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basu-shokikita · 3 months

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Possibility, a Toki from a different reality

So @dalberadiata has an AU where Toki never left the cult and, therefore, never joined Dethklok. But the call of destiny is much stronger, so he accidentally catches a glimpse of Dethklok when they're visiting Norway and pretty much instantly becomes infatuated with Skwisgaar. The interest isn't one-sided and Skwisgaar teaches Toki about the world of music...and many other things. 🎸💘

I've been wanting to do something with this AU for a while because I'm fascinated with it. So, after many talks, I decided to write the scene where Toki wears non-religious clothing for the first time. More specifically, the clothes Skwisgaar lent him. Needless to say, this is a Skwistok AU 🥰

You can also read this work here!

Hat in his hands, Toki looked at his feet. Or rather, the lack of them. Covered by the dark robe he had been wearing everyday for the past 8 years, it was like he was floating on the floor. Some kind of ghost that still managed to trip on his non-existent feet sometimes.

His eyes kept going back to his legs, his arms, his torso, his neck even. All dutifully covered so there was nothing in sight, nothing to tell apart. Not even the top of his head was safe, protected by the hat of the same color of his robe. He was one undefined silhouette not to be confused by a mere mortal wearing vulgar clothes or showing skin. At least, that’s what his parents had taught him.

He was always to be covered, never to expose anything. Never to embarrass or as shame the family with his indecency. Long ago were the days where he was allowed to wear a simple t-shirt and shorts for his daily duties. He was a real member of the family now and he had to behave as such.

His eyes met his own hesitant reflection, worry scattered all over his features. Should he really be doing this?

“Eh, Toki,” Skwisgaar put down the black magazine he was reading. “Don’ts..think abouts it too much.”

Toki glanced at Skwisgaar in the reflection, and simply pursed his lips in response. He knew Skwisgaar meant well, but he had no way to understand. He had no idea what this meant for Toki, the weird guilt swelling in his gut just from his thoughts. The feeling that his parents, his dad especially, had always been right about him. That he was a failure to the family and the whole town.

He tossed the hat on his bed, as if that would make his dad’s eyes stop glaring at him from inside his mind. He wanted this. He wanted to do this.

“Okay.” He said, more to himself than Skwisgaar. “Turn around.”

“Whats?” Skwisgaar squinted like he hadn’t understood him.

“Turn around.” Toki repeated, this time gesturing with his fingers.

Skwisgaar grimaced for a good couple of seconds before throwing his palms into the air and turning around. “Talks about overkills…” He muttered under his breath but Toki still heard him.

Not that he cared, this wasn’t about Skwisgaar, it was about him and he wanted it his way. This was hard enough as it was, he didn’t need Skwisgaar’s prying eyes on top of it. Toki inhaled deeply and then closed his eyes. He counted until 10, an old trick to calm down his anxiety that he had learned from a nice old lady at the local market a couple of years ago. Then, he exhaled slowly and opened his eyes.

His stare wasn’t all quite confident, but he had to make do. Determined, he brought his hands to his collar and started unbuttoning his robe. It had exactly 16 buttons, so he took a while to undo them. The buttons were worn out and old so they always took several pulls to get off the buttonholes. One time, as a teen, Toki suggested getting new ones but his mother gave him a glare of disappointment that made him never want to ask again.

Undone, the robe fell to the floor and Toki’s first instinct was to immediately pick it up and carefully fold it to place it on his chair. However, his fingers hesitated when he was inches away from the floor.

He remembered the first time he refused to wear the robe, because it was uncomfortable to wear, to move in. Because he thought it was ugly, because he was tired of following this charade he had never wanted to be part of.

His dad ordered him to take off his clothes and made him stand in the snow for hours, with nothing to cover himself with. At some point he lost consciousness, and when he recovered it, he was shivering in his bed. His dad told him, just as cold as the snow that he had been surrounded by, that it was his own doing for rejecting the Lord’s graces.

A few years later, Toki fell off the mountain while running errands. He slipped with the ice and rolled for a few meters before crashing against a rock. He managed to limp his way down, though his sides really hurt and he was pretty sure he was bleeding from his leg. When his mother saw him, the first thing she was worried about wasn’t him, but the robe.

She made him take it off, quickly tossing the snow off it and washing it to remove Toki’s blood. Not even a glance of concern when Toki was stitching himself as she dried the robe next to the fire and carefully sewed the holes back. Toki watched his mother treat his robe with more care and gentleness than he had ever received from her.

When, just two years ago, Toki had taken his picture with them. It was his first official family picture. During his childhood, he had only seen his parents in the framed photographs around the house, never seen himself, like he wasn’t allowed to be part of it. So, he was pretty excited, to be finally acknowledged by them. He tried really hard not to smile when the town’s photographer came to take it.

However, when he saw the final picture, he felt nothing but cruel disappointment. Because the person in it, between his two parents, didn’t feel like him, it didn’t look like him. With the serious face and the dark robe, he looked like any other member of the sect. Nothing to tell him apart from the rest, and that’s exactly what his parents had wanted all along for him.

Toki straightened instead, not even giving a spare glance to the robe on the floor. He proceeded to unbutton his dark purple shirt, trying not to feel self-conscious when the skin of his chest began to reveal itself. He always undressed looking away from the mirror, it was a habit his parents had taught him. Dress with the mirror, undress without it. Flaunting one’s own skin, even in private, was sinful.

From the corner of his eye, he saw Skwisgaar’s head move. “I’m not ready yet!” He said, trying to inspire obedience but his voice came out squeaky instead.

Skwisgaar grumbled but he didn’t try to take a peek at least, and Toki was relieved. Undoing his pants took him way less time than the rest, and he just let it join the robe on the floor, along with the shirt.

The clothes Skwisgaar had lent him were resting on the edge of his bed and Toki hesitated again. Was this really him? Maybe he shouldn’t mess with the order after all. Maybe he shouldn’t be tempting…he didn’t even dare to think of the word. His eyes wandered around the room, until they finally fell on Skwisgaar’s mane.

Luscious bursts of golden cascading down his shoulders, leading to that black leather jacket that had enraptured him since he first saw him and the tight black pants that followed, finishing up with the elegant black boots of the same color. He was beautiful and, just as important, he was free. And Toki desired that freedom just as much as he desired him.

He made up his mind and grabbed the shirt first before forcing it down his neck and torso. Then, he spread the pants and shoved his legs inside. It was definitely tighter than he expected, and he had expected a lot. As he struggled to make his groin somehow fit comfortably between the fabric, he realized Skwisgaar was most likely a smaller size than he was. The last touch were the black combat boots that, ironically, were a tad bit too big for his feet.

With one last exhale, Toki took a glance at his reflection and almost didn’t recognize himself.

His usually hidden shoulder-length brown hair was exposed and slightly disheveled from the movement. His torso was adorned by a short-sleeved black shirt with an over-designed skull and the name of a band he didn’t know in red letters. The shirt had probably been loose on Skwisgaar but on Toki it fit just right. The faux leather pants made noise whenever he moved and, just like he suspected, made his crotch stand up. Packed with combat boots, they made him look like a rockstar, even if he could still see the reluctance in his expression.

Toki tried smiling, then he tried frowning and struck a pose. He put a hand on his hip and one foot in front of the other one and feigned the smugness he often saw on Skwisgaar. It made him laugh to see this much arrogance in his face, however, and he ended up cracking up in front of the mirror. Sighing, he stood straight and contemplated himself. It was weird, and it definitely didn’t look like his usual self. But maybe it could be.

Maybe this could be him.

Also, he could finally see his feet step on the floor, how crazy was that? Toki Wartooth, finally allowed to have visible lower limbs. Absolutely insane.

“Oh, heys.” Skwisgaar said, walking up to him with a smirk. “Has I met you befores?”

“Pfft.” Toki snorted, though couldn’t erase the coy smile on his face, especially not when Skwisgaar wrapped an arm around his waist.

“You looks good in my clothes.” He said, eyeing Toki’s body. His stare stayed for a little longer on Toki’s lower abdomen before it went up again. “Ja?”

Toki averted his gaze, chuckling lightly. “I look like you.” He said, feeling his cheeks heat up from Skwisgaar’s attention and proximity to him.

Skwisgaar took a whiff at his collarbone. “Smells like me toos.” There was something suggestive about his eyes, and Toki could’ve sworn the room was getting hotter despite being in the middle of winter. “Heh.” Skwisgaar seemed satisfied by the reaction and pulled away. “Wants to gets out of here?”

