#Peterick institute

[shark-myths]

Sending My Love From the Other Side

Things we should discuss:

Pete’s sexy metal Viking princess unitard, he’s waiting to be rescued by a barbarian, I can only presume he is a bride-prize for the hero who can save him

The Folie-ness of it all, the ship at sea but not doomed, not this time; instead it is a vessel of hope

The mythology-of-the-band frame narrative

How the title references back to Sending Postcards from a Plane Crash

Stardust stardust stardust and Pete’s fear of space objects

What do Field of Dreams and The Princess Bride have in common?

For those expressing concern about Joe’s absence both on Sunday and in this video—he writes in his recent book, None of This Rocks, about emergency back problems during the latter end of this pandemic, compromising his ability to walk for a brief post-surgical time, exacerbated by overworking. He writes about learning boundaries, learning to rest, and asking his band for accommodations for his health. It seems likeliest that he’s recovering from a back-related issue, rather than conscientiously abstaining from participating in this record as he describes doing with MANIA.

General ranting about lyrics:

DISCLAIMER: It’s not me, okay, it’s the text, it’s Pete being incapable of writing anything that doesn’t sound like it’s about forbidden queer love, I could not make this shit up, I truly could not

“Model house meltdown”

Reminds me of walking through the house in your shoes, I’m supposed to love you; reminds me of I’m just playing house, no idea what I’m doing now. It’s a very dark Tim Burton-y sentiment from an outwardly happy man living a domestic fairy tale.

“We were a hammer to the Statue of David, we were a painting you could never frame, and you were the sunshine of my lifetime.”

THE PAST-TENSENESS HERE

Right from the start, this sets us up for something universally perceived as perfect and beloved being destroyed. This could be a reputation, a cultural relic, a profound piece of history, a narrative, a love. We were a hammer that destroyed it, that perceived thing… 

We were a painting too profane to be displayed in a museum, hidden and damned? Or we were larger than life, uncontent to be contained by a frame, always in motion, chimeric and twining, together apart, together apart, a tesselated image you can only see if you zoom out and unfocus your eyes.

You have all read my opinions about twenty years of Patrick = sunshine metaphors, which seem to be getting pretty FUCKING literal here at the end of days.

“Nowhere left for us to go but heaven, summer falling through our fingers again”

Among other things, this seems to be a VERY explicit reference to Heaven’s Gate.

I am feeling the hope of MANIA (you know my manic poly dream reading of that beautiful, purple beacon of hope) replaced by what the pandemic / apocalypse did to us all. So much for stardust, indeed.

Summer symbolizing touring, festival circuits, linking to the recent FOB instagram post that showed video from the Hella Mega Tour with the caption “take us back here.” The liminality and fleeting-ness of those spaces, those selves, that unmoored time of doing nothing, being everything. The way they want to be home when they’re on the road and the way they want to be on the road when they’re at home. Summer slipping through our fingers again, like the sand in the bottom half of the hourglass, gone past, gone past.

“What would you trade the pain for? I’m not sure”

Isn’t that a fucking question, my friends!!! The pain of longing, unsatisfied, love, unrequited or unconsummated, forbidden and forsaken? The pain of not-having, or of having-had? The pain it was to be together? Welcome to my glossary of suffering

And what would you trade it for? Is this a question of, what is it worth and I can’t imagine giving it up? Or is it a past-tense question—a way of saying, I traded that exquisite pain to get what I have now, and I’m not sure what it was for, I’m not sure if it was worth it.

“Every lover’s got a little dagger in their hand”

Tbh someone smarter than me will have more to say about this, I am sure. Tarot and betrayal and the way love has thorns and anything worth having always hurts, everyone you trust with love will hurt you and let you down at least a little bit, imperfections and prices paid. But it’s also a very classic, very catchy and poetically deep sounding chorus of the type FOB loves to use and do not always hold a deep reading. 

“I saw you in a bright clear field, hurricane heat in my head.”

More field-of-dreams invocation and playfulness! If there is not a stadium show at that field, I am going to light something on fire, it is the only pilgrimage I care about from this day forward.

“Inscribed like stone and faded by the rain: Give up what you love before it does you in”

LITERALLY what can I even SAY about this and the past tense and the DECISION, the question popped by MANIA that was answered only by global cataclysm and forced separation, the way they began work on this album in early 2021 (per Joe’s book). I can only hear this in conversation with the tracks on that record.

