defender. His nickname is 'Bangs' and every player on the team seems to refer to him as 'my boy Bangs'. Including two of the newest members of the team, Doug Wilson and Matt Korthuis, in this video. (skip to about 3 minutes in for the action)

Bangs and Webster have this funny little ritual of their own at the end of every game, where they skate circles around each other until the rest of the team are off the ice, then throw themselves against the glass together. Yeah, I dunno.

#23 Doug Wilson Junior (Defense)

Alright. It's time to talk about the guy I have a huge and kind of weird crush on, Doug Wilson Jr.

Doug is one of this year's new imports. He plays defence and does it magnificently, but he's also had one or two goals this year, including a scorcher against Adelaide when he scored on a breakaway from the penalty box. He also worked for the San Jose Sharks back in the US and his father (Doug Wilson Senior) is the Sharks' GM and before that was a Chicago Blackhawks legend. Plus his uncle won multiple Stanley Cups with Montreal. Does that overshadow him at all?

NOPE, HE'S BASICALLY JUST ALL EXCITED ABOUT HOW GREAT HIS NEW TEAM IS. :D :D :D :D

He has more or less become the token media guy for the team. He does radio interviews, Q&A sessions with fans, and on-ice demonstrations like the video above and this hilarious spot for The Circle which sadly I can't embed because commercial TV sucks. If it won't play for you, here's the highlight of the interview part:

Sean: What's your favourite part about playing.
Doug: Uh... hitting. I'm a defenseman.
Sean: So your job is basically to mess people up?
Doug: Yep. :)

He also seems to be just a bit over-competitive on the ice, as you can see in the video in the Todd Graham bit, where even in an exhibition scrimmage for the media, he can't help going hard on the poor radio dude. When he first started playing, he took a bit of time adjusting to Australia's, hmmm, sports culture, I guess - he argued with referees a lot and consequently ended up with a few misconducts, because We Don't Do That Here. But in a recent game against Adelaide another player tried to goad him into fighting right from the start, and Wilson didn't take the bait even when the other guy started punching him. (skip to about 25 seconds in for the fight.)

ANYWAY that's probably enough about Doug Wilson because after that I tend to get embarrassing. MOVING ON.

#20 - Matt Korthuis (Forward)

Korthuis is another recent import this season. He and Wilson used to live together and more or less decided to come to Australia together. I can't remember whose idea it was, but one of them said "Hey we could go play in Australia!" and the other one went "Fuck yeah! Let's go to Melbourne, I hear Melbourne's great!" And then Korthuis said "Oh wait, I hope my wife lets me go."

Luckily, his wife did let him go! Korthuis is a forward and he's pretty kickass. He's out with a shoulder injury at the moment, but he'll be back soon. In the mean time, he has a little more time for his other hobby, which is judging people for their food choices. (He's a vegan and pretty outspoken about it.)

#4 - Daniel Szalinski (Forward)

Honestly, Szalinski's play up until the game that took him out didn't make much of an impression on me, but I feel a need to include him just because he was the recipient of the hit that made Puck Daddy. If you haven't seen it, the hit itself is at the 40 second mark of this video:

Thumbs up to Mitch Humphries and Austin McKenzie for going after Greg 'Goonbag' Bay for taking him out like that, too. Daniel also did a phone interview/message thing about it, which you can listen to here. It's all pretty much "I don't actually remember the hit." My favourite bit is "When I regained consciousness in the change rooms, Mitch was there too... yeah, that was pretty much self-explanatory." I love that even after being concussed and not remembering how, Daniel didn't even need to be TOLD that Mitch got turfed out of the game for beating up the guy who hit him.

#46 - Dahlen Phillips (Goal)

Updated because I finally found a photo of him! Thank you for your instagram addiction, Tommy Powell.

Dahlen Phillips is the new young goalie for the Melbourne Ice and he's been astounding. He's only had four starts this year, but all of them were against our main conference rival, Adelaide. He has the third-best average save ratio in the league, after Kimlin (Tongues) who only played two games before getting injured, and Mike Brown (Knights) who I suspect would be doing quite well for himself in the AHL if it weren't for... let's just say some personality issues and a lack of common sense. Statistically, he's the best Ausralian-born goaltender in the league.

And I know nothing else about him because his entire approach to everything is to keep quiet and do the job. He has a Twitter but it contains only seven tweets, and they were all angry complaints at 4square.

Short version: he's brilliant and we need to play him more. I'm hoping to see him get the start against the Tongues this weekend. Last time the club had a pregame function, Doug Wilson slipped in a casual reference to Phillips becoming the starting goaltender. PLEASE LET THIS BE TRUE.

In conclusion

There are a bunch of other great guys on the team I haven't had time or space to mention, like Humphries, McKenzie, the Wongs, Sturrock, Thorburn and Fjaestad. But this thing has gotten LONG and I really need to go to work. I may come back an add more info/links later, but for now, if you're interested in actually seeing the boys play, the team has a live stream site where you can watch almost every home game this year. (The only one missing is the game against Perth, aka the one where Vinnie Hughes punched that guy.)

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO ASK ME QUESTIONS, I COULD GO ON ABOUT THIS TEAM FOREVER.

LOL AIHL in Adelaide

2012-05-07T10:28:37Z

I have been in Adelaide this weekend! Among other things, I went to a Melbourne Ice vs Adelaide Adrenaline game with masterpenguin82 yesterday, and it was one of the best days of LOL AIHL yet. There were some impressive antics in the other games this week too (bitter Ice Dogs fans, Mustangs/Knights water bottle shenanigans, Knights/Thunder goalie fight rematch etc) but I have enough to talk about just from Adelaide.

NHL jersey watch
First up: I was surprised to discover the most popular NHL team here seems to be the Colorado Avalanche. Not only did I spot several Avs fans at the game (along with a Kings fan and a Leafs fan) but I also met two Avs fans at an AVcon (anime and video games convention) party on Saturday night. It's partly explained by the fact that the Adelaide team used to also be called Avalanche, I guess, but still a suprise!

The rink
Here are the important features of the Adelaide rink:
- Half the seating was set up on top of the casual skate ice adjacent to the hockey rink. masterpenguin82 and I sat there. IT WAS COLD.
- On almost all sides, there was no glass above the boards, just netting, and it wasn't secured at the bottom. This meant that when someone checked Doug Wilson into the boards right in front of us early in the first on Sunday, he almost went right over and into the stands.
- It also meant that at one point a puck ended up in the stands, and the two little boys in front of us wrestled over it. When one of them one, he threw his arms up in victory, facing the stands, and we all clapped. Then his dad made him give it back to the refs.
Last, and most importantly, the penalty picnic tables:

TRAFFIC BARRIERS OF SHAAAAAME. I'm so disappointed we never saw players from opposing teams in the box at the same time, because it would have been VERY INTERESTING. (Given how thorough Adelaide's media team are, I'm sure that if there's ever a fighting call on that rink, there's going to be video. :D) We did, however, get to see two Ice players banished to the penalty table at once so we could call "Picnic in the penalty box!"

Saturday

I wasn't at the Saturday game, but I heard reports of Jason Baclig having to go off with a nasty cut to the face, then coming back and scoring two goals. Fuck yeah. Adelaide won 6-5 but it sounded like a well-fought game, and because their club are awesome there's a highlights video.

Sunday
MAN THAT GAME WAS FUN. I don't think my memory's good enough for a complete recap, and there's another highlights reel available if you want to see that, but there were some really great moments. Both goalies were really on form, so scores were much lower this time. Doug Wilson almost got thrown into the crouwd, as previosly mentioned. (I would totally take Doug Wilson home, but he kind of lives there anyway.)

There was a scary fall by Rezek from Adelaide; he took a clean hit from Jason Baclig, but he must have hit the ice hard because it looked like he was out cold for a few seconds and had to be helped off the ice. But he was back on later in the game and really freaking good, but more about that in a minute.

Cassian Delsar was another, ah, entertaining player from Adelaide; he took a late penalty and was SO ANGRY as he was being led off to the picnic table of shame. It continues to be nice to barrack for a team that can score power play goals for a change! Both Ice's goals on Sunday came off power plays, and Adelaide's first goal too. Melbourne were leading 2-1 going into the third and held it for almost the whole period, until Adelaide scored a late goal (I think by pulling their goalie off the ice) and we went to a shootout.

First round shootout, both teams scored; Rezek the previously unconscious for Adelaide and Joey Hughes for Melbourne. Both teams missed in the second round of shootouts. Then at the third round, Adelaide went first and missed. Then Jason Baclig, the TINY SHORTASS LIGHT OF MY LIFE, took the final shot and scored, and immediately disappeared under a pile of screaming teammates. Seriously, they screamed like girls and all piled on top of him. Before that goal I hadn't seen Australian players being all that physically affectionate, but they had no pretense at being manly Australian men that night, they were OVER THE MOON.

Then on the way out, we had to file past the locker rooms, and saw about half the Melbourne team, one of them shirtless, running out of their own locker room and straight into the Adelaide one. So, uh, I don't know what's going on there. But yay for (shirtless) inter-team cameraderie I guess?

AND HOORAY FOR MELBOURNE ICE! I LOVE MY RIDICULOUS AUSTRALIAN HOCKEY TEAM! And masterpenguin82 for coming with me.

Three days of fucking brilliance

2012-02-02T10:08:20Z

I love that line from Fight Club about how you have to work for perfection and you can't expect it to last for more than a moment.

My Chemical Romance aren't my favourite band in the world. You could be forgiven for thinking they are, given how much I talk about them, but there are others that I love a little bit more and probably always will. But they are a band that I love very dearly and who have been important to me for a long time, and though I've had a somewhat tumultuous relationship with the band and their fans over the last year, I've just had three perfect days of MCR in a row and I couldn't ask for anything better. Ever.

Bitterness and navel-gazing
It seems like a long time since I first saw @AgentCherriCola tweeting about eating soundwaves, or was blown away by the Art Is The Weapon trailer, or sat in a Sydney hotel room with ladyfoxxx, gripping each other's hands as the last few notes of 'Na Na Na' faded out and we plunged into the unknown world of Danger Days, Track Three. Everything about being an MCR fan seemed shiny and new and unbelievably exciting, and overflowing with possibility.

But as excited as I was at first, seeing what they got up to and how alive the new shows seemed to be, as the World Contamination Tour went on over the following year, it just felt further and further away. Instead of enjoying watching videos of the band's shows online, or hearing accounts from friends who were there, I started hating it, because everyone was having so much fun and I just never got a chance to join in. The band seemed to tour the US, Europe and Japan again and again without ever coming somewhere I could even consider travelling to, and more and more, being a fan of this band, and knowing so many other fans all over the world started to make me feel shut out instead of included.

Part of it is just the way I act as a fan. I don't really do squee, and I absolutely don't do hyperbole. Not to mention that I don't think the members of this band, or any band, are wonderful, perfect, magical people - I think they're normal flawed people who are in a band. (And sometimes do shitty things, which I'm not going to pretend are okay because they're done by someone I like. I'm looking at you, Frank "go sit on a coathanger" Iero.) I don't think they're essentially different from any other band I like. And somewhere along the line I started to feel like a bad fan because I didn't, as the saying goes, drink the Kool-Aid.

And it doesn't help when you keep hearing, over and over again, how incredible their live shows are when you never fucking get to see any.

Most of the time I don't believe that I'm entitled to anything as a fan. The thing is, though, this wasn't the start of my frustration with MCR - it was the peak of it. The last time I'd seen the band play live was in 2007, when they put on a show that was frankly kind of shit. Bob was in hospital, they were all tired, and when they got up on stage it was painfully clear that they didn't actually want to be there. Then they were announced as headliners for Soundwave Festival here in 2010 and I thought, finally, I'll see them again when they're fresh and enjoying themselves, and all together. Except that then they pulled out of the tour and I'd paid over $100 non-refundable dollars for a festival that no longer featured the band I wanted to see.

So yeah, I felt like they did owe me something. By the time Reading & Leeds came around, every time someone said "Thank you MCR" I thought "Fuck you, MCR" instead. The only good thing about it was that I had a bunch of friends who were in the same boat. I really think masterpenguin82 and barefoot_starz are the only ones who really know how deep my bitterness got, because they shared it, and we could all be grumpy we-love-you-but-we-hate-you fans together. (I'd include pikasafire in this, but I think she was always better at staying positive than I was. Especially since she flew to the US to see them anyway. :p) It's not the only reason we got to be such close friends, but it helped.

We found out that MCR were playing at Big Day Out the evening before I flew out to Adelaide to see Panic at the Disco with them - the timing couldn't have been better if we tried. I officially put my bitterness on hold for a weekend to just be EXCITED, and we talked with delight about how great it was going to be to see them at last. And there was nothing more I wanted than to finally see the band with these friends, my comrades-in-grumpiness who had shared my bitterness and torn feelings at the way we'd felt jilted as fans for so long.

And then things changed, and plans had to be changed, and in the end it turned out I'd be going to Big Day Out without any of my fangirl friends, and masterpenguin82 and barefoot_starz wouldn't get to see the band play at all. For a while I felt bad about it, because it didn't seem fair, but I got to see MCR at a sideshow with pikasafire as well as kashiichan who had been through all the highs and lows of past shitty/cancelled tours with me, and in the end I got a really fantastic three days.

Sunday, Big Day Out, and a moment to myself
I did a review of BDO already, but I want to talk about it specifically for a moment here. I was disappointed that I didn't get to share this moment, the first time I'd seen this band in five years, with other friends who had wanted it just as badly at various points, but in a way it was kind of awesome that I got it to myself, too. I was right on the barrier, on left hand side of the stage, but I could see everything. (And get cups of water from the security staff to pour over my head because damn it was hot, and plus it made the headbanging more fun.) After all the times I'd had to listen to other people's accounts of MCR concerts and feel left out of such awesome experiences, I got to have one that was just mine, that nobody else got, either. And though it probably doesn't make much sense to anyone else, it kind of straightened me out, made everything feel okay again.

It's because it was amazing, not at all the disappointment I'd prepared myself for, and because it was just like seeing any other band. I'd said to ladyfoxxx a few weeks earlier that I wished sometimes I could just go back to thinking of MCR as a band and not THE band, the fandom, the community, everything. But it was just a normal band experience, like any other awesome band I go and see, and it was a relief because it made me realise that it's okay to think of them as ordinary human beings. It's okay that I don't think they're made of pixie dust or that they're the best people in the world. It doesn't mean I love them less that a fan who only talks about them in hyperbole and thinks they can do no wrong. I'm as much a fan as anyone else and I just fucking loved watching them play.

And I guess after a year of feeling shut out, there's a kind of beautiful justification in getting something that feels like it's just yours.

Monday, exhaustion and a signing

About a week before the tour began, notalwaysweak casually mentioned that the JB Hi-Fi below the office where she works was hosting an MCR signing the day after BDO and you could go in and get wristbands to take part. I promptly ran down there as fast as I could, got wristbands for myself and roxy_palace because she'd still be in Melbourne and she asked for one too, and then had ice-cream lunch with notalwaysweak while hyperventilating with excitement. Then I promptly started having this weird sense of doubt because it just didn't seem fair that I got to meet My Chemical Romance when masterpenguin82 and barefoot_starz wouldn't even get to see them play.

To cut to the chase, because this is a long enough post already, I resolved to get the band to sign things for masterpenguin82, barefoot_starz and pikasafire while I was there, and somehow I ended up making these:

The top one is for barefoot_starz and the photo sucks and doesn't show most of the design, but it's based on her tattoos. The middle one is for masterpenguin82, based on the album art for Powderfinger's Vulture Street, and the third is for pikasafire and was very, very vaguely inspired by the concept art relating to Darren Hayes' latest album. And post signing:

Frank, Gerard, Mikey, and then Ray's signature on my BDO ticket. If I thought to bring my own Killjoy mask, I would have gotten him to sign that, but I wasn't thinking that much.

I won't say much about the signing. It was cool and sort of unbelievable, because this band had seemed so distant for me for so long. As far as I know, they've never done any kind of meet-the-band/signing events in Australia before, and there was a time when I truly believed they'd never tour here again. To suddenly meet them in the flesh, have them comment on my painting skills and have Frank and Mikey shake my hand, just didn't seem like it should ever be possible. But hey. It happened. roxy_palace even took pictures.

I don't even know. I don't express excitement - or emotions in general - all that well sometimes. ~~unless I'm writing pen and paper letters and come out sounding unnaturally sentimental and a little like Pete Wentz~~ It was another experience that almost just confirmed for me that they're like any other band. But at the same time, holy shit, how is this my life and how do I live in a world where things like that can HAPPEN? What else can you even say? I don't know so I'm not saying anything.

Well, they probably say it to everyone, but they thought my painting was cool. That's something.

Tuesday, a headline show at last, fangirls and pure joy
Festival Hall in Melbourne isn't affectionately shortened to 'Festy Hall' just because it's the obvious way to shorten it. I'd never been to a show there before, with good reason, because it's a kind of awful venue. But I went there for MCR and have no regrets. Kind of the opposite.