Toki didn’t expect that, though he wasn’t against it. “Where are we going?”

“There’s ans a metals show in the towns.” Skwisgaar said, his eyes were smiling at Toki with tenderness he hadn’t seen before. “I can gets us there.” His thumb slightly brushed Toki’s chin. “Hm? What you says?”

Light blue eyes got starry from the idea alone and Toki swallowed heavily. His first metal show ever…he imagined a raging crowd and killer instrumentals. An imposing vocalist growling incomprehensible lyrics, the chaos and sweat in the atmosphere…

His heartbeat sped up from anticipation and Skwisgaar smiled at him. His first metal concert would be with Skwisgaar of all people. Toki couldn’t help thinking it was the perfect date. A nod. “Let’s do it.”

Skwisgaar’s smile turned into a grin as he laced his fingers with Toki’s and dragged them away from the room. Toki allowed himself to be led, excitement bursting through his chest.

When he walked past the door frame he turned around and gave his old clothes one last look before leaving.

He would never look back.

#metalocalypse #toki wartooth #skwisgaar skwigelf #skwistok #my writing #tw religious guilt #tw child abuse #no beta we die like men etc #they're speaking norwegian in this btw which is why skwis is the only one making mistakes

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notafraidofredyellowandblue · 26 days

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(saw on Reddit)

"According to a published report at Metal Injection, Rammstein is being sued by French synthwave band Ninja Cyborg for alleged plagiarism. Ninja Cyborg claims Rammstein stole their 2018 song “The Sunny Road” for the 2019 track “Deutschland” from the bands’ 2019 self-titled album. "

#now what..#🙄#rammstein

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elizabethemerald · 1 year

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A Shade Darker than Red: Part 9

Danny and Jason hovered over Jazz’s bed in her apartment while she worked on her computer. She had been looking at opening a practice as a psychologist, and with all the conversation going around about the happenings in Gotham she was investigating how expensive an office in the city would be. Not too high, all things considered and she had saved quite a bit by being a partner for a practice in her current town, and having two other roommates helped her save on rent. Maybe after she had her own practice for a while she would be able to apply to Arkham and start to actually help the people there.

The two ghosts were busy discussing how they wanted to make Jason’s presence known to his family. Jason had said that now that his first killer was dead and he wouldn’t have to worry about his family getting hurt by him, that he wanted to meet them again, let them know that even though he was dead didn’t mean he wouldn’t still be in their lives.

“When I came back as Red Hood, I sent a first edition book to Alfred to let him know it was me.” Jason said.

“Hmm. Usually when I get summoned by some cult or another, I really pull out all the stops, tentacles, supernovas exploding into forming stars, multiple eyes and mouths, the whole lot.”

“Maybe you could carve my initials into a wall with ectoplasm! Or I could haunt a few of the rival crime lords who messed with Crime Alley!”

Jazz slammed her hands down her desk causing both of the boys to freeze and stare at her. She growled and snatched a magazine from her desk drawer and rolled it up into a tight tube. With a flick of her wrist as she turned, she infused the magazine with ectoplasm. Danny and Jason watched her in confusion for a few seconds as she stood there with the magazine, clearly going through a breathing exercise.

“Are you ok, Jazz?” Danny asked.

He got a rolled up magazine to the face for his trouble as Jazz began smacking both boys with her magazine. She smacked them both again and again as she berated them, all the while wrestling them to keep them within easy smacking distance.

“Just fucking talk to them! I swear to the Ancients if you don’t cut all the unnecessary dramatics and just talk to them I will put both of you in a thermos for a month! The same thermos! By all that is holy and all the undead in the Realms, just fucking talk to people!”

She continued her tirade and assault for a few minutes more before she settled back breathing heavily.

“Danny, you will open a portal when they are all gathered together, introduce yourself, and swear an oath not to harm them. It won’t be perfect but it should hopefully keep the paranoia of the family down for a few minutes. Jason, you will come out of the portal next and you will sit down and explain, clearly and succinctly, that you are a ghost.”

Both boys stared at her, more than a little fear on their faces in the face of her fury.

“I understand vigilante types are allergic to healthy communication, but I swear, if you idiots just talked to each other, half of your problems would disappear.” She stepped back and sighed, running her free hand through her hair, though she still held the magazine and gestured to the boys with it. “Do you need me as a living person to be there to help calm down any misunderstandings?”

“Yes Jazz, that would be great.” Dannny said with a small voice. “Also thank you.”

“I know theatrics are part of being a hero and part of being a ghost, but please, please just communicate.” She finally set her magazine down causing the ghosts to breathe out sighs of relief. “We can go over talking points and common questions about the Realms so we can explain things in the least traumatizing way. And I’ll pick up a pizza or something and bring it to help destress.”

“Yeah that would be best. I’m not sure when they will be all together, and if we’re just going with the ‘talk like a mentally healthy person’ plan, then it will probably be best to get them all done at once.”

“I think I know someone who will be able to help us get them all together.” Danny said thoughtfully, then when Jazz’s hand strayed toward the magazine again he quickly clarified, “In a healthy communication and living person approved way.”

“Good. You better.”

Some time later, Jason and Danny emerged from a portal in the air over Gotham City. Jason followed as Danny began flying around searching the alleys for whoever it was that Danny was sure could get the remainder of the Batfamily back together.

“Uh, do you know what you’re looking for? Cause I respect you as like the King of All Ghosts or whatever, but I fear your sister way more. And I do not want to spend a month stuck in a thermos with you if this doesn’t go off perfectly.”

“It’ll be fine. Just give me a minute to- Ah! There we go!”

Danny was off like a shot, Jason right behind him. The two of them shot into an alley that Jason distinctly remembered Bruce coming and laying flowers in multiple times during his time as Robin. This was the alley where Bruce’s parents had been killed. He paused, unsure if he should intrude. He had always tried to give Bruce his space when he had first been alive.

“Come on in, Jason.” The voice that called to him wasn’t Danny’s. It was older.

He hesitantly floated into the alley to see Danny standing next to two older looking ghosts, ones he recognized from their portrait in the manor. Thomas and Martha Wayne. Thomas had been the one to wave him in, while Martha was currently hugging Danny. As soon as she saw him, Martha broke away from Danny to pull Jason into a hug as well.

Jason didn’t know how to react at first, hugs had been few and far between for most of his life, especially after the first time he came back. Danny and Jazz were always quick with physical affection, which was nice, but this was the first hug he had received outside of those two. After freezing for a moment, he wrapped his arms around Martha and hugged her back just as tightly.

“It’s good to finally be able to meet my grandson again.” Martha said warmly, and Thomas also gave him a wide smile.

Jason couldn’t help but look awkward at that, he wasn’t certain that he still counted as their grandson after what had happened, so he started to pull back from them. Martha’s face fell, but she still gave him a sad looking smile.

“I know our boy hurt you, and we are so sorry that his mission got in the way of his relationships with the kids he’d taken in. We still love you and care for you, and if you’ll have us, we’ll still be your grandparents.”

Jason whipped his tail in agitation for a second before he relaxed and allowed Thomas and Martha to pull him back into an even tighter hug. The hug with his grandparents was warm and safe in a way he hadn’t felt in such a long time. They both pulled back at the same time as a wave of power swamped the alley.

The power was unlike anything he had felt before, yet it still felt familiar. It wasn’t the same as when Danny used his full power as King of All Ghosts to destroy the clown’s soul, but it still felt like it could match even some of the Ancients Danny had introduced him to. Maybe not Clockwork level but still.

At the end of the alley the ghost of a woman appeared. She was beautiful in a way Jason struggled to describe. She wore an ivory flapper dress, under a long evening coat. She had brown skin and riotous curls forming a halo around her head. She was beauty and danger and safety and… home. She felt like home. She also felt horribly sick. Her aura almost drowned him in pain and the scent of rot.

“Lady Gotham.” The Waynes bowed deeply to her and even Danny inclined his head to her though he did not bow.

Jason did the only thing he could think to do at this moment. He knelt, falling to one knee in the rank alley they were in, his head bowed low. This was Lady Gotham, the city of spirit of his home. He didn’t feel worthy to be in her presence. He was just the failure Robin who had died too young and came back wrong only to die again. A gentle hand on his chin broke him from his spiraling thoughts.

“My dear Knight.” Gotham said softly. “You don’t have to kneel before me.”

He felt his breath catch in his throat even though he didn’t have to breathe as Gotham helped him to rise to his feet, her face filled with kindness and love. He swallowed with difficulty to try and clear his throat.

“Am I really your knight anymore?” He asked, his voice breaking a little in the middle.

