fic: The Pete Wentz Fic Club
Title: The Pete Wentz Fic Club
Fandom: Pretty much everyone makes an appearance
Rating: PG (it's always the language that gets me)
Disclaimer: Let's just all share an uncomfortable laugh now about how parts of this may actually be true. Also, this started out as crack!fic and morphed into something else.
A/N: There is a ridiculously long A/N at the end that explains everything.
Summary: The whole thing starts after their second CD comes out and Pete discovers there are entire Livejournal communities named after him.
The Pete Wentz Fic Club
1. Origins
The whole thing starts after their second CD comes out and Pete discovers there are entire Livejournal communities named after him.
At first, Patrick blames Joe for letting Pete on the Internet unsupervised. Then, after Patrick's listened to Pete moan "This fic is so fucking hot" for two hours straight, Patrick grabs the fic and starts reading.
It turns out that Patrick gets really pissy if people interrupt and try to take the fic away before he's done with it. This lesson is learned the hard way one night when Joe tries to pull the fic from Patrick's hands while Patrick is supposedly sleeping. Without opening his eyes, Patrick growls, "I will not hesitate to flush your stash, Trohman."
The next time Pete finds a good fic, he prints four copies, one for each of them. They talk about the fics late at night, riding to the next venue or in a motel room when none of them can sleep. Eventually it just kind of becomes their thing.
Panic! is the first band to join in (Pete actually puts it in their contract) and then TAI comes along. Warped 2005 is when My Chem gets involved. Pete figures it’s a win-win situation for everyone. Gerard's looking for sober fun, the rest of the guys are trying to support him and Pete's desperate to spend more time with Mikey.
At first it's kind of hard because not everyone takes it as seriously as Pete, Joe, Patrick and Andy do. Pete has to explain to Brendon many times that a fic club only works if the members really read and think about the fic; Brendon can't just draw unicorns in the margin and say the fic made him feel sparkly.
When Gym Class Heroes signs up with DecayDance, Pete invites them to the next meeting. Travie thanks him for the offer but declines before they leave to smoke some pot.
During the first meeting that Gabe sits in on, he calls them love stories and everyone rolls their eyes. For a brief second, Pete worries that maybe he's made a mistake inviting Gabe, but it's not like he can un-invite him. All Pete can do is hope for the best.
2. Social Bookmarking
As the club grows, Pete becomes more and more creative about how everyone gets the fic in time for the next meeting.
At first, he sends out links because it's quick and anonymous. He has to stop doing that after Gabe joins and leaves a bitchy comment on a fic about how he doesn't have creepy eyes and keeping someone in his basement is a sign of love.
Then Pete tries making an LJ community and putting the fics up there but everyone makes up stupid usernames and immediately forget their passwords. (Seriously, dragonluvr7794? Who does Gerard think he's kidding?)
Linked del.icio.us accounts don't work at all because everyone and their manager has an opinion about Pete's tagging system. Plus, it provides a link to the fic which goes back to Pete’s initial problem, namely that Gabe really can't be trusted with that sort of information.
It takes a while but Pete finally works out a system involving Google Docs. The only problem with this is that there's always a chance his e-mail could get hacked. It's bad enough there are pictures of Pete's penis on the Internet; Pete doesn't need the world to know that he can't stop reading a 25 part fic about his unending love for Patrick.
Pete just tells himself that it's a risk he has to take if he wants this club to be successful. Then he changes his gmail password (again).
3. Bulletproof Kinks
At the beginning, Pete thought that fic preferences would be pretty easy to figure out as long as you really know the person in question. It turns out he's completely wrong.
For example, Andy's all about the PWPs. He announces this at the first meeting, when it's just FOB in their crappy van. Patrick, Pete and Joe all turn to gape at him.
"What?" Andy shrugs. "Look, my job directly contradicts my personal beliefs. Sometimes I want to read something that doesn't require me to think and doesn't make me feel bad. Porn works. It’s kind of cool, because I don’t have to worry about the conditions that the porn was made under and whether women are being oppressed, like, while I’m jacking off. That’s nice."