I feel sad that the memory of Tuesday night's show is already slipping away a little. Yesterday I could still think back on it and put myself right in the moment, remember exactly what it felt like to sway with Lexi to 'The Only Hope For Me Is You', to hold kashiichan during 'Cancer', or to pretty much brawl with Sassbandit all the way through 'Vampire Money' like we were in our own circle pit of two. Today it's just that bit harder to put myself right in the moment.

Even though I'd been waiting for this show for five years and I'd finally be going with pikasafire (which meant more to me than any of you will ever know) as well as Sassbandit, Wereduck and kashiichan, I'd been preparing myself for disappointment. This was a band that had disappointed me a lot, and even after the unbelievably good time I'd had at BDO and the signing, I still kind of expected it from them. The venue would suck. I wouldn't be able to see anything. The mosh would be awful and I'd get knocked out and have to spend the whole show in First Aid. I'd make some kind of horrible social indecency and go home miserable because I'd damaged a friendship.

And even if none of that happened, how could one show possibly be as good as every one of the amazing concert stories I'd heard from my other friends over the past year?

I honestly don't know how, actually, but it did.

Do I want to go into details? I don't know if I can, or if I should. I have a horrible memory for setlists, though there's one on setlist.fm to aid my memory, but it's not really the point. There was the start of the show, with an eight-year-old dressed as Kobra Kid introducing the band before 'Look Alive, Sunshine' kicked in. There was Ray right in front of me, rocking out all night with a ferocity that I didn't know he was capable of. There was Gerard leaning out over the corner of the stage above us at the end of Planetary GO! and throwing a pink feather boa into the audience. There was Mikey tossing his his hair around magnificently. And there's James Dewees playing BASICALLY EVERYTHING, who is pretty much my favourite member of the band now even though he's not technically in the band. There was lots of Gerard swishiness and showponying, and the utterly gorgeous moment in the encore when he saw baby!Kobra Kid grooving at the side of the stage and pulled him out to the centre so they could both pogo together in front of everyone.

If you know the band, you know which songs feel amazing to dance to live, and why. For me it was special because of the people there, because I've never felt such a perfect balance between being carried away by the music and being so connected to my friends. Whether it was holding hands with kashiichan through the songs that hurt for both of us or roughhousing with Sassbandit, which was a new kind of high that I didn't even know I could get. Dancing with pikasafire because it will always be one of my favourite things and she just knows, okay, I don't have to explain. Even concert calling people I was missing made the whole experience better.

I didn't think just going to one concert could make me feel so connected to a community I'd started to feel separate from, but it did. And it made me realise how much I still fucking love this band, not because they're heroes but because they're a band like any other and they make fucking good music, and just like any band that makes fucking good music, nothing feels better than seeing them play it when you're surrounded by other people who love it too.

And you know the real test? I could have gone to Noel Gallagher that night instead, and I found out afterwards that Nic Cester was at Noel's show. And if I had the choice again, I'd still go to MCR.

So that was probably just about the most useless gig review ever. But come on. These things have always been more for me than for you.

Though not entirely about me, because if it was there would be even more detail about dancing and ~feelings and how Mikeyway is the only member of the band I felt even slightly inclined to vault over the table and kiss. But some details have to stay aaaall mine.

Big Day Out 2012

2012-01-29T23:23:53Z

Well that was amazing. Also, paaaaaain. I wish I could get away with NOT MOVING ALL DAY, wow.

A lot of things have made this year hard for BDO, and that makes me sad. I'm sad that Lees and West copped so much flack for booking Kanye West to headline the show, and that they took it so much to heart. I'm sad that Lees left the partnership after twenty years, and that West seems to be coping by slagging off AJ Maddah. I'm sad that Perth and Adelaide got stripped back and Auckland won't be happening at all from now on.

But really, music websites and blogs all over the country have had enough time to hash over it again and again, with every possible stupid variation. (In what way is Laneway Festival 'a good replacement'? No.) What I went to last night was a brilliant festival that BDO can be proud of. End of story.

Yes, it was hot. Not as hot as last year, and I don't seem to have gotten sunburn like I did during last year's "reapply every hour and still get burnt" ultraviolet hell, but hot enough that from 11 to at least 2 I had a constant sheen of sweat over my entire body. I think I got a bit dehydrated despite constantly drinking water because at one point I was sweating it out faster than I could drink without being sick. THESE THINGS HAPPEN.

But enough about the gross limits of my frail human body in the endurance test of the summer music festival. BIG DAY OUT WOOOOOO. The festival slight has been rearranged slightly from the layout over the last few years - the main stages are on a different angle so they didn't create such a traffic bottleneck, and every stage except the main stage was under a tent. The placing of the Green Stage was slightly different, but you could still see the stage from the railway embankment, and I'm good as long as I can still catch my catnaps between sets.

OKAY I WILL SHUT UP AND TALK ABOUT THE MUSIC NOW, GOD.

Papa Vs Pretty
First band of the day, and seeing these guys was nice in part because there was nobody there yet, unlike the pandemonium that came from The Vines opening the festival last year. I saw PVP doing a few support gigs during 2011 and it's been fun seeing them improve. They're not one of my favourite new locals, but they've got potential. Plus, they covered 'Bullet With Butterfly Wings', which was fabulous. I've always loved yelling along to that song and getting to do it at a live show was brilliant.

Frenzal Rhomb
Being a Melbourne punk fan, of course I've heard of Frenzal, but because of the way they went on hiatus around the time I came of legal gig-going age, I'd never seen them live until now. So much fun! Jeez they play fast, though. At one point they ripped through five songs in what must have been less than five minutes, and when the singer stopped to say something, the bassist says "No time to talk, we still have 120 more to get through." PLUS the drummer brought his adorable 4-year-old son along, so in between songs we got treated to "If you want to hit daddy's drums, you have to try to do it in time" and "You know how dad doesn't have a real job? This is why." And there was some gentle mocking of Parkway Drive, as you do. Something about salt and seawater. I also liked their habit of responding to song requests with "I can't hear you man, you have too much cock in your mouth." Basically they're hardcore and sweethearts and I'm so glad I finally got to see them.

Parkway Drive
Parkway Drive are great at revving up a crowd, I'll give them that, but strangely I didn't enjoy this as much as I thought I would. Maybe it was just that after two sets at the main stage I'd spent too much time in the sun, or maybe they were having an off day, or perhaps the sound system just couldn't handle Karma. I don't know. I'm glad I got to see them, but it didn't really click for me.

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard
The sole reason I saw this band was that I wanted to get some shade and the Hot Produce tent was the closest one. It was a lucky coincidence! I quite liked their brand of swing-y rock, even if I spent much of the time lying on the ground with a hat covering my face.

The Getaway Plan
And over to the Green Stage to grab some time on my favourite bit of grass. I've been wanting to see The Getaway Plan for a while, but I keep missing them, and it was good to finally get the chance. They're the kind of pop-punk that's like crack to me, with some would-sound-good-in-stadiums hugeness thrown in. I think I need to get more familiar with their music before I can properly appreciate it, but it was still great to see.

Hilltop Hoods
Getting back into the D for HH was a bloodbath, because they were a hiphop act sandwiched between two folk bands and a chuck of rock bands, so almost everyone just wanted to get in for Hilltop and out again afterwards. But once we were in it was a blast. Hilltop fans are not the kinds of fans I would normally hang out with, but when you love the music it doesn't matter. They're so much fun to dance to, they know how to get a crowd going, and really, I consider a summer incomplete until I've had a singalong to 'Nosebleed Section'. I maybe got a bit choked up singing 'These days turned out nothing like I had planned', though, and it's been eighteen months now since I last sang along to that line at a concert. But still. A little bit of Powderfinger lives on in Hilltop Hoods, and I'm grateful for that as well as for 'Nosebleed Section' and for Hilltop's entire existence.

The Living End
I jumped in the TLE mosh for a few songs (Song For The Lonely, Second Solution, Raise the Alarm \o/) before I went and snagged a spot at the other stage for MCR. I loved that I was surrounded by MCR fans and they were all looking over at TLE and singing along to a lot of the songs, though. Fandom overlap! It's... a little weird to realise that a lot of them knew White Noise but not, say, Roll On. I feel old. Oh well. I didn't have enough of a view to count bass-stands (sorry, ladyfoxxx!) but there were a few, and Chris Cheney was in great form, because I think this band just loves BDO no matter what the circumstances. He played Waltzing Matilda for some reason, and made us sing happy birthday to Big Day Out. And I loved that he actually kind of seemed to be into Prisoner of Society again, after years of being sick of it. Even though this involved saying "This song is dedicated to all the softcocks over there" thus ensuring that the fans on the MCR side of the ring screamed "WE DON'T NEED NO-ONE TO TELL US WHAT TO DO" with their biggest, brattiest screams. It was beautiful.

My Chemical Romance
I almost want to just not say anything about it. Not because it was bad, because there's no way I could say that MCR disappointed me yesterday. They did the opposite. (I mean Geeway apologised for cancelling the 2010 tour and dedicated 'Helena' to everyone who bought tickets for it. IT MEANT A LOT TO ME, OKAY.) It's just that I've been waiting for this for five years. And for the last year-and-a-bit of that I've been watching from a distance as so many of the other fans I know saw MCR put on amazing, mindblowing shows everywhere else, and while I loved living vicariously through them at first, after a while I started to feel shut out. And because of more recent personal reasons that I haven't talked about much, this set really hit me where it hurt (in the good way). So in a weird, selfish way, I kind of want to keep that hour of music to myself instead of sharing it.
(Though I will note that the fact that they basically had to play while facing into the sun gave the "against the sun we're the enemy" line in DESTROYA a bit of extra punch. And that I got a great spot for watching James and I love him SO MUCH.)
But you know, I've dreamed about standing with a crowd of people in the summer sun and singing "Welcome to the Black Parade" for so long, long before I even knew they'd be playing BDO, and when I looked over my shoulder towards the end and saw all these people punching the air in time with me, with the sunlight in their hair and unguarded feelings on their faces, it was even better than I'd always imagined.

Regurgitator
I spent most of the 'Gurge set lying on the slope to one side of the tent rather than inside it, though I managed to get up and dance for 'Polyester Girl' and 'I sucked a lot of cock to get where I am', but for the most part I was content to just lie down and enjoy the ~classics~. Plus roxy_palace swung by at the end and stuck around for much of Foster The People as well, so that was exciting!

Foster The People
This band really needed to be on a bigger stage. REALLY. By the end people were spilling out of all sides of the tent. speep told me that on Wednesday night the frontman alone needed a bigger stage and faceplanted mid-verse. (But got right up and kept singing, WHAT A CHAMP.) He was a bit more cautious yesterday, but this set was still way more INTENSE than I thought it would be. I tend to think of Foster The People as light and guitar-y, but with the drums and bass yesterday, they packed a hell of a punch. Would watch again!

Noel Gallagher
Admittedly by this time I was so tired that I was not entirely with it. I really just stood there and swayed along with the music. But I really do love Noel's new music, and his stuff gets under my skin in a way that not many bands can. When he closed the set with "Don't Look Back In Anger" it was... I can't describe the feeling in the tent right then. It was just one brilliant, magical moment to end the day on. Everyone in that tent was hugging and crying and punching the air and singing along. Guys that I'd seen trying to punch each other out a few songs ago were hugging each other. Just a beautiful, happy, uplifting end to the day, and I can't ask for anything better.

Kanye West was still going when we stomped out to the train station. I wavered a bit on whether to see Kanye or Noel for the end of the day, and I'm glad I picked Noel, but it was still really cool that I could see the light show from the mainstage as I walked through the stalls, and hear 'Stronger' all the way up to the platform. As the train pulled away I could look out the window and see all the way across the venue to where the lights were still clearly blazing and the first few notes of 'Runaway' were ringing out. It was over and it was the best.

I think I need another shower even though I already had one last night. My skin still doesn't feel like my skin!

A Short Stack primer, because I can't sleep and why the hell not

2012-01-27T15:17:04Z

I don't think it's exactly the ideal time to be making a primer on Short Stack. It's 1am and I can't sleep and I'm drinking chamomile tea with a hefty slug of whisky in it to try to compensate and it's still not working. But Shaun Diviney is tweeting about MCR (omg his background is Teenage Mutant Ninja Squirtles) and it seems as good a time as any to do this. So. This won't be the most thoroughly researched primer ever because I can't be bothered digging up Twitter arguments from 2010 or combing the internet for the best of their 30-odd video diaries, but I do intend to show you why I love them even though most Ozrock fans like me hate them.

SHORT STACK

Short Stack are a band from Budgewoi, New South Wales, Australia. They're famous for their weird hairstyles, skintight jeans, being complete idiots and basically forming a band so that they could hang out with Good Charlotte.

Left to right: Bradie Webb (drums) Shaun Diviney (vocals) and Andy Clemmensen (bass)

Where's the guitarist? Shaun plays guitars for recordings and used to play guitar live, except that eventually he decided to get a tour guitarist because if he just did vocals at live shows then he could stick his hand down his pants more often.

Shaun, Bradie and Andy have been friends basically forever. At high school they loved listening to Good Charlotte and My Chemical Romance and basically decided to form a band that sounded like them. Of course, their version of things is different. I'm just going to C&P the bio from their old Myspace page. Sorry for the wall of text but I couldn't bear to leave out any details.

This is the part where we are supposed to list the reasons why we are the best band in the world and why you should buy our records and want to sleep with us. But lying is what boys like us do best, so lets roll. (You have to pretend I’m dictating this to a small circa 18th Century English boy while I sit in my mansion next to a warm fireplace, which gently laps my ankles.) Short Stack are three really good looking boys from Budgewoi. They were hand picked by Jesus, Elvis and Superman to save the world (yes, in heaven Jesus and Elvis are friends). They are: Shaun Diviney (that’s me): I write the songs, sing and play geetah. Andy Clemmensen: plays bass to the theme tunes and back up sings the theme tunes. Bradie Webb: plays drums to the theme tunes and plays keys to the theme tunes. But we are all really good dancers. So we have been together for a bout 3 years. We met in a P.O.W. camp in ‘nam kicking Charlie’s ass. No just kidding, we met on a train on the way to school. On this train, we got into a lot of trouble off the police for many reasons: 1 We used to play murder in the dark in the carriage 2 We had races through the baggage compartments in the roof 3 Once we wrapped an entire carrige in glad wrap and a bogan tried to set us on fire 4 We teased old people 5 We stole all the train cups and we all had a wardrobe full of cups 6 And we used to throw jelly at everyone and stick things to the roof with jelly Anyway, we have been friends for forever and been a band for about 3 years now. We played a lot of shows in Newcastle and thought we were really good… but we actually weren’t. We played about 100 local shows in Newcastle and the Newcastle music scene made us the band we are today. But we wanted to play in Sydney, so we entered this competition called “YOUTHROCK”. In 2005, we didn’t even pass the first round, but in 2006 we made it to the finals. The people there didn’t really like us but we came third in the state which is pretty cool. There were comments such as: “Short stack are the worst band I have ever seen, ever.” And my sexual orientation was brought into question, wow, how original. Haha. This started a long line of critism, such as (taking this from a youtube video): “The lead singer is GAY. Look at his movments and watch his hand...” “This is a disgrace to music. They all look like total wannabes. And have NO talent whatsoever. The lead singer is so ugly, and his voice is my worst nightmare, he sounds like a cat being strangled. And the guy with no top on makes me want to puke. This band altogether spells bullshit.” Well we do like women. And I don’t just like any kind of women, I like VERY attractive women. I have never kissed an ugly girl, not once. And I bet you have. So before we even start, I’m one step ahead

... yeah.

Before I get to some of the STUPID SHIT THESE BOYS DO, maybe I should give you an example of the music! This was their first big hit, Sway Sway Baby. It made teenage girls all over Australia adore them, and every single other person in the Australian music scene loathe them:

That rabbit that Andy gets caught in bed with is totally Patrick Stump. Don't try to convince me otherwise. Either that or the whole clip is some weird long-distance attempt to seduce Pete Wentz.

Anyway, this was followed by the launch of their first album, 'Stack Is The New Black' (yeah, I know) along with their weird logo:

I also highly recommend the B-side Darling I'll Be Your Werewolf to fully appreciate the lolziness of their music.

And then they went on tour and shenanigans happened. They dressed up:

They dressed down:

They got way too excited about being old enough to drink now:

(Honestly, boys, you got a rider full of vodka cruisers?)

Shaun continued to wish he was Pete Wentz:

And then there are things that are harder to explain. Because it's about the end of the SITNB album cycle that they got into a ridiculous one-sided 'war' with Powderfinger.

Powderfinger, for those who don't know, are fairly unknown outside Australia, but within our borders they're one of the most successful and best-loved Australian bands of all time. They have stacks of ARIA awards, topped the Triple J Hottest 100 two years in a row, almost all their singles since 1996 have been well-played and well-known, and their 2000 album Odyssey Number Five was last year voted the greatest Australian album of all time. So they're not exactly lightweights in the Australian music scene.

