I need a less pretentious word than 'paradigm.'
Okay, so in the last two days, I've gotten into as many conversations about the FBR crowd getting reversed. Now, okay, I appreciate that the whole world might not love AU's as much as I do, but there are interesting ramifications for this beyond "ooh, shiny new professions!"
I choose to believe that it isn't something about me that prompts people to talk about AU's like this, because that's sort of terrifying. I'm going hunting for a deeper reason. This post is for molotov-bitch because she makes me think about these things. Also, I am sorry for flaking out on her, on the phone today. notthegnomes also put up with long lags in chat, so I could write this, even if she didn't know it. Wow, I am an annoying friend, but this is completely their fault. Well, except for the bad parts. Those are mine.
Why is it so interesting to twist these guys, into other people? Okay, so not actually other people, insofar as the characters are ever actually the people they're modeled on, but basically, people with other pre-occupations. Or even people with other occupations. I've previously remarked on how mostly, people are interested as imagining themselves as famous, and I spend hours re-imagining famous people as, for example, school-teachers. Perhaps it's a pathology?
The blogless Pete AU was partly begun, in conversation with molotov-bitch, in an effort to discern how we could make a shrewish and bitter Pete/Gerard fic work. In my head, it turned into a little AU about how with one twist, Pete getting a broken arm circa late 2004, and not creating a blog then, the world changed. Ha, you can tell how carefully I have researched this story. Now, nothing if not prone to over-analysis, I have a couple quotes from that story.
There isn't anything Joe can really do; she keeps on asking him, and while it's less awkward that it used to be, Pete still thinks that it's weird. Joe obviously doesn't like talking in interviews that much, and as Patrick nervously starts chatting about Tom Waits and Motown, Pete can see that Joe sighs. In his more mean-spirited moments, Pete thinks that it's mainly because the photoshoots all focus on Joe, and it'd be stupider than usual, to pretend like they were only interested in the cute one. Better to fake it, for a couple of seconds. Pete shakes out his black t-shirt, and listens to Patrick stridently discussing the importance of soul to Fall Out Boy's music.
Okay, so one of the things that I've realized is that, as crazy as he may sometimes make me, Pete does something special to Fall Out Boy, and that something is insist on personalities. You mainly see this reflected in a kind of retroactive apology; after a reporter has mentioned the way one of them falls into a easy category, there's usually a line about how that's not really true, and there's usually a quote from one of them about how those categorizations are really sort of useless. It's actually charming, until you think about what they're fighting against, this idea that there's an easy set of shapes for bands to fit into, and then, you can think, "Wait, someone is fighting really hard, for anyone to even explicitly discuss that issue."
I think that person, in real, non-AU, FOB, is Pete. Not that Andy, Patrick and Joe aren't interested in getting to be perceived as more than just another band, (and no matter how much I may think they would be anyway) Pete's the one who pours out the effort into differentiating himself and his band, though the venue of detailed updates on the most minute details. It's a way of saying "We're something beyond a pop-punk breakthrough, listen to this!" Annoying as that may be, with the blogs basically the online version of a louder and more obnoxious town crier, it does mean that FOB is different. Maybe constantly talking about that is boring, but at least it's something beyond the basic typecasting that happens all the time. This is definitely something I've mentioned before, the way that Pete effectively grabs the focus, and pulls it over to what he wants to focus on; it means being in the spotlight all the time, and the next rec addresses this, but it's a type of consent that isn't present, in other routes; it's very self-conscious, and no matter how embarrassed I may be by the video for This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race, it is, on one level, FOB reclaiming themselves, and redefining commodification.
and the moon in their net
RPF: Fall Out Boy by iphignia939
Okay, I love this story for many reasons, not limited to the urban fantasy element, and the way the whole band makes it in, and the brilliant Patrick voice of disbelief, but there is this line; He was weirdly charismatic, for a start, but it didn't seem like he liked it very much. Give him a camcorder and let him film other people and he was perfectly happy, but as soon as the camera was pointed at *him*, forget it. He - the closest Patrick had ever come to an appropriate metaphor was it was like watching someone who was diabetic but hated insulin. Pete loved attention, *craved* it, but every once in a while he'd go off in his own head and no one else was invited. Okay, I am not made of stone here. That is Pete, in so many ways, and it really informed the Pete-characterization in the story I've been talking about. Heck, it informs every Pete I've ever written, even the chick ones.
(here's a video that will HEAL your SOUL, after "Arms Race." As sane as these guys get, with smirkiness and wonderful.)