When he puts it like that, it makes pretty good sense. Pete's usually able to find Andy some fics that fit his criteria, but every once in awhile, he likes to try and expand Andy's horizons. It doesn't really work. One time, Pete gave Andy a 30,000+ word fic. The length was fine, but Pete made the mistake of telling Andy it was PG rated. Andy looked at the fic, snorted and gave it back to Pete. "You must be crazy if you think I'm reading all that with no porn payoff."
Patrick, on the other hand, is a huge hurt/comfort fan. He's constantly trying to find someone else to talk about it with but he doesn't have much luck until the day Toro sends him a text saying 'yo, me and mikey want some h/c. got any recs?'
Ryan ridicules them until Patrick finally snaps, "Look, in the hands of a good author, hurt/comfort fic is amazing!"
Personally, Pete prefers domestic fics. He actually ships Patrick/Bob. He knows people expect him to be all over the fic about him and Patrick but that's a no go. Pete loves Patrick too much to actually make out with him. It doesn’t stop him from reading the really good Pete/Patrick stuff, but he really prefers to see Patrick happy.
(Truth be told, Bob secretly ships Bob/Patrick too. He’s not really sure how Patrick feels about it until one night after they’ve read a fic about the summer they lived together. Once everyone leaves the room, Patrick puts his copy of the fics down, looks at Bob and says, "Too bad that never actually happened, huh?"
Bob leaps over the couches to get to Patrick.)
Oddly enough, Joe is always completely sober at every meeting. At first, it's a little disconcerting, to be honest. But Joe claims it's because he doesn't want to miss anything in the fic. Considering that he likes to read long, plotty fics, Pete can see where he's coming from. In fact, Joe's the one who takes Jon and Spencer aside when they show up at a meeting totally high and says, "Guys, there's a time and a place. Not the time, not the place."
When Jon's not asking people if they want to smoke up, he prefers crack!fic. Jon's motto is the 'the crazier, the better.' Genderswap, de-aging, waking up as inanimate object, you name it. If someone writes it crazy, Jon will read it and he feels no shame in admitting it.
Spencer tries to mock him about it but Jon just shrugs and says, "Dude, I'm more ashamed that I haven't used deodorant in almost a week."
Spencer's really only in the club for the free alcohol. He's sorely disappointed at the first potluck. "What the fuck, assholes? I know how much each one of you makes; you can afford to buy a decent bottle of wine. I can't believe you expect me to drink twelve dollar wine."
Jon just raises an eyebrow at him and moves to take away Spencer’s glass. Spencer glares and snaps it up. “I'll do it. But I don’t have to like it."
(Sometimes Spencer enjoys the Spencer/Jon fics. It's Jon Walker, after all. Spencer doesn't know anyone alive who would kick Jon out of bed unless Jon wanted to have sex on the floor.)
Everyone assumes Ryan's really into angst and writing end-of-the-world AUs, but it turns out he likes domestic fic just as much as Pete. Sometimes they stay up late talking about how warm and fuzzy the fic made them feel, and how they wish the fic was a blanket so they could curl up in it. (It should go without saying that Ryan only reads gen. No pornfiction for him, no sir.) Spencer just rolls his eyes and calls him Pete Jr.
Brendon digs alternate universes, especially ones where Panic! never formed. It's like seeing into the future only not. He tries to talk to Ray about this at the first potluck. Ray listens quietly for five minutes before he interrupts and asks, "Wait, who are you? Are you Pete's little brother?"
As it turns out, Pete's not completely wrong about being able to tell someone's fic preferences by their personality. The guys in MCR are all about wingfic, mutants, vampires and all that crazy shit. Pete rolls his eyes and tells them to stop being so predictable.
4. Accessories Make the Man
The membership cards happen one night when Pete can't sleep and he's tired of writing in his blog. Pete borrows Ryan's portable laminator and some of Brendon's markers, and makes membership cards for everyone. They're not required to get into the meetings but Pete likes to see them every once in awhile just so he knows that people still care. Everyone's encouraged to decorate them. Gabe has a cobra on his while Gerard does something really cool with a gun and a ninja. Brendon's is covered in Rainbow Brite stickers.
Pete hates taking back people's membership cards when they leave their band but it has to be done. Thankfully, he's only had to do it twice so far. Brent was the first. He sends his back in tiny pieces after Pete e-mails him about it.
