#Sorry I ignored the one Sonic who was part of relevant band

[one-half-guy]

Archie Sonic: I don't wanna brag, but I will... I was in the Freedom Fighters.

Games Sonic: The Freedom Fighters?! Great!! ... What's that?

Archie Sonic: ???

Boom Sonic: Is that a band? You were part of a band too?!

[shark-myths]

4. wilson (expensive mistakes)

part 4 of shark-myth’s mania meta series

so even though there are a few posts of preliminary screaming about this song already (here and here), I haven’t done a proper crawl through the lyrics yet! hold onto your butts, kids. here we go.

Wilson is named for the volleyball in Castaway who is Tom Hanks’ best friend and sole companion as he sloooowly sinks into madness. The bond is imaginary, created entirely in Hanks’ head out of his desperation. There is no hope of the relationship ever being reciprocal—Wilson, by definition, cannot participate in it the way Hanks would want him to. Isn’t that an interesting choice of dynamics to frame this particular song with? ISN’T IT. The initial assumption I made on was that Pete was the Castaway (Pete with his endless endless ENDLESS way down south stuff, Pete with his introducing the song as ‘this is about the person you want to run away to a desert island with’). but later, when we get the video, that perspective shifts: it is Patrick holding the volleyball, Patrick from whom Wilson is violently ripped away in the Beyond the Video.

pair that with the soundplay-over-wordplay quality of certain verses of this song and the mentions of being drunk (which as quite rare in the FOB discography, but quite plentiful in the solo Stump discography), and I think Patrick had more of a hand in writing these lyrics than usual. (oh my god I promise that was an ACCIDENTAL youngblood pun.) I think that there is some sharing of voice, here: some of these verses are from Pete’s perspective, and some of them are from Patrick’s. sonically and thematically, as I have argued before, I anchor this song firmly in the 09 era, around the time of I Don’t Care (this song’s twin, I think) and the hiatus.

the song opens immediately with some classic p. steezy lyrical markers: stutter-singing and emphasis/rhyme by repetition.

 I was I was I was I was Gonna say something that would solve all our problems But then I got drunk and I forgot what I was talking about I forgot what I was talking about

If the lyric was got high, I’d think Pete wrote it. But it’s not, and I think this bit is Patrick. It’s the feeling of being the one with the power to say the one thing that would fix it all, but losing your nerve, or fucking up your intention. What could Patrick have said in 2009 that would have fixed every problem faced by the band, by he and Pete in particular? here you are in shark-myth’s creepy museum of queer conspiracy, so I think you know what I’m going to say. I love you. Patrick could have said Pete, I love you too.

and god. wasn’t it a mistake, not to? didn’t it cost them—everything?

Don't you, don't you, don't you know

There's nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody

There's nothing more cruel than to be loved by everybody but you

Than to be loved by everybody but you, but you

this verse is pure Pete. Pete Wentz, adored and loathed in equal parts, jumping his own fucking shark in 2009, a media mogul and a reality star and our punching bag and our golden son all at once. (aside: even in their February 2018 interview in UPSET magazine, Pete still expressed that he’d rather be hated than ignored. this explains so much about pete wentz.) And all he fucking wants is for Patrick to love him, and he can make the rest of the world hang on his every word, and it doesn’t mean a fucking thing to him. Patrick is what he wants, what he can’t have. and it’s so fucking cruel.

If I could get my shit together I'm gonna run away and never see any of you again Never see any of you again

This is pure way-down-south escapism. I’ve got a whole post about it, linked above, if you want to hear more about that. It’s very consistent with 2009, and fits well as a line of thinking that preluded the hiatus.

I hope the roof flies off and I get blown out into space I always make such expensive mistakes I know it's just a number but you're my 8th wonder I'll stop wearing black when they make a darker color

This verse is definitely Pete’s voice. We’ve got the pop culture Wes Anderson quote, the pop culture Addams Family quote, and the sharp, clever wordplay to prove it. Pete loves Wes Anderson, and very specifically, this quote from Moonrise Kingdom is pulled from a movie about two oddball kids against the rest of the world who decide to run away from their mundane, misunderstood lives in the name of their true love. their love and relationship is very underdeveloped in the film, very adolescent, very becoming; it serves as an echo and an amplifier of each kid’s sense of not fitting in, of isolation. They choose each other as the miracle solution, the cure, to that isolation; an adult looking at their escape plan sees the futility of it: running away with someone else, someone who is totally untested in love, someone you have made into this huge lifechanging idol in your head but you don’t know very well in real life? they’re going to disappoint you. you’re going to get to mexico and you’re going to find yourself, and all your shitty feels, right there. You have to find a way to fit into your own life before you can fit there comfortably with anyone else. The movie is a good one, and it hits every fucking note for me when we layer it in next to pre-hiatus Peterick and the choice of the Wilson/Chuck Noland relationship as the title of this song.

