Last go-round with the Bandom folks there was some controversy about my implication that most of the writers were sexually frustrated teens. As it turns out, many of the people in this community are grad students in their mid-to-late-twenties, mostly female, and, furthermore, determined to define Bandom as a feminist pursuit. But while the peculiar demographics of this genre are endlessly fascinating, what's more important is the writing, which is strikingly uniform in its overwrought abuse of adjectives and aren't-we-clever prose style. At first this baffled me, how so many people could be writing in such rigid stylistic lockstep. But after a while I began to realize that these stories are simply the literary manifestation of the pop-emo mentality. The single defining characteristic of Those Dudes' music is its epicness. It's all soaring guitars and grandiose proclamations delivered with an irksome twinge of irony. What the Bandom community has done is to simply capture this essence and infuse it into their literotica. For example:

There's a cough that echoes from the top of the steps. Ryan turns and sees a dark-haired boy making his way down and stepping into the garishly yellow glow of the streetlamp. His hand bangs on the metal banister with every step until he skips the last two.

"Hi." He looks down at Ryan, who remembers that they'd passed on the staircase inside about two hours ago.

"Hi," repeats Ryan.

"Brendon." There's a smile as he sits down on the bottom step, knocking Ryan's knees slightly; a smile with straight, white teeth and an imperious mouth, one that gets imprinted into memory. He cups his hands around his lips and tilts his head. There's a brief orange glow and a lazy stream of smoke as Brendon asks, "So, what are you here for?"

"Garishly yellow glow of the streetlamp" has to be the single most Creative Writing 101 phrase ever produced. But, then again, the lyrics "Oh don't mind me I'm watching you two from the closet/Wishing to be the friction in your jeans/ Isn't it messed up how I'm just dying to be him?/I'm just a notch in your bedpost, but you're just a line in a song" ("Sugar, We're Goin' Down," Fall Out Boy) and "What's the worst to take from every heart you break?/And like a blade you'll stain" ("Helena," My Chemical Romance) aren't exactly feats of subtlety. So it follows that devotees of this music would naturally tap into the general attitude and proclivity for theatrical language. The result is something like an uncomfortable mixture of spunky young adult prose and hardcore gay porn. (And they wonder why people think they're pretty odd!) So in honor of the Bandom Awards I've come up with a few categories of my own to honor the genre's most awkward excerpts.

Most Uncomfortable Sex Scene

"Maybe we can't fuck, but I can still make you see stars, Patrick Stump. Close your eyes."
The scent of mint and green tea grows stronger again, and Patrick feels Jon wrap his hand around his cock, spreading the thick, cold liquid high and low and coating all of him, tip to the base of his sac. He does the same to himself, hand slippery against ass cheeks, and then slowly pushes himself between Patrick's thighs. Patrick gasps as Jon starts to move, the head of his cock brushing along the underside of Patrick's balls with the first few thrusts, then pressing up a little with each pass, stroking along his perineum, better rhythm. When Jon takes Patrick's cock in his hand again and starts to stroke and twist Patrick leans his head forward to rest against the cool of the glass. His free hand follows, palm and forearm against the smooth surface, Patrick desperately trying to quieten the sounds he's making.
He stops trying when Jon starts to talk again; words occasionally halted for sharp breaths and moans of his own, whispering about how amazing Patrick looks in the lights from outside and how his voice makes him harder than he could ever believe and wanting to set the skyline on fire for him and just how long he's waited for them to be this close. Patrick comes first, eyes open wide and gasping for air and just managing to say Jon's name as he empties into his hand. Jon shifts a little, moves down, thrusting a few more times into the tighter space between Patrick's thighs, and then comes hard, "Patrick, Patrick, 'Trick," spilling out of his mouth between a groan and something that sounds like it might just be pain.

Runner-up

Pete licked up the length of Patrick's cock and wrapped his mouth around it again, and Patrick realized, no wait, that was the sexiest thing he'd ever seen.
As Pete worked his mouth and hand together, Patrick reached out, grasping onto his guitar case with one hand and the sheets with the other, as if he might fall off the Earth if he didn't hold on. His vision was blurry, and he was making unfamiliar noises in the back of his throat, and he knew he couldn't last for long.
"Pete." Patrick reached down and grabbed his shoulder. "Pete."
Pete pulled back long enough to look up and say, "It's okay; you can come in my mouth," before returning to his work, and the words alone were enough to push Patrick over the edge. His body bucked forward, his hand clenched on Pete's shoulder, as he moaned until he thought he was might start choking.
As Patrick lay on his back and tried to catch his breath, Pete moved up to face him, settled down beside Patrick's body, and whispered, "I like how you taste."