For a brief second, Pete debates giving Jon a temporary card but then Spencer bitches at him and Pete attaches Jon's permanent membership card to Jon's permanent contract.
Pete takes Elisa's back while she's screaming at Gabe. The less said about that, the better.
(There's only one exception to this rule and that's Tom. Pete refuses to throw Tom out just because TAI did. In protest, TAI stops coming to meetings and hangs out with GCH instead. Whatever, Pete doesn't have time for that petty bullshit. It's fucked-up and no one's really happy but it is what it is. Besides, they never brought anything to potluck night and that's not cool.)
5. Potluck Night
The potlucks start when they're all in L.A., recording their respective albums. Everyone squeezes into Bob and Patrick's apartment with a dish, and it's probably the best meal most of them have had in years.
Patrick makes a vegetarian green-bean casserole that has everyone asking for the recipe. Pete, once again, asks himself if there's anything Patrick can't do. (Pete's pretty sure the answer to that is no, there is nothing that Patrick cannot do. Pete blogs about it just to make sure everyone knows that there's nothing Patrick can't do.)
Gerard and Mikey manage to find a crock pot and make their mother's famous Italian stew. Bob joins up with Jon and Joe to make Chicago style hotdogs for everyone while Andy provides vegan dogs which only he and Frank eat. Brendon tries to claim that he ate some, but Pete counts and Brendon's a liar.
It becomes a tradition after that first one. To make it work, Pete makes people sign up for their dishes a month in advance and then sends nagging emails until the day of the dinner. When Bob bullies him into the wall and confronts him about it, Pete manages to squawk that he’s just trying to make sure there’s enough food for everyone, okay? He doesn't want anyone to go hungry. If there's one thing that Pete's learned from his mother, it's how to throw a successful dinner party and the key to it is to make sure there's more than enough food.
This is why Pete throws a tantrum at the fourth potluck when Panic! once again forget to bring enough for everyone. (Christ, Pete's never met a bunch of guys more self-involved than those four. If it weren't for the fact that Pete has met Spencer's mom and Jon's parents, he would swear the four of them had actually been raised in the forest by wolves and unleashed upon society at the age of seventeen.)
After that, Gabe takes over organizing the potlucks. It turns out he's got a real flair for it and, most importantly, people really do fear the cobra.
6. Roundtable Discussions
"All I'm saying is that there's a fine line between making a clever metaphor and not making sense. This author crossed that line so long ago they've forgotten it was even there." Frank smacks his hand off his thigh and leans back in his chair.
Whatever good points Frank makes about metaphors and literary devices are almost always ruined when he tries to relate it back to some Ron/Hermione fic that he recently read. Frank's always bringing up Harry Potter fanfic and people just don't care. It's to the point where people just automatically groan when the words "I read a fic just like this once…" leave his mouth.
The discussions about the fic are always serious, serious business. Everyone contributes really good analysis but Gerard's the best. Once, after a vigorous debate about why a fic just wasn't working, Gerard sums it up perfectly when he says, "I think the real problem here is that the characterization is all off. Pete is shallower in real life. No offense, Pete."
"None taken," Pete nods seriously. "I am a shallow motherfucker."
Joe is also awesome to have around for the discussion because he loves to talk about artistic vision. He loves it when they look at multiple fics by the same author to chart the author's progression.
It's moments like this that make Pete so happy that they expanded the fic club. Sure, the discussions were good when it was just the four of them but now, with everyone here, it's really forcing people to sit back and think about things.
At their most recent potluck, Pete's mentally patting himself on the back over his ability to find smart, thoughtful people when Brendon exclaims, "Ohhh! Spinach artichoke dip!"
Well, most everyone has smart, insightful commentary.
7. Theme Nights and Squicks
Pete likes to do the themed nights every once in awhile just to mix things up, although the less said about mpreg night, the better. It ends thirty minutes after it begins with a lot of leg crossing and wincing. Pete still likes kidfic though and he's a little bummed that there isn't more of it out there
Bad!fic night, on the other hand, is a certified success. Everyone really enjoys themselves except for Mikey who gets pissed about always being killed off. "Seriously, guys, I don't get it. Why am I always dying?"