“The kind of pain you feel to get good in the end”

I was all prepared to do some read about morality and queerness and what you give up for the people you love, until @carbonbased000 said, “I love the pain line and I want to give it a kinky read so badly but we both know it’s about tennis”, and you know what. She’s right.

To summarize: there’s a lot to say, there’s a lot to feel, I love this song immensely and I hope you do too. I hope to explode more thoughts soon and uhhh maybe write another fairy tale. TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK, EVERYONE!

[wentzmp3]

Remember when I made that peterick flavoured song power point. Well, I decided to do it again it’s more of an analysis and less of me screaming in a power point. I won’t say this is a good analysis, but I had fun writing it and that’s the important part! Analysis under read more because it is long <3

Saturday

The connection to Peterick on the whole is loose but their relationship is pivotally mentioned twice with the recurring segment of ‘me and Pete’ setting them as a set pair in the narrative

The idea of the song centers on Patrick (the writer) and the apprehension he is  experiencing as he leaves the security of institutional education and faces the reality of the real world where he may fail and/or amount to nothing. The song captures the essence of the ‘coming of age’ narrative, a narrative in which the relationships that the speaker/writer has holds a great deal of value. So subsequently that note of it being ‘him and Pete, in the wake of Saturday’ therefore has a higher emphasis and accentuates their connection in the context.

‘Me and Pete, in the wake of Saturday’ the emotion of the line conveys the idea that the view is that it is him and Pete against the world in a way. While the narrative is mainly focused on Patrick facing the world, this line gives the idea that he is aware that he isn’t facing it alone and had Pete on his side as he entered this new era of his life.

Disloyal Order of Water Buffalo

Most notably in this song, the line ‘what a match, I’m half doomed, and you’re semi-sweet’ was annotated by Pete who said that while it generally refers to anybody you feel close to, to him ‘it was sometimes a girl but honestly sometimes it was Patrick’. This annotation from Pete speaks for itself and sets up the notion of referring to Patrick in the song.

‘I’m a loose bolt of a complete machine’ follows the idea of him being a part of a whole and when related to the following line referring to ‘a match’ the notion that Pete is only half of a whole and the other half could easily be Patrick given that Patrick is already half of one of Pete’s described wholes. And it is to be noted that traditionally Pete and Patrick work as two halves of a whole as they are the writer and speaker, Pete having before mentioning that he feels that sings through Patrick. They are necessary to one another, the other needing their counterpart in order to go on.

There are elements of unrequited emotions with the chorus of ‘boycott love’ however it is contradicted with ��detox just to retox’ which gives the impression that while there is an urge to push away the emotions and a temporary moment of success in doing so the result is always the same, the result being falling back into those feelings. Thus creating an endless cycle. This trend to push back feelings only to have them come back is common in close proximity situations and those with delicate balances to be maintained. These two relationship parameters can easily be applied to Pete and Patrick.

G.I.N.A.S.F.S

‘trade baby blues for wide eye browns’ could be applied as a reference to Pete and Patrick’s eyes as Patrick has blue eyes and Pete has brown. The could relate to the idea of separation, a theme that is prevalent in the song, and the notion of having to trade having Patrick’s eyes present to being alone with his own brown eyes.

The recurring theme of wanting to reconnect and find solace in something/someone familiar. The imagery of wearing clothes that formerly belonged to someone who he cared about deeply as well as the fact that he ‘kisses their traced shadows’ sets up a significant emphasis on the longing he is experiencing. This longing could be projected onto Patrick given the strength of their bond and the fact that the separation of the two could/has spawned such emotions.

‘it’s a strange way of saying that I know I’m supposed to love you’ the use of ‘supposed’ gives the idea that Pete feels this love is predestined, that he was always supposed to love Patrick in some capacity. This notion is reinforced by the numerous times that Pete describes his and Patrick’s relationship/friendship as something that was meant to always be and that there was no way that they were never going to find each other.

‘you saved my life that night on the roof of your hotel’ there is a story of Patrick literally saving Pete’s life and this could be a direct reference to that however that is highly debated and there isn’t much credibility to the story itself. And so this could be less literal in it’s meaning, instead the notion of Patrick saving his life in some capacity can be drawn out by his presence in Pete’s life which has likely been a positive influence and contributed to the healing process that Pete went through while getting out of the dark place he had been in

‘lips pressed close to mine true blue’ this line is notable as Pete has before referred to Patrick as ‘true blue’. Similarly, there are many instances in which Pete has kissed Patrick’s face and while their lips haven’t necessarily met there are instances that have resulted in a situation that is similar to the described ‘lips pressed close to mine’, their lips being close together but not touching one another.

