#bandom lore

Oh, thank you for this ask babes because I am unapologetically rabid about everything FtWillz. This one might be a bit long, brace yourself

First of all, FtWillz is Frank Iero. It’s not ‘speculated’, it’s not ‘hinted at’, it’s not ‘alleged’. Ftwillz is Frank and it’s been in the open since 2013. Unless you’d rather he be a shameless plagiarising liar, of course. But I’ll touch upon that a bit later.

A little preface:

In the mid-to-late 00s, Frank had a record label, Skeleton Crew, that he ran with Jamia & friends. You can still access their website through the good old Wayback machine, its skeletoncrewonline.com.

Some info about the label from its MySpace page

The members' nicknames are funny as hell, Cerebellum - Latin for "little brain", Dendrite (spelled incorrectly) - tree-like extension of neurons that receives information and Medulla (the one I’m losing right now) Oblongata - long stem-like structure inferior to Cerebellum. Thanks for the vivid illustration of power dynamics, Frankie. That was fun!

Moving on from the hilarity, Skeleton Crew is where we first discover FtWillz.

And here you can see the layout of his works

FtWillz also had a MySpace page where he, of course, posted his poetry that you can access here.

Now, If you’re even tangentially familiar with ‘Frank is Ftwillz’ speculation then you’ll know about this infamous screenshot, no doubt. As this little thing is responsible for around 97% of ‘Frank and Jamia were swingers/had an open relationship’ rumours. Our dear author is naughty like that

Finally, for the real fun part!! Poetry!

Please note that poems written on soiled parchment background were posted on the Skeleton Crew website, everything else was posted on either MySpace or Livejournal.

Ta-ta-ta, i won’t analyse anything but I will say this.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Genius! GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS!

His poetry invokes a very specific vision of a court jester, a king’s fool draped in garish clothes that hang loose from his frame as he, trying to catch his breath, stands at the very centre of a town square, a cornered animal pierced by a thousand eyes and, facing all of them, both young and old, in his last stand he sneers, ripping his garments, finding his chest and slicing it wide open, then digging deep, then digging deeper still, rough fingers soaked in fever of his blood that , dripping, fills the grainy gaps between grey cobblestones beneath his feet. And then he finds it, then he rips it out, thrumming red hot in his gaunt, greying hand. And, smiling, proud, he shows it to the world, as countless hungry eyes devour his gift - his beating, living heart. And then he falls.

Having had my little moment here, I want to say that I unironically consider Ftwillz to be a contemporary genius poet. He should have a book published already, he absolutely must. Oh well, here’s praying, hypnotising, pleading, hoping - whatever works

Now, time for something even more fun! Remember how I mentioned that it’s confirmed that Frank is Ftwillz?

It’s 2013 and we’re on Frank Iero’s very own website. What ever do we find there?

Reminds you of something? Perhaps a poem that was posted by one very prominent MySpace-er on April 4, 2008?

How about this one?

Signed with his own name, by the way!

In short, come 2013, Frank would post several revised Ftwillz poems (you can compare them poem-to-poem to spot the slight changes he’d made) to his own website, once again, signed with his own name.

So, whats the conclusion? Is Mr. Iero nothing more than a dull, uninspired plagiarist? Or was he just posting his own works, now adjusted for however he was feeling at the time (remember, the official announcement of MCR breaking up came out March 21, 2013) Oh, what a time to be alive.

P. S. There was a tumblr blog @f-t-willz-must-die-blog that was posting poetry in similar style but wether it was Frank himself or, what is more likely, an anonymous inspired devotee of his is largely debated and, to this day, unknown.