There are some pairings that are off-limit, mostly Pete/Mikey (it's a little true and a little awkward) and Waycest (yikes). The first and only time they talk about Waycest, Gerard and Mikey don't talk to each other for a week. Finally, Bob locks them in the back lounge together and yells, "You're not coming out until you can accept that people write about the two of you having sex."
8. Not Quite The End
Honestly, Pete never really expected the fic-reading thing to last as long as it has. He always assumed that that, eventually, they’d run out of good stuff to enjoy and bad!fic to mock. (They only read intentional bad!fic, not regular bad fic. Frank says that mocking that just isn't very cool.) The problem with this assumption, of course, is that these fans are fucking nuts. There are tons of new fics every day and they make up their own fic exchanges, and there are people writing epic stuff for shit like Frankie’s birthday or in honor of Pete’s broken foot.
Their fans are nuts. It’s amazing and overwhelming and Pete kind of loves every last one of them.
So the club continues on. Pete sits down at his computer on the fourth Sunday of every month and starts trolling Livejournal, looking for something for everyone for the next meeting. He usually finds it.
A/N: I usually abhor long author's notes but I feel I need to explain some things about this fic. Feel free to skip.
1. This isn't meant to be meta, parody, criticism of fanfic, satire, or any of those things. If anything, it might be my love letter to all of fandom in general, from the harry potter kids to the trekkies. (I've been reading fanfic for a ridiculously long time now and it's always a bit amazing to me that I keep coming back for more.)
2. This fic started about a month ago when I read Gabe's out.com interview and posted about him calling fanfic 'love stories'. I said that I figured Pete Wentz makes everyone read the fanfic about them and that he probably has a reading club. algernon-mouse, belladonnalin, kickthebeat, and minervacat all strongly encouraged this idea, and I thank them for that. belladonnalin and algernon-mouse did kick ass betas on this baby, held my hand and contributed some of the funnier bits.
3. This fic was finished before Alex's interview was released. I made the decision not to include anything that Alex said simply because it would have felt shoehorned. Also, it really would have made this true and that's awkward for everyone. (I'd like to point out that this was never a problem in lotrips.)
Fandom: Pretty much everyone makes an appearance
Rating: PG (it's always the language that gets me)
Disclaimer: Let's just all share an uncomfortable laugh now about how parts of this may actually be true. Also, this started out as crack!fic and morphed into something else.
A/N: There is a ridiculously long A/N at the end that explains everything.
Summary: The whole thing starts after their second CD comes out and Pete discovers there are entire Livejournal communities named after him.
The Pete Wentz Fic Club
1. Origins
The whole thing starts after their second CD comes out and Pete discovers there are entire Livejournal communities named after him.
At first, Patrick blames Joe for letting Pete on the Internet unsupervised. Then, after Patrick's listened to Pete moan "This fic is so fucking hot" for two hours straight, Patrick grabs the fic and starts reading.
It turns out that Patrick gets really pissy if people interrupt and try to take the fic away before he's done with it. This lesson is learned the hard way one night when Joe tries to pull the fic from Patrick's hands while Patrick is supposedly sleeping. Without opening his eyes, Patrick growls, "I will not hesitate to flush your stash, Trohman."
The next time Pete finds a good fic, he prints four copies, one for each of them. They talk about the fics late at night, riding to the next venue or in a motel room when none of them can sleep. Eventually it just kind of becomes their thing.
Panic! is the first band to join in (Pete actually puts it in their contract) and then TAI comes along. Warped 2005 is when My Chem gets involved. Pete figures it’s a win-win situation for everyone. Gerard's looking for sober fun, the rest of the guys are trying to support him and Pete's desperate to spend more time with Mikey.
At first it's kind of hard because not everyone takes it as seriously as Pete, Joe, Patrick and Andy do. Pete has to explain to Brendon many times that a fic club only works if the members really read and think about the fic; Brendon can't just draw unicorns in the margin and say the fic made him feel sparkly.
When Gym Class Heroes signs up with DecayDance, Pete invites them to the next meeting. Travie thanks him for the offer but declines before they leave to smoke some pot.
