miks / 𝓹𝓾𝓼𝓼𝔂

awww thanks💚🫶🏽 and yeah it’s me!!! same person🤪.

Funny that you mention that but I have actually been considering taking my fics down for a while now. It has nothing to do with the current AI discourse (which is a good thing, I guess!!). But I stopped writing them over a year ago, given that my relationship with the source material and the fandom was constantly changing🫣🫪.

And bc my fanfics “get popular” from time to time, I wake up to maaany different inboxes full of angry people telling me I should shut the fuck up!!!! and stick to writing fiction. I have deleted my Twitter many months ago (bc it’s Nazi social media) and recently deactivated anonymous inboxes, bc it started to affect my mental health🫪.

I started writing “what burns” and other drafted fics last year bc I was taking care of my grandfather at the hospital and had to stay awake during the night watching over him. I was working three jobs and I would use the weekends exclusively as the “writing / altering- adjusting / polishing” or according to myself: wap daaaay🤪🤪🤪.

People knew about this (not that I was calling my revision process “wap” but that I was very busy and grieving — bc spoiler alert!! grandpa passed to a better life ☹️🫩🫨🙂😄😀), abd bitches were still assholes to me just bc I would casually mention that Gerard was a weirdo. Which HE IS!! that mf proved me riiiight!!! AND I WASN’T EXPECTING THAT 😧. I legit was expecting to find nice things about him to somewhat disencourage my claims and to justify the harassment I was receiving, but nooooo. It got worse.

So I started writing about it “more formally”(? And there were people making playlists about my fics including songs by MSI (even tho I had already expressed my absolute disgust towards them), and I realized mmmm 🤨 maybe my creativity and whimsy is being taken advantage of.

Bc of course everybody wants to have fun and read about ketchup handjobs, pyromaniacs lesbians, centaur ray toro and killer clowns but noboooody wants to have an honest conversation about the person we’re creating art for.

I am nothing but grossed out by this new lore, or maybe I do feel something else, and that’s boredom. I am profoundly bored by him and his fandom of posers (yeah that’s how old I am) who wanna cosplay as walking oxymorons who are equally morally superior and also “fucked up and weird”.

So I began questioning myself: why am I writing about these fucked-up themes (sexual violence, unhygienic sexual practices, verbal abuse, inflation, body horror, paranoid behavior, homicidal/suicidal ideation)?

I was writing a 5 chapter fic named “a thousand mouths to feed”, and it was about Frank contracting worms after having an acid-induced orgy with Gerard. Of course Frank weakens as he gets sick, however his obsession with “wanting to share something real with Gerard” (who is about to get married since the fic takes place during prorev) escalates to the point Frank becomes a bug-chaser.

Yeah, very veeeeery gross and almost upsetting to write. Because every time I described blood or piss or grotesque scenarios involving the human body, I would get flashbacks from my grandfather at the hospital which would automatically stop me from continuing.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you I witnessed awful things.

Still, I really enjoy what I write. I believe drawing (bc I draw from time to time) about “a thousand mouths to feed” really got my juices flowing and helped me to work on some issues regarding my grief, bc I don’t write shock for the sake of shock😟. Or at least that isn’t my intention. Idk, I would like to make a comic about it. But once again: nobody reads what you write unless it’s fandom. 🫩. so it’s kind of a prison 🫣🫪.

tldr excellent work my liege im a big fan of ur posts

well I mean, im not back “hating on LLTBP”. I have said everything I had to say regarding Gerard Way’s world building and insensitive choices when it comes to writing.

I have lost interest in analyzing this man’s work bc it’s bound to be painfully unoriginal and ethically ill-spirited. (If you’re a real one you know exactly who I’m quoting :P).

Watching or reading something created by Gerard Way has the same vibes as consuming Harry Potter. And the fandoms really aren't that different. Even when people are aware of how disturbingly sinister some of the things he's done are, they still choose to latch onto a piece of media that brought them comfort when they were 12. The fandom never really grows, it just keeps renewing itself. Meanwhile, the older fans tend to become more aggressive and increasingly bigoted because they suffer from a severe case of arrested development. 🫩🫪

Back to lltbp? The merch sucks, the “lore” sucks and yes, I agree with you (and I believe I’ve said it before) there’s no need for Gerard to “rewrite” TBP and stain its legacy. But once again, if you check radio interviews from 2010-2012 he mentions at some point that “tbp was always very military coded”🫪. I would’ve never caught that, I would’ve have listened to it if I had gotten those vibes in the first place 🤷🏽‍♀️.