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene and Stop Going to Shows)

The link to any peterick-isms is sparse in this and is limited to the bridge where both of their vocals are present, going back and forth. Which is somewhat significant given the rareness of them sharing vocals.

‘I used to obsess over living, now I only obsess over you’ communicates the idea that focus has been shifted almost fully onto the other, to the extent that living is secondary.  And while it’s not as severe as suggested, Pete has been known to place a high amount of focus on Patrick that could just about border on obsession at times.

Miss Missing You

 A critical factor in this track was that its conception happened during hiatus, Patrick having written a majority of the track while he worked on Soul Punk material. It is natural to assume that the song could be reflective of how he was feeling as there is a profound longing that is conveyed in the lyrics. And the fact that Patrick specifically set aside the song because it felt like a song that could only be done justice by the band lends to the idea that the song also related to a connection between himself and the band.

With the context of Patrick having written a majority of Miss Missing You during his solo era, the line ‘I know I’m the one you to forget’ conveys the idea that Patrick was acutely aware of the chasm that had grown between them. And given that prior to this there had been a lot of tension between them it leads you to believe that he felt he would be better forgotten and he feels Pete should/has been making an effort to forget him. It gives a tone of a messy break-up that neither party really wanted to happen.

‘baby, you were my picket fence’ invokes the imagery of past normality and stability. The ‘picket fence’ is normally associated with settling down and a stable life as often it is said that the dream is to ‘get married and settle down in a house with a white picket fence’. This all being so, it would heavily imply that Patrick viewed Pete as his own kind of stability, that Pete was tantamount at the time to settling down.

The imagery used in ‘hot whiskey eyes’ reflects the appearance of Pete’s eyes with a close accuracy as Pete’s eyes are a warm shade of brown, a similar shade to most common whiskeys.

Outside of the lyrics, the direction of the music video presses upon their dynamic and relationship. While this is almost purely in context to the Youngblood Chronicles, the music video centers upon the tragedy of having to kill your best friend as you have no choice to do. Particular attention is to be placed on scenes after Pete dies and Patrick is brought out of his trace to realise what he has done before ultimately dying himself. As well, the way they’re laying in their death is reflective of a ying yang given the way that they are head to toe with one another.

What a Catch, Donnie

From the outset Pete himself has said that he wrote this Patrick. He has related it to a ‘thank you’ as well as a promise that he won’t give himself up on himself (in reference to his prior suicide attempt)

There are references in the song to Donald Hathaway and Roberta Flack (‘Donnie’ and ‘Miss Flack said I still want you back’) set up a strong symbolic parallel with them and Pete and Patrick. This is because Hathaway and Flack had found success in their duets but after struggling greatly with mental illness Hathaway took his own life, and so they parallel Pete and Patrick who have found success in their dynamic of lyricist and vocalist as well as Pete who has had his own struggles with mental illness and suicide.

Connecting to the parallel later in the lyrics it is stated ‘I will never end up like him, behind my back I already am’ and ‘all I can think of is the I’m the one who charmed, the one who gave up on you’, which is like an exchange between Pete and Patrick. As if Pete is making a promise not to give up and Patrick is making his own promise to not give up on him as long as he doesn’t give up on himself first.

America’s Suitehearts (second verse)

The whole song isn’t applicable to Pete and Patrick, however the second verse is very much in keeping with the pair’s dynamic

‘you can bow and pretend that you don’t, don’t know you’re a legend’ connected with ‘(yeah sorry, I just) let my love loose again’ is extremely reminiscent of Pete and Patrick’s dynamic. Patrick has shown himself to be more reserved and humble, downplaying his own talents whereas Pete will heap praise upon Patrick at any given opportunity and tell everyone how talented he is. It could be said that he continually lets his love for Patrick loose.

I’ve Got a Dark Alley and a Bad Idea That Says You Should Shut Your Mouth

This is based on more of an angsty interpretation of their relationship, one that is more reminiscent of a messy van days situation

‘joke me something awful just like kisses on the necks of “best friends”’ is a line that communicates a sense of desperation and messy emotions shared by ‘best friends’, which is easy to label them as since they often present themselves as best friends.

