Storytime Sunday: Falling In Love
Hello, and welcome to Storytime Sunday! I'm Green, and I'll be your Sunday reccer for the month of February. I'm all about the squee and the total and complete love for all the awesome things around here.
One of my favorite things about bandom is watching as more and more awesome people get sucked into the swirly rainbow Wentzian vortex. It makes me happy to see what makes people excited and what makes them squee. It's contagious! Squee makes me giddy, and I love sharing and listening and agreeing and squeeing right back.
I asked some of these awesome people I enjoy so much in bandom to share their stories with me for Storytime. So you get recs (and sometimes recs on top of recs!) and squee too!
I started with makesmewannadie because she's smart and funny and wrote The Apple Bottom, which is a sestina tribute to Pete Wentz's ass. Here's what she had to say:
Well, I got into bandom pretty much the same way I get into most fandoms - by reading the fanfiction. shrift's Patrick Stump picspam and squee may have also had something to do with it; I can't resist smart, modest, creative men. And then I bought a few Fall Out Boy albums, and thought, "eh, not my thing." And then I started listening to them nonstop. And then I was only reading Patrick fanfiction, and then I was reading fanfiction about anyone in Fall Out Boy, and then I was reading fanfiction about everyone, but not the ones who were married or partnered in real life.
I was more obsessed with these guys, these celebrities than I've ever been with anyone famous; it was uncomfortable, but I chalked it up to a fractional life crisis and went with the flow (that part's since waned a little, much to my relief). I started listening to music again, and discovered that my taste had changed in the decade since I last pursued it; I started branching out to see what I liked now. I went to my first concert in five years when FOB, CS, and TAI came through for HCT. I started reading and reccing fanfiction about everyone, regardless of RL pairing status. But I still didn't write it!
And then minervacat says, someone should write a sestina about Pete Wentz's ass. And I'd never written a sestina and wanted to see if I could. So I looked "sestina" up on wikipedia and picked six likely-seeming words. This is what happened. Now, of course, I'm signed up for bandombigbang and plotting an epic about Gerard Way and Lyn-Z; I should know better than to even pretend to have lines anymore, I don't know why I bothered.
*grins* We hear that a lot, I think.
Next I asked stele3 because I enjoy everything she writes. She has cracky hilarious ideas, and she writes them so incredibly well that she manages to pull my heartstrings while making me laugh at the same time. I'm only recommending one, but I suggest you check out the rest!
An Inexplicable Occurance of Angels is Frank/Gerard wingfic! *g* Frank is an angel who lands in the middle of Gerard and Mikey's house in an alternate universe where MCR didn't quite happen the same way. I wish I could gush for ages about this fic, but let me just say that it feels like a band, and the friendship and love in the story is just so, so good. There's a part with Gerard, Mikey, and Ray that makes me just melt. I'm such a sap. :D
Here's what stele3 had to say about how she got hooked on bandom:
I first became aware of this thing called bandom back in (I think) April of 2007. vange, who I met through a friendslist, would squee about Cobra Starship, and Mikey Way's hair. I didn't know anything about these people, but her comments were entertaining and the picc-shas sure were purty.
Then, there was the Great Fangirl Migration Out of Supernatural Into Bandom in the fall of 2007. Any SPN fans around that time can tell you (sometimes bitterly) about how their flists were taken over by picspams. I think the thing that finally did it in for me was sevenfists' story ' The Sky-High City.' I was deeply intrigued by these weirdos called Frank and Gerard. mcee definitely gets an assist in the way of delightful picspams.
This next person isn't a writer, but she's one of my favorite fandom people. wistfuljane is a reccer and a resource-post maker and she's incredibly organized and knows just about everything about anything. If you don't have her friended, you should check her out! Her del.icio.us feed comes on seejaneread, and that journal has public filters of recs journals, newsletters, and fic comms. Her multifandom 'Recosphere' filter has a permanent quick link button on my browser, but you might be more interested in her Bandom filter, which has tons of popular comms you can read at once without cluttering your flist. Like I said, one of my favorite fandom people, and she makes my life easier. I like that in a girl.
