In relation to Frerard and My Chem
The thing about frerard is, I've always felt like they don't really have any tangible connection outside of My Chem. Or music in general, but the music also kind of circles back to My Chem. Every thread of connection they have, even now, circles back to mcr. It was mcr that got them to meet, it was mcr that got them to get to know each other, all of it was mcr as a band, an already-existing band out there (as in, unlike Gerard & Ray who met when mcr was still a Concept).
Of course I don't mean this with any negative connotation whatsoever. I think of this as an objective fact, that without mcr, there would be no frerard. They wouldn't have been able to make it as a couple, or as whatever they were. People have been saying for ages that without both Gerard and Frank (most importantly Frank, Gerard made the fucking band so it's obvious) mcr definitely wouldn't be mcr today, as successful and impactful as it is. I agree with it and I think the other way around works too. Without mcr, frerard simply wouldn't occur. Even in a universe where mcr didn't make it big, it would still have to have been a thing for both of them to meet and become interested in each other.
That's just the beginning. Frank's desire for Gerard sometimes takes a very similar shape to his devotion to the band itself. Gerard's control of the band, their attitude towards the band in general, is basically a mirror of what they feel towards Frank at times.
And as we've seen during mcr's breakup, it was frerard who weren't creatively involved with each other at all. Because there's no mcr left between them for anything to happen. Simply compare frerard to rayrard and the way siblings and even fray & frikey during this time.
All this to say, I believe that this is one of the multitudes of reasons as to why the band broke up. It can go both ways:
(1) Frerard got genuinely bad and stopped altogether. The band stopped working as a consequence. Because they don't really have any kind of like actual connection outside the band, it was hard to work around it. Because mcr was deeply essential to their relationship.
(2) The band stopped, so frerard stopped. Again, without mcr, frerard wouldn't really work. They have never really fit in with each other. Which ultimately led to the situation where it was called an "mcr breakup" but it was actually just Frank who everyone else lost frequent contact with.
Frerard was a genuine vital part of mcr & vice versa. Their relationship affects the band inadvertently which is why I can totally see a Gerard who's willing to nuke the relationship in order for the band to survive (again, think of their inclinations to idealize etc etc…) Which is very interesting because I've never really seen anyone talk about how frerard work within mcr and how it's kind of like a symbiotic situation.
