So Gerards Quarantine Coloring Book Got Me Thinking, And Ive Had These Lyrics Stuck In My Head A Lot

So Gerard’s Quarantine Coloring Book got me thinking, and I’ve had these lyrics stuck in my head a lot lately (what with the quarantine and everything), so I made my own little doodly coloring page with them. 

In the spirit of the Quarantine Coloring Book, feel free to color it and post your own colored versions of it if you’d like! (Though of course I’d appreciate credit for the drawing part of it if you do post it :) And please tag me so I can see it!)

“And we’ll love again, we’ll laugh again, we’ll cry again, and we’ll dance again” 

~My Chemical Romance, I Never Told You What I Do For a Living

Hmm, I could list a few things I've seen that strike me as fairly common, though of course they'll be different for everyone. These are just generalizations I feel like I see crop up a lot; maybe they'll help you get your feet wet with the fandom’s lore.

Obviously, the Fab Four are barely in the comic, but there seem to be some commonalities to their characterization that the fandom has built. For example, I feel like Fun Ghoul is typically fairly chaotic, probably the most so out of the main four, and on the reckless side. He’s probably the funniest. Also, he’s often skilled with explosives and quite fond of blowing things up. Party Poison is the leader, sassy, and often has a temper. Party laughs loud and shouts louder. I think Poison is also the one of the Fab Four most frequently cast as non-binary, but the gender of all the characters varies quite widely across fanon. There was a movement recently against Jet Star being cast as the Mom Friend, but I feel like he's still widely regarded as sort of a mediating force and generally a bit more on the thoughtful side, though obviously they can all be wild at times (there’s a certain minimum of chaotic energy required to be a Killjoy). Kobra Kid typically loves his motorcycle and likes to race it; I feel like he's usually kind of a cool dude(tm), or at least tries to be. And, naturally, Kobra and Party are almost always siblings.

Outside of the Fab Four, Cherri Cola writes poetry and has a poetry corner segment on his radio show; he's usually sweet and rather melancholy. Show Pony is even more chaotic than Ghoul, highly flirtatious, and even more widely headcanoned as nonbinary than Poison--I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone use "he" pronouns for Pony (though the actor in the music videos does for himself, but that’s not really relevant to fanon about the character). Dr. Death-Defying is something of a guardian of all the Killjoys, borderline omniscient at times with his radio broadcasts, and he serves as the grounding force behind a rowdy, chaotic gaggle of teenage rebels. His couch is always there for new Killjoys to crash on. He’s a comforting presence and a source of wisdom (though again, I’d say a certain amount of chaotic energy is present in all Killjoys, Dr. D included). 

Anyways, I'm basically trying to summarize the headcanons of a bunch of people at once, and as it’s been said before, things are different for everyone. Just because I see these as throughlines for these characters doesn’t mean that they will be for everyone. But, those are some general impressions I’ve gotten through the fandom.

Also I realize I really only went for basic character descriptions, rather than anything about the setting or other lore, so let me know if there’s any other area of fanon I should attempt to sum up and I’d be happy to try :) 

Could you maybe give a crash course on killjoy fanon? Like I read the comic and I just got here and I’m hella confused. I almost feel like I read a different comic than y’all lol

Okay my answer won't be good, you came to the wrong blog for something coherent, but if anyone sees this and would like to add on, please do!

I'm gonna start by saying basically there's just what little canon they gave us and you just make what you want with it, your own set of hcs and worlbuilding and characters' races and sexualities and genders and whatnot, it's free real estate.if the canon doesn't spark joy, you can throw it away,have fun with this.

I've been trying to write an answer for a couple of hours but i have nothing, I'm sorry this wasn't helpful at all. Someone give an answer to this?

I played the entire Danger Days album tonight while finishing up my taxes, and just as I stapled them together, the anthem in Goodnight Dr. D hit the staticky part. It felt... poetic. 

This reminds me, just the other day I was thinking about which MCR album would correspond to which house! I feel like Danger Days has pretty obvious Gryffindor energy, what with the whole Killjoy storyline being all about impulsive bravery and a fight for ideals. Then, I decided I’d put Black Parade with Ravenclaw, since it’s a very contemplative and philosophical album, reflecting on and exploring death as it does. Also, it’s theatrical as heck, and you know Ravenclaw has plenty of theatre nerds (including me, and several other theater people I know). 

The last two I had a harder time with, because I feel like a good case could be made for both Bullets and Revenge for being associated with either Hufflepuff or Slytherin. Bullets has that close-knit family-feel of the “van days”, and there’s something hardworking and loyal and bristling with Hufflepuff energy about the band just starting out, that whole “us vs the world” mentality they had. (I know this is based less on the album and more on the era than the first two, thought I feel it’s also somewhat reflected in the songs- you’re not in this alone...). At the same time, though, early MCR were certainly ambitious, and there’s perhaps somewhat of an edge of dark cunning in some of the songs, too. 