But what's she's best known for in this fandom (or at least the thing I thank her for every day) is The Subset Bandom Connection, which is a TOTALLY AWESOME resource for figuring out who knows who, who did what, who played on who's songs, and 'who're these guys?'. With FLOW CHARTS. And links to primers! An excellent resource for the newbie and the bandslash-experienced alike.
This is what Jane had to say about falling for bandom:
This is a secret to no one, but I first fell in love with this particular section of Bandom over this piece of Patrick/Pete fanart by trolleys (and to be honest, I was enchanted by Hemmy than anything). I think I stumbled across that piece of art from a del.icio.us rec by ficbyzee and then I stumbled across the companion fic, very most likely on del.icio.us again, and then I couldn't just stop there. Once I've seen the Thnks Fr Th Mmrs video and the monkeys, well, I was gone. Hearing Patrick's voice and watching Life on The Murder Scene and Live In Denver just sealed the deal and things just spiralled from there.
And, well, me being me, after the fervor having died down to "some form" of coherency and I had consumed every possible fic, primers, and recs, I set out to create a resources post for this fandom because it's what I do. It's how I pimp my fandom to other people and it's how I pay homage to those I owned to leading me to this crazy fandom (these two reasons are also why I rec). And I think I started out early creating the resources post for this fandom because I couldn't contain my glee. And really, that explains my participation and all my "contributions" to this fandom, I needed an outlet to express my glee and enthusiasm and love for Bandom. <3!
Isn't she awesome? :D
Next I want to rec luna_k because she pimps bandom like mad and makes fabulous recs posts. I love reccers, and Luna is an excellent reccer. She's a total Pete fanatic, and has made this Pete/Patrick Fanfic Recs Post of DOOM and has recently become obsessed with the wonder of Gerard/Frank and made a similar recs list for them.
Luna is squeeful and smart and makes tons of recs and music posts. I think everyone should check her out for awesomeness and lots of shiny. Here's what Luna had to say about bandom and the music she loves so much:
Let's see, how I got sucked into bandom.... Well, it started in early 2006, when I first started getting into Fall Out Boy. At first I was only into a couple of their hit songs off FUTCT, and of course I was intrigued by the naked pictures of Pete Wentz, who I immediately developed a crush on. He was such a BNF on the internet and with the fans.
I listened to the other bandom acts, like Panic and Cobra Starship, but it was a casual thing. Mostly I was just into FOB... but still, only as a fan of the music. Then in January/February 2007 IOH came out, and there was a flurry of articles about the band, and I started hardcore identifying with Pete Wentz, especially over his various fucked up relationships and the Best Buy incident. I started listening to their music nonfucking stop, and joined a bunch of FOB communities on LJ. I started to see the epic true love that was Pete/Patrick. I read a couple fanfics, mostly from people on my flist, and engaged in the occasional picspam. But it was mostly just about the music.
When I first saw FOB live in June 2007, I also saw Cobra Starship and The Academy Is... , and I realized how awesome these other bands were. I started listening to them all constantly.
But then I didn't really REALLY get into bandom as a hardcore obsession until the second time I saw FOB live, in November 2007. (Very recently!) Something about having seen them a second time really cemented my FOB love, and suddenly I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH. I started really reading fic, like reading a RIDICULOUS amount of fic, as you can tell from my exploding del.icio.us tags. I went from having a handful of FOB articles & fics bookmarked to suddenly having hundreds of fics, articles, fan sites, LJ communities, etc bookmarked for all the bands in bandom. It was like an epidemic.
I think I started getting hardcore into bandom because I was going through a really tough time, and I needed someplace to focus my energy. Bandom was a positive place to focus on. Most of the music in bandom is so positive, and soul-reaffirming. If that's a word. Even the music that's not really peppy is very much about trying to save my life - see My Chemical Romance. I get the feeling from the lyrics, articles, blog posts etc that these artists genuinely care about their fans and some of them (mostly Gerard Way) really do want to save my life. That's pretty fucking cool.