“Oh, my dearest heart. You have been my Knight since you first put on that cape. And you will remain my Knight in my heart until this entire city has long crumbled to dust. I have watched over you since you were a babe in arms and I mourned you both times you died.”

Jason took a shaky breath. Lady Gotham opened her arms and he went willingly into her hug. He held her tight and breathed in the smell of the city he loved. The city he was born into and had fought to keep safe. He took one last shuddering breath and stepped back, a weight removed from his shoulders to see how much the city he loved, loved him in return.

“Will you really be able to get the rest of my family together?” Jason asked her.

“Oh certainly. It is easy to guide my Knights to one location. However, there is something you must do for me.”

“Anythi-” Jason stopped mid word as Danny put his hand on his shoulder.

“You need to know what’s involved before you agree.” Danny no longer was his playful and sarcastic brother. Just like when he had faced the clown and dealt Jason’s revenge, there was a weight of responsibility and duty to the way he carried himself. This was Danny as the High King of Ghosts. “Gotham, the city and the spirit, are deeply cursed.”

Jason wasn’t certain he could be less surprised to learn that. The air was filled with smog, the streets ran red with blood, and Gotham city was cursed. No one who had fought the crusade in the alleyways and warehouses for as long as Jason had could be surprised by that news. He kept himself from cracking a joke about the obviousness of the curse solely due to the gravitas that Danny was speaking.

“I have fought the curses that have held sway over me for as long as I could.” Gotham said. “It is this curse that leaves the city shrouded in shadow no matter the hour or season. This curse that feeds the corruption of the power hungry, bends the mind of the cruel towards even greater cruelties, and leaves the victim broken and bleeding in the gutter.”

“Are you saying it’s not the criminals’ fault? That this curse makes them commit crimes and hurt people?” Jason said, fury bubbling up inside him.

“No. It merely twists and grows what is already in their hearts.” Gotham said and stepped back from him. “If I were not fighting this curse every single day, with every ounce of my strength it would corrupt even the kind and the good.”

She opened her evening coat to reveal a gaping wound in her side. Blood and ectoplasm oozed from the wound, staining her dress. He could see the white of her ribs through the gore and the wound stank of rot and decay.

“I cannot heal from this injury without the ectoplasm of the Infinite Realms, yet the curse binds me to this city, to the very bricks and stone. I cannot leave. I need you and your siblings to break and shatter the anchors that hold this curse in place so I can return to the Realms.”

“And that will end the curse?”

“If only it were so easy.” Gotham looked truly tired at this point, and he could imagine how much she had been fighting, every moment of every day to keep the curse at bay.

Danny took over the explanation as Gotham recovered her injury.

“Even without the anchors, the curse will linger, and with no one to fight it would continue to worsen and spread. In a way it is like radioactive decay. It could take eons for it to fully disappear and the entire time Gotham won’t be able to heal because she’s still fighting it.”

Jason stopped to think about what they were saying. He hadn’t been Robin for years for nothing. He could be as good a detective as any of his brothers.

“You need a powerful ghost to take on the role of Gotham’s spirit to keep fighting the curse and helping the people while you heal.” Gotham smiled and nodded at him. Jason turned to Danny. “Can you-”

“I can’t take the position.” Danny shook his head with a frown. “I am the King of the Infinite Realms. My responsibilities to the rest of the cosmos are too great for me to focus my time and energy on one single city.”

Jason pondered the problem for a moment longer.

“Who else is available?” Danny gave him a knowing look, while Gotham gave him one filled with pride. “Wait, me?”

He had a hundred reasons why he couldn’t be the one to help protect his city, but it seemed that Gotham and Danny had discussed this already and were ready for him.

“Jason, you were born of this city, love this city, and fought every day for years for this city.”

“You already have such strength from fighting what you called your Pit Rage. Even with the worst of corrupted ectoplasm running through your veins you still tried to protect the people within your haunt.”

“Even as a new ghost you have power and control that is almost unheard of. You bent the entirety of the Infinite Realms to call me to your side. You learned in months what took me years to master, what most ghosts take decades to understand.”

“You have such a close connection with the defenders of this city, you could guide them and protect them as they continued the crusade to protect the people of my city.”

Danny stepped forward and put a hand on Jason’s shoulder, looking closely into his eyes.

“If you take on the role of city spirit, you could stay in Gotham, rather than having to live in the Infinite Realms. You could see your family whenever you wanted to. You could protect them from stray bullets and bend the shadows around them to keep them safe. You could guide them to those who are hurting, even those who would have been missed by the keen eyes of Gotham’s Knights.”

Jason felt overwhelmed, but he knew Danny’s words were ringing with truth. He desperately wanted to make up for his family’s blood that he had on his hands, and if he could protect them, keep them safe, it would be worth any cost, any struggle. Though there was one concern.

“What about you and Jazz?” He didn’t want to lose his new family any more than he wanted to lose his siblings. Danny gave him a smile.

“Jazz is moving her practice here. I can open portals to her or you whenever I want. You’re not going to get rid of us that easily.”

Jason nodded. Then nodded again more firmly.

“I’ll do it. Though we’re going to need help from the others if we’re going to break those anchors.”

#dp x dc #jason todd #danny fenton #jazz fenton #a shade darker than red #lady gotham

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zeauxie · 3 days

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Found Some More Hatchetfield Lore!

I remembered that one of the Lang brothers said that Wiggly is based off of Cthulhu, so I decided to do something digging on a piece of shit author, H.P. Lovecraft and y’all… Okay, I don’t know if it counts as lore, but Hatchetfield is right under our noses.

CW: H.P. Lovecraft’s writing is full of bigotry, and if you plan on reading it, prepare yourself. For example, there is an evil entity named Shub-Niggurath. Yeah.

I don’t like H.P. Lovecraft, nor do I enjoy his writing in general, so here are some things that people should look up if you want to find out Hatchetfield’s inspiration. More thoughts on why I cannot write about him are at the bottom.

Also! I do not look down or dislike people who enjoy H.P. Lovecraft’s writing and his creations, and would really love for people to continue to look into things I cannot. I hope my little notes help!

(I’ve linked the stories in pink!)

SPOILERS: Hatchetfield? I guess? The Cthulhu Mythos & The Dream Cycle.

Cthulhu Mythos:

Just read ‘The Call of Cthulhu’. Everything makes sense.

Miss Holloway is based off of a character named Horvath Blayne from ‘The Black Island, Being the Narrative of Horvath Blayne’.

Duke Keane is also taken from ‘The Black Island’.

The narrator of ‘The Call of Cthulhu’ is named Francis Wayland Thurston.

Professor Hidgens is based off of an art student named Henry who is known for being eccentric and living in solitude. (The Call of Cthulhu)

Emma Perkins is named after a ship called the Emma. The crew got into a battle with Cthulhu’s cult members, which resulted in the Emma having one survivor. (The Call of Cthulhu)

John MacNamara is based off of the police officer John Legrasse. (The Call of Cthulhu)

Willabella Muckwab resembles Lavinia Whateley, from ‘The Dunwich Horror’. She has a son, Wilbur Whateley (Wilbur Cross), whose father is the cosmic entity Yog-Sothoth (Wiggog Y’rath). Lavinia went missing on Halloween, and the assumption is that Wilbur killed her. 👀

The Black Book is the Necremonium.

There’s always professors somewhere.

The Dream Cycle:

LOL. The Dream Cycle is a collection of short stories surrounding dream cities. I honestly haven’t read anything about this other than brief stuff from the Wiki, but the connections are painfully obvious.

The word ‘oblivion’ is written in the Black Book. H.P. Lovecraft has a poem titled Ex Oblivione. The narrator sees a gate in his dreams and wants to get past it, but he can’t access it. He eventually does, though. Yikes. Read this post, picture Willabella Muckwab as the narrator for Ex Oblivione, and enjoy.

Bonus: Some of the covers of the magazine that published H.P. Lovecraft’s work (Weird Tales) are sprinkled throughout Hatchetfield.

“Pete, get behind me! I’ve got a gun.”

“Steph… it’s a ghost. I don’t think that’s gonna do any good.”

Rosary? Killer Track, much? Also, the art style for the Black Book kind of resembles this… huh.

Note: I had planned to read all of H.P. Lovecraft and the associated work, but the racism is too much for me. I can’t “separate the art from the artists”, especially when everything evil is so obviously and horrendously based on Black people, as well as other races. Again— Shub-Niggurath. Like, seriously?