‘I’m hopelessly hopeful, you’re just hopeless enough’ follows that tone of utter desperation between two young-ish men in a complicated period of their lives.

Twin Skeletons

The core point of the song is that it is all about love and commitment. The running narrative being that the narrator is committed and connected to the other in a way that is akin to that of a soulmate. This links to them in a way that on numerous occasions Pete and Patrick have expressed that they share a bond that is similar to that of soulmates, occasionally going as far as conveying the idea that they’re almost a single person.

Last Of The Real Ones

‘you were too good to be true, gold plated’ the use of gold imagery always invokes the idea of Patrick as more often than not Pete refers to him as ‘his golden ticket’ or just purely ‘golden’. Similarly the notion of him being ‘too good’ matches Pete’s perception of Patrick as he always describes him in a way that almost transcends pure good.

Heaven's Gate

The general notion throughout the song of devotion and giving over your heart to someone else is very reminiscent of Pete and Patrick’s dynamic.

‘if there were any more left of me, I’d give it to you’ conveys an idea that can be related to them as Pete gives over himself through the means of his lyrics he gives himself over to Patrick in a small way.

‘give me a boost over heaven's gate’ is a line that is symbolic of them mostly through the notion that Pete thinks Patrick borders on perfect (acceptable for heaven) and has since moved past being bitter or angst ridden over his goodness and now instead asks for a proverbial boost because he wants to stay with him (get into heaven with him) [I would like to credit Red falloutgirlboy for this particular piece of analysis]

The Kids Aren’t Alright

While this can be read in the context of the whole band it can also be honed in on for Pete and Patrick since they are definitely best friends (this comes up) and this is a peterick reading.

‘and in the end I’d do it all again I think you’re my best friend’ is a very direct line and mostly speaks for itself. They have always expressed their closeness so it is not a stretch to label them as best friends. And given the strength of their bond it is natural to assume that they would go through it all again if it just meant that they would be together.

It’s Not a Side Effect of the Cocaine, I Think It must Be Love

This is another instance of a song that simply just reflects the nature of Patrick and Pete’s relationship. It’s intrinsic to their close bond with one another and the way that translates into interactions and perceptions.

‘why can you read me like no one else, I hide behind these words’ is a line that places specific attention on the closeness that is shared and the ability to read the other. Patrick has mentioned before that it is like they know one another’s thoughts, which then translates to the notion of them being able to read the other with ease. While in the same vein, Pete often expresses himself through his lyrics and no other means which links to the idea of him hiding behind his words.

‘We’ll make them so jealous, we’ll make them hate us’ reads as an aspirational thought and given the context of the time, they were burgeoning on becoming something really big. And given the fact that within the band their roles are very connected, being the lyricist and vocalist, if one is making it then they’re both making it, they’re in it together. Which then means they’ll find success together, they’ll make them jealous and hate them together.

[glitterandrocketfuel]

The Youngblood Chronicles as Patrick’s Career: The Master Post

So. In a bout of extended tinfoil haberdashery, I examined the entirety of Fall Out Boy’s Youngblood Chronicles horror movie/music videos as an allegory for Patrick’s solo career during the hiatus. Clocking in at just around 12,000 words, each post features the interpretation and a link to the video. Here are the 10 videos, interpreted:

The Phoenix : Changed and Raised

Young Volcanoes : For Your Consumption

Alone Together : Alone in the Dark, It's All Just Me

The Mighty Fall : Lost In the Burning Woods

Just One Yesterday : The Rot At the Core

Where Did The Party Go : Kill Your Darlings, Darling--They're Already Dead

Death Valley : When you Walk Through Hell, You Come Out On Fire

Rat-A-Tat : Hitting Rock Bottom

Miss Missing You : Remember Where You Came From, Boy

Save Rock And Roll: Back To The Places That We Never Shoulda Left

I didn’t bother doing “My Songs Know What You Did In the Dark“ because it’s the hiatus itself. The band burned their bridges and split (and the Vixens burned their merch) and they were all tied up in the back of a van with gunny-sacks over their heads. It was about Patrick thinking he had to seal off the creative conduits he shared with the band so that he could pursue solo music of a different sound.