Discussing his art has been such a litmus test bc it took people almost 2 years to “clock that he’s capitalistic”… When in reality they’ve always known… the only difference is that this is the first time it affects them as consumers… bc they can’t afford his merch/ ticket prices anymore.

That’s why his passive/active racism isn’t a dealbreaker… 🫣🫠, his fandom doesn’t feel it’s harmful enough to be mad at him/ call him out or they believe it doesn’t affect them so they don’t care🫠🤷🏽‍♀️.

That's because she called herself progressive, imagine if she wasn't...

She’ll always be a lame racist and pedophile apologist🤷🏽‍♀️🫪.

The breakfast monkey one. It has a Mexican character doing a stereotypical accent, he’s meant to be speaking Spanish but he doesn’t even do it properly, he’s an aggressive lucha libre type of guy, idk dude it sucks when you add everything up 😳🫪.

And yeah, we could find excuses to justify that: “he didn’t have budget” (when he could’ve asked for free lmao, didn’t Ray help him to write the song? Are you telling me that the guy that grew up surrounded by Latin people— his words not mine— didn’t know a single person that spoke Spanish?).

It is insensitive, it isn’t an isolated incident when he built a career out of pulling crap like that.

Here’s the clip of the show he was trynna pitch:

Here’s the behind the scenes:

if the dictator in the story is clearly portrayed as oppressive, manipulative, and someone the audience is meant to question, that's a very different use of the imagery than presenting it as something admirable.

Artists have always drawn from history. If creators were forbidden from depicting authoritarian governments because they resemble real ones, we'd lose countless novels, films, plays, and songs that examine those exact topics.

I also think people sometimes forget that Gerard has been fascinated by horror, comics, and theatrical villains for decades. MCR has always borrowed imagery from dark periods of history, gothic fiction, war films, horror movies, and dystopian literature, not because those things are "good," but because they're visually and emotionally powerful. I think people also forget that art has always taken inspiration from history. Using imagery from authoritarian regimes doesn't automatically mean the creator agrees with those ideologies. Sometimes it's the exact opposite, it shows how those systems manipulate people so the audience can recognize those warning signs.

If we treated every fictional work that borrowed fascist imagery as fascist itself, we'd also have to label a huge amount of dystopian fiction the same way. That's not how stories are usually interpreted. The message comes from the context, not just the visuals.

I don't think it's productive to judge a fictional story solely by the racial makeup of the cast. Representation in media is an important discussion, but it's separate from whether a story is condemning or glorifying authoritarianism. A cast being predominantly white doesn't automatically make the story racist, just as a diverse cast wouldn't automatically make the story's message good. The themes and the narrative are what matter most.

You don't have to like the tour. You don't even have to think the message landed. But disliking the artistic choices isn't the same as proving the creators support the ideology they're depicting.

He is supporting it bc the merch sides with the dictatorship, not with the resistance. He wants youuuu (the buyer!!!) to identify with the alleged oppressor!!! If we’re meant to resist, then we shouldn’t buy the merch. But more importantly: he shouldn’t sell us that type of merch. The one with the dictators back. Or the whole immersive citizen of draag starter pack.

But he does that, bc like I explained before he benefits from plausible deniability. He can deny that he aligns with very problematic ideals, like for example: his issues with race. He has a pattern of writing exclusively fictional white worlds for NO reason at all. But sure, if you claim this world-building is racist (bc there’s a preference for white skin) then he can say that this was meant to resemble Russia or Germany (hence the flag and the accent). But if you then ask whats his deal with Russia or Germany, he’d say: nononono this is fiction!!! And if you ask: what’s the urgency of bringing those very specific aesthetic and what’s the purpose of selling those items to his fans, what is the answer to that? 🫪

Right wing movements don’t even look like that currently. But he isn’t critiquing anything, nah, he’s just dipping his toes into past fascist aesthetics (bc the uniforms look cool) to share his own personal story.

Bc that’s what he has consistently done in killjoys, TUA, paradise gardens and now LLTBP.

If you create a world where only white people exist just because that’s what you wanna see, then you’re racist. He grew up in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in New Jersey, he spent the rest of his adulthood in New York, not in Norway.

