to preface this I’ll say that i wrote this entry while stuck in the car. I couldn’t get it out before my vacation (i don’t know that I want to figure out how to format neocities pages on my phone. lol) so!! sorry! for how late it is! I’m just happy i was able to finish the video with a singular day to spare. haha

I HEARD THIS SONG AND JUST WAS SOO? I’m normal. I’m normal! I’m normal sauced. There’s no special herbs or spices or seasonings in my sauce. Not even salt. Gripping my head. Just the whole theme of it suits this section of the story So Good? I mean the original mod was made and released for Halloween. And it’s about a little freak showing you around his freaky little house. I’m not a friday night funkin guy but good lord do some of the songs people make for it go so hard.

Like... I can think of a contextual explanation for almost every line. It’s kind of insane actually.

• Designed in 1884, it’s full of little treats. But of course, I took some liberties that I’d love for you to see.
• We got a whole other floor to explore! I think you’ll wanna stay.
• It could feed a village. (ominous!!!!)
• I suggest you take a minute to think about your choices.
• You’ve secured your place to feed the faint.
• Where each annual drought is enough to kill a man.
• But each annual drought is a chance to uncover a willing soul like you - a willing soul like you.

Not even addressing them beyond pointing them out really. These were the lines that stuck out to me in particular. “Thank you, God, for the food!” is also delightfully fun, because while I don’t intend for it to be an especially present aspect of his character I like to think that Beau still sees divination in some things that he shouldn’t necessarily. Go my vaguely catholic boy. Have a misconstrued image of destiny and such things.

In general I think the attitude of the song and how it’s sung represents him really well. It’s a good encompassment of his character mid-Dromhollow, just without a lot of the mourning and miserable and angry and crying crying crying aspect. Which someday I do want to make a video that portrays that in particular. I’ve got a song I could do it with but I don’t have that clear of an idea of how it would look, and usually I have to have been struck with inspiration so potent I may die from it in order to make a video. This is good though!!! I like this a lot I am tremendously pleased with how it turned out!!!

I didn’t end up having time to bring this to fruition but initially I’d rigged up the doors so that they could open. I was going to introduce a new portion of the cast by having some little guys pop out, ooh!! But unfortunately I was already having to crunch on getting it finished, so the fullest extent of my vision just has to live on in my mind... I wanted to have them come out all scary in the second half too, but I realized it went by too fast to do that effectively. I don’t know how I’ll introduce these specific characters otherwise but I’ll find a way at some point I’m sure. I’d tease it I think by saying that I found a way to bring Puppy back finally :-)

I do wish I’d had more time to make it happen because the hallway feels just a little empty and repetitive without it, but I’m gonna try not to be too sad. This was definitely the hardest I’ve worked on a 3d background. There’s a lot more visual intrigue to the second half, with the yucky fleshy tendril bits, but Beau is just... covering the entire thing up. I tried to adjust the position of the camera to maintain the angle I wanted while also showing just a bit more of what’s going on on the ceiling, but it looks more effective when he’s not in frame. I don’t know if you can catch it for how little space it has to pass by, but one of them that passes overhead is curled into a heart shape. I spent like... 9 to 11 hours decorating the hall with them. That was my whole workday that day. I think it was worth it though! I had fun making the material for them and putting the spit bits everywhere.

Anyway, circling back to the subject itself, looking objectively at my channel I don’t have any videos that explain the reason that Beau wants to eat Mercy so bad. I didn’t have this iteration of the story until after I took my break post-weiward romance and just kind of Showed Up with it with Tummy. There’s been bits of it in the past with iterations from my butcher vanity amv and ghost of chicago, but it didn’t totally come to fruition in the story until before I came back. So maybe I realize that it’s a little sudden and confusing of a theme to have, especially in comparison to the more mellow premise I have up here. There is a lot of nuance and buildup behind it though. It’s one of the things I’m most looking forward to being able to execute within the book because so much of it is subtle in a way that when you look back at the end, it should be like, woah! That actually makes total sense! How did I not see it coming! Haha. What I mean to say by that is the reason it comes across like it just sort of Comes To Be is because I can’t really put all the littler details that culminate into it into just a video format. It’s stuff you’d have to pick up on within Mercy and Beau as characters and within their interpersonal conflict, which is hard to do with just music and visuals.

All that is to say that this video might come through as complete tonal whiplash and make beau come across like a standardized cannibal, but he isn’t, I promise! There are much deeper and more torturous reasons for him suddenly acting out in this way (which I hoped to imply at least somewhat with some of the imagery in tandem with the lyrics.) It’s only Mercy who he’s aiming these desires at. I mean, naturally of course there’s much deeper and more torturous reasons for everything that happens, considering this story has been constructed for a book and not a series of music videos, but I think it’s worth having that out there. I’ve seen people reduce Beau to The Evil Cannibal Guy and I’m like..... guys!!! it’s more nuanced than that!!! give him a chance!!! He isn’t evil he just has problems!!!

Of course I can’t explain HOW it’s nuanced. You’ll just have to trust me for....... however many years it takes for this book to eventually happen. But it’s nuanced. I do have at least a couple different videos in mind that get into how we got here, for Mercy and for Beau’s sides respectively. Whether or not they get made depends on if I come back from vacation with the motivation to make them real. In combination with having to be struck by inspiration like lightning, I have to act as soon as it happens lest I lose the spark forever. Or more accurately, lest they get banished to being imaginary AMVs that I play for myself within my mind whenever I hear a certain song.

Somethingsomething, the only person that is on the receiving end of this facet of Beau’s behavior is Mercy, somethingsomething, it isn’t as simple as it may initially seem. I just don’t have many videos up on the subject. I’d clarify just a teensy bit further that it’s not something Mercy is trying to run from necessarily. Interpret that how you will.

HI THIS IS NOW TOOTH WHO JUST GOT BACK FROM VACATION!!! I was writing this in the car and then! well! My brain stopped wanting to do it. So I just sat and imagined things 9-10 hours a day for 3 days straight. I want to draw so bad. Anyway, as I was saying.

Maybe one day I'll figure out making a video for Mercy's side of the cannibalization situation. I'd consider Do No Harm to classify for how I imagined the lyrics to apply, but I don't think anybody could really infer what I was going for just based on that. It's just always been difficult for me to find songs for her. She's always been picky with me about being defined in any way (which is strangely fitting for her character.) It's important to note for certain that it's not something she's trying to run from necessarily, that's as much as I will give you about it external to if I ever find a song suitable enough for her feelings/experiences about it. For the time being, anyways. I'm aware that the most I have for people to see is her looking sort of generally consternated and afraid of what's happening but I promise it's more complicated and nuanced than Beau coming onto her crazy hard.

I think I'll close this out by saying, yeah I made this video because I really wanted to play with Beau being a freak of nature. But the thing about the freak of nature is that there are so many beautiful and tasty and yummy reasons as to why exactly he is a freak of nature. All of which I cannot tell you!!!!!! If I could transport my amvs from my brain directly into blender via cable I totally would.