[shark-myths]

truly i was born for this! @citrusandsalt gets me *cracks knuckles, dives in*

sunshine riptide of my lifetime

darling this question is SO CLEVER, because i am so tonedeaf, i didn't even notice! and it's so interesting because sunshine riptide as a song feels to me like what pete's said in recent interviews, somehow by chance surviving to adulthood on a rollercoaster of celebrity and then arriving fully-formed and realizing you don't know how to live or make yourself happy as an adult. we see this theme in the opening of heartbreak from the other side, too. it speaks to being numbed out, medicated for bipolar disorder and cresting on manic highs, and then it posits the glorious poly solution to all their soulmate problems: Take all your possibilities then take away the limits.

as a contrast, the phrase sunshine riptide itself seems to simultaneously refer to the feeling of being manic and the feeling of being in love with patrick.

so do we think that sunshine of my lifetime is meant to be an explicit callback to the feeling and sentiment expressed in that song???? you are my truest feeling yet, you're just like oxygen? there are no atheists in fox holes (you can say you don't believe in true love until you're IN IT)???? tell me yes. i want this so badly. sunshine is the key that busts this whole thing wide open

what would you swallow the pain for

let us not skip what bob dylan has to say about billboards! nor what the kintsugi kid has to say about swallowing. (i'm not cackling you're cackling)

bob dylan is about fame, fanaticism, fandom, the over-visibility and simultaneous invisibility of celebrity, people who don't know you thinking they know everything about you, and pete feeling that way about patrick all at once:

Come down from your holy mountain / I'm down, I'm down / So put your shame on a billboard for a second / Sometimes the only way out is through

whereas kintsugi gives us pete's history of apologizing himself out of patrick's orbit and a fantastic flip of the drug use metaphor into pharmacological pete, the medicine man:

I'm pretty sure, as far as humans go / I am a hard, hard pill to swallow / And I know I'm not your intended dose / We're going low, low, low, low

and hey, while we're hurting ourselves, why not hum hallelujah too? let's just have allllll the swallowing (this time of blue ativan. really. it's not about sex)

A teenage vow in a parking lot / 'Til tonight do us part / I sing the blues and you swallow them too

okay that was mostly an excuse for me to talk about swallowing. I'M NOT SORRY. (icyww its other appearance is during The Mighty Fall and it's immensely loving, so it doesn't fit as well here, but i do think relates to how it's being used in Church: It's getting clear / You're never coming clean / So I'll lock you up inside / And swallow, swallow the key)

so to consider the ACTUAL question. "what would you trade the pain for/I'm not sure vs make the pain billboard big and swallow it for me" - to me, i'm thinking about how here 'the pain' is not being able to be together publicly in the time/place they would have wanted to. it's the tryst, and its end; it's the time wasted on unrequited and internalized angst instead of action; it's time is luck, and i wish ours had overlapped more, or for longer. the pain, in a way, is what they did have together, in lieu of happily ever after. so it becomes precious beyond reckoning. something you'd never trade away. something you'd blow up to the size of a billboard (public perception, celebrity, pete wentz as a product, 1-833-OUTBOYS, ugh) but then swallow, to keep it secret and for yourselves. and also: i'm asking you to just swallow it. just swallow the pain, the uncertainty, the ethics, the internalized homophobia, what other people think--swallow it all, and we can be together. we can have this. we can savor it. we can love the way it hurts us--it's irresistible.

every lover's got a little dagger in their hand

observe as i rise nobly above all the dick jokes i want to make! my main thought here is that we can make a jaded line about betrayal and how the people you love most are the best equipped to hurt you (and/or a pandemic-era read on how everyone is carrying an invisible potential threat inside them and could literally end you!), by zooming in on pete's use of the word 'lover' as really quite telling

the first time FOB ever uses the word lover, as far as i can tell, is in Golden (IOH, 2007). it's not directed at the ubiquitous, unspecified you ((read: patrick)) that most FOB songs are; instead this song is sung to / about the self. it's an extremely peterick, being-queer-is-monstrous song. tongue on the sockets of electric dreams indeed!

And I saw God cry in the reflection of my enemies / And all the lovers with no time for me / And all of the mothers raise their babies / To step away from me.

we see it show up again in Thanks for the Memories on the same record. here it's pete talking about people talking about pete--so not the word lover in his own mouth, but in the mouth of people who are generally positioned to find him to be a slut / a sellout / a spectacle / a sham.