It’s a huge bummer, because I have so many thoughts— like the implications behind Willabella Muckwab associated with Lavinia Whateley, and Wilbur Cross also being associated with Wilbur Whateley. So much is at our finger tips.

I’m still going to be writing other things, though!

I have more of the Black Book deciphered, so that’s exciting, especially since I actually got some stuff right in my first post. (It was looked at through a more religious lenses rather than an H.P. Lovecraft lenses, though.) BUT STILL. MY EYES HURTING FROM INTENSE SQUINTING SESSIONS WAS NOT FOR NAUGHT! And I know I state some of these things as if they’re facts, but they’re ‘probably based on’ stuff.

Alright. I’m off to read about physics, the concept of nothingness, and the æther in the name of theatre kid.

tldr; the Lang bros made a the TTRPG Call of Cthulhu homebrew and turned it into musicals.

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tisthenightofthewitch · 1 year

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Sonisphere 2014 - Ghost Cult Magazine

#Papa II #Papa Emeritus II #Papa II Week #The Band Ghost #Ghost Band #Ghost #Nameless Ghouls

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dishsaop · 4 months

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who are your ttrpg blorbos i LOVE hearing abt ttrpg blorbos...

omg ok im gonna try to keep this short or else ill write a whole novel but

In Monster of the Week:

Sunny (Sunsheighne Lydeighah Suarez) is a Monster of the Week character. She's 22 and bubbly and petty and and so, so, so, so, so, so stupid. Barbie Girl without the Barbie Accomplishments. Sunny started out as the Spooky playbook but has since migrated to the Chosen playbook - she's got the Green Dragon Crescent Blade and is maybe sort of the antichrist a little bit. She takes Every Drug. She's Mexican-Chinese and grew up in a trailer in Texas. She's so good at magic and hitting things, and so bad at thinking. She has phoenix ancestry and also was cursed. Normal girl things.

One of her moms is a failed country rock star and the other is a dragon. One of her dads is a cranky old monster hunter who turned into a god, and her sort-of other dad is a lich. Her brother has anxiety and is also a dragon, but is actually just a stressed college student with a band.

Sunny is engaged to a fae who is also Bees. She also has a girlfriend who is a crack shot and who enjoys accounting, and who we just unbrainwashed from a vampire tree. Sunny also has So many phone numbers.

Right now she's road tripping with her family (blood and adopted) across America as they break into the library of congress, try and fail to rob banks, and blow up a water tower to flood a town.

Sunny's ex-girlfriend was Audi Mercedes Windsor. Audi died, but Audi's fetch - her death omen, basically, like a changeling/copy only meant to survive til the original's death - survived, and got named Mercy Benjamin. I'm also playing Mercy - she's the Monstrous playbook.

Audi was the adopted daughter of an extremely rich film director, and most of Audi's life was filmed as she was trained very carefully to be picture perfect onscreen, and was exploited as basically a show dog. She was actually a mean selfish bitch, so Mercy is too - but Mercy is currently learning how to be a person and not an asshole. Audi was also in Sunny's brother's band, and Mercy in some canons is tentatively as well. She's roadtripping with the others, trying to avoid being noticed that she looks just like the dead rich girl splashed across billboards and magazines.

Jaime de Villiers is also one of my MotW characters in another campaign. They… are sort of three people fused into one. One of their component parts is a demon general named Kokabiel, who was the only true death in the war between heaven and hell. They wanted to be a perfect soldier and stand up for what they thought was right, as well as avenge their dead human spouse and child, but jumped in front of an attack meant for their commander and died, and became a ghost until summoned by their second component part by accident VERY long after, and the two fused.

Second component part is [redacted].

Their third part is a fae Spanish / French pirate from 1700's Spain, named Jaime de Villiers. The original Jaime served as first mate under the Kokabiel Fusion, they fell in love, and terrorized the coasts, but eventually Kokabiel Fusion and Jaime both nearly died and fused in order to save their lives. Now they are One Person with some very weird life experiences.

They've spent most of the last few thousand years at sea, trying desperately to be alone and Not Exist. Now they've been dragged kicking and screaming into a weird small Michigan town full of cults and secret police and monsters and witches and more, to be with their family (original Jaime's grandmother is a vampire and has a whole line of descendants who are wonderful and insane) and Be Helpful. Jaime is bearing the company and forced morality as best they can, and to their immense horror is actually starting to have a good time and learn to be happy again bc of their family. They accidentally stabbed their beloved cousin in the chest when they tried to kill The Actual Devil, but it's okay bc their cousin just became a goddess. Also they're now dating their old commander they died for, which is cool.

Another MotW character is Hector Carnage, who is a butch drummer in the up and coming band Bubblegum ☆ Carnage. She used to be a hockey player until a permanent hip injury screwed her out of her contract and now she's living her best life with her three insane bandmates. They’re about to play the weirdest craziest concert ever.

My last MotW character is Crescendo ‘Cres’ Flair, a.k.a Woebegone Lightfoot, a.k.a Harmony Caravaggio, a.k.a Beowulf Sublime, a.k.a Ophelia Divine, a.k.a - you get it. They go through new names every few months to Avoid the Government. They're a genderqueer Flake who uses they/he/she. He's also a sixty year old full out victorian goth with garrote wire and some wild conspiracy theories. Right now a hunter-for-hire, basically. She grew up on a dairy farm in Iowa.

Other than the MotW characters I'm playing now, I do have a scattered few others but I never did use them a whole lot. Here's a few,I can't remember all of them right now.

Daisy Smith is a fallen Aasimar who is sworn to defend all retail workers, is overly emotional and naive and genuinely kind/sweet, and also is a scary as hell warlock. Her patron is an eldritch horror of luck who looks like a bowling alley carpet.

Umami is a half-orc ranger with a panther familiar who I wanted to develop more but got shafted in the short campaign I got to play her and I'm still bitter about that.

At one point I had a rock dwarf who was a rockstar but I don't even remember her name. But I did love the concept.

And finally. Deco is my Baldurs's Gate character. Because I started playing Baldurs's Gate a week ago (no spoilers, please). That's basically a ttrpg. They're a Seldarine Drow, a druid from the circle of the spores. They became a druid because of the beauty they found in the Underdark nature, and because of their views on the beauty of death as a part of the circle of life and nature. Deco also is a decent leader, very forward, a little violent, and striving for true neutral if they can't hit neutral good. And they are absolutely going to smooch the shit out of Karlach.

Sunny (the second piece is a parody of Mucha's 'The Moon and the Stars')

Mercy (another Mucha parody piece)

Jaime (the second piece is a parody of Klimt's 'Water Serpents I')

and finally, Deco!

…that was kind of a novel. Sorry 😭

#m text #SO SORRY im putting this under a readmore. theres just way too much. u absolutely did not ask for this much #if anyone who i play with now or used to play with sees this. hello i love u all.#clare on god i will finish a campaign with you one day. I don't even remember my water genasis name but i had fun #sunsheighne #mercy #jaime #crescendo #<- i sometimes tag stuff with their names for the Vibes #ANYWAY THANK U SO MUCH FOR ASKING

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horrorface · 6 months

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i'd put the timeline of danny's "malevolence" tome about 7 months into jed olsen's employment at the roseville gazette, 2 months into the ghost face's killings in roseville. the events in danny's official biography in-game happens some weeks or months after that, including jed olsen's disappearance and the ghost face entering the fog to become a killer for the entity.

in that time, terror gripped the town, but so did the greed to invest in murder capitalism, inspiring the founding of the urban farce (possibly as a satirical critique to olsen's infamous articles, too; he was not even a local, writing stories and interviewing victims and creating morbid, sensationalized articles about a masked murderer; suspicious enough to make him a suspect when the urban farce's staff are murdered). this is how the entity was able to entrap him; the parody. it was the trigger. consider that it was intentional: the seed capital for this small start-up magazine company came from one of many shell corporations controlled by the entity's cult, the black vale. setting into motion the fated chain of events that would give danny no other options. at the time, the entity's trials seemed much more appealing than prison. much more appealing than the humiliation of getting caught by incompetent pigs... because his dumb ass decided to have feelings one (1) time, at the worst possible moment. spontaneously killing three men with no design and no plan is bound to create a higher chance of human error, traces of evidence; he broke every rule he had as a killer, and failed to kill them with his usual composure, literally blacking out and stabbing one of them in the face "about a hundred times" according to his estimation. completely removed from the ghost face's controlled, carefully-crafted designs.

so it makes sense that danny accepts the invitation to enter the fog, considering his less-than-ideal circumstances. similar to how ji-woon seemed to be convinced to join the fog: with illusions/delusions of grandeur and "understanding" that compelled them to "accept" the entity's temptations.

