A Lovecraftian Pop-Punk Musical
Miskatonic Misanthropes:
Junior Year
(Complete playlists)
Intro:
I’ve been creating fan music videos loosely based on Lovecraft stories.
Below is the storyline that follows Joe C., singer and songwriter for the Miskatonic Misanthropes Pop-punk Campus band
Each entry begins with embedded links, followed by a plot summary
I close with an explanation of my creative process.
(I humbly ask that you put aside your knee jerk hatred of the tools I use, ease up on the gatekeeping, and just enjoy the content. It’s supposed to be fun. It’s an entirely not for profit, passion project; I’m making things for the fandom to enjoy using the only tools I have at my disposal. Give the work a chance. You can read my full process at the end)
The Story Begins:
Generalized Plot
(Junior year at Miskatonic U)
Tracks:
1 🎵 Haunter of the Rock
From summer at home, the strangeness begins when Joe gives his brother a mysterious, Trapezohedron stone.
(Inspired by “Haunter of the Dark,” HP Lovecraft)
2 🎵 Brown Jenkins Rhythm
He heads to Miskatonic and ends up in a creepy attic rental apartment, run by a probable Witch. The room has maddening angles in his gambrel apartment and a rat with a human face who won’t leave him alone. At wits end he flees to a normal dorm room
(Based on “Dreams in the Witch House,” by HP Lovecraft)
3 🎵 My Ulthar Buddy
One night, his cat Buddy, a mythical ulthar cat, saves the day from a ravenous Moon Beast coming for Joe.
*Dedicated to my real brave Buddy who is battling Lymphoma
(Inspired by “Cats of Ulthar” and “The Dream Quest of Unknown Kaddath,” by HP Lovecraft)
4 🎵 One Hound Is Enough
A cautionary drug abuse song, involving a mysterious drug called Laio, which enables users to gase past the angles of time. His over use attracts a guardian Hound of Tindalos from beyond time, but Joe’s music leads them to friendship, as long as Joe stays away from the Liao.
(Inspired by “The Hounds of Tindalos,” by Frank Belnap Long)
5 🎵 Erich Zann Session
Next, a mysterious old man virtuoso guest musician moves in next door. He plays viol with such passion and weirdness that Joe begs him to join the band for an upcoming show. Reluctantly, Eris Zahn attends a practice session with the band, who discover his weird music keeps something horrible at bay, much to their horror.
(Loosely based on “The Music of Eric Zahn,” by HP Lovecraft)
6 🎵 Shoggoth Liberation Anthem (Tekelili)
The band gets political, joining the Shoggoth rights movement and plays a protest anthem on behalf of the misunderstood , marginalized biological constructs.
(Playful take on Shoggoth/Elder Thing relations, as seen in “At The Mountains of Madness,” by HP Lovecraft)
7 🎵 Midterm’s Still Happening (Professor Armitage)
Joe must now prepare for his Midterms, especially for his Restricted Texts seminar, with Dr. Henry Armitage. As studies ramp up, the campus faces a serious threat of destruction, his Professor Armitage saves the day and Joe manages to pass.
(Inspired by “The Dunwich Horror,” by HP Lovecraft)
8 🎵Golden Mead: Byakhee Joyride
Fresh from Midterm success, we find Joe celebrating at a strange dive bar where a drinking song ensues as Joe learns the wonders of golden space mead, a beverage that enagbles faster than light travel on the back of a Byahkee, who carries him through cosmic vistat, without the need for air; a party of cosmic drunken joy riding ensues.
(Inspired by August Derleth’s creation in “The Celano Fragments”)
9 🎵 Herbie’s Girlfriend
We then meet Herbie West, a somewhat awkward neighbor and hear of his absent girlfriend of mysterious origins. She arrives, strange and unsettling, throwing campus into a frenzy of rumors about her questionable aliveness.
(Playful take on “Herbert West: Reanimator” by HP Lovecraft)
10 🎵 Put the Records Down
Joe’s present girlfriend takes up a hobby, digging up Joe’s genealogy, and finds an ancestor, nearly identical to Joe, who has made appearances for centuries, written letters to Joe 400 years before his birth, and now (apparently) has resurfaced and wants to contact him.
(Based on “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward,” by HP Lovecraft, with a modern spin)
11 🎵 Cthulhu Please
Everyone on campus begin to have strange dreams of non-euclidian cities, towers rising from the sea and ominous chanting. While trying to chat about the shared dreams, Cthulhu enters the group chat, right before finals, and chaos ensues, spreading to global proportions.
(A section of Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” ina hyper modern context)
12 🎵 Devil Reef
Finally, exhausted and bordering on mad, Joe falls for a (barely) human, fish like, Innsmouth girl on the bus. He neglects his studies more and more, and seems to begin the transition to an aquatic hybrid himself. As the spring semester turns towards summer, Joe runs off with her, abandoning Miskatonic, at least for now, learning and embracing his one apparent Deep One ancestry, joining her at Devil Reef).
(A romantic take on Lovecraft’s “Shadow over Innsmouth”)
Notes on Process and AI Controversy:
None of these videos are “One Prompt Products” that you see a lot now on YouTube.
I do the story concept adaptations, outline and write a good chunk of the lyrics. AI helps with rhymes and flow during the writing process. The humor is mine.
I prompt the music which gets several revisions and edits.
The video storyboarding is entirely mine, based verse by verse, sometimes like by line. Each video cut starts with still image prompts, which I then animate in 5-20 second cuts (often with many mistakes and redoes).
Finally I combine all these elements with a ton of editing, by hand, in an app called YouCut (not AI).
I just want to make it clear that these are not entirely AI; it’s a combination of 4 apps, dozeds of prompts, random tools, and lots of human decision making. Each one is roughly a week’s worth of “work”, mostly divided between lyrics, video clip creation and editing. Personal first, digital second.
I personally feel the quality difference shows between what I put out and a lot of what gets online. But if this is all slop to you, then it’s just as much my slop as any of the tools I use. I would never claim it as art, but I enjoy it as a creative hobby nevertheless, and it expresses exactly what I want to say.
You can write it off for AI, or you can see my personal passion. Up to you. You can let the music show you the me that’s in there. Or not.
I hope you appreciate what I’ve put in. Not art, but a hobbie, that connects me to the content. Humor Is mine. Jokes are mine. Hope you enjoyed it.
If you did, leave some likes as comments on the videos. They mean a lot.