They say I only think in the form of crunching numbers / In hotel rooms collecting page six lovers / Get me out of my mind and get you out of those clothes, I'm a liner away from getting you in the mood

the next appearances of lover are in Bang the Doldrums (FAD, 2008), referring to Mikey Way (best friends, ex-frinds til the end, better off as lovers and not the other way around) and all the way on Save Rock and Roll (2013) as a throwaway self-description once again (I'm a young lover's rage, gonna need a spark to ignite)

this is a long way of saying, using the word lover to me reads as very non-patrick usage. other people are lovers; patrick is a category unto himself. in 20 years of songwriting primarily about romantic relationships, pete never goes for the word lover unless he's describing other people's perceptions of him, a feeling state, or one of his exes who were ultimately found to be unworthy--not a part-time soulmate, not semi-sweet, not the person's he's sneaking into heaven for. not the you he's been [literally] writing to all this time.

tl;dr: you can't trust lovers, they can undo you easier than anyone else, either with a virus or casual human cruelty. but patrick, he's your wilson, he's your desert island guy, he's the one you want to shelter with. he's sunshine. he's made of gold.

thank you, this was so delightful. i love you immensely. let's keep talking about this beautiful record please!!!!! your thoughts are the best thoughts

ok WHERE is my girl @shark-myths I need to know what we're thinking about "you were the sun-shine of my life-time" vs "sun-shine rip-tide" in the same singsongy rhythm

Also while we're here, what are we doing about what would you trade the pain for/I'm not sure vs make the pain billboard big and swallow it for me

BONUS ROUND: there's two obvious rhymes for apocalypse that fit with where every lover could have a dagger and they went with neither what are they doing someone tell me

[shark-myths]

POWERPOINT PART TWO IS HERE!

[glitterandrocketfuel]

Hot Tumblr take: Youngblood Chronicles is the nightmare version of Patrick's solo career.

When I get off mobile, I will elaborate. Get her aluminum haberdashery ready...

[shark-myths]

also can we talk about "can you read my eulogy" in terms of. the way patrick always has pete words, he's the one who declaims them. like. this song has so much in it, i'm not even given to tinhatting tbqh but there's just so much in it

I have been dying of this since you sent it! it’s like, by choosing and then singing these lyrics (again and again—the Kerrang interview I’m rabid about today talks about how vulnerable he felt recording that track, and how much he didn’t like feeling that way and letting so much of his real unadorned self show), Patrick is answering the question. of course I’ll read your eulogy, you idiot, I’ve read every other damn thing you gave me for the past 20 years. god. will I ever be okay again??

[shark-myths]

“I felt you at the beginning but needed you at the end” is such a specific thing to fucking say isn’t it??????? god god GOD

Thinking about 'I felt you at the beginning but needed you at the end' and how 'you were the sunshine of my lifetime' is in both the beginning and the end of the album. And imploding of course

Tagging @shark-myths in this since she's the resident FOB meta-writer :)

[glitterandrocketfuel]

YBC Hot Takes: The Phoenix

Remember a few days ago I dropped a Hot Take that Youngblood Chronicles was actually Patrick’s solo career during the hiatus? Well, strap in and strap on, kids, I’m about to start a whole Lecture Series here at the Peterick Institute for FOB Meta and Fine Purveyors of Flexible Metallurgic Haberdashery. I’mma break this out into separate posts because I do like to go on, and will tag the series.

I’ll be focusing on the video aspects more than the lyrics, because one big part of Fall Out Boy’s modus operandi is to create artistic disruption via cognitive dissonance between the songs and the videos. While each medium expresses a coherent narrative, they’re frequently at odds with each other on the surface levels (unless viewed within a multimedia continuum of the history of the band and its members).

The Phoenix: Changed and Raised

Save Rock and Roll emerged seemingly out of nowhere, catapulting Fall Out Boy back into the scene and onto the charts, and the ambitious project that YBC turned out to be only added fuel to the fire. But it’s no secret that the hiatus, while necessary, shook some of the foundations of Fall Out Boy’s dynamic enough for them to grow as people and as a band, but in so doing, it also had to rip away some illusions and shove each of them outside their comfort zones...and into dangerous, painful territory. Follow me below the cut to dig deeper...