I think it was late 2009 that Bernard Fanning, Powderfinger's frontman, was doing an interview on Channel V and at the end was asked what advice he would give to young Australian artists. His response was "I think they should spend more time on their songwriting and less on their hairstyles." The station then cut straight to a Short Stack videos.

All three members of Short Stack then got hilariously defensive and started slagging off Powderfinger on Twitter. I was particularly fond of Shaun saying "Fuck you Bernard, you're just jealous because you've spent twenty years writing the same song," an insult so astoundingly untrue that it still makes me giggle. Not only that, but the legions of intensely overinvested Short Stack fans then became outraged on their behalf and also started yelling at Powderfinger on Twitter. At some point a Melbourne radio presenter made a blog post about it that was basically "lol Short Stack" and then SS fans started leaving ragey comments all over her blog, too.

The whole thing eventually petered out because Short Stack lost the attention span for it and Powderfinger were laughing too hard to keep up their side of the 'feud', but it was a hoot.

Some time after this, Short Stack went into writing mode and then came out with their second album, This Is Bat Country. Yes, I KNOW.

For some reason they thought this was a good way to advertise it:

Before they even toured it themselves (as far as I know, anyway) they went on tour supporting Good Charlotte, during which we learned that the first album Shaun ever bought was a Good Charlotte one, and also discovered Shaun's newfound love of sticking his hand down his pants and groping himself in front of a stadium full of people. Sadly, I haven't been able to find video of this, but it happened enought that people argued about it on tumblr. So that's a thing. And for some reason people kept throwing bras at Andy:

This album was full of new hilarious songs like Planets, which I think is about being in love with an alien:

They also did stuff like this!

While I'm on the topic of Andy, he got his first tattoo of Short Stack's weird logo around this time:

Andy, incidentally, is quite open about the fact that he reads Short Stack fanfic. I don't know why because there is NO FIC AT ALL about the fact that Andy complained that getting a tattoo on his right wrist meant he couldn't masturbate for a few days. I mean, that's just BEGGING for fic about bandmates helping him out, right? Short Stack fandom is the worst.

Sometimes Andy is also the worst, like in a weird incident where he plagiarist a review of Kanye West's latest album. Somehow he thought claiming that a friend wrote it was a good response. Mess + Noise then published a review of This Is Bat Country that was entirely plagiarised from other sources. Around the same time they also wrote a heartfelt, gushing review of MCR's Danger Days. Go figure.

Shaun was on an episode of Spicks and Specks at one point. The whole episode's on Youtube (Part 1 | Part 2) but the only bit you really need to see is this clip before Substitute, in which Shaun demonstrates that his band might not be *really* emo but he's still pretty good at self-pity, and Alan tells everyone that they are not to feel sorry for him.

Since then they have done other amusing things like get into ANOTHER internet flamewar with another artist (this time 360, who I know nothing about because I'm a crappy skip-hop fan) and let Andy direct a documentary about themselves while expecting me to take it seriously, but it's time I got some sleep so I'm leaving it there. Short Stack are basically a bunch of silly young men, but they're cute and entertaining and I really do find some of their music pretty catchy. And at the end of the day they're still just three boys who wanted Geeway to notice them. He hasn't yet, but they made a lot of money trying and won the hearts of tons of Australian girls, so I guess it all works out.

Edit of additional funny bits that will be added to as Short Stack continue to fail at life:

Here is a music video from a Sydney band, in which Shaun has a cameo role as a guy who gets caught naked in the shower with a yeti. I'm starting to think they have a genuine furry obsession.

Apparently this happened in their documentary? I haven't seen it because as I said, Andy shot it and they still expect me to take it seriously. These gifs aren't helping their case.

Happy day of whatever where you don't go to work

2012-01-25T21:43:02Z

It's Australia Day! Which means lots of things to lots of different people and is kind of a weird holiday no matter what, which I guess is why we have the Triple J Hottest 100, so that there's something to celebrate today other than our messy colonial past. I don't know if it's better or worse to kind of forget the reasons behind the holiday to listen to a music countdown, but I guess at least it's a change from the national pride vs black armband debates. Or something.

Nevertheless, Australia Day is always going to be about music for me, for reasons beyond just the Hottest 100, so here are some songs for your day.

First and foremost, Australia Day will always be anniversary of Stevie Plunder's death in 1996. Stevie was then the frontman of my favourite band, The Whitlams, and wrote some beautifully bright and sad songs when he was in the band. 'Following My Own Tracks' is the most cheerful song about addiction that I've ever heard.

On a happier note, today marks two years since I saw Nic Cester perform 'Back in Black' with Muse at the Big Day Out. It was one of a few events that summer that had a huge impact on my life from that point on, and it remains one of the best days of my life so far. Even aside from their collaboration, no show in the last two years has given me a high like moshing to Jet did that day.

Kate Miller-Heidke has always been great at bringing the funny. 'Southern Cross Tattoo' is the only song I've ever heard specifically about Australia Day, and it pretty much sums it up. Extra love for the chorus, which just goes "yeah nah yeah nah yeah nah yeah".

Our national anthem is kind of boring, and we are notorious for not really knowing the words. Adam Hills isn't the best singer but he sings the best Advance Australia Fair ever.

And finally a shout-out to Gotye, because if this song doesn't top the Hottest 100 today then I think Triple J might just implode or something.

And because I've said it before, but you know how fandom sometimes talks about id-fic? 'Somebody I Used To Know' is like my id-song. It has a slow build-up, it's about breakups and longing and guilt, it's a duet, there are two sides, there's ambiguity, and a bit of wailing in the chorus.

Anyway, hope you have a good day wherever you are. I'm going to be trying to get to two BBQs with a badass motherfucking salad I made last night while watching a Spiderbait concert.

Fic: Unintended Benefits 1/?

2012-01-25T19:00:17Z

These days, I look around fandom and see lots of well-planned, well-thought out, carefully edited fic. Which is great! I like that we all hold ourselves to high standards. But sometimes I just want to post something that I wrote in a quick, silly rush and maybe add more chapters later if I feel like it, just because.

And also the 'Employee of the month at Cafe Dewees' interview happened at least a week ago and SOMEBODY has to write the fic, even if it's a hastily written to-be-continued by someone who doesn't like coffee.

Title: Unintended Benefits
Fandom: Bandom (MCR)
Pairing: James/Ray, eventually, if I continue it, which depends entirely on how I feel
Summary: Ray is employee of the month at Cafe Dewees before he's even started.

Once upon a time there was a man named Ray who wanted to work at a cafe. He had no particular plans at this point in his life, he just wanted to buy guitars and go to see Metallica concerts a lot, but he knew how to make coffee. All his friends drank lots of coffee and they liked to come over to Ray's house because his house was always clean and had food in the fridge that wasn't mouldy, which you couldn't say for Gerard, Mikey or Frank. (Bob was also inclined to be tidy and have food that was edible, but he was more particular about when he let people invade his house and eat his food, and he was very firm with Mikey and Gerard about the fact that Bob was not their mom and he wasn't going to make them any goddamn coffee.) Ray's friends would be totally happy if he just made them instant coffee, they really weren't picky about their coffee source, but Ray believed that if things were worth doing, they were worth doing as well as possible within his limited budget, so he tried to make the best coffee he could.

(Which had the side effect of people occasionally coming around to his house and demanding coffee at inconvenient times, but Ray tried to take that as a compliment. And hey, he wasn't averse to throwing Frank out when he was being an annoying little shit, either.)

Unfortunately, Ray's budget was not all that big, because most of what he got from gigs went towards keeping his guitars in good nick, because he loved them more than pretty much anything. (Definitely more than he loved coffee, not as much as he loved his friends, but maybe more than he loved Iron Maiden.) So he reasoned that the best place to start looking for jobs would be to find a job making coffee, because he'd honed his skills to perfection.

Starbucks were disappointingly dismissive, even after Gerard protested that they had an obligation to hire his friend when he was one of their most dependable customers, and if they couldn't appreciate Ray then Gerard would buy his four coffees a day somewhere else. Despite the considerable threat, Starbucks remained unimpressed by Ray's decision to wear an Iron Maiden T-shirt to his job interview. Ray conceded that this was probably not a great job interview decision, but he didn't have any other shirts. He'd have to take some money out of the guitar fund to buy some more respectable shirts.

As he was walking home dejectedly from Starbucks, though, with Gerard ranting behind him, he saw a grubby little cafe with a hand-written 'barista wanted' sign in the window, and thought that maybe this was the kind of place that would appreciate him.

"Hi," said the short man behind the counter, when Ray walked into the empty shop. "I love your shirt. What can I get you?"

This, Ray thought, was going to go well.

"Actually, I wanted to ask about the barista job," Ray said.

"Oh, cool!" The man said, and walked around to shake his hand. "I'm James Dewees, store owner."

"Ray Toro," he grinned back.

"So do you have any training as a barista?"

Oh. Maybe this wasn't going to go so well.

"No, but his coffee's amazing!" Gerard piped up. "It's even better than Starbucks. I mean, just. But Starbucks is pretty awesome and Ray's even better. They're idiots for saying they wouldn't hire him."

"Gerard, that's not really helping." Maybe this wasn't going to go so well.

James was just watching Ray sort of expectantly, though, and he realised he had to say something. "Uh, I taught myself. I haven't used a commercial machine before but I know the theory, I guess."

James raised an eyebrow. "There's coffee theory?"

Ray's shoulders sagged. "I like reading up on things."

"Well, let's see what you taught yourself, then," James said, with a shrug, and pointed towards the counter. "I like a cappucino this time of day."

Ray was nervous with the huge machine, but as soon as he had a jug of milk in his hand and the machine whirring to life, he felt right at home again. This was just what he'd always do, but with better equipment. Ray liked it when he got a hold of some good equipment. Once he got started, he knew exactly what he was doing, and he was so focused that it didn't even worry him when he heard Gerard saying "Really, a cappucino? You don't seem like a cappucino kind of guy at all! I figured you'd me more a double-shot latte kinda guy, you look way too cool for a cappucino. I mean, not that there's anything wrong with your coffee choices..."

When Ray handed James the cup of coffee a few minutes later, his prospective boss was watching him with a look of reservation. Not judging him, or disapproving, but withholding from any kind of comment until he'd tasted it. If anything, he looked kind of curious. But after the first sip, he blinked down at his cappucino like he couldn't believe it, took another sip and then stared at Ray in amazement as he put it down.

"Toro, was it?" he asked, as he clapped him on the shoulder.

"Yes?"

"Congratulations, you just won employee of the month at Cafe Dewees."

"What?" Ray asked, bewildered, "So you're gonna hire me?"

"Oh dude, I was gonna hire you anyway," James grinned, "But with skills like that I want you here for life."

"Are there any other employees?" Gerard asked, suddenly. "Because it's a pretty easy win if it's just you."

"Well, it's tough being beaten after my perfect streak, but it's about time someone took it off me," James said. "So, Toro, when can you start?"

"Um, whenever?"

"Tomorrow okay then? We open at 8 for the morning pre-work rush."

"Sure, I can do that," Ray said, eagerly, ignoring Gerard's look of horror at the thought of starting work at 8 am. "I can't wait!"

"Go Toro!" Gerard said, happily, and then leaned in to whisper "I get discounted coffee for getting you the job, right?"

At least I can still put the w(h)ine in the freezer

2012-01-18T07:28:34Z

It's exactly nine months since I started working at Parliament, and while it's basically the best thing that's ever happened to me, I have to admit that it's significantly detracted from my ability to write LJ posts. There are heaps of things I want to post about (the true love of Ray Toro and James Dewees, for example, or the fact that I went to the last Spicks & Specks show ever and that is unbelievably sad and also Adam Hills dressed as Beyonce unf) but I haven't really been making the time to sit down and write a good post. All my 'sit down and write' time ends up being spent on fiction. So I only end up writing actual posts when I'm grumpy enough about something to rant.

So, we all have dumb, irrelevant things that put us off, right? That just bother you for the rest of the day? Mine is having to throw out food. I guess it's probably a result of growing up seeing ads for World Vision or something. But the thing is, having to throw food away makes me irrationally upset. I have a genuine terror of mould on my food.

So I got home from work thsi afternoon after what turned out to be a kind of stressful day of work to find I'd left my fridge door ajar all day. I just slammed it shut straight away and haven't opened it since, but the thermometer read 22 degrees and I think I'll probably have to throw out at least half the food in there, and that is going to be really miserable. :(

Fortunately I had the eerie foresight to buy a six-pack of UHT milk on the way home so I can still have milk in my tea in the morning, and I didn't have any meat in there. But maaaan, that is just not what I needed.

Oh well, I have wine and chips and M*A*S*H on TV, so this evening is not all bad. But that part still sucked.

In other news, I wrote a fic for the Canadian Shack challenge and to my utter amazement, some people have actually read it! A Typical Holiday, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Haruhi and Kyon go on a holiday to Canada and have to hide in a cabin during a blizzard, which Kyon things is the worst holiday ever and Haruhi thinks is awesome. For once I wish I could reply to kudos to thank people for reading anything in my tiny anime fandom.

At some point I need to get myself set up on Dreamwidth again but I am too lazy and worried about my fridge. :(

Year in review fic meme

2012-01-07T00:53:23Z

I'm starting this meme now in the hope that by the time I'm finished, bandomstuffsit will have made their reveal post and I can de-anon about that fic properly.

13-01-2011 | The Old-Fashioned Way | Muse RPF, mutant babyfic because I was so excited about Kate Hudson being pregnant (shaddup)
02-02-2011 | May Induce Side Effects | Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Yuki/Ryoko sickfic
23-02-2011 | Trouble Of Our Own Creation | Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, nobody has powers AU
28-02-2011 | There's always room for an encore | Top Gear RPF, band AU
01-03-2011 | Damage Control | Top Gear RPF, politician/hooker AU
31-03-2011 | Rhythm was meant to be shared | bandom, Bob/Mikey
24-04-2011 | Square Hole Seeks Square Peg | Hana Kimi, Mizuki/Nakatsu
21-05-2011 | Out of Practice | My Jet RPF is just embarrassing
29-05-2011 | "Stop before you ruin Journey for me forever" | bandom, Gerard & Mikey brotherliness
29-06-2011 | The pieces don't fit but they still make a picture | bandom, unrequited Spencer/Dallon
31-08-2011 | I can't be tempted by what I already have | Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Kyon/Haruhi/Mikuru
05-09-2011 | You know what they do to guys like us in community service (Nothing!) | Bandom, Bert/Gerard
20-09-2011 | Designer Belt timestamp | Glee, Kurt/Puck
24-09-2011 | The fic I didn't write for bandombigbang | bandom, Patrick/Pete, Patrick/MCR gsf, notfic
28-09-2011 | Texture | Jet RPF, Chris/Mark, furry
25-10-2011 | If I Just Keep Breathing | Bandom, Bob has an eating disorder
01-11-2011 | Five More Minutes | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
01-11-2011 | The Fool Who Follows Him | Savage Garden RPF
08-11-2011 | Stage Props | Utena, Nanami character piece
18-12-2011 | Terrible Top Gear | Top Gear/Horrible Histories crossover
24-12-2011 | A new twist on the old game | All Creatures Great And Small
25-12-2011 | How To Win Your Timeslot | Community/Big Bang Theory crossover
26-12-2011 | Ideal Study Conditions | Azumanga Daioh, Yomi/Tomo
26-12-2011 | Happily Ever Somewhere Else | Muriel's Wedding, Muriel/Rhonda
28-12-2011 | Home in Exile | bandom, Pete/Mikey/Alicia, for bandomstuffsit
30-12-2011 | Get out before the credits roll | Community

25 fics, one not!fic and 78 776 words. Nothing like what I wrote last year, but I never expected to have two years like THAT in a row.

It's one thing to list fics, but I like to do some statistics as well.

The only thing I can think when I look at that is "How the hell did I write so much slash?"

Really. Where did that come from? These pie charts usually come out at least 50% green. I have no idea how I ended up writing so much M/M this year. Okay, a large part of the wordcount one was my BBB fic, but that doesn't account for the sheer numbers of them. WTF.

My best story of the year: There are a lot of fics I'm proud of this year. 'The pieces don't fit' is, I think, the dearest to me, but 'Home in Exile' and 'How To Win Your Timeslot' are also some of my best writing ever.

My favourite story of the year: 'The pieces don't fit' again. Normally it's hard to pick one but that one just came to me so easily, I love the feel of it, and the subject matter is so close to my heart.

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe: I would have liked 'Square Hole Seeks Square Peg' to get more attention, but Hana Kimi is such a tiny fandom that I can't really expect it. So I'm going to say 'There's always room for an encore' because I think it's an excellent piece of writing and an excellent AU, and it barely made a ripple.

Most popular story: 'Community Service' got the most hits due to bandombigbang exposure, but the stories with the most comments are the ones I've written in the last month; 'Terrible Top Gear' because of Yuletide, and the two Community fics I've posted.

