Chat, I have done something that has definitely been done before, and I am VERY happy about it.
I have made a small story in my head that corresponds with the album Self-Ish by Will Wood and the Tapeworms!!
shoutout to @bellefromhelle. He inspired me to do this. And by inspired I mean I saw his eial story, was like “I should make one as well”, and did.
Anyways, onto the story itself!(and what roles the songs will play regarding the story!)
The story that I made up for this in my head is a detective and a forensic scientist trying to crack a case about a mysterious entity that drives people mad.
Sometimes the madness transforms the people who were affected by the entity into entities themselves, who can be used by the entity to spread the madness.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here are our leading men!
This guy over here is Detective Capgras(or Jimmy if you’re on a first name basis with him). He’s been in the detective business for a long, long time. And he is tired of all this. I mean, if you had to take cases which often have either dead ends or result in you having to run away very fast from the person who you could have saved if you were only a bit faster, you’d be tired too.
And one thing about him that CANNOT be debated is that he’s straight. Very straight. Even though the way that he stares at the men who he’s paired up with for cases may imply otherwise. He’s straight as hell. Trust me.
And this silly little man is Dr. Otto Sunshine! He got his PhD in Forensic Science, if you were wondering. And he is far more energetic and hopeful than his detective friend over there.
He is also very very straight. Pay no mind to his record of having his brain shut off when the detectives he’s paired with let out a sigh that has worrying implications. Or when their shirts are a bit too unbuttoned. Or when their ties are a bit loose. Or when they do things that Otto says are only hot because they’d be hot if a woman did them, therefore not making him gay.
Now that we’ve got the characters covered, onto the songs and their roles in the story itself!
Self-: Our introduction to Jimmy Capgras. He is NOT doing well. He hasn’t had a case in a while, and when he hasn’t had a case to work on, he starts thinking about how much he’s failed as a detective. That is not good for his mental health at all. In the instrumental part between “No I won’t come back and be the same” and “And I’m gonna be myself again”, he’s put on the case of the entity(who is referred to as “Secondhand Vanity”) and meets Otto Sunshine. The “And I’m gonna be myself again” refers to him actually having a chance to do detective work, which he feels is when he’s being himself.
2012: This is our introduction to Otto as a character. He doesn’t remember the year 2012 for a reason. Said reason is related to Secondhand Vanity, and will be revealed later on in the timeline.
Cotard’s Solution: This is Otto’s encounter with Second Vanity. Secondhand Vanity attempts to drive Otto mad with flashbacks to the incident which made Otto block out the year 2012, and that sets Otto off on his depersonalization arc! Yayyyy!!!!
Mr. Capgras Encounters A Secondhand Vanity: Jimmy’s encounter with Secondhand Vanity, which sets off his “I have to solve this case and isolate myself from everyone around me so that I don’t go down the path Otto is going down(depersonalization), and I will be focusing on that and that only” arc. Yippee! The repeated “You’ll never take me alive”s are Jimmy’s mindset towards Secondhand Vanity.
Song With Five Names: The One Where Otto Has A Mental Breakdown And Reveals Why He’s Blocked Out 2012 From His Mind
And said reason is that, in the January of that year, he had tried to take down Secondhand Vanity on his own, and was driven to madness because of it.
He almost became a puppet of Secondhand Vanity’s, but he managed to come to his senses right before his mind completely broke, and spent the rest of the year 2012 isolating himself from the population and blocking out that experience from his mind.
Hand Me My Shovel, I’m Going In!: Meanwhile, Jimmy is getting way too into the case. He’s not eating well, he’s not sleeping well, and he’s generally unwell. Thankfully, he’s got Otto to drag around with him as he slowly goes mad trying to figure out how to defeat Secondhand Vanity once and for all.
And what’s his plan for defeating the entity, you ask?
Dig a makeshift grave and push Secondhand Vanity, who will be trapped in a metal box, into it!
Look, it’s not a good plan, since Secondhand Vanity could probably phase out of the metal box at any time, but it’s a plan, and Otto said it would have a high chance of working!
So Jimmy digs the grave for Secondhand Vanity, and sends the obviously mentally unwell(Jimmy does not notice that bc he is hyperfocused on taking Secondhand Vanity down) Otto to trap Secondhand Vanity in the metal box.
Unsurprisingly, it does not go well, because Secondhand Vanity decides to possess Otto and throw the man headfirst into the makeshift grave, fracturing his mind(and his skull!)(and his nose)
Dr. Sunshine Is Dead: Dr. Otto Sunshine’s transformation into Dr. Sunshine, the newest puppet for Secondhand Vanity! The part beginning at “I will be my sunshine, I will be my moon at night” and ending at “I’m no one now, there’s no one now to be” is Dr. Sunshine crawling out of the grave to mock Jimmy, and show him that this was yet another failure to save someone.
Mocking him for his failure to save the one he’s grown to love in the way he could never love a woman.
this is what Dr. Sunshine looks like btw
And the “And if dreams can come true” portion at the end is Jimmy regretting everything that had led up to that moment, and lying in his bed on his back, staring up at the ceiling.
-ish: Sad Jimmy Hours again. Which is reasonable.
The “And I’m gonna be” is cut off by Jimmy sobbing.
That’s the conclusion to the story.