During the first meeting that Gabe sits in on, he calls them love stories and everyone rolls their eyes. For a brief second, Pete worries that maybe he's made a mistake inviting Gabe, but it's not like he can un-invite him. All Pete can do is hope for the best.
2. Social Bookmarking
As the club grows, Pete becomes more and more creative about how everyone gets the fic in time for the next meeting.
At first, he sends out links because it's quick and anonymous. He has to stop doing that after Gabe joins and leaves a bitchy comment on a fic about how he doesn't have creepy eyes and keeping someone in his basement is a sign of love.
Then Pete tries making an LJ community and putting the fics up there but everyone makes up stupid usernames and immediately forget their passwords. (Seriously, dragonluvr7794? Who does Gerard think he's kidding?)
Linked del.icio.us accounts don't work at all because everyone and their manager has an opinion about Pete's tagging system. Plus, it provides a link to the fic which goes back to Pete’s initial problem, namely that Gabe really can't be trusted with that sort of information.
It takes a while but Pete finally works out a system involving Google Docs. The only problem with this is that there's always a chance his e-mail could get hacked. It's bad enough there are pictures of Pete's penis on the Internet; Pete doesn't need the world to know that he can't stop reading a 25 part fic about his unending love for Patrick.
Pete just tells himself that it's a risk he has to take if he wants this club to be successful. Then he changes his gmail password (again).
3. Bulletproof Kinks
At the beginning, Pete thought that fic preferences would be pretty easy to figure out as long as you really know the person in question. It turns out he's completely wrong.
For example, Andy's all about the PWPs. He announces this at the first meeting, when it's just FOB in their crappy van. Patrick, Pete and Joe all turn to gape at him.
"What?" Andy shrugs. "Look, my job directly contradicts my personal beliefs. Sometimes I want to read something that doesn't require me to think and doesn't make me feel bad. Porn works. It’s kind of cool, because I don’t have to worry about the conditions that the porn was made under and whether women are being oppressed, like, while I’m jacking off. That’s nice."
When he puts it like that, it makes pretty good sense. Pete's usually able to find Andy some fics that fit his criteria, but every once in awhile, he likes to try and expand Andy's horizons. It doesn't really work. One time, Pete gave Andy a 30,000+ word fic. The length was fine, but Pete made the mistake of telling Andy it was PG rated. Andy looked at the fic, snorted and gave it back to Pete. "You must be crazy if you think I'm reading all that with no porn payoff."
Patrick, on the other hand, is a huge hurt/comfort fan. He's constantly trying to find someone else to talk about it with but he doesn't have much luck until the day Toro sends him a text saying 'yo, me and mikey want some h/c. got any recs?'
Ryan ridicules them until Patrick finally snaps, "Look, in the hands of a good author, hurt/comfort fic is amazing!"
Personally, Pete prefers domestic fics. He actually ships Patrick/Bob. He knows people expect him to be all over the fic about him and Patrick but that's a no go. Pete loves Patrick too much to actually make out with him. It doesn’t stop him from reading the really good Pete/Patrick stuff, but he really prefers to see Patrick happy.
(Truth be told, Bob secretly ships Bob/Patrick too. He’s not really sure how Patrick feels about it until one night after they’ve read a fic about the summer they lived together. Once everyone leaves the room, Patrick puts his copy of the fics down, looks at Bob and says, "Too bad that never actually happened, huh?"
Bob leaps over the couches to get to Patrick.)
Oddly enough, Joe is always completely sober at every meeting. At first, it's a little disconcerting, to be honest. But Joe claims it's because he doesn't want to miss anything in the fic. Considering that he likes to read long, plotty fics, Pete can see where he's coming from. In fact, Joe's the one who takes Jon and Spencer aside when they show up at a meeting totally high and says, "Guys, there's a time and a place. Not the time, not the place."
When Jon's not asking people if they want to smoke up, he prefers crack!fic. Jon's motto is the 'the crazier, the better.' Genderswap, de-aging, waking up as inanimate object, you name it. If someone writes it crazy, Jon will read it and he feels no shame in admitting it.
Spencer tries to mock him about it but Jon just shrugs and says, "Dude, I'm more ashamed that I haven't used deodorant in almost a week."
