#Sepulchral Productions

[drondskaath]

Miserere Luminis | Ordalie | 2023

Canadian Atmospheric Black Metal

Artwork by Adam Burke (Nightjar)

[r3starttt]

what if Abby’s gf was like, not very smart, and Abby would like be reading a book out loud to her and she doesn’t understand like 70% of the words she’s saying and she’s just sitting there like ☹️ but she just enjoys listening to abby so she lets her keep goinggg :(

BOOKWORM! ABBY

an: this is the cutest request ever ughhhhhh she's so pretty | taglist

You had spent the entire day absorbed in productivity, your mind and body tirelessly engaged in tasks, and visibly worn out. the strain evident in your fatigued and tired, red eyes, a reflection of the excessive hours of screen time and minimal sleep.

The house glowed warmly, bathed in hues of orange and yellowish light that softened every corner you passed through. Each step on the wooden floor echoed faintly, the sound mingling with the comforting ambiance.

"Abby?" you called out softly as you entered the kitchen, receiving a muffled "here" from the living room.

Hurrying over, you found Abby seated cross-legged on the well-worn couch, nestled comfortably under a thin blanket. Her glasses perched on her nose, the light reflecting on them covering her eyes very slightly as she glanced up at you with a sheepish smile.

First thing you noticed once you stepped closer was a novel in hand with its pages yellowed with age.

She adjusted the blanket, making room for you beside her. Nestling close, your back rested against her stomach while her hands pulled the blanket around both of you.

Abby planted a gentle kiss on your head near your forehead, and the room settled into a quiet peace, broken only by the rhythmic turning of pages and the soothing cadence of Abby's voice "...and he, in a state of somnolent contemplation, pondered the ephemeral nature of existence..." Her voice flowed smoothly, entrancing despite your struggle to comprehend.

You snuggled closer, finding solace in Abby's voice as she continued, "...before him lay such an ethereal landscape, undulating hills and verdant foliage stretching infinitely under the cerulean sky." you closed your eyes momentarily, allowing Abby's voice to wash over you, cherishing the moment.

You listened intently, occasionally furrowing your brow at unfamiliar words like "sepulchral," "tumultuous," and "effulgent". Abby, however, read with unwavering confidence, pronouncing each word accurately without pause or hesitation.

"What do you think that means?" you whispered, as Abby's finger hovered over the corner of the current page, preparing to turn to the next.

She hummed a few seconds, contemplating how to explain it. She understood it well herself, but she knew it might be challenging for you.

"Well," Abby began softly, "when it says 'in a state of somnolent contemplation,' it means the character was deep in thought, almost like they were half-asleep or... lost in their thoughts. And 'pondered the ephemeral nature of existence' means they were thinking about how life is temporary, like how things don't last forever."

She moved to the next page, but no words came out. A thought crossed her mind. She knew you well enough to sense when you weren't fully grasping something, even if you didn't explicitly admit it. So, she decided to summarize everything she'd read on herself and to you so far.

Feeling more at ease, you settled back into Abby's embrace, ready to continue listening to her soothing voice weave through every complex paragraph from the novel.

The room remained steeped in a peaceful silence, the serene warmth enveloping you both. Abby's voice, smooth and resonant, filled the space as she continued to read.

You listened intently, absorbing the richness of the language. Though some of the words made you innerly pause to reflect. "Then again, his existential quandary was exacerbated by the labyrinthine corridors of his subconscious..." They were beautiful words, but their meanings confused you.

Abby, however, read accurately without much pause or hesitation.

"You know," she said, setting the book aside for a moment, "you don't have to understand every word. I just love sharing this time with you."

A smile spread across your face, and you gently took one of her hands, pressing a soft kiss on her knuckles. "Yeah, I know. I love it too," you nodded, meeting her gaze before returning your attention to the book. "Plus, it's hot to see how smart you are."

Abby chuckled softly, a hint of playful disbelief in her voice. "Yeah?"

Your eyelids grew heavy, and Abby's hands grew numb from holding the book. You drifted off to sleep first, and Abby followed shortly after, pressing a gentle kiss on your scalp before finally closing her eyes.

[saintsenara]

scylla and charybdis - a snippet

severus snape/lord voldemort explicit graphic depictions of violence | major character death

I'm procrastinating something i need to do for a fest by writing more scylla and charybdis. featuring lord voldemort really getting into the swing of his organ harvesting era and snape being... into it.

The Dark Lord glided down the stairs, Severus at his heels.

The workbench which had been apportioned to him was even more elegantly equipped than it had been in December. A solid gold cauldron stood on a trivet, bluebell flames already flickering beneath it. Ingredients sat, already perfectly measured out, in small pewter dishes. The same magnificent knife he’d sliced and diced with last time lay, the jet cabochon embedded in the hilt gleaming dully in the cellar’s sepulchral gloom, on top of a piece of parchment. The Dark Lord’s looping handwriting was stark in black ink upon it.