I wanna remind you he married a racist btw, he publicly supported racist music, bc he supported MSI and more specifically he promoted a racist song (I wanna be black by MSI) to his fans, you can still find it on Twitter! He supported Clinton in a 2004 interview, he recently invited Billy Corgan on stage. He’s the only member in the band that repeatedly painted his face white… we’re talking about a man that refused to use the term “racism” during BLM, that has never stood against racism and that coincidentally disappeared off social media, days/weeks after his wife got called out for being racist, he has made colorist remarks, shit like “I get really bummed when I tan” and whatnot. Suddenly the clip of him defending that Jeffrey Dahmer comic doesn’t sound as out of context… neither that racist ass pilot he was pitching to Cartoon Network, after all… he continued to engage with insensitive and stereotypical racist/ ethnic depictions in every comic he has published.

So what else do you want? Also, don’t shield him. He’s a grown ass man. His balls dropped maaaany, maaaaany years ago!!

I’m not saying a diverse cast would automatically make the story good. I’m saying the story is wrong, bc the whole idea is wrong.

You’re free to believe whatever you want.

I think if you spend a significant amount of time theorizing about what the story could mean and feeding yourself off projections and fanfictions about a man that hasn’t spoken publicly about anything deeper than “love is love”, “mental health is important”, then you’re bound to fill in the gaps for him with your own fantasies about him.

I’ll keep my opinions based on what I’ve read, seen and heard from him.

Maybe you just read one post or maybe you skimmed through the main ones and missed some very important points.

He’s using war aesthetics (specifically linked to Russia, a country that is actively invading another one) to tell a story about HIMSELF, about his OWN exhaustion while performing TBP during 2006.

He created an EXCLUSIVELY white country to depict a story about himself and to sell overpriced merchandise about fictional fascist symbols to his fans.

I clarified many times that there’s nothing inherently wrong about uniforms, but that’s the plausible deniability that exists across EVERY piece of media Gerard creates. Particularly when it comes to his preference for white race and his fascination with white suffering and wars involving predominantly white countries.

Suuuuure, he’s not mocking Russia, nononono this is DRAAAG!!! yet he’s constantly alluding to Russia throughout this lore. He’s inviting Russian actors, he’s performing in a Russian accent, he created a “language” that purposefully resembles the russian alphabet, his team asked for Americans with “Russian accent” as voice actors, the whole setting is meant to convey “cold communist Russian propaganda” or whatever the fuck his understanding of Russian history/ politics may be, after all he has a documented obsession with Russia and used to label himself as “Russian David Bowie”.

And it doesn’t end there, he’s also bringing Nazism into the conversation, he wears the German flag with his black parade uniform (which was already inspired by German/ Prussian hussar world war uniforms). So… if he’s character is a soldier following the orders of a horrible white dictator, set around the 30s-40s (given the aesthetics), and he wears a German hussar inspired uniform AND the German flag, what am I supposed to interpret?

That he doesn’t know what he’s doing? Comeee ooon people wake up!!! He does know what does symbols evoke and he uses them carelessly, bc he can always claim this is fiction and this is about his own made-up nation and it doesn’t reflect reality. That’s plausible deniability.

Also, don’t you think it’s fucking distasteful given the current political climate all around the world? To have him align himself with a soldier (but not any soldier, A NAZI SOLDIER!!) just bc he was forced to perform a record he had grown to hate? Ehhh??? 🤨

Bc that’s what his character deal is all about: being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do!! And we’re meant to feel sorry for him. Just like we were meant to be sorry for Draculoids and Grant Morrison’s character in Killjoys (both killers, fascists, race purists). Ohhh, so there’s a pattern in his writing🫪… (I could add more examples but that’s beyond the point).

He’s not critiquing war, he’s aestheticizing it. Because to him war and tragedies are 🤩vibeees🤩!!! That’s why he did that fuck ass JFK photoshoot, that’s why he writes what he writes, that’s why he never gives an actual opinion on REAL world tragedies happening in HIS OWN COUNTRY.

Come on!!! He’s a grown man, and he’s very lectured about these things, he made a career out of fictionalizing these things. And trust me, I was just like you at first, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, but the more I read his work and payed attention to his OWN words and actions (not fanfictions, not faith projections, not edits, funny posts, noo hIS OWN WORDS). I realized how deeeeply weird he was.

Which is why I emphasize: he’s not rebelling against anything with this lore. Just like you, he loves war, he’s fascinated by it, he’s mesmerized by powerful figures or symbols of power and horror. Hence why he defended the distribution of a comic book about JEFFREY DAHMER 2 MONTHS AFTER HIS ARREST!!! And he did it on television!! In front of a GRIEVING MOTHER!!!