Spencer's really only in the club for the free alcohol. He's sorely disappointed at the first potluck. "What the fuck, assholes? I know how much each one of you makes; you can afford to buy a decent bottle of wine. I can't believe you expect me to drink twelve dollar wine."
Jon just raises an eyebrow at him and moves to take away Spencer’s glass. Spencer glares and snaps it up. “I'll do it. But I don’t have to like it."
(Sometimes Spencer enjoys the Spencer/Jon fics. It's Jon Walker, after all. Spencer doesn't know anyone alive who would kick Jon out of bed unless Jon wanted to have sex on the floor.)
Everyone assumes Ryan's really into angst and writing end-of-the-world AUs, but it turns out he likes domestic fic just as much as Pete. Sometimes they stay up late talking about how warm and fuzzy the fic made them feel, and how they wish the fic was a blanket so they could curl up in it. (It should go without saying that Ryan only reads gen. No pornfiction for him, no sir.) Spencer just rolls his eyes and calls him Pete Jr.
Brendon digs alternate universes, especially ones where Panic! never formed. It's like seeing into the future only not. He tries to talk to Ray about this at the first potluck. Ray listens quietly for five minutes before he interrupts and asks, "Wait, who are you? Are you Pete's little brother?"
As it turns out, Pete's not completely wrong about being able to tell someone's fic preferences by their personality. The guys in MCR are all about wingfic, mutants, vampires and all that crazy shit. Pete rolls his eyes and tells them to stop being so predictable.
4. Accessories Make the Man
The membership cards happen one night when Pete can't sleep and he's tired of writing in his blog. Pete borrows Ryan's portable laminator and some of Brendon's markers, and makes membership cards for everyone. They're not required to get into the meetings but Pete likes to see them every once in awhile just so he knows that people still care. Everyone's encouraged to decorate them. Gabe has a cobra on his while Gerard does something really cool with a gun and a ninja. Brendon's is covered in Rainbow Brite stickers.
Pete hates taking back people's membership cards when they leave their band but it has to be done. Thankfully, he's only had to do it twice so far. Brent was the first. He sends his back in tiny pieces after Pete e-mails him about it.
For a brief second, Pete debates giving Jon a temporary card but then Spencer bitches at him and Pete attaches Jon's permanent membership card to Jon's permanent contract.
Pete takes Elisa's back while she's screaming at Gabe. The less said about that, the better.
(There's only one exception to this rule and that's Tom. Pete refuses to throw Tom out just because TAI did. In protest, TAI stops coming to meetings and hangs out with GCH instead. Whatever, Pete doesn't have time for that petty bullshit. It's fucked-up and no one's really happy but it is what it is. Besides, they never brought anything to potluck night and that's not cool.)
5. Potluck Night
The potlucks start when they're all in L.A., recording their respective albums. Everyone squeezes into Bob and Patrick's apartment with a dish, and it's probably the best meal most of them have had in years.
Patrick makes a vegetarian green-bean casserole that has everyone asking for the recipe. Pete, once again, asks himself if there's anything Patrick can't do. (Pete's pretty sure the answer to that is no, there is nothing that Patrick cannot do. Pete blogs about it just to make sure everyone knows that there's nothing Patrick can't do.)
Gerard and Mikey manage to find a crock pot and make their mother's famous Italian stew. Bob joins up with Jon and Joe to make Chicago style hotdogs for everyone while Andy provides vegan dogs which only he and Frank eat. Brendon tries to claim that he ate some, but Pete counts and Brendon's a liar.
It becomes a tradition after that first one. To make it work, Pete makes people sign up for their dishes a month in advance and then sends nagging emails until the day of the dinner. When Bob bullies him into the wall and confronts him about it, Pete manages to squawk that he’s just trying to make sure there’s enough food for everyone, okay? He doesn't want anyone to go hungry. If there's one thing that Pete's learned from his mother, it's how to throw a successful dinner party and the key to it is to make sure there's more than enough food.
This is why Pete throws a tantrum at the fourth potluck when Panic! once again forget to bring enough for everyone. (Christ, Pete's never met a bunch of guys more self-involved than those four. If it weren't for the fact that Pete has met Spencer's mom and Jon's parents, he would swear the four of them had actually been raised in the forest by wolves and unleashed upon society at the age of seventeen.)