♥♥♥
So I've got someone who wrote a sestina, someone who writes fic, someone who makes kickass resource posts, and someone who recs and pimps bandom like a wild thing. How about someone who just makes bandom hilariously FUN?
pearl_o's LJ is like shiny, shiny crack. She writes wonderful fic and I love every single bit of it, but it's just her average everyday posts that make me squee. She's totally full of enthusiasm and cracky (and sometimes just really HOT) ideas, and I adore her for it. I just recommend you friend her full out, or at least check out her LJ and see what you think.
Here's what she had to say about falling into our happy place:
Hmmm, wow, the story of how I got sucked into bandom! The story really starts way back last February, because that is when ficbyzee got into the fandom. She was the first of my friends to get into bandom, and she fell really really hard, and since we were talking on AIM really regularly at that point, I had an excellent seat for watching its quicksand-like-qualities at work. Lots of pictures, lots of squee, lots of cuteness. It was charming enough that I adopted bandom as a sort of secondary fandom; while my true love was reserved for Due South and associated media, bandom was a fun place to hang out and read good fic once in a while, when I felt like a change. I listened to From Under the Cork Tree and Infinity on High and liked them both. I read fic once in a while, mainly of the Pete/Patrick variety. iphignia939's Craigslist AUs, for example, quickly became some of my favorite stuff ever.
So, yeah. Bandom was cute, but not a focus for me, even as more and more people I knew to be awesome stasrted falling and falling hard. This holding pattern lasted straight up until October 2007. That is when I decided I wanted Zee to repimp me into bandom.
And then I said what turned out to be the magic words. "So what's the deal with MCR?"
That was three and a half months ago, and I haven't come back up for air since. The squee and joy and ridiculousness and friendliness and those fucking dudes and gals and their stupid fucking faces? I couldn't trade any of it in for anything else.
I'm so very, very happy she fell, too. :D
I don't want this post to end! You know what would make it more awesome? If you tell me your bandom stories in comments. Tell me how you fell, who pimped you in, what stories or pictures or music or live shows or whatever it was that made you fall as hard as you did. Squee with me! Feel free to post your recs, your favorite pics, links to interviews or videos or whatever it was that sucked you in. Share your squee and your love!
This is Storytime Sunday: tell us your stories! *chinhands*
One of my favorite things about bandom is watching as more and more awesome people get sucked into the swirly rainbow Wentzian vortex. It makes me happy to see what makes people excited and what makes them squee. It's contagious! Squee makes me giddy, and I love sharing and listening and agreeing and squeeing right back.
I asked some of these awesome people I enjoy so much in bandom to share their stories with me for Storytime. So you get recs (and sometimes recs on top of recs!) and squee too!
I started with makesmewannadie because she's smart and funny and wrote The Apple Bottom, which is a sestina tribute to Pete Wentz's ass. Here's what she had to say:
Well, I got into bandom pretty much the same way I get into most fandoms - by reading the fanfiction. shrift's Patrick Stump picspam and squee may have also had something to do with it; I can't resist smart, modest, creative men. And then I bought a few Fall Out Boy albums, and thought, "eh, not my thing." And then I started listening to them nonstop. And then I was only reading Patrick fanfiction, and then I was reading fanfiction about anyone in Fall Out Boy, and then I was reading fanfiction about everyone, but not the ones who were married or partnered in real life.
I was more obsessed with these guys, these celebrities than I've ever been with anyone famous; it was uncomfortable, but I chalked it up to a fractional life crisis and went with the flow (that part's since waned a little, much to my relief). I started listening to music again, and discovered that my taste had changed in the decade since I last pursued it; I started branching out to see what I liked now. I went to my first concert in five years when FOB, CS, and TAI came through for HCT. I started reading and reccing fanfiction about everyone, regardless of RL pairing status. But I still didn't write it!
And then minervacat says, someone should write a sestina about Pete Wentz's ass. And I'd never written a sestina and wanted to see if I could. So I looked "sestina" up on wikipedia and picked six likely-seeming words. This is what happened. Now, of course, I'm signed up for bandombigbang and plotting an epic about Gerard Way and Lyn-Z; I should know better than to even pretend to have lines anymore, I don't know why I bothered.
*grins* We hear that a lot, I think.