And you may think: omg pussy he was fifteen!! Give him a break.

Suuuure, but if you check his own personal ideology and the foundational ideas of his entire body of work, you’ll conclude that he has a very fucked up perspective. And not in the “aaah I’m a quirky twisted dude with a lot of whimsical ideaaaas”, hell no. more in the oh that’s a white supremacist, imperialist, incel. More in the “I’ve got nothing to say but my characters loook siiiiiick”.

Which is what happens here. The story is not clear, that gorgeous paragraph you wrote about how power can present itself in different ways… that’s YOUR OWN interpretation.

My comments on the execution aren’t my opinions, those are facts!!

He is wearing the German flag and doing a Russian accent on stage (ONLY HIM, the rest don’t even engage in using keposhka!!!) It is truth that every single person in the cast and mostly behind the scenes are white!!! It is truth that they used actual footage from Serbian films about war disasters. He did cast a Russian soldier!!! They diiiid ask for an American capable of doing a Russian accent!!! And the merch doooes align with the dictatorship rather than the resistance!!! It is also well-known that Gerard is in charge of the lore and he hand picked the majority of the team involved in this project.

If this was a critique he wouldn’t be reproducing behind the stage the type of segregation and exclusion his worldbuilding presents.

So, no. I don’t think he has grown artistically. This bullcrap of a lore is no better than Killjoys or Umbrella.

Matter of fact, I believe is waaaaay worse, bc it has y’all spending bag on merchandise celebrating fascist symbols. If this was a critique on fascism then the merch wouldn’t side with DRAAG, and if y’all “understood” the assignment as much as y’all claim you do you wouldn’t buy the merch, but na.

Y’all have a fictional Nazi flag hanging in y’alls room. And suuuuure it’s fiction, suuuuuure it’s made-up, but it stops being all funsies and games when you realize they’re all signed to literally the biggest and most Zionist music company in the world. That’s not a critique. That’s not “smart tongue in cheek commentary”. Nooo, they’re literally contributing to Warner Israel with this crap.

Bc all of this merch slop is UNNECESSARY to begin with.

It stops being funsies and games when he brings MAGA Billy Corgan and hugs him on stage and makes TikToks for him reheating his career, it stops being funsies when they invite the mayor of Belleville (Milei, Meloni and RFK supporter) to join them on stage, it stops being funsies when he does image cleanse for his racist wife in front of a massive crowd.

You think the band is doing a great job bc the whole thing is ambiguous enough for you to think the best out of it and fill the gaps, but as someone who suffered from the consequences of dictatorships I disagree. I fucking disagree.

There’s nothing “neutral” about this. Bc these events are happening right now for him to use them as inspiration or a sandbox/Pinterest board for his own creative projects.

I think there’s an urgency to talk about power, I agree with you on that, but I fear we’re in different places.

I don’t think putting on costumes and cosplaying a Russian is relevant or tasteful when the country he lives in has a racist pedophile for a president and its whole history is cemented in acts of terrorism against other nations and against their own people. If he had something important to say about power he’d critique that. He wouldn’t invite bigots on stage. He wouldn’t dress up as a fictional nation that doesn’t exist, he’d critique the United States of America.

HE’D REJECT DYNAMIC PRICING.

He’d complain about multi-millionaires and billionaires, he’d put on a Ronald McDonald costume and the dictator would be orange and the shootings would mean something else other than spectacle. Because America has suffered from mass shootings more than any other country in the world, and he still has the nerve to use it as SPECTACLE?? as a prop?? Without warning??

I’m not American, but even I was shocked by how distasteful and inconsiderate that was.

But he doesn’t care about those things, HE NEVER HAS. He called himself a “bill Clinton fan”, he has made colorist and imperialistic remarks across his career, he married a racist, supported and platformed pedophiles and abuser after abuser, he pipelined those men (and their work) by welcoming them to his own audience full of minors. He writes racist and misogynistic stuff, he refused to even mention the word “racism” during Black Lives Matter, let alone condemn it.

So I ask you: why is this time so different to you?

It’s okay to admit that you’d never read his work. It’s okay to admit that you never went down the rabbit hole. It’s okay.

I was just like you last year I guess. And you’re free to like whatever, but pleeeeeaseeee don’t claim this is a critique or that it’s revolutionary. Bc it’s not. It’s commercial slop. It’s a cash-grab and another vacant, highly aestheticized and proudly insensitive vanity project orchestrated by the great DM Gerard…