The boys open the mysterious briefcase. They're all in agreement that whatever's in there is amazing, and it's amazing enough to handcuff to Patrick's wrist. Off you go, lad, with your not-at-all-suspicious-looking briefcase to some tranquil suburban neighborhood where you can get some rest and wear your cute little fedora and be your cute little self. Kids on bikes, little houses with white picket fences, nice green lawns, holy shit masked marauding wimmins comin' outta nowhere to taze your snack-sized ass--

It's telling that Patrick is out with his precious musical mcguffin strapped to his wrist and a kid crosses his path. Fall Out Boy's members have always called their fans "kids" even when those "kids" have kids of their own (who are now going to Fall Out Boy Concerts, but that's a sidequest). They do what they do "for the (starry-eyed) kids" (who feel like dead ends/who didn't make it/who never had it at all/you used to love but then we grew old...). At the same time the kid and Patrick make the connection, share a smile (Hey, do you like me? This thing I made? I know it's not the same as the last thing, but--), we learn that the kid was just a decoy. Bait. A distraction from the masked (adult) vixen to ambush Patrick and toss him into the windowless van behind the kid.

He's taken to a shadowy torture warehouse where everything from jackhammers to meat cleavers (and I will swear there was a flash of a speculum in there which *somebody* had to have a laugh over, but the significance of gender in Fall Out Boy videos is an entirely different academic track all its own here at the Peterick Institute). And Patrick's hand gets the chop-chop.

MEANWHILE...

Cut to Pete, curled up in bed with a girlfriend in a suburban house, doing the domestic thing. He says he was supposed to be naked, but he chickened out at the last minute, which is also telling (the prelude to the hiatus had him saying that the world had had enough Pete Wentz, and that colors his interactions even today). During the hiatus, Pete's putting his life together the best way he knows how--looking for the picket fences and the things we are all told are "normal." Maybe he's even getting some rest. He's interrupted when The Kid (The Fans) knocks on his door and delivers a gruesome Message.

Not only gruesome, but dropped into a grocery bag and hung on Pete's doorknob in a drive-by. At first glance, Pete looks at it and shrugs and goes back to whatever he was doing, but let's not get sidetracked by a drive-by suggestion of self-absorption or a whiff of an inability to cope with or comprehend what just happened right away, because Pete is not as dumb as he looks. He knows that anything Patrick does will always have Fall Out Boy hanging over him like a meat cleaver, cutting him off musically, until his connection is literally severed (the hand with the FOB tattoo is cut off). Not to mention, the whole media-circus vortex of The Life And Dramatic Times Of Pete Fucking Wentz that can't help but catch Patrick up in it. It's not out of the realm of possibility that Patrick has deliberately severed this vital part of himself in a pointed and violent, yet impersonal, way. To a heartbroken and head-fucked Pete, it's crossed his mind that he may have driven the people he cares about to drastic measures to escape his toxicity.

We all want to know why Pete eschewed cell phones, landlines, email, snail mail, fucking Western Union telegrams, or just driving over to his friends' places to check up on them in favor of sending a cryptic Raptor-Gram, but let's not forget the fact that during the hiatus they sometimes communicated through tweets to other people, media interviews or drive-by postings and hearsay. But whatever message Pete's trying to send becomes lost in translation, because it doesn't quite get to the other band members in time.

Andy in a parking lot, maybe a little stalled at the hiatus while he catches his breath, and Joe, at the gas station, trying to take a road-trip far away from all this bullshit. Hey, does this rag smell like chloroform? Didn't you guys learn not to get thrown into windowless vans with weirdos.

But where's our boy Pete? He might be sending Raptor-Grams to his buds, but he's let a viper into his bed as his girl, dressed in menace and eyeliner (let's table, for a moment, her 'vintage 2007 Pete Wentz' eyeliner game because there's a whole world of subtext ripe for speculation about how Eyeliner!Pete could be a funhouse-mirror Agent of Chaos for everybody in his orbit) pounces and, instead of chloroform or tazers, injects him with a chemical cocktail of distortion in order to get him into the van.

Back to Patrick at the charnel house, who's singing his heart out while the rest of his organs are being harvested as he pulls his intestines out and puts them on a wax pressing to vinyl. His hand's gone, because he's played his heart (and lungs and kidneys, and maybe a spleen, too). But the rest of his guts have been taken out and arranged on silver platters (or vinyl pressings, as it were), ready to be consumed by anyone who's interested.

Patrick himself is seated at the head of the ornately laid-out table, with feeder lines going into and out of his veins as he waits for the world to come consume the thing he's worked so hard and bled so much for, even down to the point of painfully severing a beloved and necessary part of him (the h(b)and).