#re: the design.#id: the lore.#i think its obvious by now that original killers who willingly accept the entity's offers are convinced through manipulation #as we've seen with carmina/jonas' lore; the entity seems to be able to manipulate chaos theory and quantum mathematics #to PREEMPTIVELY groom killers for its realms and trials #so even if killers think they agreed bc theyre just so smart and clever; no.... not really..................#i just think its soo funny; i live for the morbid little jests #also you can't convince me danny has noodle arms when he's stabbed someone 100 times #u have any idea how much effort that takes? and he still just walked away. laughing. what a bitch #imperfect pathetic danny u will always be famous TO ME

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cream-and-tea · 1 year

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yknow it’d be hard to rank because everything she does is solid gold. but if i had to do a Top Ten Agnes Moments i feel like “being so worried about the cult people intruding on her home finding her hidden stash of victoria’s secret magazines that she almost forgets to hide the ghost-powers that they WILL DEFINITELY KILL HER FOR” would at least make the top three

#and that’s on being in the closet like. ok girlie channelling some real 13-year-old me vibes there #listen she is good at many things but Being Aware Of Situations is not one of them lol #wip: ghost story #agnes

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cynicalrainbows · 2 years

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Ghosts AU where it’s just a really chaotic house share:

Lady Button is the recently-divorced matriarch who is burning with resentment at having to rent out her huge family home for the extra income.

The Captain is ex-military, still burning with resentment after being outed and forced to resign his post in the mid 90s. Won’t return to the armed forces out of shame, but also unable to find anything else to give meaning to his life, so sort of....stuck.

Pat is the recently-divorced guy who is still in the denial stage. Insists he and Carol are ‘on a break’, despite the fact it’s been three years, which is why he refuses to move out of his ‘temporary’ accommodation.

Julian is the disgraced MP, attempting to avoid both the press and his wife’s lawyers. Honestly, you don’t even need to change Julian’s story much.

Mary is the recent escapee of a cult (you can even keep the witch accusations and the burning) and ended up at the house share because her housing benefit won’t pay for anything better. She’s happy to be out in the real world but also mildly distrustful of it all.

Kitty is a woefully-unprepared-for-life teenager, who was convinced by her sister that it was best for her to move out of the family home after the death of their father while her sister ‘sorts out their father’s will’. No one is quite sure how to bring up to Kitty that it’s been over a year since she last heard from her family.

Thomas is the English Lit/Creative Writing student who makes their whole personality about the fact that one of their poems once got published in the university magazine. (He hasn’t disclosed to anyone that the single poem of his that’s ever been published was a smutty limerick.)

Robin is this guy who’s been living at the house forever. Lady Button has the vague idea that he was originally employed at a handyman but admits to not actually remembering when. Eventually it turns out that Robin just turned up one day to ask directions, Lady Button’s parents asked if he was there to fix the boiler, he said yes and then just....never left.

The Plague Pit ghosts are students who rent out the basement and are thus rarely seen during daylight hours.

#ghosts bbc #ghosts au

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cyarsk52-20 · 8 months

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FEATURES

The 50 most evil songs ever

These 50 tracks – featuring the likes of Rammstein, Slipknot, Mayhem, Slayer and AC/DC – are pretty damn nasty.

November 24, 2020Words:Paul Brannigan, James Hickie, Sam Law, Nick Ruskell, Dan Slessor, Paul Travers, Ian Winwood, Simon YoungOriginally published:In an April 2017 issue of Kerrang! magazine

From serial killers to Satan, we pulled out the ouija board and summoned the 50 most evil songs of all time. Spoiler alert: this gets incrediblygrim…

Mötley CrüeShout At The Devil

The title-track from Crüe’s breakthrough second album caused the kind of controversy that would define the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band. Penned by bassist Nikki Sixx, its lyrical preoccupation with the horned one, coupled with the LA bad boys’ burgeoning mainstream success, meant Christian groups were up in arms. Despite their protestations, the most evil thing about this song was the misguided re-reworking on 1997’s sinfully bad Generation Swine album.

WatainDevil’s Blood

Nothing less than an open hymn to the Devil himself and doing his dirtiest deeds, Devil’s Blood boils with the fanatical delight of those caught in religious fervour. The sheer force of nature of the music is staggering, but it is nothing next to Erik Danielsson’s rabid, demonic vocals as he revels in Luciferian power and living, ‘In the glorious light of the five point star.’ Truly diabolic.

PossessedThe Exorcist

When The Exorcist hit cinemas in the early ’70s, reports of audience members vomiting and losing consciousness circulated. So it’s only right that a song of the same name evokes teeth-chattering terror in those exposed to it. Written from the point of view of the possessed individual, and welded to breakneck thrashing, it was a formative track in the soon-to-be-born death metal genre. Unfortunately, things don’t end so well for the song’s protagonist.

Sonic Youth (featuring Lydia Lunch)Death Valley ’69

The 1980s were the age of the music video, a time of glossy movie-budget promo blockbusters from the likes of Michael Jackson and Prince. Not so for Sonic Youth. As a standalone song, Death Valley ’69 is intriguingly ambiguous, a thing of darkness in which the narrator may or may not have murdered his girlfriend. In the accompanying video clip, never to be played on primetime MTV, the song’s inherent violence is given full expression in a series of explicit images of lifeless bodies covered in gore. A thrillingly subversive dose of yuk.

GhostRitual

If the Devil were real would he be banging his horned head to the brutal death metal of Deicide or sipping a cocktail and twirling an exquisite mustachio to the altogether slicker sounds of Ghost? On first listen this is just one beautiful wash of melodies, but that only makes the lyrics underneath all the more disturbing. ‘This chapel of ritual smells of dead human sacrifices,’ croons Papa Emeritus. The stench of decay has never been sweeter.

The BeatlesHelter Skelter

In August 1969, homicidal cult-leader Charles Manson (you’ll hear that name plenty down this list…) told his followers, known as ‘The Family’, “Now is the time for Helter Skelter,” an assertion that heralded the most infamous mass murders – the Tate-LaBianca murders – in American history. He had become obsessed with The Beatles’ White Album, and with Helter Skelter in particular, the lyrics of which he misinterpreted in bonkers and ultimately homicidal ways.

Aphrodite’s ChildThe Four Horsemen

Greek proggers Aphrodite’s Child – featuring crooner Demis Roussos and Blade Runner soundtrack genius Vangelis – had big ideas for their 666 album: the apocalypse itself. This account of The Four Horsemen’s arrival is amazing, but it could have been improved if surrealist artist Salvador Dalí had gotten his way with the album’s release. He wanted to declare martial law in Barcelona, where swans stuffed with dynamite would be unleashed, before elephants and “Archbishops carrying umbrellas” bombarded the city’s cathedral from the air. Oddly, this didn’t come to pass.

Electric WizardWe Hate You

Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone album bears the striking slogan ‘Legalise drugs and murder’. The Dorset doom misanthropes may have been grouped with the groovy vibes of the stoner rock scene, but lines like ‘So I’ll take my father’s gun and I’ll walk down to the street / I’ll have my vengeance now with everyone I meet’ were a long way away from songs about shagging and cars. It’s a truly nasty sentiment, but as an indiscriminate spray of bile against everyone, this is untouchable.

The Devil’s BloodThe Anti-Kosmik Magick

(The Time Of No Time Evermore, 2009)

“They warned me Satan would be attractive,” quoth Ned Flanders upon being offered legal marijuana. Indeed, at first listen, Dutch diabolists The Devil’s Blood sound like the coolest ’70s-revival band you’ve ever heard. But, covered in blood, treating gigs as rituals and with heavy occult lyrics, The Anti-Kosmik Magick finds them tricking you into loving Lucifer without realising it. Seductive, rather than aggressive, this is temptation and sin presented in all its decadent glory.

AC/DCNight Prowler

On the evening of March 17, 1985, 25-year-old Texan drifter Richard Ramirez broke into the California homes of Tsai-Lian Yu and Dayle Okazaki and murdered both women. Dayle’s roommate Maria Hernandez was also shot in the face by Ramirez, but survived, and provided police with a pen portrait of a young man wearing an AC/DC baseball cap. It would be a further five months, however, before Ramirez, dubbed the ‘Night Stalker’, was apprehended, bringing to an end a 14-month reign of terror in the Golden State during which a total of 13 people were murdered and 11 more sexually assaulted in their own homes.

