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ifyouseekay468 · 3 years

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what do YOU personally think the teenagers (mcr) lyrics are about my friend ? like i keep thinking about them but im not sure im going somewhere

okay, ive answered this ask twice on mobile and each time my phone deleted it, so here I go, the FINAL version of this post

It's been a hot minute since I listened to teenagers so I decided to do a quick run-through of the lyrics, and while Gerard&Co were raised catholic the lyrics seem to REEK of protestant trauma, so that's what I'll be going off of, but I'm pretty sure the two denominations overlap here. The first verse is about kids in youth group, Christian GirlsTM especially, who are put there to pressure you into being "normal" into "cleaning you up with the lies in the book" (bible), although the pastor is the one giving the teaching THESE are the people who will get you to BELIEVE, who will get you to lie to yourself, who will get you to church camps that on some level utilize brainwashing techniques, and will DESTROY you with the idea that you're "Just one of them, and just need to change everything about yourself and fake your way through every last sermon to be just a part of the gang",

The part about sleeping with a gun and keeping an eye on you is about two things: one, about the idea that God can see all your thoughts, that THINKING about "sin" (ie; fantasizing about sex) is as bad as COMMITTING sin (which is fucked up entirely on its own because fantasy is SO FUCKING DIFFERENT FROM REALITY and that is a CRUCIAL aspect of sexual expression in order to safely engage in sex), AND the fact that these kids will pretend to be your friend, will prod you into doing things with them, into telling them things about yourself all the while making you feel like "part of the group" when really they're just blabbing either to religious leaders, or are ostracizing you and bullying you behind your back.

"The drugs never work"

This in my opinion points to the fact that this song is specifically about being QUEER in a christian culture. It is common for trans people to turn to drugs or psychedelics in an area that has little to no access to gender affirming care, or acceptance because they both change reality and disconnect one from the body that is causing their dysphoria. It can also help burn away the guilt, so to speak.

The methods of keeping you clean is about two things: one, about purity culture, no smoking, no drinking, no friends who drink, no sex, no porn, no masturbation, no impure thoughts. The second, is the way they're able to subtly manipulate you into hiding yourself, into lying to yourself, into forcing yourself to the point of death into being cishet. They're keeping you clean not just from the vices of addiction, but the vices of the flesh, the vice you can't escape because it's a part of you from the day youre born. On a darker note, this could also be referring to c*nversion th*rapy, given this second interpretation of the lyrics

"Ripping your head and aspirations to shreds," Is again about two things in my opinion: both the idea of "losing yourself to God's will" that usually leads one to losing their identity and getting depression and fucked up mental health, and the "shift" that happens at church when you reach a certain age. You know the kind, right? You're four years old, and church is FUN! You get to go to this big room and sing and dance on stage with all your friends! You get to play GAMES! You get to talk to the ~cool teenagers~ who are ~Just like you~ and ~think youre a "cool kid"~, you have ~best friends~ who will be with you like Jesus and the 12! but then, one day, something happens, something SHIFTS. maybe the Sunday school teacher leaves, maybe there's a new family at church, maybe the church changes buildings. Maybe none of that has to do with any of it, all you know is that now things are forever different. Church isn't fun anymore. The kids classes are repetitive, they're bribing you into memorizing bible verses with money, they DONT reward critical thinking or analysis, but they do call you smart, that's because they dont want SMART kids they want OBEDIANT ones. You have no choice but to stat going to REAL church. Suddenly, your best friends are not your best friends. Suddenly they're avoiding you. Suddenly they're lying to you. Suddenly you're too... well they don't know the word yet but "gay" for them...

"Teenagers scare the living shit out of me"

This is what youth group does to you, it isolates you from your entire generation because there are few people your age and a whole lot older than you, and everyone is so much DIFFERENT from you for some reason, but neither of you know why, not yet anyways. This makes you distance yourself from teenagers, because you can't SEE yourself as a teenager, because youre nothing like other teenagers.

"They could care less as long as someone will bleed,"

This is the martyr complex that permeates youth culture like the smell of wine, the problem? these kids love to make a show of themselves and their martyrdom, but they're unwilling to martyr themselves, so what do they do? They throw someone else to the wolves and take the glory. They ostracize and eliminate the unique in the name of preserving their faith. They convert and convert and god help anyone who doesn't want to convert.