Story with the single sexiest moment: 'I can't be tempted' is the only one that got a comment on its hotness - woo, people like threesomes! - but I think 'Square Hole Seeks Square Peg' was the most intense. For me, though, the hottest thing was 'Ideal Study Conditions', where Tomo is tied up and frustrated and Yomi is just so content.

Maybe next year I will actually write actual sex scenes. I'm getting there.

Most 'holy crap that's wrong, even for you': Mark Wilson/Chris Cester furry fic. I don't care what you all think, I love that fic to bits.

Story that shifted by perception of the characters: Home in Exile, I guess, because it made me think about Pete/Alicia dynamics in more depth than I ever have before.

Hardest story to write/biggest disappointment: I still haven't finished Lift-To-Drag Ratio. Or my other Haruhi Suzumiya longfic. The hardest thing to write that I actually finished was Community Service, which I would have abandoned if it hadn't gotten claimed, and which I'm still really not happy with.

Favourite OC: The only ones I wrote were nameless soldiers in Home In Exile and the guy with the clipboard in Get out before the credits.

Biggest surprise: Home In Exile. Not exactly the way it turned out (though when I started, I didn't expect it to get to 8k) but how much I enjoyed the writing process. I was stuck on it a lot, but it was the kind of plot that left me with the sort of logical plot-progression puzzles I love solving, like how to get Alicia into a watched building, and then how to get her and Pete out again. And that's true on a world-building level too. It's the best world-building I've ever done, and I think that's because I set out the conditions of the dystopia to suit the plot, with the balance between electronic surveillance and relying on more primitive technologies to evade it, and what it's like to live without modern communications when you're so used to it. I just love that story to bits.

Most unintentionally telling story: I don't think anything's unintentionally telling, but 'The pieces don't fit' and 'If I Just Keep Breathing' were the ones where I drew the most on my own experiences, and particularly painful experiences at that. They're easily fics with the most of me in them.

2012 ambitions: Finish Lift-To-Drag Ratio and Death of an Atheist, my two massive Haruhi Suzumiya fics. Knock a few other things off the WIP list while I'm at it. Don't sign up to any more challenges until November. Write more Community fic. And write some goddamn porn for once in my life.

Fic: How to Win Your Timeslot

2011-12-24T23:08:28Z

Hi LJ! Merry Christmas! It is very hot here. It's also not Yuletide yet in Australia, but before half of fandom (and particularly Community fandom) goes nuts over Yuletide, I wrote a thing for notalwaysweak already.

Title: How To Win Your Timeslot
Fandom: Community/Big Bang Theory
Rating: G, (also gen)
Summary: Sheldon would like to know why there's a strange man in his apartment shooting paintballs. It shouldn't be such an unreasonable question.

What conflict can't be resolved with paintball?

Writing is hard

2011-12-14T19:51:54Z

Writing fic for Community: half an hour to write the plot, three days of research to get that one pop culture reference just right.

What's the quickest way to get my hands on Firefly? Preferably an episode where River says something and nobody believes her and she turns out to be right?

"What the hell are regionals?"

2011-12-10T06:56:37Z

I have two main things to say about the latest Community episode:

1. THIS WAS SO AMAZING I'M STILL NOT SICK OF WATCHING IT
2. HOW AM I GOING TO SURVIVE THE INDEFINITE HIATUS BEFORE I SEE IT AGAIN????
(3. I love 'Teach Me How To Understand Christmas' gets better every time I see it.)

It's hard to express how much I loved this episode without basically re-enacting it.

Right from the start, the mocking of Glee is excellent. I love the early Christmas montage, and the way they got slammed by Jeff for copyright infringement. (AND THEN THE SHOW HAD ONLY ORIGINAL SONGS.)
Oh and by the way Abed basically wanting them all to get together and watch a fictional version of the Star Wars Holiday Special was pretty cool.

I love that it starts with Abed! And sucking other people in! And making use of Donald Glover's rapping! Then you've got the GLEE STYLE ACAPELLA BACKGROUND MUSIC. And the looks of horror when the study room is set up like the rehearsal room in Glee. "Good point. Sing about it?" It's my favourite ridiculous thing about Glee, put into my favourite show!

'Baby Boomer Santa', aside from being a plot to suck Pierce into the glee club, is a great musical version of what Community usually does with TV/movie pop culture references. I think my favourite part was Troy being Bob Dylan - and wearing one of those harmonica holders without doing anything else with his hands. Or, for that matter, playing the harmonica.

The way they sucked Shirley in really got me. I loved it despite how touchy it is, but it might just be the best ue of Shirley all year.

AND LET BRITTA SING HER HEART SONG. LET BRITTA SING HER AWKWARD SONG! (Even though she can clearly actually sing as seen at the end.)

Look, most of the best moments in Community are so beautifully constructed that trying to talk about them seems to diminish them. The moment at the end when Jeff says he's thinking of seeing a new shrink is one of my favourites for the whole episode, but it's tiny and funny and brilliant. Just like Troy's shock, which turns out to be about Inspector Spacetime.

There's not a lot of sense in this post, I'm sorry. I'm just full of joy about this episode and sadness that I don't even know how long it'll be before Community comes back again. That's all that I really need to EXPRESS to you all, you know?

Except that I do kind of need to talk about 'Teach He How To Understand Christmas' because it appeals to me on every single possible weird level. I appreciate Annie's boobs, and on first viewing I was mainly torn between the 'this is so sexist' and 'perfect Marilyn Monroe homage' reactions. But the more I watch it the more I love it as a deconstruction of the stupid sexpot song as a genre. And beyond that, there's the fact that Jeff doesn't even like it. The way he sits there with scantily-clad Annie singing and dancing all over him, and he just looks disappointed and confused and a little disgusted, and he even says "You're an intelligent woman, you don't need to do this", IT'S JUST PERFECT. It should be extraordinarily cheesy and hackneyed but they actually pulled it off and I loved it. It was my favourite song of the episode and after six viewings I'm not sick of it yet.

SERIOUSLY WHY IS IT GOING AWAY? WHAT AM I GOING TO DOOOOO?

nil

2011-11-28T21:26:00Z

Writing stories about couples/threesomes roleplaying as Star Wars characters is not the kind of thing that should become a habit.

(I have other things to talk about like Tim Freedman's new band and how the ARIAs miraculously didn't suck this year, but I'm just gonna leave you with that thought for now.)

Nic Cester: Guyslut (a picspam)

2011-11-10T08:53:28Z

The Powderfinger biography came out on Tuesday. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy yet but I understand that the introduction featured a cameo by Nic Cester of JET, in which he confirmed that JET is basically one big, gay, slightly incestuous foursome (fivesome? I'm not sure if he included Louis in that) and also referred to himself as a 'guy slut'.

Clearly the world needs me to document Nic's past guyslut behaviour in order to understand this new self-identification of his. It's a tough job, but someone has to do it. My god I don't think I've ever used the word 'slut' as much as I have in this post. I use it with ALL AFFECTION AND APPROVAL.

Who is this Nic Cester the guy slut, you ask?

That would be this guy:

When he's not crowdsurfing, sometimes he sings and plays guitar in this band called JET, who want to know if you're gonna be their girl:

As we will see, Nic is capable of being a guyslut whether he's playing guitar or not.

Nic and his big gay incesty foursome

Here is what Nic has said about his band recently: "Being in a band is essentially like being in a homosexual relationship with four guys."

I can believe that.

I mean, if I were Nic, I would not say no to some guyslut action with my band. What could be better than having your bassist draped over you while your best friend rubs up against his leg and your brother stands awkwardly in the background?

Oh, you weren't aware that one of the members of Nic's four-way travelling gay musical orgy was his brother, Chris?

I would disapprove of this pretty hard except that 'Cestercest' is a really fun word.

Just say it. CESTERCEST.

I'm also incapable of disapproving of Nic being a slut for his bandmates. Any of them. Here is Nic with his best friend and guitarist, Cam:

You don't spend half your life your life in a band with someone without getting pretty comfortable with them, that's all I'm saying.

Mind you, Nic has known his bassist, Mark, for a much shorter time than he's known the other two guys in his band, and he's obviously just as comfortable being a guyslut for Mark:

Here is the only image from that one time last year when Nic made like he was going to kiss Mark on stage:

Sometimes when they play 'Are You Gonna Be My Girl' Nic stops the song in the middle and makes Mark towel him off.

It's from about 1:20. If you keep watching you can also see Nic point in Mark's general direction when he sings the lyric 'Are you gonna be my girl?' towards the end. I couldn't make this shit up.

Okay, I would, but I wouldn't expect it to be true.

A homosexual relationship with four guys

I'm going to divert briefly from the ways in which Nic is a guyslut to discuss the fact that he is not the only guyslut in the band.

Cam, for example, likes to rub up against Mark like a cat. Frequently.

This is an occurence which seems sadly difficult to capture on camera, but it's a beautiful thing and I'M TRYING, OKAY.

Mark and Chris have been particularly close lately since they started a side project together, but they've always had some guyslut tendencies for each other.

While I endorse all sluttiness, I have to question Mark's eating choices sometimes.

I have no detached or informative commentary about Chris's bunny costume, I just fucking love this photo, okay?

Then of course we have Chris and Cam:

I highly recommend watching Tour Busted. It's supposedly a behind the scenes, what-Jet-do-after-shows video, but it's clearly all about how much Chris and Cam want to fuck each other basically all the time. If you can't be bothered watching it, some highlights:

JET: quite capable of being slutty even without Nic the chief guyslut in the house.

Other people Nic is a guyslut for

Nic sometimes exhibits guyslut tendencies outside the confines of his band. For example, his hero, Tim Rogers of You Am I:

That was literally the night all Nic's dreams came true.

Another of Nic's musical heroes is Bernard Fanning of Powderfinger, who Jet supported on an extensive tour last year. At one point they seemed to be having a kind of escalating stage-gay-off with each other, which ended with them doing a song together and Bernard grabbing Nic's arse at the end:

Bernard and Nic have also performed together before, in the first of what I like to think of as Nic Cester's Unintentionally Homoerotic Duets. In which they share a glass of wine and have pet names for each other.

But the most famous of Nic's celebrity guyslut romances is with Muse. Yes, all of them. Okay, really just Matt and Dom, but that's two thirds of them!

Nic snuggled up with Matt at Matt's birthday party last year.

Then got VERY comfy with Dom.

But all of this is secondary to Nic's magnificent display of guyslut affection for Dom at Big Day Out 2010:

What really matters here is that I love Nic's guyslut habits and his big gay incesty band foursome and I hope he never changes.

And because it's remarkable enough that I got so far in this post without doing it, HERE ARE SOME GRATUITOUS PHOTOS OF MARK WILSON BECAUSE I DON'T NEED AN EXCUSE:

And the score will be composed by John Williams

2011-11-04T21:27:23Z

Yesterday, while I was on the train, I had a revelation.

Dumbledore had always been one of my favourite characters from the Harry Potter series. He's funny and a bit weird but wicked powerful and scary when he wants to be. He's more layered than your archetypal wise wizard mentor figure, because he has a messy past and he's made mistakes. Lots of people hate Dumbledore, though, which made me sad. And my revelation yesterday that it was all a misunderstanding.

Because Dumbledore is old and a wizard and has a long white beard, people expect him to be Gandalf, or Merlin. But he's actually Obi Wan Kenobi!

Both of them found a young, troubled, powerful boy and tried to train him, but it all went wrong and he turned into an evil despot and went around blatantly murdering people. Both of them beat themselves up about it for years, but later in their lives they got a second chance upon meeting another powerful young boy and this time were determined to get it right. They still made mistakes, which became particularly clear when the mentors died before their apprentices had a chance to kill the bad guy* but it all turned out okay in the end. I know I'm making Rowling sound kind of unoriginal, but that's not what I mean to do! (And we all know Lucas is one of the biggest ripoffs of all time, right?) It's just that I think Obi Wan Kenobis are more interesting than Gandalfs, and that's why I love Dumbledore.

Look, I didn't say it was a profound revelation.

*Obi Wan and Yoda should have told Luke that Darth Vader was his father. I don't think the fact that they didn't was bad writing, it was a human mistake and it made the plot so much better. But I think telling him that Vader killed his father was manipulative and it was a mistake. (I care much more about this argument than I ever will about whether Han shot first.)

Fic: If I Just Keep Breathing

2011-10-24T21:19:16Z

Occasionally I post things instead of just writing and then forgetting about them.

Title: If I Just Keep Breathing
Fandom: Bandom (MCR)
Pairing/Characters: Bob gen
Rating/warnings Mature, HUGE FREAKING WARNING for eating disorders, including disordered thoughts and a description of purging
Summary: It took Bob most of his life to find a way to lose weight, but when he did he was so good at it he didn't want to stop.

Notes: Quite a few notes for this one, so bear with me.
1. I haven't tried very hard to stick to canon timelines, especially regarding when Brian stopped managing MCR. Canon timeline bends to the needs of my plot for this one, and I won't apologise for it.
2. I've avoided going into detail about Bob's disordered eating habits. What he actually does to lose weight is left pretty vague, partly to avoid triggers (for myself as much as for readers) but also because I don't want to give anyone ideas. I know just about every anorexic technique in the book, but I the fewer people know about them, the better.
3. What I've depicted in this fic is far from a textbook case of disordered eating, but it's based on my own experiences as an ED sufferer, so please don't tell me it's inaccurate because Bob doesn't go through symptom X. People experience EDs differently, just like everything else. This is one way it can happen.
4. Title from the lyrics of Skin and Bones by Jet. I know pluginzeta has used the same lyric for a title in the past, but I couldn't resist.
5. And thanks to gala_apples for getting me to write it.

It's not like feeling insecure about his weight is something new, that's the thing. It's always been there. It's just closer to the front of his mind when he joins the band, because he's not down the back of the hall with a sound board any more. He's on stage, in the spotlight, where thousands of people can see him. Yeah, their eyes are more likely to be fixed on Gerard, and a lot of Bob is shielded by his kit. But there's something about being on stage - and on stage with tiny, skinny dudes like Mikey and Frank, seriously, it wasn't hard to feel good about your appearance when you mostly worked with techs - that stopped it being an occasional thought and made it more of a daily one. When they were working on Black Parade and Gerard started to talk about getting costumes made professionally, having unique ones made for each of them, and measured to fit, Bob stopped ignoring the voice that wished he was thinner and started wondering what he could do to make it shut up.

***

He never got into the habit of posting on pro-anorexia websites, or even visiting them too much, but he knows they’re there. They’re not too hard to find when you’re desperate for something different after too many diets that didn’t work. They scared him, at first. There's something sick about them, a bit too much, a bit wrong, and they're clearly not for him. But there's something attractive, too, the community of it, the slogans and the encouragement that seem different, removed, just better than the stupid diets and exercise regimes that he's tried and don't seem to work and just make him feel like a failure. And there's something reassuring about the way so many of the girls on these sites use photos of his band as their avatars. He knows Gerard would hate that, he'd say that My Chemical Romance is supposed to save teen lives, not help them starve themselves to death, but Bob can't help but like that tiny bit of connection that those communities have to him. It makes him feel like he’s a part of it, even if he doesn’t think he’ll ever belong.

He doesn't keep going back to those websites, but they stick in his mind anyway. And the next time he finds himself standing in the shower, reluctant to even soap up his body because of the way he feels revolted at just touching his own stomach, he thinks about it, and it seems less disgusting than the way he feels now. He remembers a few of the tips, and as harsh as they are, they seem easier to follow than any of the diets he's tried - simpler, more honest, more real, as though he can beat his body instead of it beating him - and he thinks, why the hell not?

The first week, he carefully cuts out a lot of what he'd usually eat. He's hungry a lot more, but for some reason he doesn't mind it as much as usual. His body can complain all it likes. He's going to win. The first week he loses six pounds, and he feels elated.
The second week, he loses another five.

By the third week, he's only lost another three pounds. It's still good. He's still thinner. He looks at himself in the shower now and he sees less. Still more than he'd like, but less. But when he looks at the number on the scales he thinks I can do better than that.

***

The first time he tries purging is a rude shock. Kneeling in front of the toilet, the smell of his own vomit acrid in the air and the acidic burn in his mouth and down his throat, he feels pathetic. This is sick, he thinks, as he flushes it away and climbs to his feet, knees shaking. This was too far. He wasn't going to do this again. It wasn't worth it. He was just going to hurt himself more, and for what? For being skinny? Was that really fucking worth it?

He doesn't try purging again, but he feels bloated now whenever he eats until he's full. It was more comfortable to be a little bit hungry all the time. Hunger was safe. Hunger meant that he was on the right track, he wasn't getting fat again, he'd be able to look in the mirror without hating himself one day soon, really, he would. Hunger made sure that every time he stepped on the scales it was another little victory.

The first time somebody called him skinny, it was better than the first time he ever played on stage to an audience who sang his band's words back to him. He didn't think that losing weight would ever make him feel that good, but it did. He only felt a little bit sad that something like this could make him feel better than the band did.