Best Implication of a Troubled Childhood and/or Substance Abuse Problem

It's a question that usually irks Ryan to all hell, but there's something about all this that's slightly comforting, like the alcohol-tinged breath of a parent whispering good night.

Runner-up

Pete was supposed to stop by Patrick's house sometime on Saturday, but Patrick was so busy listening to his new music that he almost forgot. Then his older brother called, and it was the first time in two weeks that anyone had heard from him. After they hung up, Patrick was so wrapped up in replaying the conversation in his head, looking for signs that his brother was doing better, that he didn't hear the doorbell until the third ring.

Most Confusing Paragraph When Taken Out of Context

Mikey didn't remember a whole lot about being a cat except that it sucked a bit. Cats lacked the vocal chords to say "fuck you". Although being petted had been nice. And sleeping curled up on a warm lap in a stream of sunlight. And being scratched behind the ears. Which he would never admit. Ever.

Runner-up

She's wearing giant blue swim flippers on her feet, a lime green bathing suit, pink rain slicker snorkel and mask. Frank doesn't much care about the color clash... but really. Flippers. Flippers she has clearly become accustomed to walking in. Her steps are high and slow, careful but practiced, none of the awkwardness Frank would expect. He's not even thinking about the fact that she's clenching a butterfly net in one hand and a spatula in the other.

Most Baffling Element

This is from a story about Frank Iero (from MCR) becoming the nanny for single dad Gerard Way's young daughter. It's an epic tale totaling a whopping 19,000 words, and this is scanned in with the text. I guess its purpose is to show-not-tell what happened when Frank went to the little girl's school for a day, which is creative, but the level of detail is utterly confounding.

Dialog that Sounds Most Like a Conversation from The OC

A few days later Patrick spent the night at Pete's house, where they alternated between writing music, making out, and watching the "V" miniseries on DVD.
"The fact that you own both V miniseries," Patrick said as he tuned his acoustic guitar. "Automatically makes you a geek."
Pete flipped open his blue notebook. "And the fact that you know there were two V miniseries, means you are right there with me."

Runner-up

"I fucking love this shit." The camera zooms in on Bruce Lee's eyes as Ryan lifts his hat off and musses his hair a bit. He smells his fingers; Brendon leans over and smells them too.
"Bruce Lee would love you long time if you took a shower," says Brendon, proffering a bag of popcorn and a carton of cigarettes.

Obviously to people who don't "get it" (i.e. you, me, most everyone else in the world) this stuff is just plain weird. But I find that when you can manage to stifle your repulsed bewilderment it's actually much more interesting to view it as something like Comic-Con or Polar Bear Clubs, both of which are entirely beyond my realm of understanding, but apparently make some people very happy. And at a time when the music industry is desperate to gain a foothold anywhere it's kind of comforting to see that these bands are inspiring a passionate reaction. Maybe this is just another element of The New Model; even if the fanfic is free, you know these people have merch.

Even though I should have learned from my very first go-round with this topic to never make assumptions, I'll go ahead and speculate that a lot of the people writing these stories have some faint hope that the musicians featured in their appallingly unsexy sex scenes will read them and appreciate that someone cares enough to imagine them in a library getting a BJ from Patrick Stump. But Suarez's comment at the beginning of the video is probably the most accurate representation of how most of these dudes feel about it: "What's that stuff called...fan...? Fan fiction!"

Suarez goes on to describe a story he's read in which he and impish Panic! At the Disco guitarist Ryan Ross go at it in a bunk bed, with Alex on "bitch" duty. He can't seem to fathom why the bandom community thinks he's so femme, while the rest of the world is simply confused as to why anyone would write a story about the Cobra Starship bassist.