Next I asked stele3 because I enjoy everything she writes. She has cracky hilarious ideas, and she writes them so incredibly well that she manages to pull my heartstrings while making me laugh at the same time. I'm only recommending one, but I suggest you check out the rest!
An Inexplicable Occurance of Angels is Frank/Gerard wingfic! *g* Frank is an angel who lands in the middle of Gerard and Mikey's house in an alternate universe where MCR didn't quite happen the same way. I wish I could gush for ages about this fic, but let me just say that it feels like a band, and the friendship and love in the story is just so, so good. There's a part with Gerard, Mikey, and Ray that makes me just melt. I'm such a sap. :D
Here's what stele3 had to say about how she got hooked on bandom:
I first became aware of this thing called bandom back in (I think) April of 2007. vange, who I met through a friendslist, would squee about Cobra Starship, and Mikey Way's hair. I didn't know anything about these people, but her comments were entertaining and the picc-shas sure were purty.
Then, there was the Great Fangirl Migration Out of Supernatural Into Bandom in the fall of 2007. Any SPN fans around that time can tell you (sometimes bitterly) about how their flists were taken over by picspams. I think the thing that finally did it in for me was sevenfists' story ' The Sky-High City.' I was deeply intrigued by these weirdos called Frank and Gerard. mcee definitely gets an assist in the way of delightful picspams.
This next person isn't a writer, but she's one of my favorite fandom people. wistfuljane is a reccer and a resource-post maker and she's incredibly organized and knows just about everything about anything. If you don't have her friended, you should check her out! Her del.icio.us feed comes on seejaneread, and that journal has public filters of recs journals, newsletters, and fic comms. Her multifandom 'Recosphere' filter has a permanent quick link button on my browser, but you might be more interested in her Bandom filter, which has tons of popular comms you can read at once without cluttering your flist. Like I said, one of my favorite fandom people, and she makes my life easier. I like that in a girl.
But what's she's best known for in this fandom (or at least the thing I thank her for every day) is The Subset Bandom Connection, which is a TOTALLY AWESOME resource for figuring out who knows who, who did what, who played on who's songs, and 'who're these guys?'. With FLOW CHARTS. And links to primers! An excellent resource for the newbie and the bandslash-experienced alike.
This is what Jane had to say about falling for bandom:
This is a secret to no one, but I first fell in love with this particular section of Bandom over this piece of Patrick/Pete fanart by trolleys (and to be honest, I was enchanted by Hemmy than anything). I think I stumbled across that piece of art from a del.icio.us rec by ficbyzee and then I stumbled across the companion fic, very most likely on del.icio.us again, and then I couldn't just stop there. Once I've seen the Thnks Fr Th Mmrs video and the monkeys, well, I was gone. Hearing Patrick's voice and watching Life on The Murder Scene and Live In Denver just sealed the deal and things just spiralled from there.
And, well, me being me, after the fervor having died down to "some form" of coherency and I had consumed every possible fic, primers, and recs, I set out to create a resources post for this fandom because it's what I do. It's how I pimp my fandom to other people and it's how I pay homage to those I owned to leading me to this crazy fandom (these two reasons are also why I rec). And I think I started out early creating the resources post for this fandom because I couldn't contain my glee. And really, that explains my participation and all my "contributions" to this fandom, I needed an outlet to express my glee and enthusiasm and love for Bandom. <3!
Isn't she awesome? :D
Next I want to rec luna_k because she pimps bandom like mad and makes fabulous recs posts. I love reccers, and Luna is an excellent reccer. She's a total Pete fanatic, and has made this Pete/Patrick Fanfic Recs Post of DOOM and has recently become obsessed with the wonder of Gerard/Frank and made a similar recs list for them.
Luna is squeeful and smart and makes tons of recs and music posts. I think everyone should check her out for awesomeness and lots of shiny. Here's what Luna had to say about bandom and the music she loves so much:
Let's see, how I got sucked into bandom.... Well, it started in early 2006, when I first started getting into Fall Out Boy. At first I was only into a couple of their hit songs off FUTCT, and of course I was intrigued by the naked pictures of Pete Wentz, who I immediately developed a crush on. He was such a BNF on the internet and with the fans.
