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Yes my word you may well ask what it is, this theory of mine. Well, this theory that I have...
I was going to post about my thoughts on James DeWees possibly joining MCR back when the rumor first surfaced (initially, for me, in the form of a text from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
missmollyetc, which neither of us could back up with anything on the internet, and then a few weeks later I actually saw a post somewhere), but I got distracted by something shiny and figured I'd missed the narrow window of people actually giving a shit.
Only it seems, lately, like possibly people still give a shit? So I will post my thoughts, which are mine, behind a cut tag, and you can click if you give a shit, or scroll on by if you are so over this/have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about, and then everyone is happy! Hooray!
My first reaction to the idea of James joining the band is: DO NOT WANT.
My second reaction (because I actually am this kind of annoying person inside my own head) is: Well, self, what's up with that reaction? I love these five guys, I mostly think they know what they're doing with their band. Why wouldn't I trust them to know what they're doing with potentially adding a new member? If they're going to make somebody a member of the band officially, odds are eleventy-billion to one it's because they already feel like he's a member of the band. This isn't about needing a new drummer right goddamn now because they've got shows to play, or needing to add another guitarist in the two weeks before they hit the studio. If they add a sixth member, it's because they think there's a sixth guy who deserves to be recognized as a member of the band.
Well, yeah, I say to myself, but ... dude, he's really bringing the band's hotness quotient down.
And then I say to myself: do I actually want to bet money I wouldn't have said the same thing about pot-dreads Frank? Or 300-pound surly tech Bob? Because I think those two dudes are the hottest things on Planet Earth right about now. And the truth is, when I was first glancing through picspams, before I was really into the bands, i didn't think any of them were all that amazing, visually. I couldn't even remember which one was which! And then I saw them move, I saw them sing, I saw them playing Donkey Konga and cuddling each other, I got all emotionally invested, and what do you know, THEY ARE THE HOTTEST THINGS ON PLANET EARTH. I call correlation, with a strong suspicion of causation.
So if they add James I have a feeling it won't take all that long before I'm seeing interviews and backstage clips of the guys hanging all over him and loving on him and telling us just EXACTLY how much they love him and how much we should too (Hi, you can't tell me Life on the Murder Scene isn't fully 20% pro-Bryar propaganda, and you can't tell me they wouldn't put at least that much work into getting us to fall for James too) and suddenly it will turn out I find him much more attractive than I did in a handful of snapshots from back Before. Let's face it, I am kind of easy like that.
Well, okay, possibly, I say to myself, but then I squirm and kick my heels and say DO NOT WANT! CHANGE BAD! DO NOT WANT!
And then I poke around some more trying to figure out what is UP with that REACTION (serioualy, I am this endlessly annoying inside my head all the time, and I was only in therapy ever in my life for a total of like two months, it's kind of sad). And now I have a theory which, like the cut tag says, is mine, and here it is. The next thing that I am about to say is my theory, which is mine and belongs to me*.
I think that the reason I freak out about this so hard is that (duh) I am really emotionally invested in this band, in these five guys (plus or minus Brian and Worm and Matt Cortez), and the idea that they would add someone to the band--the idea that there is someone who is that important to them, about whom I know so little and in whom I am so little invested--just makes it really, really obvious that I have no idea what their actual relationships and emotional lives are like.
I think in part it's a compartmentalization problem for me. I know that the parts of fic where Frankie and Gerard (or Ray and Bob, or Gerard and Bob, or all five of them under the influence of alien sex candy) have a bunch of sex isn't true. But it's harder to remember to compartmentalize the rest of it, the idea of five dudes on a bus who exist as a discrete unit separate from everyone around them. That's a seductive idea, that's the heart and soul of bandom, of getting emotionally invested in The Band, those five guys who go out and save lives, them against the world--but James DeWees is a living, breathing testament to the fact that it's as much a fantasy as that story where Frankie's got wings, and that means that my first reaction to him is that he is HARSHING MY SQUEE and I DO NOT WANT.
But that band--that band where the things I imagine are true and things I don't want to bother about fade into nothingness--only exists in fic, and that won't change unless people feel like writing it differently; and when people start writing it differently, odds are it'll start being real and okay and comfy in my head. And out in the real world, where these guys are on tour in a rolling gang of techs and security and drivers and merch folks and other bands--where they know the names of dozens of people who are real to them and important to them and who never intrude further than the edges of our stories or the edges of photos--well, it's up to them what they do with their band. They haven't come close to losing me so far, and I'm willing to bet they won't anytime soon.