The Bandflesh group is a 40-member collective of emo devotees who write round robin stories featuring Gerard and MIkey Way of My Chemical Romance, Pete Wentz and Patrick Stump of Fallout Boy, William Beckett of The Academy Is..., Brendon Urie of Panic! At the Disco, and many other musicians associated with the genre. Some of the stories are set in a strange alternate universe emo high school called St. Danzig's—these kids are more clever than you give them credit for!—complete with a prom and a principal (represented by a picture of Samuel L. Jackson). Others are just good ol' fashioned porn. The most disturbing aspect has to be the Gerard/Mikey incest angle. (Though to be fair, the female twin-on-twin fantasy rarely rates a second thought.)

When we dropped in on the action over at St. Danzig's, things were heating up in the library where Patrick Stump is trying to study and William Beckett refuses to lower his erection to a whisper:

WILLIAM: Patrick! *straddles a chair* My wrists are still chafed from the ropes. Kiss it better?

PATRICK: We're in a public place!

WILLIAM: *bats eyelashes* It's first aid. You can't get in trouble for just playing doctor, can you?

PATRICK: Uhhhh. I think the first aid you want is not going to be okay with the librarian.

WILLIAM: We can hide in the reference section. It's the only action it ever gets.

PATRICK: *is indecisive* Someone is going to catch us...

WILLIAM: No, just leave this situation to my manly charms. Well, girlish charms...*pokes you* My girlish charms! Appreciate my girlish charms!

PATRICK: *pokes back* I think I appreciated them many times over Saturday night. And Sunday morning. And Sunday afternoon. And in the car on the ride here.

WILLIAM: *grins and pushes you against shelf* My charms never fail! *kisses*

PATRICK: *mock surprise* I thought we were researching! *kisses*

WILLIAM: *giggles* We're researching the sturdiness of the shelving. It's important work. The lives we save may be our own.

PATRICK: Public service! I can put it on my resume. *wraps hand around your neck*

WILLIAM: *moans* I love your spirit of volunteerism.

I wonder if Patrick was wearing his fedora at this point?

Meanwhile, out in the hallway Spencer from Panic! At the Disco and Avril Lavigne are having a heated Election-esque argument about prom posters.

AVRIL: Don't you "Avril dear," me you fucking FREAK! You are RIPPING down my posters!
SPENCER: *smirks* I did not lay one solitary finger on your precious posters, Avril dear.

AVRIL: Fine, whatever, you're having your fucked up friend rip down my posters. Look, I don't know what your damage is that you want to be prom queen, but in case you haven't noticed, you're a guy. At least, I assume you are. I have no proof of it.

SPENCER: *narrows eyes* I don't need to prove anything to you, darling. My "damage" is that I'd rather Pete's dog be Prom Queen than a scene queen wannabe with little verve and even less class. And you had better watch your mouth about Brendon. He's a better person and much better dresser than you'll ever be.

And back at the Way household things are getting very inappropriate between brothers Gerard and Mikey of My Chemical Romance.

MIKEY: *lying curled around Gerard, sticky, sated, and definitely no longer platonic* *smile* Hi. Did I wake you up?

GERARD: *smiles back* No, you didn't. How did you sleep?

MIKEY: Really, really well...what about you?

GERARD: *hugs you tight* Better than I have in a long time.

GERARD: *inhales deeply* But if you move, I have to let go of you. I don't like that plan.

MIKEY: *sneaks fingers up to your chest and strokes you* I don't either. *yawns* I think maybe I should stay right here and touch you in all the ways I've ever wanted.

GERARD: *shivers pleasantly* I think I like that idea a whole lot more...*kisses you lightly on the lips*

MIKEY: *grins and kisses you back* *strips your shirt off and runs hands over your shoulders and chest* Wanted to do this forever...

And it only gets freakier from there.

It's easy to point and laugh at these kids if we're being honest. But on some level, you also have to hand it to them: They're having fun, expressing their freaky urges in a healthy, non-threatening manner, and writing emo porn that has its own creative flair. Their round robin is a neat twist on a time-tested format and most of the writing is surprisingly competent, if not a little trite. On the other hand, it is fan-fic, which itself is fundamentally creepy, and this particular brand is especially cringe-worthy due to the emo factor. But to be fair to this GreatestJournal group, they are not an isolated unit: A Google search for "Gerard Way fanfic" returns 118,000 hits alone. These emo erotica authors could probably raise an army. A very emasculated army, but a force to be reckoned with nonetheless. So think before you snicker too hard, or you might wind up with an eyeliner pencil to the jugular.