Ramirez’s childhood friend Ray Garcia subsequently told the authorities that the killer was obsessed by AC/DC, and specifically the creepy, chilling, voyeuristic closing track on the band’s 1979 Highway To Hell album, Night Prowler, leading to sensationalist media headlines such as “‘AC/DC Music Made Me Kill At 16’, Night Stalker Admits.” The Australian band were understandably horrified at the implication, with vocalist Brian Johnson (who joined the band after the song’s recording) telling VH1 television, “It sickens you to have anything to do with that kind of thing.” In the same Behind The Music special, AC/DC guitarist Malcolm Young claimed that Night Prowler is actually about “things you used to do when you are a kid, like sneaking into a girlfriend’s bedroom when her parents were asleep”, but lyrics such as ‘No-one’s gonna warn you / And no-one’s gonna yell attack / And you don’t feel the steel / Till it’s hangin’ out your back’ rather undermined the idea that this was merely a paean to adolescent horniness.

In court, Ramirez played up to his monstrous image, greeting the courtroom with the words “Hail Satan” and telling the judge, “I am beyond good and evil. I will be avenged. Lucifer dwells in us all.” After a four-year trial, Ramirez received 19 death sentences for his crimes, a punishment he shrugged off with the words, “Big deal… I’ll see you in Disneyland.” AC/DC naturally distanced themselves completely from the serial killer, but shaking off the association with what is undoubtedly their darkest, nastiest song would prove impossible.

HellhammerTriumph Of Death

Hellhammer mainman Tom G. Warrior has described his childhood in nightmarish terms. Living in a rural Swiss village with an unfit mother who was frequently absent smuggling jewellery, he started playing music to get away from it all. But imagine if this near-10 minute dirge of funereal guitar was what you did to escape. Every negative human emotion is vomited up in Tom’s strangled vocals, and when a couple of years later Tom asked the lyrical question of ‘Are you morbid?’, his answer was already a horrifying ‘yes’.

DissectionNight’s Blood

When thinking of ‘evil’ the words ‘Satan’ and ‘murder’ come quickly to mind. Put those two together and you stumble into territory Dissection inhabited in the mid-’90s, with band leader Jon Nödtveidt and an accomplice jailed for murdering a man who had allegedly expressed an interest in Satanism. Night’s Blood was given its unholy birth two years prior to that incident, and it’s hard not to feel unsettled by the gleeful bloodlust haunting it.

BehemothChristians To The Lions

Having released seminal albums titled Satanica and The Satanist, you can be fairly sure that everything Behemoth do is pretty damn evil, and mainman Nergal’s abuse of the Bible has landed him in Polish courts on more than one occasion. That being the case, it’s unlikely that this ditty went down overly well with churchgoers. Backed up with the band’s inimitable blackened death savagery, Nergal makes it clear which side of the God/Satan divide he falls on, viciously celebrating the death of the former and rise of the latter.

DarkthroneIn The Shadow Of The Horns

A Blaze In The Northern Sky marked a dark watershed for the black metal genre. Eerily pre-emptive of the spree of church-burnings that would go on to hallmark the genre it might’ve been. But Darkthrone’s second LP was, in actuality, fixated on the primal evils of the past. Its howling second track would prove definitive. Seven minutes of defiant lo-fi production, frostbitten purpose and blunt-force simplicity, In The Shadow Of The Horns still sounds like “abyssic hate” incarnate.

Cradle Of FilthDeath Magick For Adepts

Always ones for adding theatrics to their music, here Dani Filth paints a picture of a Sodom and Gomorrah scenario with no small amount of skill. But how to really bring out the hellish chaos erupting all around? You get one of Hell’s stewards to lend their terrifying voice to the track. That is to say, Hellraiser actor Doug Bradley, whose performance makes you worried to look out your window, lest you see Hell emptying itself onto the lawn.

Guns N’ RosesLook At Your Game, Girl

(The Spaghetti Incident?, 1993)

There aren’t many songs that have been released in order to help pay for the legal defence costs of its author who is facing a multiple murder rap. Originally written in 1967 and released on the album Lie: The Love And Terror Cult, Look At Your Game, Girl is the work of Charles Manson. Twenty-three years after its original 1970 release, the always provocative Guns N’ Roses placed the song as a hidden track on their covers album The Spaghetti Incident?. “People are trying to paint me like I worship Charles Manson,” said Axl Rose in 1994, “but it’s exactly the opposite of that.”

AkercockeOf Menstrual Blood And Semen

‘Blast For Satan’ ran the slogan on Akercocke’s shirts. It was a statement that summed up the intensity of both their music and their allegiance to Him downstairs. With their Savile Row suits and mysterious manner, they gave the air of men who actually dabbled in the black arts, something reinforced by their instruction to ‘drink of the chalice of ecstasy’ here. This furious concoction is as intense as metal gets, while also revelling in the decadence of the band’s beliefs.

BathoryCall From The Grave

Across their first trilogy of albums, Sweden’s Bathory redefined just how evil metal could sound. Crudely welding the darkness of Black Sabbath to the roar of Motörhead, the sound mainman Quorthon came up with could freeze blood, and nowhere more so than on Call From The Grave. With all the atmosphere of a freshly-dug burial site at midnight, the diabolic, two-chord riff and Quorthon’s demented vocals make this a haunting paean to all things evil and hellish.

DeicideOnce Upon The Cross

As you would expect from a man who once branded an inverted cross into his forehead, Deicide’s Glen Benton has no problem with blasphemy. Here, he mocks Jesus Christ’s struggle as he dies on the cross, which tied in really well with album Once Upon The Cross’ original artwork, which features Jesus with his insides on the outside. Oddly, this was considered too salty for the public.

Jimmy PageLucifer Rising

So obsessed was Jimmy Page with occultist and ‘Wickedest Man In The World’ Aleister Crowley that he bought the Scottish residence, Boleskine House, where the magician had attempted (and failed) to perform a six-month long magic ritual. The Zeppelin guitarist was therefore the perfect choice to soundtrack Lucifer Rising, a Crowley-inspired film by occult director Kenneth Anger. When after years, Jimmy’s contribution was still incomplete, he was acrimoniously removed from the project. Regardless, this bizarre music remains the most unsettling the man has ever created.

Big BlackJordan, Minnesota

Tiny Midwestern town Jordan, Minnesota entered the national consciousness in the U.S. in the mid-’80s when a number of school children claimed to have been ritually abused and to have witnessed multiple murders perpetrated by more than 20 townsfolk. The hysterical media coverage prompted Big Black’s Steve Albini to write this disturbing, pitch-black indictment of small-town corruption and perversion, complete with heavy breathing and lyrics such as, ‘This is Jordan, we do what we like.’ Ultimately, the accusations were dismissed as pure fabrication, but the song remains a horrifying and sickening dissection of humanity’s darkest impulses.

Robert JohnsonCross Road Blues

Legend has it that Cross Road Blues is about a highway intersection in the city of Rosedale, where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his musical talent. While this classic song’s lyrics make no mention of this shady Faustian pact, the song – most likely about making the choice between good and evil – fuelled the myth of the Delta blues legend, who made references to the Devil during many of his songs. Plot twist: Robert died under mysterious circumstances aged just 27 years old.

Alkaline TrioThis Could Be Love

While many other popular punk bands of the time were singing songs about farting and penises, the always cut-above Alkaline Trio cast their gaze on darker matters. This Could Be Love is a tale of murder, the twist in which lies in the fact that it is told from the victim’s point of view. It’s grizzly stuff, too, with soiled beds, scenes of torture, delirious joy at acts of violence and the arresting image of a crazed lover washing blood from her hands in the waters of Lake Michigan. As audio-nasties go, this is a superior offering.

CarcassCadaveric Incubator Of Endoparasites

Dying sucks, but Carcass have done a bang-up job of making you hope to be vaporised at your moment of death by luridly detailing the process of decomposition. It’s hard to compute just how unsettling the Liverpudlian’s lyrics were, and it’s safe to presume that someone with delicate sensibilities raised on a diet of Madonna could well be revisited by the contents of their stomach after exposure to this belch of aural horror.

Nine Inch NailsPiggy

Despite appearing on The Downward Spiral, an album chronicling the destruction of man, Piggy isn’t necessarily evil in and of itself. It’s the context in which the song was created that makes it truly unsettling.

