My Main MCR5 Theory Circa Aug. 2024 (Needs Updating)

** Please note I made this during November 2023 and updated it during August, so a lot of the information is very old on this. It also contains a lot of info that most people active in the MCR fandom will already know about, I originally created this theory to send to my friends, and only one of them is a MCR fan as well, so I had to keep the background info simple for them. I will be updating this ASAP because of all the new information I have as well as my theory developing since then. I will include images on the newer version, but for now it is just text. One of the predictions I make in this article has already been true, that being that the Black Parade concert at WWWYF definitely meant something more and the importance of the 20th anniversary of 3 Cheers in upcoming events. 

Ok so Halloween 2023, the Foundations of Decay was updated on YouTube from a single to an album.. Idk bout you but a single is NOT an album. And for them to update it a year or so after it's release?? Now, around that time there was a lot of theorizing that MCR5 was gonna be dropped Halloween, but all that happened was that little youtube update My guess is that the release of MCR5 has something to do with 3 cheers' 20th anniversary

MCR always releases new material on even years: Bullets - 2002 3 cheers - 2004 Tbp - 2006 Danger Days- 2010 Foundations - 2022 

There's also a trend here, the new material was almost always 2 years apart from each other, with the exception of Danger Days (band took a break), Foundations (band broke up for a while), and other smaller, lesser known (perhaps deemed less “important”) singles/compliations. MCR got back together in 2019, which relates to Danger Days, as it was set in 2019. It also connects to the fact that they got back together 6 years after they broke up and released conventional weapons in 2013, which connects to the 2 year theory as 2x3=6.  The fact that all their albums are highly connected has been shown many times before (eg. 3 cheers + bullets with the demo lovers)

But wait... there's more

Back in 2013, before MCR broke up, they were working on a 5th studio album called "The Paper Kingdom" or "Paper Kingdoms" It was set to release in 2014.. What's 10 years after 2014? 2024.

There are many elements of paper kingdoms that line up with foundations. Paper Kingdoms was supposed to be their darkest album yet, with themes such as witchcraft, death, and DECAY. FOUNDATIONS. OF. DECAY. When teasing their new tour, MCR posted a ton of videos on YouTube and the such with themes of.. witchcraft, mainly, which makes me believe that the new album will be even more closely tied to paper kingdoms than just release date. 

Now, the "Foundations of Decay" seems fitting as the title of a song released before the rest of an album about decay, as it is the "Foundations" for that album, or rather, a prolouge. I could line up parts of the Paper Kingdoms story that match up with the lyrics of the song, but that would take literal hours, and not a ton was known about paper kingdoms because MCR broke up right after they started writing it, though I do know the general storyline. It was supposed to be, yet another concept album (All 4 MCR albums are concept albums) The Foundations of Decay was a concept single. It told a storyline.

The story for paper kingdoms was supposed to be along the lines of this: multiple mothers have their children die for various reasons and during their grieving they join together in a group greiving forum to try and find a way to bring their kids back to life. The album was to go in depth on their emotions, the stories of the children, and the stories of the mothers in their attempts to save their kids from the afterlife (I don't think it ends up working). It was to have an overlaying theme of despair and decay as their sons' spirits become more and more unreachable. (Many of the attempts had to do with witchcraft, cause the moms would attempt necromancy n stuff like that)

Ok so, all the albums kinda change the "look" of MCR. We get new band logos, new merch, and new stories and advertising themes with each album.

For logos:  Bullets - the hanging man: the main character that is suicidal throughout his life in both a normal and apocaliptic world. 3 cheers for sweet revenge: The circle of guns - main story of 3 cheers, where a dude goes around killing 1000 evil men with mainly a gun. The black parade: the cross - main character had a lot of inner turmoil with religion, sin, and death/the afterlife. Danger Days: The spider - logo of the killjoys, the main characters of the album

Pretty obvious the logos lined up with the themes/stories of the albums... But what does this have to do with MCR5? Well, MCR's current logo is to do with... Witchcraft! The same theme as Paper Kingdoms!! This proves my point that MCR5 is connected to Paper Kingdoms.

