Edwin Payne In The Middle Of Hell, His Body And Clothes Soaked In Blood.

my chemical romance has always been for queer people. they set out to make a safe place for people like us to be entirely ourselves together & that is exactly what they got. literally fuck off if you don’t have the capacity to understand that.

Frank spinning Mikey around on stage.

Coming out in a cheerleading skirt and immediately randomly using a flamethrower for seemingly no reason. The most manic pixie dream girl bullshit Gerard Way has pulled yet.

i thought about this last night but um

SPOILERS for True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys: National Anthem

i love the kind of symbolism we see with mike milligram of all the older more "childish" items he holds onto, hear me out.

So we see Mike holding this cheesy little vampire ring during the gathering scene where we first meet the rest of the killjoys, particularly when we learn that he's in a relationship with Code Blue and want's to take it a step further with marriage. They're all teenagers in this scene, assumedly maybe at least 16 at most 19 (because thats when you arent a teen anymore lol- after 20 you arent a teen duh). He's hiding it behind his back and seems to be just about to pop the question.

then, Blue dies in a standoff, just because he didn't want to move on and comply to the brainwashing tv. Blue literally jumps in front of him and takes the bullet (laser? whatever) for him. When she dies, he lashes out.

later on in the timeskip we see that Mike is basically hooked to the TV. hes fallen asleep to it and is only waken up by a rat chewing on the chords. this isn't entirely important to my point but I still feel like mentioning it because it tells us one thing: Because of Mike's grieving, he basically had no choice but to run back and give everything up. His grief, in turn, is what led him to actually start going back to how he was before, going against an authoritarian government run by a monopoly.

This leads Mike to realize that everything around him isn't what it seems, not only is he withdrawing from The TV, but he's also withdrawing from the effects of the pills he (and the rest of society) is on. He's hallucinating, but not fully. We know as readers that things aren't right in his life -- in anyone's life -- because of this.

once we reach the scene where he learns about his Ramones records being sanitized and the technician here to fix his tv is actually some kind of plant (overall, everyone trying to uphold the brainwashing system is doing so maliciously). Mike kills this plant, and we get to the next sighting of the vampire ring that we saw in that first scene I mention before. He finds it, remembers Blue (also to note theres a paper that says "SO REAL IT HURTS" on it right next to the ring, like thats so obvious that I looked over it), and holds onto it.

lets skip to the climax, where we're revealed to see "Blue" (this time either her reanimated corpse or some kind of clone, it isn't really specified) again, Mike shuts down. almost instantly. He's so close to giving in and going back to being brainwashed, but he stops for a moment. this is the kind of breaking point where we see his arc hit its breaking point and reach its conclusion.

Mike's individual character arc is about letting go. Letting go of grief. Letting go of the past. Progressing forward, no matter how much it hurts.

When he gets his gun back and shoots the clone of Blue HIMSELF, that is him signifying that he has to move on. for the sake of not only himself but for his son, his friends, everyone.

And in this last moment.

He puts her body in the car. and prepares to light it on fire.

and that is the last time we see the ring. He slips it onto her finger right before the car is set ablaze.

UGH ITS BEAUTIFUL. the ending is BEAUTIFUL.

a perfect illustration of how Mike had to get past his grief for the betterment of himself.

and even in the end, he isn't completely forgetting her. He isn't just tossing her aside, he's just saying "It's time I moved on. I won't let my anger and grief drag me down, but I will remember you."

and it's all made clear with that little ring. THE FUCKING RING DUDE.

It's a little plastic ring, usually associated with youth because it's usually found in gift bags or cereal boxes. something synthetic and cheap. Easy to break, usually thrown away right away. Mike is seen not only getting better from his grief but also maturing. Which is great for him. It's something in his past that he had to move on from, but could still hold the memory of.

also like a little side note but vampirism is sometimes depicted as being a kind of toxic, dependent force. A leech. the ring having a vampire on it is like... really good symbolism for that, MAYBE IM GOING TOO FAR IDK IDK-

When you realize that the reason sacrificing Edwin to Sa'al worked is that he was a virgin sacrifice

Gay sex could have saved him

if anyone is wondering where i am i am right here and i will never leave and i will never be the same again

aka. the shooting without background music (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

i don't believe i've ever seen the clip of ray apologizing to mikey for the perfectionism while writing thing, would you happen to know what interview it's from? <3

yeah sure! it was tom bryant, who'd known the band a long time, interviewing them in 2011 for a ten-year retrospective (rebloggable here). they talked about tough times in the band's history, especially how they all lost their minds in the paramour - gerard and ray in particular got deeply obsessive about the album. even then, based on every interview i've seen, that was the height of the interpersonal tension between the four of them over the whole ten years. and they all openly acknowledged it and apologised and moved on...literally the least messy emo band ever 😭

this is the relevant part but the whole interview's a good read:

then tom bryant went into more detail on it in one of the tougher sections of not the life it seems to read:

and then talks about the immediate aftermath, which led to flw, which saved the album:

bryant's biography is definitely a little sensationalised or biased at times but honestly not as much as it could easily have been imo, and i like that he pointed out how brave of ray it was to make that apology so plainly. that was definitely one of the things that really drew me to ray early on - you can beat yourself up or put yourself down in a self-deprecating way over your flaws and mistakes or you can acknowledge them and consciously decide not to repeat them. and the second one isn't an easy thing to do so it's something i respect so much about him :')

i uploaded i saw the tv glow to my drive if anyone wants it!!

dear gods please take my pain, double it triple it quadruple it and give it all to neil gaiman and then do that 10 more times

“man mcr recording bullets was really like. hello we are my chemical romance from new jersey :)” from this text post by @capuani41 (x, x, x)