He never let it get too bad. He'd heard about what happened to people who really starved themselves. The hair loss, the fragile, breakable bones. The heart attacks. He wasn't like that, he told himself, stubbornly, as he piled on another hoodie to keep himself from shivering on a mild spring night. He wasn't going to let himself get sick. He'd just found a quicker way to get thin, that was all. He wasn't at the mercy of yet another fad diet, having to check what he ate every day, worrying about whether he was living up to a stranger’s arbitrary rules about what to eat. He was in control, of his body and himself. He was winning.

***

If anyone in his band noticed his weight loss, they didn't mention it. In some ways, it irritated him. He'd worked so hard to get this thin, so that he could look good, and they didn't even notice? Fuck 'em. But at the same time, it was a relief, too. He'd found himself creeping back to those sites sometimes, too. Even though they weren't like him, all those insecure teenage girls who thought nobody would love them unless they were thin, or worse, the ones who thought they could escape their abused bodies if they abused themselves enough. They scared him, with their images of emaciated bodies, nothing but skeletons draped in fragile skin. But what scared him more was the stories from girls who had been found out. Tales of therapy, hospitalisation. Forced feeding. A doctor monitoring your weight, keeping you in their care until they decided that you were fat enough.

The thought of that scared him in some deep way that the pictures didn't. The shame of his bandmates looking at him like he was broken instead of fixed, like he was sick, like he was pitiful. And the thought of someone insisting that he eat more, fatten up, and stop treating food like the enemy.

***

He let slip on camera that having someone call him skinny was his proudest moment, and Frank teased him for the rest of the interview. He tried to keep a smile on his face, but as soon as the cameras stopped rolling he darted outside, hunching his shoulders against the wind, and stomped a thudding rhythm around the car park.

"Stupid," he muttered to himself. His stomach growled, a welcome sound. He could go a few hours without a snack yet. "Fucking idiot, Bryar. Why the fuck did you say that? Stupid, stupid, stupid fucking..."

"Hey."

He stopped and whirled around suddenly, and there was Frank, grabbing at his shoulder. "What?"

"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," said Frank, and he looked like he really meant it, which was as shocking as Frank saying sorry in the first place. "I didn't think you’d beat yourself up over it."

Bob shrugged and tried to sink deeper into his hoodie. He'd fucked up this time, he'd gone and said something and now they were going to know, after everything he'd done to try to keep this to himself.

"You know I don't actually think you're going to make all our fans anorexic, right? You’ve heard Gerard. He won't fucking shut up about how they have to love themselves and shit."

Bob let out a long, slow, sigh. There was a burning sense of shame, deep inside him, that that should have been what he was worried about, the effect his words would have on the kids, and not whether it would make his bandmates suspect that maybe he wasn't okay. But for now, he could bury it under the relief and just say "Yeah, Frank. I know."

***

Bob could kid himself that he was healthy until he started getting sick. It happened once, and then he never quite got better, and then he got even sicker again. They were still touring like crazy, and he was determined that he wouldn't let being sick interrupt their work, so he pushed on through it, but the truth was, he was exhausted.

"You should see a doctor," said Brian, after a particularly exhausting show. Bob had dragged himself offstage, sat down heavily in the wings, and Ray had to half-carry him back on stage for the encore.

"We don't have time. I'll be fine."

"No you won't. Go to the doctor, Bryar."

"I'm going to bed," said Bob, and headed towards his bunk, but Brian had known him too long to let Bob stay in denial about his health for a second.

"I mean it," said Brian, fiercely. "You can't keep going like this. If you don't stop and get better then you'll just collapse later on and then I'll have to find a drummer with half an hour's notice."

"I'm going to bed now, Brian," said Bob, loudly, and pulled the curtain across his bunk. He'd be fine. He knew he would. He was thinner now, wasn't that supposed to be healthier? Even if he was tired all the time, even before he got sick. And even if his eating was the problem, the doctor was just going to tell him to eat more, and Bob couldn't do that. He just couldn't.

***

When he woke up the next morning, there was a note from Brian with the date and time of his doctor's appointment in a few days, along with the assurance that Brian would drive him if Bob couldn't make it himself. Don't think I've forgotten the time you got frostbite, asshole. it said, at the end.

***

There was nothing particularly wrong with him, the doctor said. A mild virus, but he prescribed some pills and said Bob should get better soon as long as he didn't forget to take any. The only odd thing was that Bob's immune system seemed to be pretty weak. Was there anything else that had been troubling him lately?

Bob made some noncommittal noises, afraid of saying anything that would give away the fact that he'd all but stopped eating. His doctor was used to Bob saying nothing, though, just like Brian was, so after a moment he sighed and said it was probably just the touring lifestyle messing him up, and that Bob should try to cut back on the cigarettes, and then he was free to go.

(Not that Bob had any intention of cutting back on the cigarettes.)

It wasn't until later that Bob realised why he felt so disappointed right then, and why he hesitated at the door. Brian had bought him a slice of chocolate cake while he was waiting, as an apology of sorts, and he accepted Bob's excuse that he didn't feel well enough to eat it but he'd save it for later. Bob opened the box when they got back to the bus, when there was nobody else around to see. It looked delicious. It smelled delicious. It was the best looking thing Bob had seen in months. His stomach growled and his mouth watered, and despite how much he liked being in control, right then he wanted to say "fuck you" to weight loss and eat the damn cake.

But no matter how much he wanted to, he couldn't stop himself from dumping the whole lot in the trash.

***

Bob got better, eventually. (Or at least, his virus went away. It was as healthy as he got these days.) Brian didn't stop watching him, though, and it was the kind of attention that made Bob more than a little uneasy. It was getting harder and harder to avoid eating with the rest of the guys because Brian kept inviting him. He could keep saying no, of course, but he knew he could only refuse an outright invitation so many times without being rude. And if Brian was already suspicious then avoiding restaurants was only going to confirm it.

Still, it frustrated him no end that he had to eat more than he wanted, even when he tried to keep to ordering smaller meals, not eating it all, rearranging his leftovers on the plate so it looked like he'd eaten more than he had. He knew he didn't look all that different, but he felt bloated and disgusting after eating a few proper meals in a row. It was bothering him so much that he kept thinking about experimenting with purging again. He couldn't, though. That would be even harder to hide.

It was the next time he got sick when Brian finally cornered him, alone in the bus while the others were out exploring, and said "You don't eat enough, Bryar."

"I'm sick," Bob rolled over, turning his back to Brian. "Of course I don't want to eat."

"Get up," said Brian, in the voice he usually reserved for when Gerard was being a diva. "We're going to have some coffee and toast and talk about this."

Bob sat in the back lounge of the couch, hunched over under his blanket, and nibbled at the buttered toast Brian had made him while Brian carried on about how Bob had responsibilities and had to look after himself, and that meant taking a break if he needed to.

"I don't want to let the band down," said Bob, putting down the half-eaten toast.

"Did Mikey let the band down when he took time off?"

"No, but..."

"But how the fuck is it different, Bob? You think you're helping everyone by keeping going, but if you keep going like this you're going to drive yourself to death, and that really would let everyone down. So stop being so damn selfish." He glared for a moment, then added "And finish your toast."

"I'm not hungry."

Brian sighed. He looked at his hands for a long moment. "I think that's the problem."

Bob swallowed, trying to hide his rising panic behind a defensive glare. "I'm not hungry because I'm sick, asshole."

"You're making yourself sick," Brian snapped.

They stared at each other in stony silence until they heard voices up the front of the bus and Bob got up to leave.

"Wait." Brian hissed, and grabbed his wrist. "I'm serious about this, Bob. I'm worried about you. You're making yourself sick, and what are you getting out of it? Being thin? Who the fuck cares Bob?"

"Fuck off."

"No," said Brian, infuriatingly. "I'm not going to sit here and let you starve to death."

"I'm not starving," Bob hissed. "I eat."

"Not enough."

"What are you going to do about it, force feed me?" He stumbled over the last words, despite his bravado.

"I have to do something."

"Yeah, you do." Bob snapped. "Leave me alone. You don't get to tell me what to do."

It was the only thing he could think to say before he stomped out to the front of the bus to welcome back the rest of the guys. But it didn't make him feel any less like a surly teenager.

***

Over the next few months, the only thing Bob was grateful to Brian for was that none of the others ever overheard their fights. But they did fight, over and over, hurtful, repetitive arguments that left Bob more and more afraid of where they were heading - and more determined not to let Brian force even a mouthful of food onto him. He started to feel safer when they were with the rest of the band, knowing that Brian wasn't going to say a word about Bob's health, even though Bob could feel his disapproving gaze no matter what he was talking about with the others. When Bob fell ill again, he was almost proud of it. He was even going to be sick if he wanted to. Brian couldn't tell him otherwise.

The downside of being sick was that when he was confined to his bunk, he couldn't escape Brian's lectures.

"I told you so," said Brian, unmoved by Bob's coughing. "You're a danger to yourself, I mean it."

"Leave me alone."

"Maybe I should. I could just leave you here and take care of the people in this band who don't want to destroy their lives."

"Why don't you, then?" he sighed. He was over this. He just wanted to sleep.

"Because you're my friend and I love you whether I want to or not," Brian huffed. "And if you won't take care of yourself then someone has to."

He felt that fear again, that terror that Brian was going to take him out of the band, put him in therapy or a hospital or something, and force him to get... to change. But for a moment there, he felt safer than he had in months.

Most of the time, though, the fear won out. Every mealtime Brian would try to guilt him into eating some more. He'd go out of his way to find the things that he knew were Bob’s favourite snacks, even if it meant flying them from Chicago to Spain. Every moment he could get Bob alone, Brian said everything he could think of to take a break, or get help, or just fucking eat something. Anything. And as wrapped up as he was in his own problems, Bob could still see how their fights were hurting the band. He didn't know what more he could do, though, when he spent more and more of his time just fearing what would happen when Brian had enough and found a way to get Bob fucking committed or something.

He never even considered that the thing that would give could be Brian.

Not that it was Brian, really, it was the rest of the band, somehow coming to an agreement that it was Brian who had to go. They all came to Bob, all wide eyes and apologies, silently begging him not to fight what they'd done, begging Bob not to leave with him.

"I'm so sorry, Bob," said Gerard, gripping his hand. "We all know how close you and Brian were, but it just wasn't working any more."

The very first thing Bob felt was relief. It made him too disgusted with himself to even consider telling Gerard that the way they'd treated Brian was pretty shit.

***

It was a couple of days after Brian left - without even speaking to Bob - that Bob realised nobody had nagged him about his eating for a while. He was sitting around a table at a roadside diner with the rest of the band, as they had so many times, staring at the tiny plate of food that he'd ordered and barely touched. And the rest of them kept talking to each other, and to him, like it wasn't even there. Frank even kept sneaking fries from Bob's plate and giving Bob this innocent look as though Bob hadn't noticed. As though Bob didn't know exactly how many calories were on that plate. As though Bob cared about someone else eating his food.

He was free to eat as little as he wanted, and none of them were going to say a word.

He was free.

He was scared.

***

The Black Parade tour, which had just about driven all of them mad, finally came to an end and Bob dragged himself back to Chicago where at least his surroundings were normal. He got sick again almost as soon as he got home. By now Bob had given up trying to convince himself that he was really healthy and it was just a cold, that he wasn't doing this to himself. He just crawled into bed to wait it out, until he could get better again.

What he really wanted was someone to sit with him and make him a coffee. Or some chicken broth. He wouldn't even think about how many calories were in chicken broth, he just wanted someone to hold him and feed him and make him feel loved. Then maybe he'd feel like he was going to get better. Not just get over the cold, but really, truly get better. But the only people in Chicago that he could face when he was this miserable were his parents and Brian. And he didn't want his parents to see him like this.

He still didn't call Brian.

He just lay there with his dogs, hoped that whatever he'd caught this time would make him lose a little more weight, even though he didn't need it. He knew he didn't need to. He didn't hate his stomach any more, but he didn't like that he could see his ribs through his skin now, either. Bob was done justifying this. It was fucked up, it was fucking him up. It might even be killing him.

He just didn't know how to stop.

***

When they finally got around to starting work on the new album, it at least got Bob out of the house and out of his head. He felt better than he had in a long time, even without Brian around. He still had his moments of frustration, and he just about stormed out on Gerard when he came back after a couple of weeks' break and said they had to throw out half the work they'd done because it no longer fit with Gerard's fucking vision or whatever. That fight ended with Bob and Gerard standing outside and moodily smoking cigarettes at opposite corners of the building for the rest of the afternoon, until Bob finally got sick of cigarettes and decided to offer a truce. They wound up staying there long into the night but the new music was worth it. Holy shit, was it worth it. By the end of that recording session, Bob felt like he was flying.

The following day, he and Gerard sat down for an afternoon smoke, companionable this time. They talked about the last tour, and how messed up it got, though Bob never went into details about what he was going through, and the next tour, too, what Gerard had planned. And despite how tough the last one had been, Bob was really, honestly starting to feel excited about doing shows again.

"I have to shape up again, though," Gerard said, ruefully, poking his own stomach. "I got way too fat to really shake it on stage. What's your secret, Bobert?"

Bob knew this was the moment when he should tell Gerard that he was talking nonsense and he was an amazing performer no matter what he looked like. He'd said it before when Gerard complained about his weight, sometimes with Brian giving him a confused glare the whole time, so he knew his lines, too. But this time, instead, it came out as "I didn't eat anything but a slice of bread a day for a week once, and I lost eight pounds."

"Really? Huh," Gerard said, looking at Bob thoughtfully.

Bob cursed himself for the slip, and braced himself for what had to come next. Questions. Concern. The suggestion, yet again, that Bob should get some help, even though Bob had no goddamn idea how anyone could fix this without killing him in the process because he couldn't see a way to live without this anymore. Except that then Gerard said something worse.

"I'll have to give that a try."

***

The call came in the middle of the night, or at least at six in the morning, which was close enough to the middle of the night for Brian Schechter. He would have ignored it, as his wife sleepily suggested. For any other guy, he would. For any other guy who let Brian get sacked without a word in his defence, he'd have a litany of expletives ready to fire. But for Bob, he just looked at the number and picked up.

"Brian," said Bob, his voice breathless and cracked, "I need to stop."

"Okay," said Brian, "Tell me where you are."

"At home. I... I don't know what to do any more. Maybe I should quit the band. I don't know. I just, I need help, or something, I don't know what else I can do."

It was the closest thing to panic he'd ever heard from Bob, and it was a little scary, to tell the truth, but Brian just pulled on some jeans and walked out to the car because this, at least, was a start.

Trust Me - an RPF bigbang mix

2011-10-22T11:09:38Z

Hello! I made this mix for roonerspism's kickass Talkin Bout Your Generation fic for rpf_big_bang. I'll link to the fic masterpost when it's posted. I loved getting the chance to make bonus material for a TAYG fic - I'm always excited at the rare sight of fanfic for an Australian source, and I'm especially fond of TAYG

Trust Me - Mix download link

Tracklist:
01 Up & Down & Back Again - Powderfinger
02 The Perfect Way To Meet - Kisshchasy
03 Heavy Heart - You Am I
04 Nightminds - Missy Higgins
05 Break Me Shake Me - Savage Garden
06 Twelve Hours - The Whitlams
07 Caught In The Crowd - Kate Miller-Heidke
08 Unsent Letter - Machine Gun Fellatio
09 Buy Now, Pay Later (Charlie No. 2) - The Whitlams
10 Don't You Think It's Time - Bob Evans
11 La Di Da - Jet
12 Come Anytime - Hoodoo Gurus
13 Whatever It Is - Ben Lee
Bonus Track for Shaun: Sail Away - Enya

Mixer's notes: I was delighted to get a chance to do a mix for a fic based on an Australian source, so I may have gotten carried away with my determination to use as much Australian music as possible for this mix, but I think it was all worth it. I started out trying to think of musicians who had appeared as guests on TAYG, which is where 'Heavy Heart' and 'Break Me Shake Me' came in. I've been listening to quite a lot of songs on the topic of feeling lost and directionless lately, and that was a theme that jumped out at me while reading the fic, so I fit a few of those in too. I originally used 'Face Without A Name' for the Kisschasy song instead of 'The Perfect Way To Meet', because lyrically it's a better fit, but Perfect Way seemed like the better musical choice so I went with that instead. It wasn't until I started putting the mix together in a zip file that I realised I'd used two Whitlams songs (people who have listened to my mixes before will doubt this, but it's true this time, I swear) but I thought about it and didn't want to take either of them out. The lyrics "Spent twelve hours drinking, slept with someone who looked like you" were one of the first things that came to mind when I was reading the story, and even though the final lines don't really fit I couldn't resist including it. And as for 'Buy Now, Pay Later', well, the Whitlams are so good at songs about watching your friends ruin their lives. Not to mention that putting a 'Charlie' song on a mix about a Charlie seemed like too good an opportunity to miss! 'Caught In The Crowd' was just too perfect for Charlie's regrets about his past as a schoolyard bully; even if the situation doesn't exactly match up, the sentiment is there. The Hoodoo Gurus song was a late inclusion, but I thought it would be nice to include several 'generations' of music in the spirit of TAYG, and for me at least it has strong associations with local comedy TV as the theme from Thank God You're Here. The Ben Lee song that ends the mix is the hardest one to explain, but I wanted to end with a sense of hope and possibility, looking to the future Charlie can see after all his struggles, and not just something about his relationship with Josh. It might be more ambiguous, and there was a lack of overt love songs in this mix overall, but it's there under all the music about depression and confusion and loss.