In 1992, Trent Reznor scrapped his original plan to record the follow-up to Nine Inch Nails’ debut Pretty Hate Machine in New Orleans, decamping instead to 10050 Cielo Drive in Los Angeles’ Benedict Canyon. It was here in 1969 that actress Sharon Tate (the pregnant wife of director Roman Polanski) and four others were brutally murdered by the Charles Manson ‘family’. Although Trent suggests he only discovered the address’ grisly history after he’d decided to record there – claiming it was chosen for the suitability of the space – he subsequently read up on the incident, suggesting ‘The Tate House’ “didn’t feel terrifying as much as sad.” Despite the sense of melancholy, Trent would use it to record 1992’s Broken EP, The Downward Spiral and Marilyn Manson’s debut album, Portrait Of An American Family, which Trent produced.

The song’s title has been the subject of speculation. Former live guitarist Richard Patrick, who would later form the band Filter, has suggested he was once given the nickname ‘Piggy’, while The Beatles’ song Piggies was said to have had considerable influence on Charles Manson. Despite Trent redubbing the address ‘Le Pig’, a reference to the word that was written in blood on the front door by the murderers – and The Downward Spiral also featuring a song called March Of The Pigs – Trent denies either was directly related to what had taken place at the site of their makeshift studio.

In a sobering postscript, Trent ended up meeting Sharon Tate’s sister. She asked him about whether he thought he was exploiting her sister’s death – an encounter Trent admits caused him to breakdown, having suddenly seen things from her perspective.

Cannibal CorpseFrantic Disembowelment

No-one pens gleeful murder and mayhem anti-anthems like Cannibal Corpse, and those taking the time to read the lyric sheet often wish they hadn’t eaten beforehand. Famously stirring up controversy with both their lyrics and artwork in the late-’80s and early-’90s, CC have never once modulated their approach to making horrifying music, and Frantic Disembowelment has to stand as the pinnacle of their nastiness. What’s it about? The title makes it pretty clear, and nowhere will you find a more graphic description of innards becoming ‘outtards’.

Jane’s AddictionTed, Just Admit It

The track opens with a quote from American serial killer Ted Bundy (a man who kept severed heads as trophies), recorded shortly before his 1989 execution and wrapped up in off-kilter jazzy beats. “There’s gonna be people turning up in canyons, there are gonna be people being shot in Salt Lake City. Because the police there aren’t willing to accept, what I think they know. And they know I didn’t do these things,” he claims. The rest of it is hardly easy listening with frontman Perry Farrellintoning ‘Sex is violent’ over and over again like a man possessed.

SlipknotIowa

How do you end one of the most bleak albums in history? By recording a 15-minute doom jam that hints at necrophilia. Corey Taylor – who describes the Iowa album as the “darkest fucking period” of his life – explores the mind of a man who finds himself alone with a corpse: ‘You are mine / You will always be mine / I can tear you apart / I can recombine you.’ And to really get into that fucked-up mindset, he sang naked and cut himself with broken glass. The screams you hear on the song are quite real.

BlasphemyRitual

There are many rumours about Canada’s Blasphemy, none greater than the ones concerning their activities in Alberta’s Ross Bay cemetery. A place with a long history of satanic goings on, legend has it that the band carried out satanic rituals, desecrations and headstone theft on the site (supposedly the stone was returned after guitarist Black Priest Of The 7 Satanic Blood Rituals suffered demonic attacks). It would certainly explain Ritual’s suffocating darkness.

AbruptumObscuritatem Advoco Amplecetere Me Part 1

Euronymous from Mayhem once described Sweden’s Abruptum as “the audial essence of pure black evil”. As 20-ish minutes of raw, evil noise rather than a song, Obscuritatem… is certainly dark. Especially considering that the screaming sounds you hear are apparently band members IT and Evil violently torturing one another. True or not, this is diabolic stuff.

Alice CooperI Love The Dead

In his time, Alice Cooper caused outrage with the theatrics of his live show and songs like this tender track about stiffs. ‘I love the dead before they rise / No farewells, no goodbyes / I never even knew your now-rotting face,’ he crooned, prompting calls for a UK tour to be banned. MP Leo Abse accused the singer of “peddling the culture of the concentration camp”, adding, “Pop is one thing, anthems of necrophilia are quite another.”

Mercyful FateMelissa

The character of Melissa was a witch who was burned at the stake. She appeared a number of times throughout Mercyful Fate’s career, but here, on the metallers’ debut, it was to inspire her lover to seek out satanic revenge. The initial inspiration for the song came from a skull that frontman King Diamond (more on him soon) ‘acquired’ from a medical school. It had suffered a brutal injury, and the name Melissa came to the singer as he stared at it. Melissa also formed part of the stage set until she was stolen at a gig.

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Morbid AngelBleed For The Devil

If that title doesn’t tell you what side death metal legends Morbid Angel’s bread was buttered, how about the photo in the Altars Of Madness album sleeve of guitar wizard Trey Azagthoth shredding while bleeding profusely, looking as though he’s playing for the Great Horned One himself. Or you could just listen to the demented musical maze with lyrics literally attempting to summon Lucifer, and realise that whatever Morbid Angel were doing in the studio, they did not learn it at Sunday school.

Ozzy OsbourneMr Crowley

When Ozzy Osbourne was fired from Black Sabbath in 1979, many wondered whether he’d be able to muster the same dark magic again. Just a year later, people got their answer in the form of debut solo album Blizzard Of Ozz. Mr Crowley, its second single, refers to legendary occultist Aleister Crowley, who founded the religion of Thelema and considered himself a prophet. Dramatic stuff; so it’s a good thing it’s got a grandiose organ intro – and guitarist Randy Rhoads on monumental form.

MisfitsMommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?

We’d love to hear Freud’s take on Glenn Danzig’s colourful relationship with his mother. Before the diminutive behemoth’s maternally-titled solo smash he penned this ditty for the Misfits about a student driven to homicidal mania by his playground tormentors. But only if ‘Mommy’ says he’s allowed, obviously. Captured raw, the serrated tape-deck live recording only adds to the unhinged bloodlust. And packed like a meat locker with lurid promises to ‘rip the veins from human necks’ we can’t see how Glenn’s old lady could’ve possibly refused…

CovenSatanic Mass

Released in 1969, the same year U.S. occultist Anton LaVey published The Satanic Bible, Coven’s Witchcraft Destroys Minds & Reaps Souls album was the perfect soundtrack to the hippie movement taking a step down the left-hand path. Following nine tracks of Satan-themed psych, it closes with this, an actual satanic mass, conducted by the band. Even if you think it’s hokum, it’s hard to get to the end without feeling weird.

VenomBlack Metal

These days somewhat overlooked, more than any other band Newcastle upon Tyne’s Venom were the chief progenitors of metal’s most bloodthirsty subgenre, thrash metal. Couplets such as ‘Freaking so wild / Nobody’s mild’ may suggest the aid of a rhyming dictionary, but either way Black Metal would prove to be wildly influential on a range of young American musicians with a taste for the extreme. The track has been covered by no fewer than 11 different bands, and is loved by musicians as disparate as Dave Grohl and Kerry King.

Judas PriestBetter By You, Better Than Me

Can a cover of a bouncy ’60s pop song really be evil? According to a couple of grieving parents and their lawyers it can, and in 1990 Rob Halford and the boys were hauled into court over it. With hidden, subliminal messages allegedly buried in the song, which supposedly inspired two fans to shoot themselves, the trial itself was quickly sensationalised by the media. Though the charges were ultimately dismissed, the judge insisted there were such messages on there, though not necessarily powerful enough to incite suicidal actions. Stealth evil, maybe?

Celtic FrostProcreation (Of The Wicked)

Easily one of the most evil bands of their time – and essential to the evolution of extreme metal – Celtic Frost could conjure images of the Devil with a single chord. However, never did they sound more monstrous than on this brutish tune. Lurching along on a hulking riff and with twisted lyrics that scare Christians and excite all those who reject religion (‘If God raised the abyss, you’d procreate your own / Abolism of death is abolism of life’), this is music gloriously devoid of anything that could be considered ‘good’. Sepultura’s take on the track also stands amongst the best metal covers ever.

Killing JokeExorcism

This is a piece of ritualistic industrial-metal primal force that was recorded in the Great Pyramid Of Giza after Killing Joke allegedly bribed the Egyptian Minister For Antiquities for access. “Our engineer fell asleep in the King’s Chamber,” frontman Jaz Coleman told Kerrang! of the sessions. “He suddenly had some vision, sprang up, banged his head and ran out screaming. After this he said he’d never go back in again. He said there were thousands of alien eyes staring at him, and after that he had a stroke. It affected him, the place…”

King DiamondThe Family Ghost

King Diamond is no stranger to strangeness.