"'Cause quoting a dead guy who had to go work in the prisons because he was gay is fine?" Joe blushes, but stands still. It's pretty rare that Pete mentions it, especially to Joe, who has to deflect the questions, and Patrick, who has to sing the break-up songs. Pete didn't intentionally grab the bottle of Ativan, he was going for the Seconal behind it; after two weeks of sobbing out on Andy's shoulder about the last break-up, it had seemed easier than anything else. The bottles look the same, and Pete hadn't wanted to go back and change them.
Joe breathes in. "Pete." It says everything from 'I'm not afraid of you' to 'please stop.'
Okay, so I decided that Pete without the creative outlet that the blogs provide? Would be kind of a wreck. Honestly, I know this is uncomfortably early modern, but there is a sense that you have to put those humours to good use, otherwise you'll lose it. Hey, it worked for Shakespeare, it can work for me.
But there are things that would be essentially the same. Pete is still nervous, Joe still hates talking. I think that this is where it gets interesting, because even with the choice to swap everything up, and it's obvious, I did overstate the effects of the blogs a little, but there are many things that stay constant. When you can preserve that, it's sort of like looking at someone under pressure, or with an even better metaphor, in a crucible. The fire burns out impurities, and you're left with what you know is essential. That's part of the appeal, to me, that AU's show the very heart of the characters, rather than just how they react to their usual environment, exciting as that may be.
One Summer Last Fall
RPF: Panic! At The Disco/Fall Out Boy by provetheworst
One of the things that this discussion makes difficult is the labeling of fics, but I'll let that pass. Here, something interesting happens; Panic make it on their own, and are remarkably compelling. One of the reasons for AU's, to put things in a realistic context, appears here. It's always been a bit difficult for me to believe that Panic really just did get signed without ever having played a show, but this revitalizes that. Things are more difficult, especially hanging onto your heterosexuality, but ultimately remarkably rewarding. Unrelated to my subject, I love the voices here.
The other, more disturbing AU involves Panic! and Cobra Starship and Fall Out Boy. I like the idea of the rest of Cobra Starship actually featuring in fics, and this started off, relatively normal. But think about swapping personalities around to their opposites, and how much it can depress you. (notthegnomes, I have no idea if you care about revealing details, but until further note, that's all there is.) Mostly this is here so I remember why I started talking.
I'm not sure where I want to go with this.
Final, unrelated thought: The Academy Is...'s Neighbors (erk, awkward possessive) is completely the most romantic song ever, says my drunk brain, at three in the morning. I want...something based around this. Ooh, I know! Tom Conrad and William Beckett, and oh, hotasses.
better post later.
I choose to believe that it isn't something about me that prompts people to talk about AU's like this, because that's sort of terrifying. I'm going hunting for a deeper reason. This post is for molotov-bitch because she makes me think about these things. Also, I am sorry for flaking out on her, on the phone today. notthegnomes also put up with long lags in chat, so I could write this, even if she didn't know it. Wow, I am an annoying friend, but this is completely their fault. Well, except for the bad parts. Those are mine.
Why is it so interesting to twist these guys, into other people? Okay, so not actually other people, insofar as the characters are ever actually the people they're modeled on, but basically, people with other pre-occupations. Or even people with other occupations. I've previously remarked on how mostly, people are interested as imagining themselves as famous, and I spend hours re-imagining famous people as, for example, school-teachers. Perhaps it's a pathology?
The blogless Pete AU was partly begun, in conversation with molotov-bitch, in an effort to discern how we could make a shrewish and bitter Pete/Gerard fic work. In my head, it turned into a little AU about how with one twist, Pete getting a broken arm circa late 2004, and not creating a blog then, the world changed. Ha, you can tell how carefully I have researched this story. Now, nothing if not prone to over-analysis, I have a couple quotes from that story.
There isn't anything Joe can really do; she keeps on asking him, and while it's less awkward that it used to be, Pete still thinks that it's weird. Joe obviously doesn't like talking in interviews that much, and as Patrick nervously starts chatting about Tom Waits and Motown, Pete can see that Joe sighs. In his more mean-spirited moments, Pete thinks that it's mainly because the photoshoots all focus on Joe, and it'd be stupider than usual, to pretend like they were only interested in the cute one. Better to fake it, for a couple of seconds. Pete shakes out his black t-shirt, and listens to Patrick stridently discussing the importance of soul to Fall Out Boy's music.
Okay, so one of the things that I've realized is that, as crazy as he may sometimes make me, Pete does something special to Fall Out Boy, and that something is insist on personalities. You mainly see this reflected in a kind of retroactive apology; after a reporter has mentioned the way one of them falls into a easy category, there's usually a line about how that's not really true, and there's usually a quote from one of them about how those categorizations are really sort of useless. It's actually charming, until you think about what they're fighting against, this idea that there's an easy set of shapes for bands to fit into, and then, you can think, "Wait, someone is fighting really hard, for anyone to even explicitly discuss that issue."