Revenge, on the other hand, is also underlaid by loyalty, albeit a darker, murderous loyalty, that of one Demolition Lover to another. The quest for 1,000 souls and the ideals of vengeance could perhaps be construed as Slytherin ambitiousness, but at the same time, if we’re going by the narrative of the Demolition Lovers, then a desperate, tragic love is really the driving source more so than personal ambition; but then again, the pair only got themselves separated in the first place because of their criminal ambitions. 

My gut says that Bullets is more Hufflepuff and Revenge is more Slytherin, but it could easily be the other way around. 

Hogwarts Houses represented by Gerard Way

~GRYFFINDOR~

~SLYTHERIN~

~HUFFLEPUFF~

~RAVENCLAW~

The more I think about Victorian Christmas traditions and Spike, the more I wonder whether this may’ve been a Christmas party. It probably isn’t, given the lack of Christmas decorations, and I suppose there are plenty of other occasions for which Victorians might throw a party, but I still enjoyed the thought of it being one as I imagined it yesterday. (Also, even if it isn’t one, I’m quite sure Mr. William Pratt would’ve also gone to Christmas parties, and they probably would’ve looked a lot like this but perhaps with a few more pine boughs and red ribbons.)

I also recently discovered this podcast from the Weird Christmas blog, which has fit well with the cravings for Victorian Christmas traditions Spike's awakened in me. I already talked about Spike and Christmas ghost stories, in this post and a bit more in my tags on my reblogs of that podcast on blagueofchaos, but another thing mentioned in that podcast was Victorians playing hide and go seek at a Christmas party. I would just like you to join me in imagining sweet little William the Bloody playing hide and go seek at a fancy Victorian high society Christmas party. 

I just... I really love pre-turn Spike and thinking about him and Victorian-ness and Christmas things. 

William “Spike” Pratt | Fool for Love (5.7)

Ooh okay so I’ve been thinking, and hear me out. I know Spike has adapted and become pretty thoroughly modern and Punk Rock and all that, but never forget that, as a human, he was a Victorian gentleman. So, I like to imagine that every once in a while, he does these random little Victorian things, like sending Buffy a truly weird Christmas card like one of the above or wanting to tell a spooky Christmas Eve ghost story. 

Granted, in life, proper little aspiring Romantic Poet* William said he didn’t like to discuss “dark, ugly business”^ such as the “rash of disappearances” that had been going around town (spoiler alert: the ones caused by the vampires that were soon to turn him, but I digress) so maybe that suggests he wasn’t the biggest fan of the Christmas Eve ghost story before his turning--although it’s also possible he simply wasn’t big on true crime (nor the people telling it, since they often made fun of his poetry) but he was still down for a spooky story enchantingly spun on a dark night by the fireplace; I know we don’t get a ton of pre-turn William--but either way, after becoming a vampire and thus becoming into Dark, Edgy Things, I’m convinced he would have loved a scary Christmas Eve ghost story, and I like to imagine he carried that forward with him even after getting into the Ramones and Nirvana and hair dye. And whatever Passions is; I should really look that up. Huh, I guess it’s basically just a soap opera. But in any case, we know the guy likes to tell a good spooky story, like that time when Dawn comes to visit him and he’s regaling her with his own gruesome exploits, so we know he has a talent for suspenseful tale-telling. Even after getting his soul back, I don’t think that storyteller aspect of him goes away (although he probably prefers fictional stories to his personal history now). 

So, one year, Buffy gets a Christmas card with an illustration of Santa stuffing a kid into his sack or frogs falling on ice, and on the back there’s an invitation to Christmas Eve ghost stories in Spike’s crypt (does he move back into a crypt? I’m just into season 7 now and he’s living at Xander’s at the moment but I do still picture him in his crypt) and anyways I miiight have to write this fic now if I can get around to it. As much as I love punk rock Spike, I still want him to be a little Victorian sometimes :)  

*I know he’s technically from after the Romantic Era proper--he was born shortly after it ended if you take Wikipedia’s end date of 1850 and consider that he was I think 26 when he was turned in 1880 (which is firmly in the Victorian era)--but I still feel like Romantic Poet is what he was aspiring to be.

^I looked up a transcript for the quotes; thanks go to this site

P.S. Along these lines, I’ve also been thinking about whether Spike would go Christmas Caroling. I do very much doubt that soulless vampire Spike ever would, but I’m fairly confident that pre-turn William would do it happily; so, my question is, would now-reensouled Spike be willing to go caroling, or would he still be too Edgy? These are the real questions about Buffy’s soul lore we should be asking, haha. 

Victorian Christmas cards were bonkers