"So darken your clothes and strike a violent pose"

This is about deconversion, how the moment you leave the church you never want to see another cross till the day you die, that you want to avoid christians of all costs because you don't want them To drag you back into the pit that devoured you. So you do anything and everything you can to make yourself repulsive to Christians, which actually coincides with your indulgence of mundane activities previously considered as "sin"

"Maybe they'll leave you alone but not me,"

There's a different between a cishet ex Christian and a queer ex christian, and that difference is that a cishet atheist is more likely to be left alone than a queer one, especially a queer one whose whole demeanor screams "Christians be gone," that shit is like... it summons christians faster than free winter jam tickets! They swarm to you frothing at the mouth with holy water waiting to either convert you or exorcise you into purity, depends on if you want them or not. Again, you don't even have to be OPENLY gay, they can TRACK this shit. it's like fucking... INSTINCT or something.

"The boys and girls in the clique, the awful names that they stick, you're never gonna fit in much kid,"

as alluded to above, this lyric is about how, even from a young age, BEFORE youth group, this toxic culture kind of develops. ESPECIALLY around christian girls. They don't have the vulgarity of slurs, but they can make up for it with slang like "tomboy" "nancyboy" "too boyish" "a sissy" "Weird" etc, youre NEVER going to fit in, because the moment that "shift", from fun games and songs to Real Church, occurs, you have a target on your back.

"But if youre troubled and hurt what you got under your shirt will make them pay for the things that they did,"

This is probably a gun. But that's a tad too boring for my taste. If you were raised protestant you KNOW that being an ex protestant, after the craziness of evangelicalism, you would not hesitate to burn down your old church. It could be a secret tattoo, top surgery scars, hell maybe even nipple clamps. Whatever it is, it's symbolic of revenge. I know that anytime I wore my labrys necklace to church I would always hide it under my shirt. I hid books and CDs under there too. Again, it's about revenge, it's about breaking free, gun or no gun, the point is getting out and getting back at them.

and thats pretty much my take on the song. Again, this is not about artist intent this is just what the lyrics reminded ME of personally (as you can see from the over biographical bullshit I wrote), I'm always open to contradicting interpretations though as I always have like 2+ interpretations of a song or book! I never really saw the song through the lens of youth group specifically but when I went over the lyrics again in retrospect it all seemed to really click (pun not intended) well! Thanks for the ask!

#anon #okay to rb #religious trauma #ex christian #religious trauma syndrome #ex baptist #ex protestat #apostate #MCR #mcr #my chem #my chemical romance #the black parade #welcome to the black parade #gerard way #ray toro #frank iero #Mikey way

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arttheweapon · 6 years

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5 songs that made 10 year old me FEEL things

Our story begins in the year of our lord 2006. It was a different time, a simpler time. I still had a bright yellow CD-playing Walkman, which I mostly used to listen to The Indigo Girls’ album Rites of a Passage while I rollerbladed around my backyard (I wasn’t allowed to go outside of it yet). All my cred came from my pink Razr phone, which could only be used to call my parents in emergencies. That is to say, I had no cred.

Picture, if you will, this girl: 10 years-old. Bad hair, worse teeth, a purple and orange Moosejaw t-shirt. Summer in rural Michigan. That kid is walking up the gravel road from her grandma’s house on the lake to go feed the horse that lives a half mile away some wrinkly apples. She’s stolen her older brother’s iPod, and is JAMMING to all the songs her mom doesn’t want her to hear. Songs like Ben Folds’ cover of Bitches Ain’t Shit, and pretty much all of Green Day’s discography. Just picture it. Fat red cheeks, crooked center part, and temporary butterfly tattoos.

Nostalgia is cool again, so here is the list of songs that made that kid up there feel things, things she had no context for, no name for, but felt nonetheless.

Honorable Mention: Monster by Meg and Dia, Here’s to the Night by Eve6, Miserable at Best by Mayday Parade

5. White Houses by Vanessa Carlton

Let me preface this by saying I first heard this song through a Teen Titans amv on Youtube. If I didn’t mention that this whole segment would be dishonest, because to this day I still think of Raven when I hear this song.

