Work Text
So, first things first. This story was written for the Bandom Big Bang challenge, and as such, we received two lovely fanworks to go with the story. These were: beautiful art by starrymellie and a haunting fanmix from corruptedkid. These two talented people spent a lot of time and effort to create their works, so please take the time to comment. They deserve all the kudos.And now, onto the extras.
Art
It turns out that @venomwolves on Tumblr felt inspired enough to create a gorgeous art piece, which you can find here. Look at all the little details: Frank’s Chucks, the Fender guitar headstock, the bricks on the wall, Frank’s rolled up cuffs on his jeans, the blue-purple lighting on stage. The drum kit (you can almost make out the “Gerard Way and the Disasters” on the kick drum. The lettering of the song lyrics. The puddle on the street and the gap between the buildings. All of this just adds so much nuance to the art. So much love for @venomwolves for such a beautiful piece.
Headers
While we were writing the story, Jiksa decided that she was in the mood to play with Photoshop and made these absolutely gorgeous headers.
Soundtrack
Early on, music was instrumental (ha!) in setting the mood and background for the story. We started with a few songs, and our playlist grew to encompass 20 songs that really define the feel of the story. The songs are in roughly the order that we added them but don't create a linear narrative to the story.
Download here.
Track listing:01 - Empty With You - The Used
02 - Bloodstream - Stateless
03 - Dig Up Her Bones (Acoustic) - Michale Graves
04 - Turn Up The Faders - Nathan Asher and the Infantry
05 - Uprising - Muse
06 - Slow Dancing - Lucero
07 - I've Never Broken A Bone - Jamie Knox
08 - Crazy In Love (Live at the Metropole) - Antony and the Johnsons
09 - Roll Away The Stone - where is my spaceship
10 - Sail - AWOLNATION
11 - Walking Dead - Z-Trip
12 - Death Rattle - No Devotion
13 - 3rd Ave - Reggie and the Full Effect
14 - Afraid - The Neighbourhood
15 - Cemetery - Headstones
16 - I Thought You Were My Boyfriend - The Magnetic Fields
17 - God Moving Over The Face Of The Waters - Moby
18 - I'm On Fire - Bruce Springsteen
19 - Wish You Were Here - Pink Floyd
20 - You Can't Always Get What You Want - The Rolling Stones
The first six songs are the ones that were the foundation of this soundtrack.Empty With You is where the title comes from. It's a great song by the Used, and the lines are a punch of feelings:
You could be empty
And I can be right here empty with you
Or you could be hollow
And I can be right here hollow with you
If you wanna say goodbye to everything
I could say goodbye, too
And I could be right here empty with you
I was at work and listening to this, thinking about the story and I realized that here was the perfect title. It fits so well with two people who are incomplete, and yet, manage to be incomplete together.Bloodstream is one of Jiksa's favorite songs for inspiration, and it's a pretty good reflection of what Gerard and Frank experience in the story, just feeling subsumed by all these emotions about another person - want and longing and feeling them deep in your blood and your bones.Dig Up Your Bones and Uprising are the two songs that Jiksa thought would be most the Gerard as a DIY solo musician in our story. I love the original Misfits version of Dig Up Your Bones, but this acoustic version really works for me.Turn Up The Faders is such an amazingly complex song, one of my favorites, and there are so many lyrics that just struck a chord with this story, like:
So come on turn up the faders,
Sooner or later bring the beat in,
I need it, I wanna feel it
and
I'm in the backroom, drunk,
The stars cut chunks out of the darkness.
It's a portrait of the young artist,
As another target market,
Playing dumb in the club,
And using liquor as a tourniquet,
Lets succumb to our desires,
Or we'll become just like our fathers,
Bang into each other
Until the lights smother us
And we go under
and
Here's to all the new beginnings,
We never got back from.
Never go home,
Never go home,
Never go home alone.
Lucero's Slow Dancing was another of Jiksa's contributions to our soundtrack, with Ben Nichol's rough, growly singing:
Smoking the cigarettes more than I should
My hands won't stop shaking and that can't be good
I would forget you if only I could
Think about anything else
Some other notable tracks.Bruce Springsteen's I'm On Fire has been a song that's haunted me for years. Especially the lines:
Sometimes it's like someone took a knife, baby, edgy and dull
And cut a six-inch valley through the middle of my soul
At night I wake up with the sheets soaking wet
And a freight train running through the middle of my head
For Gerard and Frank, it's not lust, but the desire for connection and belonging.Wish You Were Here is probably my favorite Pink Floyd song, and even after more than forty years (!), it's still a relevant exploration of love and loss.You Can't Always Get What You Want is such a explicit statement of one of the driving themes of this story:
You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometimes you just might find
You get what you need
Mood Board
Magazine article
Before the story had progressed very far, I created this little article as a bit of background for DIY Brooklyn musician!Gerard. (right click-view image to embiggen)