* Except for all the parts about the theory, which are swiped from the Dinosaur Sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus, but you totally knew that, right? Right.
missmollyetc, which neither of us could back up with anything on the internet, and then a few weeks later I actually saw a post somewhere), but I got distracted by something shiny and figured I'd missed the narrow window of people actually giving a shit.Only it seems, lately, like possibly people still give a shit? So I will post my thoughts, which are mine, behind a cut tag, and you can click if you give a shit, or scroll on by if you are so over this/have no idea what the fuck I'm talking about, and then everyone is happy! Hooray!
My first reaction to the idea of James joining the band is: DO NOT WANT.
My second reaction (because I actually am this kind of annoying person inside my own head) is: Well, self, what's up with that reaction? I love these five guys, I mostly think they know what they're doing with their band. Why wouldn't I trust them to know what they're doing with potentially adding a new member? If they're going to make somebody a member of the band officially, odds are eleventy-billion to one it's because they already feel like he's a member of the band. This isn't about needing a new drummer right goddamn now because they've got shows to play, or needing to add another guitarist in the two weeks before they hit the studio. If they add a sixth member, it's because they think there's a sixth guy who deserves to be recognized as a member of the band.
Well, yeah, I say to myself, but ... dude, he's really bringing the band's hotness quotient down.
And then I say to myself: do I actually want to bet money I wouldn't have said the same thing about pot-dreads Frank? Or 300-pound surly tech Bob? Because I think those two dudes are the hottest things on Planet Earth right about now. And the truth is, when I was first glancing through picspams, before I was really into the bands, i didn't think any of them were all that amazing, visually. I couldn't even remember which one was which! And then I saw them move, I saw them sing, I saw them playing Donkey Konga and cuddling each other, I got all emotionally invested, and what do you know, THEY ARE THE HOTTEST THINGS ON PLANET EARTH. I call correlation, with a strong suspicion of causation.
So if they add James I have a feeling it won't take all that long before I'm seeing interviews and backstage clips of the guys hanging all over him and loving on him and telling us just EXACTLY how much they love him and how much we should too (Hi, you can't tell me Life on the Murder Scene isn't fully 20% pro-Bryar propaganda, and you can't tell me they wouldn't put at least that much work into getting us to fall for James too) and suddenly it will turn out I find him much more attractive than I did in a handful of snapshots from back Before. Let's face it, I am kind of easy like that.
Well, okay, possibly, I say to myself, but then I squirm and kick my heels and say DO NOT WANT! CHANGE BAD! DO NOT WANT!
And then I poke around some more trying to figure out what is UP with that REACTION (serioualy, I am this endlessly annoying inside my head all the time, and I was only in therapy ever in my life for a total of like two months, it's kind of sad). And now I have a theory which, like the cut tag says, is mine, and here it is. The next thing that I am about to say is my theory, which is mine and belongs to me*.
I think that the reason I freak out about this so hard is that (duh) I am really emotionally invested in this band, in these five guys (plus or minus Brian and Worm and Matt Cortez), and the idea that they would add someone to the band--the idea that there is someone who is that important to them, about whom I know so little and in whom I am so little invested--just makes it really, really obvious that I have no idea what their actual relationships and emotional lives are like.
I think in part it's a compartmentalization problem for me. I know that the parts of fic where Frankie and Gerard (or Ray and Bob, or Gerard and Bob, or all five of them under the influence of alien sex candy) have a bunch of sex isn't true. But it's harder to remember to compartmentalize the rest of it, the idea of five dudes on a bus who exist as a discrete unit separate from everyone around them. That's a seductive idea, that's the heart and soul of bandom, of getting emotionally invested in The Band, those five guys who go out and save lives, them against the world--but James DeWees is a living, breathing testament to the fact that it's as much a fantasy as that story where Frankie's got wings, and that means that my first reaction to him is that he is HARSHING MY SQUEE and I DO NOT WANT.
But that band--that band where the things I imagine are true and things I don't want to bother about fade into nothingness--only exists in fic, and that won't change unless people feel like writing it differently; and when people start writing it differently, odds are it'll start being real and okay and comfy in my head. And out in the real world, where these guys are on tour in a rolling gang of techs and security and drivers and merch folks and other bands--where they know the names of dozens of people who are real to them and important to them and who never intrude further than the edges of our stories or the edges of photos--well, it's up to them what they do with their band. They haven't come close to losing me so far, and I'm willing to bet they won't anytime soon.
* Except for all the parts about the theory, which are swiped from the Dinosaur Sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus, but you totally knew that, right? Right.