Hello everyone~! Apologies for the silence. Life stuff has been very hard for me, but I refuse to stop working on the boys!!! I’m gonna get to reposting art and answering tumblr asks very soon, but I have an important announcement to make.
I’m sure some of you who have kept up with The Parallel Boys for a while have realized that Emilio Velasquez, a.k.a formerly “Virtual Boy,” has been renamed “Bit-Rot Boy.” There are a few reasons for the rebrand, but the main one is that I don’t want his name to be confused with the game console of the same name haha.
However! This post isn’t really about the rename. To cut to the chase, back when Tune (IneptuneEyes-P) and I began writing and composing Emilio’s song more than a month ago, I’ve struggled to tap into who Bit-Rot Boy truly is and his struggle. I really want to make each and every one of the boys and their songs distinct and specific, but Emilio remained… vague and ill-defined. There was also a lot of overlap with the other boys and their experiences.
Here are a few examples of the different routes I went down regarding Bit-Rot Boy that I ultimately scrapped:
Over dependence on escapism/online spaces for a sense of self while your physical life/world crumble around you -> too similar to Shemus/Half-Empty Boy
Addiction (specifically to video games in this case) and distracting yourself from confronting uncomfortable truths -> too similar Anatoli/Depletion Boy
Wanting to achieve self-actualization and a sense of creative purpose as you begin to hate your current life of stress and drudgery -> too similar to Deckard/Limit Boy
Now, a month later, we are finally wrapping up Bit-Rot Boy’s song. Here is the concept for the NEW Bit-Rot Boy:
Now, nothing about Bit-Rot Boy’s design or aesthetic will change, but we are basically shifting the emotional crux of the song away from struggling with video-game/screen addiction to familial struggle, responsibility, and enmeshment. Also, the central themes of technology and games will still prominent and comprise a huge part of the song. Prepare for a LOT of video game references haha.
The song will hopefully be released before the end of next month. Thank y’all so much! ᯓ★