‘I know it’s just a number’ evokes the weird fixation on math and accounting that some of their lyrics have had through the years, which I will write on someday when I sort out my thoughts about it. I like here too the acknowledgment of artifice; we get it again in TLOTRO, with ‘tell me I’m the only one, even if it’s not true.’ Words and symbols, endearments and declarations, we choose those: we wear them. They do not reflect a true quality. They reflect choices. Pete’s saying, listen, this doesn’t have to mean anything to you, but it means a lot to me; you are the most wonderful thing in the world to me. There’s the great pyramid, there’s the hanging garden of Babylon, there’s the temple of Artemis, and there’s you: Patrick fucking Stump of the golden heart and marble thighs. Which. Fucking same.

The Wednesday Addams quote is of course a fucking delight. It says ‘I’m intense, I’m overwrought, I don’t give a fuck. I’m only ever going to double down. I will never back off. I don’t care if you think I’m ridiculous, I am too much, and I always will be.’ I treasure this line. I sing it to my cat like, several times every day (which i understand is the normal amount)

On the wrong side of p-p-paradise And when I say I'm sorry I'm late, I wasn't showing up at all I really mean I didn't plan on showing up at all

The first line here ties well to Y&M—I woke up on the wrong side of reality—and I love the way it highlights the gap between what we say, for the sake of social lubricant, and what we really mean. Pete and Patrick are both self-identified hermits—Patrick has been speaking a lot lately about his horror of interacting with others, and Pete has said that his main goal on any given day is to speak to as few people as possible — so this line could really be either of them.

Don't you, don't you, don't you know I hate all my friends, I miss the days when I pretended I hate all my friends, I miss the days when I pretended with you I miss the days when I pretended with you, with you

OKAY IF THIS ISN’T ABOUT TRYST THEORY I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS

 Uses of Pretend in Fall Out Boy Relevant History:

the whole song The End of Pretend, written by Pete during the hiatus

"Pretend you don’t remember,” written by Patrick during the hiatus

“Don’t pretend you ever forgot about me”

“I’m outside the door, invite me in, so we can go back and play pretend”

“But I can’t just pretend we weren’t lovers first”

‘I hate all my friends’ is a good time-anchor too. We have the friends who only like you for your hotel suites, we have the making a few more fake friends, we have pete’s endless blog posts about fake people who don’t really care about him—this mentality is very, very indicative of pre-hiatus Pete, especially during his disillusionment in the Sell Out Era, when he moves from ‘the world’s not waiting for five tired boys in a broken down van/these friends are golden’ to a much more cynical ‘sham friends/friends just because we move units/we’re only good because you can have almost famous friends/these friends, they don’t love you/I’ve got a lot of friends…who are just black holes/my friends all lie and say they only want the best wishes from me’ perspective.

If we hadn't done this thing I think I'd be a medicine man So I could get high on my own supply whenever I can I became such a strange shape, such a strange shape From trying to fit in

THIS BIT HERE! This is SO GOOD! The song really shifts all of a sudden at the end. Pete has described himself of this era as a drugstore cowboy, and speaks very openly (especially in this amazing interview with playboy that will make you fucking weep, I need to own this magazine, yes for the articles, and in post-divorce articles about his mental state at that time) about his misuse of prescriptions during that time. so this is pretty obvious: if they hadn’t done the band, if they hadn’t somehow made it work, the only kind of future he can see for himself is dealing some kind of artificial high and keeping himself medicated, insulated, high above all the rest. Interesting, the lyrics say my own supply, but the actual track says our own supply. That shifts the content for me, a little: it makes it more about a collaborative magic that he makes with someone else. It brings me squarely right to the drug use peterick metaphors, the way Pete has written about Patrick as a drug and a high for so many years.

Finally, I love more than anything this line: ‘I became such a strange shape from trying to fit in.’ This, here in the strange tone-shift of the last verse, takes a step back. This is present-day Pete looking back at himself, the way he became contorted and wracked from trying to please everyone. He’s looking at the Pete who ran away from Chicago and floundered in the neon emptiness of LA, getting drunk and photographed and letting his body be used as a dramatic set piece in the flashbulb frenzy of up-and-coming starlets. He’s looking at the Pete who sold himself cheaply, because he knew he wasn’t worth much. He’s looking at the weirdo behind the awkward tragedy of Fresh Only Bakery, the Pete who bit off his own tongue so he never again had to hear himself speak. ARE YOU CRYING YET? I AM. But the line isn’t just sadness: because it shows us, now, the solid ground that present-day Pete is standing on. The distance he now has from his former life as a demolition derby heart. It shows us how well he knows himself, and what he needs, and what he is newly capable of giving.

To sum up: PETERICK IS DEFINITELY REAL

Love you guys! more MANIA meta soon, and keep your eyes peeled from some v day peterick on wednesday 💘 💘 💘 part 0

part 1

part 2

part 3