“I’ve had a ton of supernatural experiences. I feel like I brought something back with me from the operation [a triple heart bypass in which he nearly died] but I was having supernatural experiences long before that,” he says.

Many of these real-life experiences have been channelled into his music, both with Mercyful Fate and his self-named outfit. The Family Ghost might just be the only song to have incorporated an element of the supernatural into its very recording, however.

The song is a crucial part of King Diamond’s classic horror concept album, Abigail. The story for the album, which involves murder, possession and dark family secrets, came to King in a dream on a suitably stormy night.

“I woke up during a thunderstorm in my haunted apartment in Copenhagen and I had this story in my head. It was also influenced by my own family history. My mom told me how she was left on someone’s doorstep and she later found out she was the child of a professor’s son. He got my grandmother pregnant and she was sent away to have this child. That was all sort of wound into this story,” the singer explains.

On The Family Ghost, protagonist Jonathan La’Fey is warned by the ghost of his ancestor that his wife is carrying the vengeful spirit of the stillborn Abigail and that he must kill her in order to stop the rebirth.

Even spookier than the story is an unexpected and unexplained addition to the recording that may or may not have originated from somewhere beyond the grave.

“There’s a vocal part on The Family Ghost that I never recorded,” explains King. “It’s a part that goes, (adopts bestial growl) ‘Ohhhh damn,’ and we couldn’t find it on any of the tracks anywhere. I have no clue what it was, but it’s certainly not the only weird or even seemingly impossible thing to happen to us.”

Sunn O)))Báthory Erzsébet

What could be more evil than a song jointly inspired by black metal progenitors Bathory and the 16th century serial killer Elizabeth Báthory – who reputedly bathed in the blood of virgins – from whom they took their name? Perhaps one that also consisted of 16 minutes of tortuous drone and bleak lyrics like, ‘Decompose forever, aware and unholy, encased in marble and honey from the swarm.’ Oh, and legend has it the band locked claustrophobic guest vocalist Malefic from occult metal act Xasthur in a casket to make his performance more anguished.

DanzigMother

‘Mother…’ Don’t warble it, we dare you. Glenn Danzig’s post-Misfits mega-hit has gained such ubiquity, it’s easy to overlook its evil underpinnings. Peel away a million hoarse-throated rock club sing-alongs, however, and it’s still devilishly apparent. A tongue-in-cheek cautionary tale targeted squarely at Tipper Gore, the (parental advisory committee) PMRC and 1988’s other moral crusaders, its promise of a scene ‘not about to see your light’ pierced the mainstream like a sacrificial dagger. Chuck in the MTV-banned music video (animal sacrifice and inverted-crosses smeared bloodily onto nubile torsos = bad press, apparently) and we’ve got probably the most subversive song of its era.

SlayerAngel Of Death

Given that their entire oeuvre revolves around war, murder and general unspeakable wickedness, finding evil Slayer songs is hardly difficult: in fact, it’d be significantly more of a challenge to identify songs by the LA thrash metal pioneers that aren’t rooted in despicable, debased acts of inhumanity. That said, while the likes of Dead Skin Mask (based on the exploits of Wisconsin serial killer Ed Gein), Jihad (‘Fuck your God!’) and Necrophiliac (erm…) are gruesome and terrifying in equal measure, it’s the notorious opening track of the masterfully malevolent Reign In Blood album which will forever remain the Californian band’s most noxious and black-hearted artistic statement.

Perhaps the most chilling aspect of Jeff Hanneman’s lyrics detailing Nazi physician Josef Mengele’s abhorrent experiments on patients at the Auschwitz concentration camp (‘Burning flesh drips away / Test of heat burns your skin / Your mind starts to boil / Frigid cold, cracks your limbs / How long can you last in this frozen water burial?’) is the fact that they’re so clinical, unemotional and detached, leading to accusations that the band were glorifying the horrors. The controversy actually led to Columbia Records, the distributors for producer Rick Rubin’s Def Jam label, to insist that the track be removed from the album, a demand which both the band and their label boss flatly refused. Ultimately, the label washed their hands of the release, leading Rick to take it to Geffen Records instead.

Jeff always denied accusations that the song exhibited Nazi sympathies, calling it “a history lesson”. “There’s nothing I put in the lyrics that says necessarily he was a bad man, because to me – well, isn’t that obvious?” he stated, not unreasonably. His guitar partner Kerry King was even more brusque, saying, “Read the lyrics and tell me what’s offensive about it?” The band’s lack of repentance is understandable, but it’d be a dead soul indeed who can listen without flinching at the visceral horror.

Diamond HeadAm I Evil?

‘My mother was a witch,’ barked Diamond Head frontman Sean Harris in 1980, lighting a fire under the fledgeling NWOBHM genre, ‘She was burned alive!’ Fusing the occult themes of Black Sabbath to the ragged energy of early punk, the Midlands metallers laid a proto-thrash template that’d be picked up by Metallica (who famously covered the song as a B-side for Creeping Death), Megadeth and Slayer. For all those bands’ stadium-packing pedigree, though, there’s still something untouchably (im)pure about the original. ‘Am I evil?’ came Sean’s immortal question. ‘Yes I am!’

Iron MaidenThe Number Of The Beast

It seems strange to recall, but in the U.S. in the 1980s heavy metal often found itself under assault from religious groups convinced that the genre served as a Trojan Horse for the enslavement of the nation’s youth in the name of Satan. Few songs fostered this misbelief as resoundingly as The Number Of The Beast. Iron Maiden helped fan the flames of the song’s reputation by reporting various strange goings-on in the recording studio, while protests and album burnings greeted them when they headed Stateside for a 1982 tour.

RammsteinWeiner Blut

Rammstein have always courted controversy, and 2009 album Liebe Ist Für Alle Da proved to be no exception. It was initially added to Germany’s Federal Department For Media Harmful To Young Persons index, partly for the sadomasochistic song Ich Tu Dir Weh. The real darkness, however, can be found in Wiener Blut. The song is a first-person retelling of the evil perpetrated by Josef Fritzl, who imprisoned and abused his daughter in the basement of their home for 24 years. That’s all you need to know.

Black SabbathBlack Sabbath

Bassist Geezer Butler once painted his home black and hung inverted crosses and pictures of the Devil on the walls and claims that he saw a “black shape” by his bed after reading a book about witchcraft. The incident inspired one of metal’s most potently evil songs, which opens with a thunderstorm and ominous church bell and is propelled by that tritone riff – a collection of notes named diabolus in musica – which guitarist Tony Iommi describes as “really evil and very doomy”. Indeed, this six-minute song birthed an entire genre. Thanks, mysterious intruder.

MayhemFreezing Moon

By the time Freezing Moon was released on the De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas album, Mayhem’s legacy was already the darkest of any group in history. Two people were dead, one by his own hand, while a third person was serving a 21-year jail sentence for the murder of the other. Late Mayhem guitarist Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth had often spoken about the need for greater extremity and more evil in black metal. At great expense, he got it.

Two versions of Freezing Moon exist. The first remained unreleased for years, and was one of only two recordings of vocalist Dead (Per Yngve Ohlin), a young Swede who had moved to Norway to join Mayhem. A depressive boy who often spoke of a near-death experience as a child, he would talk about suicide in disarmingly casual tones. For early gigs, he would bury his stage clothes underground and smell dead birds in plastic bags. His lyrics for Freezing Moon were unsurprisingly morbid – ‘Everything here is so cold / Everything here is so dark… I remember it was here I died’ – while his vocal performance was unhinged and chilling.

He would never see it released, however. On April 8, 1991, aged just 22, Dead took his own life in the house he shared with the rest of the band. Euronymous, discovering the body, took photos and collected skull fragments to send to friends as necklaces, before calling the police.

Work continued on what would be Mayhem’s debut full-length, with Burzum’s Varg Vikernes enlisted to play bass, and a Hungarian singer, Attila Csihar, drafted in to replace Dead. Following the recording in early ’93, Attila returned to Hungary. What he would next hear from Norway was unthinkable: in the early hours of August 10, 1993, Varg stabbed Euronymous to death in his apartment. He was arrested and sentenced to 21 years.

The song itself, with its chilling, minor-chord intro where icy notes hang like corpses in the gallows, its scything main riff and demonic atmosphere, already showcased perfectly black metal’s musical abyss. But with so much genuine darkness behind it – killer and victim playing together, despite Euronymous’ parents’ request that Varg’s parts be wiped – it now stands as a chilling document of perhaps the most horrifying time in the history of music.