And finally, I had to include an Enya song for Shaun, just like I couldn't resist a nod to my favourite TAYG game with the title of the mix. At least I didn't call it Human Lamington.

okay, three-letter-acronym, all is forgiven

2011-09-29T13:06:55Z

HEY MCR FANS GUESS WHAT?

WHO GETS TO SEE MCR AND THE LVIING END AT THE SAME FESTIVAL? THAT'S RIGHT I DO. IT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST GODDAMN THING IN THE WORLD.

Seriously, guys, like, I don't care how AMAZING My Chem were the one/two/eight times you saw them in the last year, Big Day Out 2012 is going to be the best MCR performance OF ALL TIME. Because I have waited and waited and fucking waited for this one hour of music that is still four months away, and THE LIVING END will be there too, and NOTHING WILL BE ABLE TO COMPETE WITH THIS.

(Well, it probably can't top Back In Black by Muse feat Nic Cester. But it'll be close.)

And tomorrow I am going to Adelaide to drive my not-girlfriend crazy for a night singing "NA NANANA NANANA NANANANANANANA", hang with pikasafire, masterpenguin82 and barefoot_starz, watch PANIC AT THE FREAKIN DISCO and go BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA MCR BIG DAY OUT ATHJKELSHGKDS" a lot.

(My MCR Expectations Management Policy (ie 'I refuse to ever get my hopes up about MCR because they do nothing but disappoint me') is suspended for the duration of the weekend. I still don't want to know anything about their other shows, and I will thoroughly stomp on my own excitement next week, but for the next four days I'm going to let myself dream.)

The fic I didn't write for bandombigbang

2011-09-24T06:29:05Z

So BBB is well over by now, and with Pedicone having departed in less than ideal circumstances, I thought it was about time I posted this. (And also about time I GOT IT OUT OF MY LIFE, FFS.)

Title: This doesn't deserve a title
Fandom: Bandom (MCR, FOB)
Pairings: Pete/Patrick, Patrick/MCR, Pete/Patrick/MCR, past Pete/Mikey and Bob/Patrick

This is a ramble about Patrick replacing Bob as MCR's drummer, being slowly drawn into having sex with all of them, and Pete's long-distance FEELINGS about everything. I originally intended to write it for BBB but I could never get the right tone, so I abandoned it. Except that then I couldn't get it out of my head, so it turned into not!fic.

*

So Mikey and Pete are hanging out, because Pete hasn't seen Mikey in ages and Mikey wasn't answering his calls, and Pete was starting to wonder what the hell was going on.

Pete didn’t plan on asking Mikey what had happened right away, not when it had taken such a sustained stalking campaign just to get him to leave the studio. Pete didn’t call it ‘stalking’, of course. He was just concerned about his friend.

“No, it’s totally stalking,” said Mikey, not looking away from the TV screen.

“Is not!” Pete protested, and dropped his controller for dramatic effect. Mikey immediately blasted Pete off the track, so he hastened to pick it up again. “It’s not stalking when it’s your friend.”

“Pretty sure that doesn’t stand up in court. Especially when it’s a friend you used to fuck.”

“Whatever. I was just worried about you.” Pete fired off a shell at Mikey but missed. “You have to admit, you’d be freaking out about me if I didn’t answer my phone for three days.”

It was just an offhand comment; true, but the kind of truth that didn’t require any further comment. He really hadn’t meant to press Mikey about what was going on. Something must have told Mikey that this was the ideal time to explain, though, because he shrugged, said “Bob quit,” and smashed past Pete to win his third game of Mariokart in a row.

Pete is sympathetic and understands how difficult it is, and the drama of it and everything, but he's also a businessman and he can't help wondering who they're going to get to replace him.

"Well, that's the thing," Mikey said. "We were wondering if we could have Patrick."

Pete sits there, torn between Patrick loved drumming for you and No you can't have him, he's MY Patrick, and eventually settles for "Shouldn't you be asking Patrick that?"

But Mikey knows that Pete will worry about Patrick, and he'll miss him, and Pete probably misses Patrick already with Patrick being off doing his solo thing all the time. So he has to ask. And Pete doesn't really want to say that My Chem can have Patrick, because he doesn't want to share Patrick, but maybe not sharing was what made Patrick need the space to go off and be a little solo control freak in the first place. So even though he's going to be jealous of MCR and of Patrick for having each other and him not being there, he says yes.

"You have to take care of him. Walk him twice a day and make sure he eats," Pete joked. "And make sure you include him in all your post-show group sex."

Mikey raises an eyebrow and smirks, but there's something distant about it. "Of course we'll include him in the group sex. That's one of the reasons we chose Patrick."

He could have been joking, but he could have been serious, and the possibility nags at the back of Pete's mind for days. Did MCR really all have sex with each other after shows? No, they couldn't, he was joking and Mikey was too. Except maybe he wasn't. Fuck, he'd said they could take Patrick and now Patrick was maybe going to have sex with all of MCR, and the whole idea just made him jumpy. It was stupid. It was probably not real. But he couldn't help thinking about it now, thinking about all four of them in a hotel room, or a dressing room or the back lounge of a bus, stripping off their sweaty, filthy stage clothes and then touching and licking and fucking each other. Gerard's white skin, Frank's boundless energy, Ray's solid limbs and huge hands, and Mikey's... Mikey's everything.

But it was probably silly.

He was in his kitchen trying very hard not to imagine the boys from My Chemical Romance undressing Patrick, stripping off the clothes he usually clung to so closely even in the nudity-prone environs of the tour bus, four pairs of hands roaming Patrick's skin, touching places even Pete never had, getting to hear what Pete imagined would be Patrick's glorious, musical moan... anyway, that was when the doorbell rang and Pete found Patrick standing outside his house.

"Hi," said Pete, staring kind of blankly at him.

"Hi," Patrick agreed.

They stared at each other for a moment as Pete tried very hard to stop thinking about Patrick naked.

"Are you going to let me in?"

"Oh yeah! Yeah, sure," Pete babbled, and shuffled aside to let Patrick in.

"So My Chemical Romance asked me to fill in for them on drums."

"Yeah, I heard. Are you going to do it?"

Patrick shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe? Do you think I should?"

Yes, stop being a recluse, thought one part of Pete. No, you're supposed to be mine, said another. An equally loud voice wanted to know Patrick's thoughts on sleeping with all of the members of MCR at once, but he mercifully managed to keep that one under control.

"Well, why not?" Pete asked, helplessly.

"Yeah, that's the thing. I don't really know. At first I thought, I don't want to get involved in ANOTHER thing when I'm trying to record my own stuff, but I talked to Ray and he said they mostly just want me for the studio tracks, and if I don't want to hang around for the tour then that's okay. Then I was worried about Bob. Just, I don't want to step on his toes, you know? He's one of my best friends, still, and I couldn't just go join his old band if he wasn't going to be happy with it. But I went to see him this morning, and we talked for ages, and he's really okay with it. More than okay, actually."

There's a tiny, private smile on Patrick's face, and Pete finds himself wondering if anything ever went on between Patrick and Bob back when they were living together, or anything since. He has to fight the image of Bob and Patrick snuggling on the couch, watching TV, and Patrick's hand on Bob's knee, and his head on Bob's shoulder, and Bob turning in to Patrick for a kiss...

"... And you know, I like those guys, and I really miss drumming, so there's a lot of good there, and I don't have to be any more involved than I want to."

"Right, yeah, okay." Pete nods, trying to get his thoughts back onto the matter at hand. "So then why not?"

"Because I just wonder if you'll be... if it's going to..." He looked at his hands and frowned and looked at Pete again. "You're not going to, you know, freak out and stuff, are you?"
You should do this, Patrick, it's what you want, it's what's good for you says one part of Pete. You can't do this, I'll miss you, you're supposed to be mine says another. In some detached, logical, observant part of his mind, he thinks, If I'm thinking like this then of COURSE I'm going to freak out.

Pete thinks a lot of things. What Pete does is put a smile on his face and say "Nah, it's cool. I have plenty of other things to keep me busy."

"You sure?" Patrick just looks even more concerned, and if there's one thing Pete has to put a stop to then it's Patrick worrying about him.

"Of course I'm sure." He slips into a sly grin, one he feels more comfortable in than his attempt at looking reassuring. "But if My Chem decide to invite you to their full band orgies then I want all the details, right? No holding back. Every bit of it."

There's a split second of... something in Patrick's eyes that Pete can't read, something like shock or uncertainty or fear. But it's gone too quickly for Pete to tell, and then he's looking at the same old Patrick again, sighing and shaking his head at Pete like that would ever stop him. "My Chemical Romance do not have whole of band group sex, Pete."

"Sure they do. Mikeyway told me." Pete figures it's only half a lie if he isn't sure whether Mikey was serious or not. "It's a great idea. We should have thought of that years ago."

"Well, they don't," said Patrick, stubbornly. "And I'm not having group sex with anyone, ever."

"Oh sure, you say that now," Pete grinned, "But once you've spent a few long weeks in the studio together, and they're falling in love with your musical genius and you're falling in love with all their ideas and shit..."

"Shut up, Pete."

"And spend all your time having to watch Gerard's ass while he dances along to his own music, or Frank and Ray ripping up the guitars, and Mikey, oh boy, you'll love Mikey, he has these fingers."

"Pete," there was a warning in his voice this time, "Stop it."

It all ends in a tickle fight and Patrick pushing Pete off the couch, hard, and by the time he hugs Patrick goodbye, Pete is so sore just from laughing that he couldn't possibly feel bad right now.

It was completely true, and it was a relief, Pete thought, when he walked away from his closed front door, Hemmy trotting at his feet. Even if My Chemical Romance really did all have sex with each other, and even if they tried to get Patrick involved in it, too, there was no way that Patrick actually would. If Patrick still lectured Pete about boundaries whenever he got too close, there was no way he was going to have sex with four guys he didn't really know that well. Not all at once.

But when Pete closed his eyes, he was still haunted by visions of four pairs of strange-but-familiar hands roaming over Patrick's pale skin.

When he heads to the studio for their first day of recording, Patrick feels more nervous than he has in years. He's spent thousands of hours in studios recording and producing over the years, but somehow none of it was ever quite like this.
See, his relationship with MCR was kind of weird. They were always kind of in the back of his mind, like the kind of relatives you got on with but only saw once a year. He was always vaguely aware of when they were touring or not touring, when Gerard put a comic book out or that Frank's wife was pregnant. Mikey, especially, was someone who always seemed to be slightly awkwardly around, whether he was physically present or not. They were friendly enough from Mikey being around Pete for so long, and Patrick certainly knew more about Mikey than he did about any of the other guys. But there was always a kind of uncomfortable distance with Mikey. Patrick sometimes felt like he knew Mikey better as a secretive smile on Pete's face than as an actual person. he was familiar and distant at the same time, one of those parts of Pete that Patrick knew nothing about.

When he finally got to the studio, though, having Mikey there just made it easier. If it had just been the other guys then Patrick wouldn't have known exactly how to act, even though he was vaguely familiar with them. It was bad enough not really knowing where he stood, or rather knowing that he was just a session musician to them but not knowing how to act when he was in a studio and not in control. He wouldn't have had any proper idea of how to act around Ray, Gerard and Frank. But when Mikey strolled in, quietly called Gerard a dork and gave Patrick a sly wink, Patrick was instantly grateful for all the time they'd known each other, no matter how awkward it sometimes got.

He got to know them as the week wore on. He could play the rhythm of their songs with barely a second thought, but fitting into the rhythm of their conversations was harder. He'd only ever really been in one band, not like most of the people in the music scene, and he'd never had to do this part, learning how to fit in. He always just made Fall Out Boy fit around him, since they'd been more than willing to do so. Pete had always been so willing to carve out whatever space Patrick needed, he realised. He hadn't noticed, after all the years of yelling at Pete for getting in his space too much, that Pete let him have it, too.

Still, it wasn't as though they left him out. They almost had a language of their own, after all the time they'd spent together, but they made an effort to translate for Patrick when they were joking around between takes or after the day's recording was over, so that he wasn't completely out of the loop. Patricks' biggest problem, ultimately, wasn't not having anything to say. it was the struggle to keep his mouth shut.

For all that MCR were accommodating, Patrick was really, acutely aware that this was not his band and he didn't get a say in what they did. It wasn't his place to offer suggestions or tell them to do things differently. He wasn't there to write the songs. He wasn't even there to make them better. They'd hired him to play the drums and that was all he was going to do.

Patrick keeps thinking of ways that the songs could be improved, like he can't stop hearing it, even though he's trying to be on his best behaviour and not interfere. It wouldn't be so much of an issue if it weren't for Ray always hanging back just the same as Patrick, both of them taking some pleasure in setting the studio in order for the next morning before they left for the night, and constantly asking Patrick what he thought. The first few times they chatted casually about music, but then Ray kept on asking him what he thought about the songs, and it just started to get insensitive. Was Ray trying to tempt him.

"So what do you think of Disco?" Ray asked. "We're thinking of changing the name, and maybe a bit of the style. Make it rougher."

"Well, you've been working on it for a while," said Patrick, bending over the kit and pretending to tighten something. "It was one of the first ones you wrote, wasn't it? If you're still not feeling it, then there's obviously something you have to change."

"Yeah?" Ray said. "Any ideas?"

Patrick was full of ideas. He couldn't stop ideas for improvements springing to mind every time they played a single song.

"Nope. No idea."

"I loved that extra drum roll you put in today."

Damn, Patrick thought, he'd been trying so hard to do what they asked him to and not improvise at all. Sometimes things just slipped out. He'd hoped that nobody noticed that extra drumroll, but it turned out he wasn't nearly as subtle as he thought he was.

"Shit, I'm sorry. I'll try not to do that again. I really didn't mean to, I just, you know, when you're used to composing it's hard to..."

"Hey," Patrick jumped a little at the hand on his shoulder. "I said I liked it, didn't I?"

"Yes, but..."

"Patrick, will you just look at me?"

He did, and found himself having to crane his neck up to meet Ray's sunny smile.

"It's okay if you have ideas, you know. You can play them. You can even tell me about it. I like hearing what you think."

"But this isn't my band," said Patrick, stubbornly. "I don't want to come in here and tell you what you should be doing, that's none of my business."

"Yeah, no. You're not a drum machine either." Ray patted his shoulder again. "There are tons of drummers we could have asked if we just wanted someone to play drums. You have ideas and we like your ideas, so if you want to do something differently just speak up, will you?"

There was a swooping feeling in Patrick's stomach, of exhilaration and fear. He could contribute. He could stop biting his tongue and actually say stuff. He was kind of scared of it, too, because it felt uncomfortably like he was becoming part of the band and that wasn't meant to happen. He was meant to be Patrick from Fall Out Boy or plain old Patrick Stump, not the drummer from MCR. But he bit his lip and nodded, and when Ray smiled he couldn't help smiling back. Even if it was scary, the thrill of being able to take a song and make it better was the best. Especially when it was for his friends.

Pete thought he'd been very well behaved since MCR went into the studio, thank you very much. He'd only called Patrick about once a week. If he sent Patrick about twenty texts a day, some of them verging on inappropriately filthy, then so what? He was staying out of Patrick's way. It was a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

"Pete," Patrick growled, when he finally picked up the phone one Friday. "Go away. I'm eating."

"Why? You can eat while I talk. Are you eating with the My Chem guys?" Pete asked, excitedly. He could hear a couple of 'hi, Pete's in the background. "Tell them I said, hi!"

"I... yes, okay, Pete, I am, so leave me alone, I'm being all social and stuff."

Pete grinned to himself. "You really like them, huh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean, if you're hanging out and stuff."

"Well, we're nearly done recording. I don't know. It seemed like a good idea."

"Nearly done, huh?" said Pete, thoughtfully. "So when are you guys going on tour?"

"Pete, I'm not... I'm not talking about this right now," he hissed, embarrassed. "I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay," Pete muttered, and suddenly he was staring at a silent phone, with an uncomfortable twist of jealousy in his stomach. He spent almost a full minute feeling jilted before his phone lit up with the message They haven't even asked me yet.

they will Pete texted him back, faster than he really needed to.

You don't know that

yes i do, they love u

that doesn't mean they want me to go on tour with them

u want it

I'm still Patrick from FOB, said Patrick's final text, and Pete kind of felt his heart melt.

of course u r, ur always mine Pete typed, happily. Then he grinned to himself and added but u can b patrick from mcr for a while if you tell me all about the group sex

shut up i hate u said Patrick's reply, and Pete rolled over and smiled into the arm of his couch, not even bothering to try to stop the images of Patrick and Mikey from running through his head.