I think that person, in real, non-AU, FOB, is Pete. Not that Andy, Patrick and Joe aren't interested in getting to be perceived as more than just another band, (and no matter how much I may think they would be anyway) Pete's the one who pours out the effort into differentiating himself and his band, though the venue of detailed updates on the most minute details. It's a way of saying "We're something beyond a pop-punk breakthrough, listen to this!" Annoying as that may be, with the blogs basically the online version of a louder and more obnoxious town crier, it does mean that FOB is different. Maybe constantly talking about that is boring, but at least it's something beyond the basic typecasting that happens all the time. This is definitely something I've mentioned before, the way that Pete effectively grabs the focus, and pulls it over to what he wants to focus on; it means being in the spotlight all the time, and the next rec addresses this, but it's a type of consent that isn't present, in other routes; it's very self-conscious, and no matter how embarrassed I may be by the video for This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race, it is, on one level, FOB reclaiming themselves, and redefining commodification.
and the moon in their net
RPF: Fall Out Boy by iphignia939
Okay, I love this story for many reasons, not limited to the urban fantasy element, and the way the whole band makes it in, and the brilliant Patrick voice of disbelief, but there is this line; He was weirdly charismatic, for a start, but it didn't seem like he liked it very much. Give him a camcorder and let him film other people and he was perfectly happy, but as soon as the camera was pointed at *him*, forget it. He - the closest Patrick had ever come to an appropriate metaphor was it was like watching someone who was diabetic but hated insulin. Pete loved attention, *craved* it, but every once in a while he'd go off in his own head and no one else was invited. Okay, I am not made of stone here. That is Pete, in so many ways, and it really informed the Pete-characterization in the story I've been talking about. Heck, it informs every Pete I've ever written, even the chick ones.
(here's a video that will HEAL your SOUL, after "Arms Race." As sane as these guys get, with smirkiness and wonderful.)
"'Cause quoting a dead guy who had to go work in the prisons because he was gay is fine?" Joe blushes, but stands still. It's pretty rare that Pete mentions it, especially to Joe, who has to deflect the questions, and Patrick, who has to sing the break-up songs. Pete didn't intentionally grab the bottle of Ativan, he was going for the Seconal behind it; after two weeks of sobbing out on Andy's shoulder about the last break-up, it had seemed easier than anything else. The bottles look the same, and Pete hadn't wanted to go back and change them.
Joe breathes in. "Pete." It says everything from 'I'm not afraid of you' to 'please stop.'
Okay, so I decided that Pete without the creative outlet that the blogs provide? Would be kind of a wreck. Honestly, I know this is uncomfortably early modern, but there is a sense that you have to put those humours to good use, otherwise you'll lose it. Hey, it worked for Shakespeare, it can work for me.
But there are things that would be essentially the same. Pete is still nervous, Joe still hates talking. I think that this is where it gets interesting, because even with the choice to swap everything up, and it's obvious, I did overstate the effects of the blogs a little, but there are many things that stay constant. When you can preserve that, it's sort of like looking at someone under pressure, or with an even better metaphor, in a crucible. The fire burns out impurities, and you're left with what you know is essential. That's part of the appeal, to me, that AU's show the very heart of the characters, rather than just how they react to their usual environment, exciting as that may be.
One Summer Last Fall
RPF: Panic! At The Disco/Fall Out Boy by provetheworst
One of the things that this discussion makes difficult is the labeling of fics, but I'll let that pass. Here, something interesting happens; Panic make it on their own, and are remarkably compelling. One of the reasons for AU's, to put things in a realistic context, appears here. It's always been a bit difficult for me to believe that Panic really just did get signed without ever having played a show, but this revitalizes that. Things are more difficult, especially hanging onto your heterosexuality, but ultimately remarkably rewarding. Unrelated to my subject, I love the voices here.
The other, more disturbing AU involves Panic! and Cobra Starship and Fall Out Boy. I like the idea of the rest of Cobra Starship actually featuring in fics, and this started off, relatively normal. But think about swapping personalities around to their opposites, and how much it can depress you. (notthegnomes, I have no idea if you care about revealing details, but until further note, that's all there is.) Mostly this is here so I remember why I started talking.
I'm not sure where I want to go with this.
Final, unrelated thought: The Academy Is...'s Neighbors (erk, awkward possessive) is completely the most romantic song ever, says my drunk brain, at three in the morning. I want...something based around this. Ooh, I know! Tom Conrad and William Beckett, and oh, hotasses.
better post later.