After that, Gabe takes over organizing the potlucks. It turns out he's got a real flair for it and, most importantly, people really do fear the cobra.
6. Roundtable Discussions
"All I'm saying is that there's a fine line between making a clever metaphor and not making sense. This author crossed that line so long ago they've forgotten it was even there." Frank smacks his hand off his thigh and leans back in his chair.
Whatever good points Frank makes about metaphors and literary devices are almost always ruined when he tries to relate it back to some Ron/Hermione fic that he recently read. Frank's always bringing up Harry Potter fanfic and people just don't care. It's to the point where people just automatically groan when the words "I read a fic just like this once…" leave his mouth.
The discussions about the fic are always serious, serious business. Everyone contributes really good analysis but Gerard's the best. Once, after a vigorous debate about why a fic just wasn't working, Gerard sums it up perfectly when he says, "I think the real problem here is that the characterization is all off. Pete is shallower in real life. No offense, Pete."
"None taken," Pete nods seriously. "I am a shallow motherfucker."
Joe is also awesome to have around for the discussion because he loves to talk about artistic vision. He loves it when they look at multiple fics by the same author to chart the author's progression.
It's moments like this that make Pete so happy that they expanded the fic club. Sure, the discussions were good when it was just the four of them but now, with everyone here, it's really forcing people to sit back and think about things.
At their most recent potluck, Pete's mentally patting himself on the back over his ability to find smart, thoughtful people when Brendon exclaims, "Ohhh! Spinach artichoke dip!"
Well, most everyone has smart, insightful commentary.
7. Theme Nights and Squicks
Pete likes to do the themed nights every once in awhile just to mix things up, although the less said about mpreg night, the better. It ends thirty minutes after it begins with a lot of leg crossing and wincing. Pete still likes kidfic though and he's a little bummed that there isn't more of it out there
Bad!fic night, on the other hand, is a certified success. Everyone really enjoys themselves except for Mikey who gets pissed about always being killed off. "Seriously, guys, I don't get it. Why am I always dying?"
There are some pairings that are off-limit, mostly Pete/Mikey (it's a little true and a little awkward) and Waycest (yikes). The first and only time they talk about Waycest, Gerard and Mikey don't talk to each other for a week. Finally, Bob locks them in the back lounge together and yells, "You're not coming out until you can accept that people write about the two of you having sex."
8. Not Quite The End
Honestly, Pete never really expected the fic-reading thing to last as long as it has. He always assumed that that, eventually, they’d run out of good stuff to enjoy and bad!fic to mock. (They only read intentional bad!fic, not regular bad fic. Frank says that mocking that just isn't very cool.) The problem with this assumption, of course, is that these fans are fucking nuts. There are tons of new fics every day and they make up their own fic exchanges, and there are people writing epic stuff for shit like Frankie’s birthday or in honor of Pete’s broken foot.
Their fans are nuts. It’s amazing and overwhelming and Pete kind of loves every last one of them.
So the club continues on. Pete sits down at his computer on the fourth Sunday of every month and starts trolling Livejournal, looking for something for everyone for the next meeting. He usually finds it.
A/N: I usually abhor long author's notes but I feel I need to explain some things about this fic. Feel free to skip.
1. This isn't meant to be meta, parody, criticism of fanfic, satire, or any of those things. If anything, it might be my love letter to all of fandom in general, from the harry potter kids to the trekkies. (I've been reading fanfic for a ridiculously long time now and it's always a bit amazing to me that I keep coming back for more.)
2. This fic started about a month ago when I read Gabe's out.com interview and posted about him calling fanfic 'love stories'. I said that I figured Pete Wentz makes everyone read the fanfic about them and that he probably has a reading club. algernon-mouse, belladonnalin, kickthebeat, and minervacat all strongly encouraged this idea, and I thank them for that. belladonnalin and algernon-mouse did kick ass betas on this baby, held my hand and contributed some of the funnier bits.
3. This fic was finished before Alex's interview was released. I made the decision not to include anything that Alex said simply because it would have felt shoehorned. Also, it really would have made this true and that's awkward for everyone. (I'd like to point out that this was never a problem in lotrips.)