That being said, 1000 Miles ain’t shit compared to this song. I remember watching the actual music video and wondering if she had a twin, because I didn’t know that video editing existed (I was similarly confused upon watching Lindsay Lohan’s best work, The Parent Trap). Is this song about losing your virginity at ballet camp? Yes. Did I know that? No. I had never had a crush on a boy in my life. Perhaps that’s the fault of excessive Indigo Girls listening, but I digress. When I listened to the quiet, wounded “maybe you were all faster than me”, I was touched. Yes, Vanessa, in my heart it is the five of us. Did I even have five friends? Debatable. But in my heart they were there, in white houses.

4. Iris by GooGoo Dolls

Admittedly, this song is not from the emo days, but you can’t deny that it has that spirit. I have no doubt it was an influence. I mean, seriously, “everything is made to be broken”? That is some emo shit right there! I eat it up every damn time! At ten years old, I didn’t know this applied to hearts or souls, I thought it was a very sad song about dishware. But god, that broken plate got me. I was ready to get the super glue. Also, “I don’t want the world to see me, because I don’t think that they’d understand”? HOO BOY. I relate to you, sad ghost with broken dishes. I relate.

Every time this song plays in the vicinity of my parents now, they fondly recall how four year old Claire thought the lyrics were “everything hates to be broken”. Honestly? That works too, but is a little more Paramore-esque than the real lyrics. See Let the Flames Begin from Riot! (2007).

3. Dark Blue by Jack’s Mannequin

I had never been to a school dance, because elementary schools don’t have those last I checked, but this song is how I imagined it would be. Alone in a crowded room. It would flood. An ambulance would be there, picking me off the floor. This, right here, is a prime example of pop-punk boy voice. The pounding piano, nasal tones, and declaration of isolation marks it clearly as a product of its time. If I’m being honest, it still goes hard as hell.

2. It Ends Tonight by All American Rejects

It Ends Tonight made me feel some sort of deep existential sadness. I had no idea what was ending, but I was mourning it with my whole little heart. The long trick is over, people, it ends tonight. Tyson Ritter asked for a little insight, and as a literal child, I had none, but I sure felt that maybe it was best you leave me alone. Leave me alone to feed these apples to this horse. I mean, this song made me feel at least as sad as when in the first grade I drew a picture of my family under a rainbow and another kid ripped it up. At least. The music video for this song is like a modern version of Nocturne in Black and Gold, shooting off fireworks into an inky black sky and watching the lights sparkle and die. I’m sure that’s what they were going for, I’m sure they’re huge fans of Whistler.

1.Famous Last Words by My Chemical Romance, and actually just all of The Black Parade

Where it all began. The Black Parade is a lot of angst to be contained inside of one little body, but there I was. Famous Last Words was my favorite, filling me with some sort of manic zeal for life. Living just to spite the enemies inside your own head didn’t register at all, because at the point my head was all friends. All I knew is that it made me feel powerful, and ready. The download always skipped just a tiny bit at the opening of the guitar solo in Welcome to the Black Parade, which persisted no matter how many times I played it. Probably because my brother downloaded all his music off of Limewire. I remember sitting on the bus on our class trip to the zoo and mouthing “misery and hate will kill us all”. I showed my friend Meghan the music video for Ghost of You (yes I know that’s from Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge, I’m not an amateur) and definitely cried over Mikey Way tragically dying on the beaches of Normandy. I was slightly scared by Gerard Way but that was probably just because I was attracted to him and didn’t know what to do about it. In any case, he was a masterful storyteller, and I hung onto every word. If you can make a midwestern child raised on puppies and glitter with no mental health struggles (yet) feel all that emotion, you are something super special.

Also, I run an MCR blog now so we all know how this story turns out.

#mine #long post #sorry I don't really wanna post this under a readmore #because then no one would be interested enough lol #anyway I wrote this for fun a while ago while procrastinating #here it is for you

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n-ylander · 7 years

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for the ask-thingy, every number who has an 8 in it :)

Thank u my little bean anon, I appreciate u v much

Personal

8- What did you do on your last birthday?

I had work on the day of but I went out with friends for like .. birthday weekend events.

18- Do you have any tattoos?

No, but I plan on getting one next year when I move away from home.

28- Where are you from?

Toronto

38- Did you wake up cranky?

Nah, I wrote my second last high school exam today, so I just want to get them done.

48- Say 10 facts about your room:

· It is a Mess

· It used to be two rooms, but the people that lived here before my family knocked down the wall separating them and now it’s one giant room.