There had been a thought worrying at the back of Patrick's mind throughout the recording process, one that had nothing to do with his boundaries as a drummer/composer/all round musical genius. He'd settled in well with the My Chem guys. He liked them, he liked playing with them, and he was happy that he'd decided to do it. Because Pete had been right, it had been good for him, and although he wasn't nearly conversant enough in comic books to keep up with every conversation, for the most part this exercise had been far less awkward than he thought it would be.

But for all that, there was one concern he'd been carrying around with him from day one. He was still on tenterhooks thinking that any day now, one of them was going to ask him to join them for a night of all-out debauchery.

It was not just the fact that Pete kept talking about it. Pete was full of shit quite a lot of the time. It was always possible that Mikey had told Pete something about band sex, Patrick realised that, but it was just as likely that Mikey was bullshitting him. If it had only been Pete who warned him about the My Chemical Romance orgies, Patrick wouldn't have given it a second thought. But Bob Bryar was a different matter. Patrick had laughed when Bob warned him, all those weeks ago when My Chem first offered Patrick the job, and he'd tried to just brush it off. Bob insisted, though, and eventually shrugged and said Patrick couldn't claim he didn't try to warn him, and ever since then Patrick had been worrying, wondering if any moment now the band were going to spring on him like a pack of sexy hyenas and expect him to come to bed with them.

It was stupid, he kept telling himself. Bob had probably been winding him up. Bob did that sometimes. Well, he could, theoretically. To more people than just Frank.
He stopped that line of thought. He had tried to forget that smirk Bob got on his face when he talked about sex and Frank.

The fear of imminent orgy invitations had diminished gradually after the first day. He was tense and worried about it all throughout the first week, but after that, every passing day when he didn't get propositioned for sex had made the prospect a little less scary. With their studio time drawing to a close, though, and tension and emotions clearly running high, Patrick felt certain that it was only a matter of time before they tried to seduce him, and he really didn't know what he was going to do.

When the last tracks were recorded, the mixing done and the damn thing finally set down, the rest of the band whooped and high-fived each other and then, grinning, turned to Patrick. Oh no, he thought, this is it. This is where the group sex comes in. They're going to ask me to...

"Patrick motherfucking Stump," said Gerard, holding out his hand, "It's been an honour to work with you. You helped make our album so much more awesome. What do you say to helping make our tour more awesome as well."

Patrick knew he was supposed to think seriously about this, not make a snap decision. He should talk to Pete, and Bob, and, god, somebody else before he decided to suddenly go off on tour with My Chemical Romance. But he was enjoying this, more than he thought he would, and with them all standing there looking at him like he was the best thing they'd ever seen, he realised it was going to be hard to walk away.

And besides, he was so overwhelmed with relief that they weren't trying to have sex with him that he would have agreed to just about anything. So he took Gerard's hand and said "Yes."

A second later he was trying to throw Frank off his back while Mikey and Ray were both trying to shake his hand at once, and he was so busy laughing that he forgot to be annoyed. This wasn't Fall Out Boy. It still wasn't his band. But he could go out and play with some other people for a bit, and he could do it with some of the best people outside his own label he could ever have hoped to meet.

"So Patrick," said Gerard, when it all calmed down, with a dangerous glint in his eye, "Now that you're a touring member of MCR, we have some traditional celebrations that we need to invite you to. Ray took the initiative of booking a hotel room for the occasion..."

Pete knows when Patrick is ignoring him. Or rather, he knows when Patrick is ignoring him because he’s fed up with Pete and can’t take his annoying habits any more, and ignoring him because there’s something wrong with Patrick. A week into his first tour with MCR, Patrick stops returning Pete’s calls, and as much as he tries not to worry, there’s only so much of that he can put up with before he realises something’s seriously wrong.

“Yo,” says Mikey, when he picks up the phone. “What’s up?”

“Not much.” Pete tries to stay casual despite his relief, both at hearing Mikey’s voice and at knowing that Patrick’s right there in the background. “Can you put me onto Patrick?”

“He has his own phone, you know that, right?”

“Well duh,” Pete said. “How do you think I kept him in my band so long without phoning him? He’s not answering it.”

“Okay,” said Mikey. This was what Pete loved about Mikey. He never asked uncomfortable questions, he just helped. “Hey Patrick, catch!”

And a moment later, after a startled squawk, was the sound of a tense Patrick saying “Hello?”

“Patrick!” said Pete, delighted. “It’s so good to hear you!”

“What? Pete? Mikey!”

“Mikey’s an awesome friend,” said Pete, smugly, while Patrick grumbled under his breath. “He takes my calls. And helps me and shit. Unlike some people I could name.”

“I’m taking this outside!” Patrick yelled to someone, and a moment later there was a notable reduction in the background noise.

“So what the fuck? Is there some reason you disappeared off the face of the earth?”

“No,” said Patrick, stiffly. “I’ve just been busy, okay?”

“Because I was worried,” said Pete, indignantly. As much as he was trying to be humorous about this, he could feel a little of his composure slipping, just a bit too jealous that MCR got to see more of Patrick than he did these days, and a little too glad to be talking to him again at last. “I thought something had happened to you. Nothing bad’s happened, has it?”

“No, of course not,” Patrick sighed. “I’m sorry. Tour’s just been keeping me busy, that’s all.”

“You mean MCR’s been keeping you busy,” said Pete, unable to help himself. “With the nightly orgies, I mean.”

And then Patrick didn’t say anything. It started out sounding like a ‘I’m sick of this, Pete’ silence, but as it stretched on it turned into more of an awkward silence, and by the time Patrick finally got around to clearing his throat Pete had figured out exactly what was implied by it.

“Oh my god.”

“Pete, it’s not what you...”

“Mikey wasn’t joking. And you’ve been lying to me, you little sneak.”

“I’m not...”

“You are!”

“I’m not sleeping with any of MCR!” Patrick hissed, and they both shut up for a moment before Patrick mumbled “They just keep asking me to.”

“And you’re not doing it?” Pete blurted, before he could start feeling jealous. “Why the hell not, Patrick?”

“Why not? Are you actually mad?” Patrick demanded.

“Yes, but that’s not the point. The point is that Mikeyway gives really great head.”

Patrick made a sound that was almost a frustrated scream. “Pete, shut the fuck up.”

“What? I’m just stating a fact. You should fuck them, Patrick, it’d be really good. You deserve good things.”

“I have to go on stage with that guy every night, I don’t want to know how great he is in bed.”

“You should find out for yourself,” said Pete, feeling genuinely sad now. “Really, Patrick. You shouldn’t deny yourself something awesome just because you think it’s a bad idea and you hate taking your clothes off or whatever. Stop being repressed and let yourself be happy, Patrick!”

It took a moment for Pete to realise that Patrick had hung up on him. He redialled but this time he got Mikey again.

“Patrick says he’s not talking to you,” said Mikey, sounding unsurprised.

“Why aren’t any of you having sex with him?” Pete demanded, more important things on his mind now. “If you’re gonna borrow my Patrick I expect you to take care of him, Mikeyway.”

“I dunno,” said Mikey, and he sounded so sad that Pete felt bad for telling him off about it. “We’ve all tried, Pete. But he keeps saying no. Some bullshit excuse about boundaries.”

“Figures,” Pete sad, with an equally melancholy sigh.

Nobody told Patrick about the running bet about who would be the first to get Patrick into bed with another guy in the band, but they were pretty sure he knew about it. It was hard to be subtle about whispering about someone when they were in your band, and they figured he must have gotten the idea when he started hanging out with Dewees all the time. Or maybe he was just sick of them all hitting on him.

Initially they all thought the first one would be Ray. After all those late nights hanging out together in the studio, there had to be some chemistry there, right? But Patrick remained resolutely resistant to Ray’s seductive charms, and Ray actually felt kind of bad for coming onto him when he clearly just wanted to talk about song ideas, new arrangements or just how to improve their sound in the latest venue.

Gerard had no such reservations. He was quite happy to lure Patrick into conversations about singing, interviews or D&D before trying to get into his pants.

“Hey, Pete was right,” Gerard said, cheerfully, on one occasion when Patrick huffed, glared at him and stalked back to the bus. “You are extra hot when you’re mad.”

“I hate you,” Patrick shot back.

“I know!” Gerard said, cheerfully.

Normally they would have all put their money on Mikey being the first one to seduce Patrick, given his typical deftness at hooking up under any situation, but though he just said he was out of practice, everyone knew that it wasn’t really going to work with Patrick. There was an uncomfortable Pete-shaped space between them, and though Mikey made a few half-hearted attempts at hitting on him, they both knew that it wasn’t going to be something they were both comfortable with.

Nobody expected it to be Frank.

Patrick realised after only one show that as intense and dedicated as Frank could be in the studio, on stage he was annoying as fuck. It was nice that Frank was so into his music, but he clearly had no goddamn respect for anyone else’s space. He was way too happy to headbutt other people, or rub up against them, or climb on Patrick’s drum kit or kick things or knock things over. Patrick’s things. Worse than that, even were the times that Frank would try to get behind the kit to sniff him or nuzzle him or whatever, while Patrick was trying to concentrate on playing, because apparently sticking his face in Gerard’s crotch whenever he got the chance wasn’t enough for Frank and he had to get as much contact as possible with Patrick, too.

On stage, Frank had all the annoying habits that Pete did. Except that unlike Pete, Frank wasn’t scared of pissing Patrick off.

Between Frank’s general incorrigibility and the entire band’s increasing annoyance that Patrick won’t sleep with them, this eventually culminates in Frank clambering over Patrick’s kit to lick his neck right there on stage in front of everyone. Being such a professional, Patrick doesn’t stop playing, not even when Frank’s fumbling notes and Patrick’s turning red all over, but he does come close to snapping when Frank knocks over a cymbal as he skips away. Patrick takes a deep breath and just puts the stand back up again while Gerard keeps the audience entertained by sticking his hand down his pants, but he spends the rest of the show glaring at Frank, and when he grabs Frank by the arm and drags him away as soon as they’re offstage, the rest of the band just look glad that it’s not them.

“Jesus, Frank!” Patrick yelled, when they were out of sight, if not out of earshot. “Did you have to fucking... in front of everybody.”

“Yep,” said Frank, cheerfully.

“Well fucking don’t,” Patrick shouted, and shoved him against the side of the bus. He felt a stab of guilt and glanced around, but it looked like the rest of MCR were staying out of his way until he was done yelling. Good. “Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me? You don’t get to do that shit on stage when I’m trying to play.”

“What shit would that be?” Frank asked, innocently, and tried to lick Patrick’s neck again while he slid a hand under his shirt. Patrick pushed him away again. “Oh, you mean all the shit Pete used to do? I’m not allowed to get away with that, huh?”

“Pete didn’t wreck my instruments,” Patrick grumbled, pushing Frank back against the side of the bus again and holding him at arm’s length.

“Pete had an unfair advantage,” said Frank. “He didn’t have to go through a drumkit to get to you.”

“Shut up,” said Patrick, tightening his grip on Frank’s shirt. “And don’t do that again.”

“Yeah, right. You think I’m gonna stop touching you because you scare me? Although...” Frank grinned and rolled his hips against Patrick’s suggestively. “I can promise to shut up if you can think of something else to put in my mouth.”

Patrick glared at Frank for a bit longer, largely in disbelief, but he mutters ‘get in the bus’ in the hope that by the time they both make it inside, sanity will have prevailed and Patrick will no longer feel that shoving Frank to his knees and making him blow him in the bathrooms is just what he needs.

It doesn’t.

Afterwards, when Patrick is breathless and pressed uncomfortably against the shower wall to hold himself up, and Frank is sitting back on his heels grinning at him, all Patrick can think to say is “Bob wasn’t kidding.”

“Bob loved my mouth,” said Frank, smugly. “Although you’d never know during, he was so quiet. You, on the other hand, are a noisy fucker.”

Patrick flushed even redder. “He was right about how annoying you are, jackass.”

“So are you going to return the favour or what?”:

“No. That was payback for you crashing my kit. I don’t owe you anything.”

“Okay.”

Patrick blinked. That was too easy. “So you’ll stop getting in my space on stage?”

“Oh hell no,” Frank laughed. “Come on, it’s not like you really want me to stop.”

“I really do.”

“No you don’t. Because now you know I’m just as good with my tongue as Bob said I was and now you can get me to make it up to you every time I fuck up.” He stood up and grabbed Patrick in a full-body hug, now that Patrick couldn’t escape in the confined space. “Admit it. You want me to do that again.”

Patrick frantically tried to think of a way to avoid answering that, because he couldn’t think of an answer that resulted in more sex with Frank and Frank leaving him alone on stage. Fortunately, Frank forgot about it when Patrick opened the bathroom door to a round of applause from the rest of the band.

“I can’t believe you got there first,” said Gerard, later, poking Frank with his foot.

“First?” Patrick rolled his eyes. “That was one time, guys. It still doesn’t mean I’ll sleep with all of you.”

“Yeah!” Frank punched the air. “I win! I get all the Patrick sex!”

“You do not.” Patrick shooed him away. “That was once, Frank. Now you’re going to stay away from me on stage and I’m going to stay well away from any more tour sex.”

It was after the third time he fucked Frank that Patrick started to find himself ‘accidentally’ walking in on Frank having sex with other people.

The first time, it seemed like a genuine accident. It was a few hours before a show and he walked into a dressing room to find Ray and Frank wrapped around each other in an advanced state of undress. Ray seemed startled, even if Frank just invited Patrick to join, and Patrick yelled a hasty “Sorry!” over the top of him and backed out of there as fast as he could.

“Sorry about that,” Frank whispered, late that night, sticking his head into Patrick’s bunk.

“I should be sorry,” Patrick whispered back.

“I mean, I hope it didn’t make you jealous or anything.”

Patrick gave him a weary look over the top of his book. “How stupid do you think I am?”

“Stupid enough to turn down sex,” said Frank, immediately. “Unless you want me to say sorry right now.”

“No. I’m sleeping. Go away.”

“See, you are mad,” said Frank, grinning at Patrick as though that infuriating logic made sense. “Just give in and join the love, Patrick.”

“No, I know that sex in bunks is a terrible idea,” he said, and tried to push Frank’s head away. Somehow that just resulted in Frank crawling in on top of Patrick, and by then Patrick was ready to just give up.

Patrick was less shocked when he found Gerard blowing Frank backstage one evening, but he was even more annoyed. Seriously, there were techs around. Wouldn’t Frank think of the crew? They could at least use a dressing room. And put a sign on the door, unlike that time with Ray. But it wasn’t until he was climbing on the bus late one night and found Frank and Mikey exchanging lazy handjobs on the couch that he started to think something was up.

“This is some kind of evil plan, isn’t it?” he asked, crossing his arms, trying not to look uncomfortable.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Mikey said, flatly, staring straight at him.

It was really hard looking his bandmates in the eye when they were just sitting there getting each other off. “All these ‘coincidental’ caught in the act occasions, Frank.”

“The thing is, Patrick,” said Frank, as he shifted slightly on the couch, “In this band we all love each other a lot. And we all like to show each other that. And we don’t really care if the other see, because we all know, you know?”

“No,” said Patrick, uncertainly. “I’m just going to bed and leaving you to it.”

He’d gotten used to Frank calling him a spoilsport. He was immune to it by now. What stopped him was Mikey saying “Don’t.”

Patrick had been trying to avoid thinking about Mikey. In some weird part of his mind, Mikey was still Pete’s, was still tied up with Pete. He could keep from thinking about it before, but when he turned to look back at Mikey this time, it was different, because his mouth was hanging open and his eyes were dark and he was panting a little as Frank jerked him off and he couldn’t help but think of Pete, now. Because this was Mikeyway as not many people got to see him, but Pete had. Frank was just different enough from Pete that Patrick could keep from thinking about him, but it was impossible to keep Pete out of his head when he was looking at Mikey like this.

So for reasons he barely understood, Patrick turned and sat down next to him, and when Mikey turned to kiss him, Patrick just gave in. Soon he was cushioned between them, Frank at his back whispering filth in his ear and Mikey on his knees in front of him. Patrick groaned and tangled his fingers in Mikey’s hair, dirty blond rather than black as it had been on Warped all those years ago, and he thought about how this was another part of Mikey that he had and Pete didn’t. And when he opened his eyes he saw Gerard hovering in the doorway with Ray behind him, and Gerard asked, timidly, if Patrick minded them joining in. And this time Patrick gave in and said yes, let himself be surrounded by a band who loved him, and let himself think of the person who was missing.

Pete had learned by now to stop asking about MCR’s groupsex habits, so he was completely blindsided when Patrick said “So you know what you kept asking about the band, and how they all have sex...”

“Oh my god,” Pete sat down suddenly. “Patrick, you did it! I didn’t think you had it in you!”

“I didn’t say that.”

Pete could just picture him scowling. “Oh my god. Well something happened. Tell me about it!”

“I... Pete, I’m not going to tell you about the details of my sex life over the phone.”

“Then why tell me about it?”

There was a long pause. “I don’t know.”