I listened to the other bandom acts, like Panic and Cobra Starship, but it was a casual thing. Mostly I was just into FOB... but still, only as a fan of the music. Then in January/February 2007 IOH came out, and there was a flurry of articles about the band, and I started hardcore identifying with Pete Wentz, especially over his various fucked up relationships and the Best Buy incident. I started listening to their music nonfucking stop, and joined a bunch of FOB communities on LJ. I started to see the epic true love that was Pete/Patrick. I read a couple fanfics, mostly from people on my flist, and engaged in the occasional picspam. But it was mostly just about the music.
When I first saw FOB live in June 2007, I also saw Cobra Starship and The Academy Is... , and I realized how awesome these other bands were. I started listening to them all constantly.
But then I didn't really REALLY get into bandom as a hardcore obsession until the second time I saw FOB live, in November 2007. (Very recently!) Something about having seen them a second time really cemented my FOB love, and suddenly I COULDN'T GET ENOUGH. I started really reading fic, like reading a RIDICULOUS amount of fic, as you can tell from my exploding del.icio.us tags. I went from having a handful of FOB articles & fics bookmarked to suddenly having hundreds of fics, articles, fan sites, LJ communities, etc bookmarked for all the bands in bandom. It was like an epidemic.
I think I started getting hardcore into bandom because I was going through a really tough time, and I needed someplace to focus my energy. Bandom was a positive place to focus on. Most of the music in bandom is so positive, and soul-reaffirming. If that's a word. Even the music that's not really peppy is very much about trying to save my life - see My Chemical Romance. I get the feeling from the lyrics, articles, blog posts etc that these artists genuinely care about their fans and some of them (mostly Gerard Way) really do want to save my life. That's pretty fucking cool.
♥♥♥
So I've got someone who wrote a sestina, someone who writes fic, someone who makes kickass resource posts, and someone who recs and pimps bandom like a wild thing. How about someone who just makes bandom hilariously FUN?
pearl_o's LJ is like shiny, shiny crack. She writes wonderful fic and I love every single bit of it, but it's just her average everyday posts that make me squee. She's totally full of enthusiasm and cracky (and sometimes just really HOT) ideas, and I adore her for it. I just recommend you friend her full out, or at least check out her LJ and see what you think.
Here's what she had to say about falling into our happy place:
Hmmm, wow, the story of how I got sucked into bandom! The story really starts way back last February, because that is when ficbyzee got into the fandom. She was the first of my friends to get into bandom, and she fell really really hard, and since we were talking on AIM really regularly at that point, I had an excellent seat for watching its quicksand-like-qualities at work. Lots of pictures, lots of squee, lots of cuteness. It was charming enough that I adopted bandom as a sort of secondary fandom; while my true love was reserved for Due South and associated media, bandom was a fun place to hang out and read good fic once in a while, when I felt like a change. I listened to From Under the Cork Tree and Infinity on High and liked them both. I read fic once in a while, mainly of the Pete/Patrick variety. iphignia939's Craigslist AUs, for example, quickly became some of my favorite stuff ever.
So, yeah. Bandom was cute, but not a focus for me, even as more and more people I knew to be awesome stasrted falling and falling hard. This holding pattern lasted straight up until October 2007. That is when I decided I wanted Zee to repimp me into bandom.
And then I said what turned out to be the magic words. "So what's the deal with MCR?"
That was three and a half months ago, and I haven't come back up for air since. The squee and joy and ridiculousness and friendliness and those fucking dudes and gals and their stupid fucking faces? I couldn't trade any of it in for anything else.
I'm so very, very happy she fell, too. :D
I don't want this post to end! You know what would make it more awesome? If you tell me your bandom stories in comments. Tell me how you fell, who pimped you in, what stories or pictures or music or live shows or whatever it was that made you fall as hard as you did. Squee with me! Feel free to post your recs, your favorite pics, links to interviews or videos or whatever it was that sucked you in. Share your squee and your love!
This is Storytime Sunday: tell us your stories! *chinhands*