· The two halves of my room are painted different colours

· One half is grey and the other is blue (its terrible I can’t wait 2 move out)

· I also have two doors

· The TV that I got three years ago still sits on the floor because I was too lazy to put it on a stand.

· At any time there is a minimum of four laundry baskets (all full of clothes) in the room.

· There are also clothes all over the floor at any given time.

· I have at least 6 blank notebooks on my desk, I’ll probably buy more over the summer.

· My closet has a lonely bunch of pictures taped on it, they’re all “glamour shots” of myself before the age of 5.

58- Share something about yourself others might think is weird:

l o l ok so every time I get into the shower I have to plug my ears when I turn the water on because when I was like 8, I swear I heard something whisper “Caitlyn” and I haven’t been able to forget it

Favorites

68- What’s your favorite movie?

I’m a slut for the Legally Blonde franchise.

78- What is your favorite flower?

No idea, we’ll go with roses.

80- What is your favorite season?

Summer

81- What are the top five places you wish you could go before you die?

· The Maldives

· France

· The Outback

· Greece

· Banff

82- What are four things you can’t live without and why?

· My phone – bc it literally has my entire life on it

· This real cozy blanket I have cause I’m Always Cold

· Coffee

· Idk chocolate probably

83- Which mythological creature are you most like? Why?

Idk probably like a vampire cause they’re kinda mean and sleep all day

84- What’s your favorite television show?

I have SO many but like Brooklyn 99

85- Favorite place to shop at?

Love Zara

86- Say 2 facts about your favorite things:

· They’re always changing

· I’ll probably forget about my favourite thing in like a month

Family, childhood and places

87- Say 4 facts about your parents:

· Both of them were born in Canada

· My mom is a teacher

· My dad works in hotels

· My dad failed grade 9 math 3 times and still gives me shit when I come home with a 93

88- Are you more like your mom or your dad?

My mother and I are the Same Person.

89- Do you have any siblings?

A younger sister

98- Where would you go on your dream vacation?

I wanna go back to Hawaaaaaaiiiiiiii

Friends

108- A reason you’ve lied to a friend:

“Sorry I just woke up and saw your text!”

Relationships

118- Do you believe in soul mates?

Like I think we have multiple soulmates.

128- A description of the girl/boy you like:

Tall-ish, dark hair that kinda flops around, tan and super quiet.

138- Have you ever liked someone who your friends hated?

Y’all I only like guys my friends hate, and you KNOW I front like I hate them too.

148- What’s something sweet you’d like someone to do for you?

Just like… pay attention to me ya feel?

158- Do you ever want to get married?

168- Things you want to say to an ex:

l o l do not have an ex

Music, movies and books

178- What was the first concert/show you attended?

Definitely the Jonas Brothers

180- Share a song that takes you to a certain memory in the past:

Big League, takes me back to my uncle’s visitation every time

181- A song that’s been stuck in your head:

Location by Khalid

182- Put your music player on shuffle and write the first ten songs that play:

· Bad Liar – Selena Gomez

· Mask Off – Future

· Teenagers – MCR

· Thunder – Imagine Dragons

· Man of the Year – ScHoolboy Q

· Dirty Little Secret – All American Rejects

· Lifestyles of the Rich and the Famous – Good Charlott

· Keep Me – Khalid

· Broccoli – DRAM

· iSpy - Kyle

183- A book you want to read/have recently read:

I wanna finish I’ll Give You the Sun

184- Describe your dream library:

I’m gonna try and read like intellectual type books this summer

185- Last movie you just watched:

Everything, Everything

186- Do you like watching what type of movies?

Action, Rom-Com

Situations and crazy things

187- You’re in a tattoo parlor about to get inked. What are you getting done?

Something SUPER white girl basic, 110%

189- What’s something you can see yourself going to jail for?

Probably murdering a coworker or customer

198- What the last party you went to was… and when the next will be…

My after prom and then my grad party prob

208- What you wish for on 11:11?

Y’all I aint telling you

218- If you only had 24 hours to live, what would you do?

Immediately fly to Hawaii, find a hot Hawaiian boy and spend the day w him

228- What was something you used to enjoy, but was ruined for you? What’s the story behind that?

Ice cream/desserts/food in general but was kinda ruined by my ED

238- Something you’re currently worrying about:

Calc exam tomorrow!!! That I should be studying for yikey

248- Do you care if people talk badly about you?

Nah itd be nice if the cared enough to even talk about me

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