Anyways so, all this is old info that I had on MCR5, and a lot has happened since then, most notably, a Paper Kingdoms leak. A full song was leaked, titled "witch", pretty on brand. Now, this might have nothing to do with MCR5 at all.. But.. Back when MCR was releasing all that cryptic shit for Foundations, they posted a certain clip on instagram that was immediately removed minutes after. Basically, they posted a ton of mute videos with random symbols flashing on the screen.. But this one, it wasn't muted..: https://youtu.be/5aypEXpkek0?si=sg0xgVriD6p8WMtl And the music in the background is an exact match to a clip from the leaked Paper Kingdoms track: https://youtu.be/N69-lx9peSI?si=bKX-BZX3zcWjRQk9 

Each of the images individually: - Hand holding a wand: this one is kind of obvious, but witchcraft. Paper kingdoms was about witchcraft, witchcraft was a major theme on their return tour. - A flag (triangle on stick): looks very childish for a drawing of a flag, perhaps has something to do with the children that died in paper kingdoms, reminiscent of something that would be on a sandcastle. - A castle tower with a crescent moon: Paper kingdoms.. What’s in a kingdom? A castle. - Another crescent moon with a star: a symbol of fertility, life and death, new beginnings. - British flag: Paper kingdoms possibly set in Britain? I know that MCR has found inspiration in British history during TBP and Gerard even flew the British flag at a few concerts before. Could also be that Britain is a monarchy… - Hand holding a dagger: Hamlet/Macbeth (Shakespeare in general) reminiscent. Symbol of murder and deceit, as well as sacrifice. Ties into the theme of paper kingdoms pretty well imo. - Real life photo of a tree with smoke in black and white: Reminds me of some of the photos of the skeleton man that they posted. Very spooky.

Now, for the other symbols I didn’t talk about.. They are actually letters. In order, translated, the video spells out: “J/I n”, followed by “I/j n e m x n” repeated 4 times. So, seemingly gibberish. Now, it could be an anagram for something, but I wouldn’t know if the letter used is supposed to mean “J” or “I” each time it’s used.. Plus that would take a while to decode, even if it was. Point is, they had to go through research for this shit. They had to specifically find an ancient alphabet used by witches for centuries to put on their stupid 10sec long clip. Seems like a lot of research for something so small.. Unless.. oh.. unless they wanted a specific theme of witchcraft when preparing for this. And as I’ve said many times… The theme of paper kingdoms was witchcraft and decay. The song that was leaked from paper kingdoms was titled “witch” or, “the witch” and was originally included in this video as audio before it got promptly removed. Why the hell would there be so many connections if they didn’t have a purpose? Why the hell would they accidentally post something with one of their old songs on it, if they didn’t put the old unreleased song on the file..? They obviously put it there on purpose, but to go so far as to mute it afterwards? It’s like they realized it was already out there as a leak and people would know too much..  

^^ I think it’s important to note here that despite having a few witchy themes, the foundations of decay didn’t have a ton to do with witchcraft and was more about personal experiences, depression, and death.. Why would they do heavily focus on witchcraft when it was such a small part of their actual single?

Now, there have been even more leaks since “Witch”.. But none are really confirmed.

Aside from that, there's a ton of stuff that different MCR members (namely Frank/Mikey since they're basically the only ones active on socials still) and MCR related people have been posting onto their stories for a while now that could be related to MCR5..

For example, Frank posting a photo of a fortune cookie note that said “Let’s finish this up now. Someone is waiting for you on that.” With his own comment saying “ZERO CHILL”, Mikey keeps posting a ton of stuff on his story like "back at it!🎸" and pictures of amps.. Worm (MCR's bodyguard) keeps posting stuff on his story that seems cryptically related such as the infamous MCR's picture of a sticky note on top of a 3 cheers plaque that said "5oon" (Everyone thought ok so their bodyguard is literally teasing MCR5, which was extinguished when he confessed to someone in a DM that it was a prank..  BUTT he could have been gotten mad at by the band for teasing something that wasn't ready yet.. He then started removing followers immediately after from his instagram.)

But, my biggest thing is that they're going to be doing a huge show for wwwyf this year and they'll be doing the entire black parade.. Which they promised would never happen again in around 2008 with "the Black Parade is Dead!" Tour. But... They also promised they'd never get together again..

And, as we know, they got back together anyway.. So.. even if they said MCR5 won't be a thing.. They also said thier 4th album probably wasn't going to happen and they also said a lot of things wouldn't happen that did… Regardless.. I have reason to believe that MCR5 exists and IS in the works. Or rather, has been in the works for a while now. I think that it will be released some time this year, the 20th anniversary year of 3chrs, about 10yrs after paper kingdoms was GOING to be released, after they got together in 2019 (when danger days was set) and after playing the entire black parade live even after they said they never would.. I think that MCR5, with Foundations as the hit single off of it, will be the lost MCR album that we never got.

MCR5 will be the Paper Kingdom. Perhaps it won't have the same name, or same exact storyline, but based off all I've collected it will have similar theme and style. For example.. It was going to be their darkest and heaviest album yet, they said while making it. And MCR's darkest/heaviest song to date is considered to be The Foundations of Decay..