Quit Playing Games With My Heart
A Bandom, Panic! at the Disco, rise to fame story. Very cannon. Unnervingly cannon actually... http://archiveofourown.org/works/323053#main <--- Quit Playing Games With My Heart by miss_begonia. Oh, and it's all set to Backstreet Boys music.
OH GOD WHY.
I finished this fic about a minute ago, and I'm still not sure how to feel. I've read some other things by this author in the past, and I know how close to cannon she likes to be, but jeepers. This is... wow.
I'm not usually a fan of anything rpf that comes past a certain line into cannon teritory. If it cuts the line so close that it could have actually happened, I tend to find it a little too creepy, and my worries about rpf and the people it's about and what they'd think of it come out to play. This is one of those stories. Ryan's backstory was so detailed it felt intrusive and I didn't like it. And yet, I kept reading. Part of me thinks it's the readers curse - we have to find out what happens at the end - but the rest of me recognises good story writing when I see it.
I got sucked in. This story was really well written. Even though it makes me feel a little uncomfortable looking this closely at people real-life, actual problems (In Ryan's case, the real Ryan Ross's father died and now people write soties about it.), this was too good to turn away. It's an interesting balance of how close do we come to manipulating someone's real emotions, and how well can we write it. Because it somehow seems less awful if it's well written. Either way, this was so well written I'm going to have to forget about the whole issue to do the review because this deserves a good one.
The story starts with nine and ten year old Spencer and Ryan going to a Backstreet Boys concert. It's adorable. They're just old enough to be interested in the opposite sex, except it isn't the opposite sex they're ineresed in. Otherwise there'd be no story. Anyway, the whole theme of the Backstreet Boys going all the way through the piece made me disproportionatly happy. I'm pretty sure I actually clapped my hands at one point. It was adorable, and it worked at a motiff. I cannot describe how much I loved it.
But the thing is, it was about the only happy thing in the fic. This fic, from Spencer's POV, just oes from bad to worse. He's completely under Ryan's thumb, but Ryan doesn't really reciprocate. Not in the way Spence wants. They're kind of fuck buddies, but then Brendon comes along and ruins everything by being basicaly perfect for Ryan. I won't spoil anything more, but essentially, this just gets worse and worse and worse until the very end, when this get so bad I almost cried. It finishes with the revelation that Ryan's dad is dead (does this count as spoilers since IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED???), and we're just sort of dropped off at the end of the story wondering what the hell is ging to happen. We do kind of get the idea that things are getting better, but we all know that the band split in two and I feel like this fic was left open to that realisation on purpose. There is even some almost foreshadowing of the fact. Basicaly the ending does nothing to stop the feels, hence me having to start this whole review with my first though upon finishing the fic: OH GOD WHY, as in, OH GOD WHY IS THIS SO GOOD, or, OH GOD WHY NO THIS CAN'T BE THE END, or most importantly, OH GOD WHY NO EVERYONE IS TOO SAD I CAN'T TAKE IT MY HEART IS BEING RIPPED OUT OF MY CHEST WITH THE BACK END OF A HAMMER OH GOD.
This fic is an amazing story, very short in comparrison with some of the other stuff I've been reading latelly, and a great way to spend half an hour if you don't mind the pain of a sad story. I don't do stars, but if I did, this would be about a 6 out of 10.