[shark-myths]

May nothing but death do us part/baby please will you read my eulogy.... I know there are some other lyrics that aren't wedding vows but are functionally serving the same end which is some sort of "I want you with me for the entire rest of my life" declaration but I'm blanking on them because I'm so stuck on this parallel of 'may death do us part but when it DOES I want you to be the one reflecting on my life and sending me off"

the first time I listened to Heaven Iowa I sent @carbonbased000 a message yelling about, ARE THESE LITERALLY VOWS, no joke

The other big ones that stand out to me are Uma Thurman—keep me like an oath—and Hum Hallelujah—teenage vow in a parking lot, til tonight do us part.

truly this album is incredible; I cannot credit it; this is so gay I couldn’t even invent it

[shark-myths]

@toorational WRITE A META

i am gutted

Fall Out Boy + last album lines

[shark-myths]

Can we as Petericks talk about the lyric “I feel so A Star Is Born” in Heaven Iowa bc that movie killed me and I HATE the implications of it but its so good. Patrick is Gaga and Pete is Bradley Cooper. I’m going insane!!!!! Someone else chime in I’m eating cardboard.

my major contribution is that this needs to be a fic immediately! and also that in order to “feel so a star is born” we have to be at a point in time where that movie is already released to serve as a glib reference. that whole little verse sounds so much like pandemic songwriting hangouts when the world was empty and still and only belonged to the two of them and Beethoven. roll tape on heartbreak, pls

[shark-myths]

does anyone have a lyrics booklet? i am so not convinced that word is "babe" and not "bane" in so much for stardust because pw really leans in one particular way but the internet is taking the sweet heart-eyes route and i'm not mad about that either

[shark-myths]

Can I ask you something, am I right to think that Patrick likes it when Pete likes him best? During watching some of their interviews I got a sense he likes it when other people compliment him, even as he gets shy about it, but that he only actually deeply cares if Pete confirmes it and compliments him on the same thing, he gets this look on his face...and also he gets twitchy and looks kinda jealous when people come on to Pete during interviews? He likes it to seem like he doesn't care but he cares so much?

10/10 agree!!!

[glitterandrocketfuel]

@shark-myths @secretstudentdragonblog @earlgreytea68 @so-i-grudgingly-joined-this-site more research fodder for Peterick Institute purposes

high-res - click to zoom

[shark-myths]

Hello! I was feeling the urge to tinhat about peterick and I pretty much consider you the one place to go to for that. I'm thinking about a lot right now, thanks to the amazing wealth of lyrics that Pete has gifted us (there has not been such a consistent reference to "summer" since ABAP and I'm losing my mind over it a little bit), but the main thing I'm thinking about is that "I just need someone to hold me even though you don't even know me" can only be about Patrick. Why? I'm glad you asked! I can back it up. For one, this harks all the way back to Hold Me Tight or Don't which is, for obvious reasons, peterick coded. Not only that, the "hold me" motif is used again in Hold Me Like A Grudge, which makes that song even more strongly linked to peterick, even disregarding the insanity of "twenty summers" (which I am not disregarding, by the way). So that's the "hold me" bit of that original line covered. There's also the latter bit, the "you don't even know me," which, yeah, doesn't seem very peterick-y, not in the way we like to think of them, but I will point out "part time soulmate, full time problem" and "you don't know me anymore" are also lines in this album that point to being Patrick-related (for the latter, because I don't believe the former needs much justification, something about the house Pete grew up in and its relation to Chicago and thus its relation to Patrick) (I would say I was reaching here, but I've gathered that's basically how Pete's brain works, so let's call it a reasonable assumption?).

Additionally, and more in appreciation of Pete's writing than any specific shippy thing, I'm a big fan of "if you put your heart in it then we'll do more than just get by together" because it sounds a lot like that last phrase could be "get together," and there's a lot on this album about missed opportunities/parallel universes/etc.

One more thing (I'm just rambling now, sorry) but the scar/star crossed lovers line is really just a bit of genius. It's almost a wink towards the listener, not just at the twist of the phrase but also because there's been so many instances of the star motif and space in general in the lyrics that I feel like it has to be a nod towards the instances when cosmic objects have been referenced (such as in The Last of the Real Ones).

Okay that's probably enough for one ask lol. I look forward to part two of your presentation!

YES 👏🏽 YES 👏🏽 YES

I have nothing coherent to add because you are nailing it and this record has me in shreds

tinh@ me always ((is that too dumb? yes)), it’s what I live for, keep it coming!!!