“Patrick,” Pete frowned. “Is something wrong?”

“It’s just... I dunno. You probably think it’s all yay, group sex, woo, but it’s... I dunno.”

“Not really, no. Look, I know I keep acting like it sounds exciting and all, but if you don’t like it, don’t do it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“It’s not that,” Patrick sighed. “It’s just not... I just miss... fuck never mind, I shouldn’t have called you, this is stupid.”

After a bit more fudging, Patrick abruptly says goodbye, and Pete is left with a phone in his hand and his head full of THOUGHTS about Patrick and Mikey and everyone in MCR, and how he wanted to be a part of it and at the same time didn’t want Patrick to be sad, and wondered why, if Patrick didn’t want to talk about it, he decided to call Pete.

Then he decided that sorting through his thoughts was too much, called Mikey, and booked the next flight to wherever MCR were playing next.

Pete talked to Mikey around midday the day of the concert, but he didn’t go anywhere near the band areas until they were almost ready to go on stage. Then he carefully sidled into the wings at the opposite end of the wings to where Patrick was going to walk on. Patrick’s double take when he saw Pete waiting there was worth all the effort.

Afterwards, Pete and Patrick have a long awkward talk about their feelings which I can’t be bothered writing out, where Patrick talks about missing Pete and Pete talks about how jealous he is (although he doesn’t mention how much time he’s spent imagining Patrick having sex with MCR). And then finally they make out a bit and Patrick thinks yes, that’s what he was missing. It wasn’t the band, it wasn’t that there was something wrong with MCR, it’s just that they weren’t Pete.

Then Pete says “So does this mean I get to come to the MCR orgies now?”

“Pete!” Patrick crossed his arms angrily. “I’m not a backstage pass!”

“I’m not doing this just to get to the orgy,” said Pete, trying to sound reasonable. “I just think, given you’re fucking four other guys right now, we should discuss what that means in terms of our starting a relationship.”

“And you think the answer is you joining in?”

Just then there was a knock at the dressing room door and Mikey stuck his head in.

“Hey guys. We just wanted to let you guys know that you can go back to Pete’s hotel room for tonight, but next time you hook up while we’re on tour, you have to come to the orgy.”

“What?” Patrick demanded.

“Well you don’t have to,” Mikey shrugged. “But Gerard says if you don’t bring Pete you can’t be in our Warhammer game anymore.”

He shut the door and left Patrick and Pete staring at each other.

“Okay,” Patrick sighed, but he was smiling as he hugged Pete again. “I guess you win.”

“You get to play drums, I get to watch, I get to sleep with you whenever I want and we both get to be in orgies with MCR,” Pete said, hugging him back. “I think everyone wins.”

Community 3.01 post!

2011-09-23T12:39:01Z

So I don't know if you guys realise how hard I fell in love with Community over the last few months, but all I can do after that episode is capslock.

TROY AND ABED LIVING TOGETHER. AND THEY HAVE A REGISTRY. AT LINENS AND THINGS. BUT THEY JUST WANT THE THINGS.

COUGARTON ABBEY LOLOLOLOLOL.

BRITTA IS THE OPPOSITE OF BATMAN.

STARBURNS HAS A LIZARD IN ADDITION TO HIS STARBURNS AND TOP HAT BUT NOBODY REALLY CARES ABOUT THE MAN INSIDE!!!

JUST LIKE LAST YEAR BUT WITH LESS MONEY.

ALSO THE DEAN'S DALMATION-THEMED OFFICE.

But most importantly, BRITTA SAVED ABED'S LIFE WITH DOCTOR WHO

Yes that was pointless and spoilery but I love this show in a way that I haven't loved anything for quite a while, and it's back, and I get to be part of it, and IT IS MY PERFECT SHOW YES.

/needs to find more Community fans

Timestamp meme!

2011-09-19T21:25:39Z

I've wanted to do this for ages and always seemed to want to put it off until I'd finished one more fic for people to ask me about. Enough of that! Timestamp meme!

Choose one of my fics and give me a timestamp - e.g. two weeks before or five years later - and I'll write you a comment fic telling you what happened.

Most of my fic can be found on my AO3 profile and I have an RPF Masterlist with all my music and Top Gear fic for people who don't have AO3 accounts. Prompt me!

You wouldn't BELIEVE what I did last night!

2011-09-12T21:45:59Z

Do you ever wake up thinking "I HAVE to tell everyone what I did last night!" and then realise it was a dream?

Well, last night I DREAMED that I went to a Jet gig and then Mark Wilson and I went to see a movie (something about music, idk, probably Persecution Blues) and then we fought werewolves while walking back to my house. And then had tea and scones for breakfast.

Consequently I just spent 45 minutes baking scones.

For those who are confused by this story (where were you this time last year?) this is Mark Wilson:

and these are some scones:

Now I have to go because I've made an enormous mess of the kitchen and I'm working about fifteen hours a day for the rest of the week so I won't have time to clean it. So I'll continue to fail at keeping up both the writing and the music hobbies this week. I mean it, I'll be so busy at work this week I won't even be able to check my email. See you Friday!

I went to watch a band and they watched me back

2011-07-15T03:01:00Z

I finally went to Damndogs' first proper show last night. There will be an in-depth review of it later, but it's something that masterpenguin82 and I want to work on together so it'll be a few days. Instead, this is something of a meta post: not strictly 'fandom' meta as we tend to think of it, but meta on the experience of being a live music fan.

As Rae and I were walking up to the Toff last night for the Damndogs' first show, right in time for the doors to open so we'd be there for every bit of it, we got talking about the strangeness of being the first person to arrive at a show, and it got me thinking about the visibility of being a live music fan. Of how we go to watch bands, but they can see us too.

There's something uncomfortable about musicians being able to see me as one of their fans. When you queue up well before doors open and stake out a spot at the front of the stage as soon as you can, you don't need to tell someone that you're a passionate fan. It's obvious to anyone who can see you. There's something a bit vulnerable about getting there early, or about being eager to get to the front of stage as the bandroom fills up rather than hanging out at the bar. Your investment in the music is impossible to hide whether you talk about how much you love the band or not. And having that level of emotional investment in people who are ultimately strangers can, at times, make me feel like a bit of a creep.

I aim to be an invisible fan. I like the looking to go one way. Maybe I have too much embarrassment about my own taste in music, and I feel silly sometimes when it's clear that I'm that into someone, but I think it's more than that. (And I think I'm generally pretty good at owning my subjective and sometimes questionable tastes.) It's the uncomfortable disconnect of the way that the musicians I go to see are essentially strangers to me, but I know more about them than I should about a stranger. There's something out of balance about that, I think. I think this is one of the things that makes RPF possible, because public figures don't seem like real people to their audiences. The very process of become a celebrity makes human beings into characters, because just like fictional characters, we know all about them and they know nothing about us. (Think about it: we all know about all the most traumatic moments in Harry Potter's life, but he'll never know about ours.) When a musician looks back at me it brings home the strangeness of that relationship.

Aside from the strangeness and possible creepiness of being so passionate about total strangers, there's something vulnerable about situations in which I simply can't hide my fannish attachment. No matter what I say, wear, or do at a show, when I'm the first person in the room or standing at the front of the stage, anyone can tell that I love that band, and there's something about it that's just a little embarrassing. I don't want to give the impression that I need their attention, or that I want or expect anything from them except putting on a good show. It's partly because I also try to avoid being obnoxious to either the band or other fans - I don't want to command more of their attention than anyone else, to make out that I'm more special than other fans, or to demand any more from them than they want to give. But it's also because at a show, I can't help from wearing my heart on my sleeve.

Of course, there are many fans that want to be seen. Rae and I were watching Behind The Great Divide the other day, and there are several memorable Silverchair and Powderfinger fans in that tour documentary who clearly want the attention. There's Logan, who went to his fiftieth Silverchair gig during that tour, managed to tell the band about it and had Daniel Johns dedicate the setlist of that performance to him. Or Nat, the Powderfinger fan who likes to tell everyone how Cogsy gave her a lift one night. (There's probably a whole other essay in the 'visibility' of the guy who proposed to his girlfriend during a Silverchair set, but now is not the time for it.) Anyone who's been to a live performance probably has stories to tell about fans who want the band to notice them in any number of ways that range from sweet and harmless to stalkery and inappropriate: making signs, throwing gifts on the stage, hanging around to talk to the band afterwards, or screaming their love for a particular band member. I'm just not one of them. I like to not be seen.

On the other hand, the question of whether the artists in the audience can see that I'm a fan or not isn't just about me - they get something out of it, too. Sure, maybe it feels a little weird when I'm one of only a handful of people waiting for a show to start, but performers are probably grateful just to see that someone has come to see them - including the support bands, whose audience tends to consist of their friends and whoever turned up early to get a good spot for the main act. And yes, I do feel stupid when I'm the only one dancing, but I don't think there's a single band out there who don't feel encouraged by seeing someone dance along to their music, no matter how badly. Yes, like a lot of people, dancing is something I'm self-conscious about, and it's only weirder when there's someone I like watching me. If I'm up the front, the odds are pretty good that I idolise the people on stage - and yet they're right there watching my embarrassing dancing. But they get something out of it, and that's worthwhile.

For the most part, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that the musicians I come to see can also see me. That's not what I'm there for, and I'm not the kind of person who seeks out a band's attention. But there's no denying that they get something out of seeing me there, too, and I like to think that that's one way I can give something back to them for the joy I get out of their music. (I mean, other than the money I pay for tickets and albums.)

And the truth is, as uncomfortable as it can be, sometimes I get something out of being visible, too, because the fact that it makes me vulnerable means that once in a while it can also make me feel pretty special. Last night when Chris Cester jumped off stage to prowl the front row and sang in my face, it was intimate and a little bit creepy. But I just can't deny that shouting along to the lyrics while looking him straight in the eye made me feel kind of awesome, too.

A post that mainly exists for my own archival purposes

2011-07-04T08:32:49Z

Having gone through a Star Wars marathon yesterday (and consequently writing lots of fic oh god kill it with fire) I had a hankering for reading one of my favourite online columns ever - only to find that it had disappeared. I located it via Wayback Machine and am copying it here for my own archiving reasons more than anyone else. Still, if you're into Star Wars it should, in my opinion, be compulsory reading. I love it.

My girlfriend doesn’t understand what I see in Star Wars. We’ve had several soul-crushing arguments about what exactly makes this series so important to me, and every time I have found it more and more difficult to argue my case. As the maddening years have wound on, I think I finally understand the reason for this crippling handicap.

There is a diabolical twist to Star Wars fandom, you see, that defies comprehension, and yet is the life-blood of all Star Wars fans. It is this:

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

If you run into somebody who tells you they thought the franchise was quite enjoyable, and they very-much liked the originals as well as the prequels, and even own everything on DVD, and a few of the books, these imposters are not Star Wars Fans.

Star Wars fans hate Star Wars.

The primary fulcrum for the Star Wars fan’s hate (including my own) is George Lucas, creator of Star Wars. Unlike Trekkies/Trekkers who adore Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, Star Wars fans hate the father of their obsession. We hate the fact that George Lucas got it wrong from the beginning, creating incest between Luke and Leia. We hate the fact that he wrenched Return of the Jedi off of Kashyyyk and set it on Endor with those tiny, furry Hobbit bitches he called “Ewoks”, which is a syllabic anagram of Wookiee if you’re obsessed enough. We despise the entire existence of literally half of the Star Wars movies, blaming George Lucas’ greed and flawed ‘vision’ for everything.

We believe George Lucas’ ideal death time was 2:07am, 14 November, 1990.

Star Wars fans also hate the original Star Wars trilogy. We think Mark Hamill’s acting was whiny, the pacing was flawed, and Empire was better than Jedi, making the end of the series a let-down. We hate the way Boba Fett died, and we hate the cantankerous, arthritic duel between Vader and Obi-wan. We don’t understand why the storm-troopers can’t shoot worth a damn, and we don’t get why “an entire legion of [the Emperor’s] best troops”(ROTJ, Palpatine) can be overpowered by a tribal society of midget teddy-bears armed largely with rocks and twigs. Star Wars fans hate omnipotent war-machines that get their legs tangled in strings, or slip on logs. They hate Darth Vader’s face and that stupid harmonica thing he was playing. Star Wars fans hate the original Star Wars trilogy.

There is also, as you probably know, a series of Special Editions that have replaced the original Star Wars trilogy, and these are also hated by Star Wars fans with an even more scorching fervor. Star Wars fans hate the glaring CG changes made to scenes we already hated to begin with. We hate that Han Solo now killed Greedo in self-defense, and then stepped on Jabba the Hutt’s tail (which we liken to Carrot Top stepping on Fidel Castro’s tail). We hate the fact that the ghost of Alec Guinness (whose name is an anagram of Genuine Class, by the way) now stands next to Hayden Christensen (whose name I tried to re-arrange into a flattering anagram myself, but only came up with “Nn…Dense Chest Hair”). Star Wars fans are unsure if Fidel Castro has a tail or not, but we hate the Special Editions of the trilogy just the same.

There is of course also a prequel trilogy to Star Wars. It is newer, more epic, more expensive, and more visually stunning than the original trilogy. Star Wars fans know this, and so we hate it even more. We hate it with the burning passion of a setting pair of twin suns. Jar Jar Binks, Midichlorians, technology that is blatantly more sophisticated than the “later” original trilogy…we despise all of it. There’s nothing a Star Wars fan hates more than a Star Wars prequel. They demystified Boba Fett, contradicted countless lines in the original trilogy (Obi-Wan: “He was our only hope.” Yoda: “No…there is another.” Obi-Wan (not in script): “Oh, right, I f*cking held both of these kids as they were born in Episode 3. Sorry Yoda, I just plumb forgot!”)

Star Wars fans think Mark Ha…uh…Hayden Christensen’s acting was whiny. And the pacing was flawed.

Beyond the movies, there are also various television-related Star Wars endeavors which Star Wars fans despise. Starting with that abysmal “Holiday Special” in which Carrie Fisher appeared drunk and tried to celebrate Christmas through song in a Jesus-less galaxy, Star Wars fans have watched and hated everything. We think Droids was a waste of time, Ewok Adventures was an extension of everything we hated about Return of the Jedi, and we’ve seen both seasons of Clone Wars which we hate because we believe them to be immensely inconsistent with the prequels we also hate.

Star Wars fans think the Star Wars comic-books are a stockpile of contrivance written for marketing purposes by people who know nothing about Star Wars. Every gimmick imaginable to bring back super-weapons long destroyed and token bad-guys long-beaten is spewed forth from these comic books, and Star Wars fans want nothing to do with it. Star Wars fans have read the one in which Han Solo works in tandem with a giant rabbit and we are not impressed.

Then, naturally, there are the videogames. Star Wars fans hate LucasArts, and the opportunist drivel that comprises most of the gameplay-less apertures known as Star Wars games that they vomit up every fiscal quarter. Star Wars fans know that there is no such thing as a good Star Wars strategy game, we yelled at our PS1 when Masters of Teras-Kasi came out, and we kind-of liked the Jedi Knight series, but not at first and definitely not towards the end. Star Wars fans did not like Knights of the Old Republic, unless they were RPG fans. This does not count. Star Wars fans hate Star Wars videogames.

The final main elixir of Star Wars folklore is the ever-growing library of Star Wars books. These have managed to make a complex main character our of practically every background alien seen in the movies, and expanded the universe into a colossal, self-contradictory maze. Star Wars fans hate this. We hate how trite and tired the books were getting before the New Jedi Order series, and we hate the New Jedi Order series for being so radically different, and not nearly trite or tired enough. Star Wars fans hate it when previously-deceased characters are brought back to life, but we also hate Timothy Zahn for not bringing his characters back to life. Star Wars fans did not hate Grand Admiral Thrawn, but we do now, because he is always dead. The Star Wars movies also contradict and completely ignore droves of information within the Star Wars books. Star Wars fans now know that George Lucas has no idea who Jaster Mareel is, and it makes us very angry. Star Wars fans hate Star Wars books.

Now that I have covered all of this, you can finally begin to compute why I can never prove to Emily that Star Wars is a monumental event worth devoting one’s life to. The very nature of the argument means I have to defend Star Wars, and since I am a Star Wars fan, I don’t actually understand how to do that.

Maybe I’ll put it like this. To be a Star Wars fan, one must possess the ability to see a million different failures and downfalls, and then somehow assemble them into a greater picture of perfection. Every true Star Wars fan is a Luke Skywalker, looking at his twisted, evil father, and somehow seeing good.

My earlier statement needs slight revision. We hate everything about Star Wars.

But the idea of Star Wars…the idea we love.

This is the alternative to me posting a giant letter of Star Wars nostalgia that would be even longer than the stream of Star Wars-related babble that g00kie_m0nster had to put up while I was watching it yesterday. He also put up with me hitting him and shouting "STOP RUINING STAR WARS!" every time he made a snide comment at the same time as me going LOL INCEST a lot, as if my tirades about heroic journeys and spiritual battles and the importance of Tattoine weren't bad enough.