There was an enormous porcelain jug - bearing a cheery blue-and-white pastoral scene, a buxom witch chasing after a nogtail which had stolen her hat - in the middle of the table. It was filled to the brim with a thick, viscous substance, the deep, heavy burgundy of expensive wine.

Severus approached the table and read the recipe. The Dark Lord swept - saying nothing - into the shadows.

The instructions he had been issued made no mention of what the potion was supposed to do, but it was easy enough to work out if you knew the theory (and Severus, unlike so many of the morons with whom he was forced to share a classroom, who just chopped-and-chucked and produced passable brews by sheer luck, knew the theory). The dittany would contradict with the rue, reversing its properties as a coagulant. The tansy would contradict with the rosemary, rendering its purgative effects useless. The foxglove essence would be near-negated by the kava root. The hawthorne and the garlic and the cloves and the copper sulphate and the leeches all made blood flow and vomit rush from the body. The shepherd’s purse and the ginger and the spiders’ webs and the oak leaves and the ajwain all prevented this.

The base of the potion was a perfect balance, designed to ensure a perfect stasis.

[One of the Dark Lord’s crueller inventions, Severus would reflect, years in the future.]

The liquid in the jug would be the thing that disrupted this stasis.

[A potion - one which tasted as harmless and nourishing as beef stock.]

The liquid in the jug which was - the Dark Lord had written with a careless flourish, the way pick up milk might be scrawled on a scrap of paper stuck to the door of a fridge - human blood.

[A potion which the wasted men and women, chained and degraded in the Dark Lord’s various dungeons, would gulp down, with the desperate immoderation the starving have for hydration and salt.]

[A potion which then kept them alive as their bodies were slit down the middle. A potion which held them in stasis - purging and retaining, bleeding and clotting; the gallons of blood which lurked - untasteable - in the liquid triggering a constant loop of haematic production, bone marrow working overtime to nullify what was being lost - as the Dark Lord tortured his prisoner with the slow unravelling of their viscera.]

[He would set up a table before them, deck it with ostentatious chintz - linens in pink gingham, plates with cherry blossoms painted upon them - and begin his interrogation, taking something away with each answer that displeased him. He would question them, and they would attempt to remain defiant, and he would simply smile and place their bowel, then their intestines, then their liver, then their stomach, then their lungs on the twee, willow-patterned cake stand on the table - a macabre afternoon tea made of glistening offal - until - at the exact moment that the potion wore off - he would wrap his long fingers around their heart and hold it - still beating - in a bloodied hand, watching in lazy pleasure as their brain caught up to the fact that its owner had been slowly exsanguinated and collapsed them into death like a veal calf.]

Not that this disturbed Severus.

[He should have run.]

He was simply excited - and, in being excited, able to remain unbothered by any sort of ethical conundrum - to be let loose on some interesting ingredients.

And - of course - he’d worked with plenty of blood before; all Hogwarts students did. They dropped salamander blood into a Strengthening Solution. They stirred sheep’s blood into a Deflating Draught. It would be a bit bloody hypocritical for him to have a conniption about using human blood in something when he didn’t bat an eyelid about using animal.

And a bit bloody stupid. If he wanted to study potioneering further - and the Dark Lord had intimated that he would encourage him in this aim - he’d have to use plenty of esoteric oozings daily. Dragon’s blood, unicorn blood, tiger blood…

And human blood as well. Human blood was used in plenty of perfectly legal things - healing potions, to prevent haemorrhage in childbirth or to cauterise lost limbs; forensic potions, which swept crime scenes for the minute flecks of a perpetrator’s identity; potions which stopped nightmares; potions which kept bank vaults secure.

Veritaserum could be resisted by tainting the vial with a small pin-prick of blood. An overdose of Draught of Living Death could be reversed with a blood transfusion.

[A Horcrux is created by drinking the victim’s blood, with eucharistic reverence, while the air around you glitters gold with an enveloping matrix of magic.]

The blood of someone who’d taken Felix Felicis had the power to bestow residual luck on anyone who came into contact with it.

[The blood of someone whose mother died for them, whose mother refused to stand aside, has the power to repel death itself.]

‘It has been sieved,’ the Dark Lord said, benignly, from his shroud of shadows. ‘To filter out any clots.’

‘Great. Thanks.’

‘And any mud.’

[gothprentiss]

i'm trying to figure out which note-taking app can be made to resemble scrivener the most bc i need organization for my (sepulchral tones) Dissertation but scrivener hates you if you're stuck with a macos AND windows combo and i don't want to spend like $70 to be hated and anyway. i think i should just commit to one note or whatever the microsoft office thing is but i'm now addicted to watching "how to start [notion/obsidian/evernote/etc.] from scratch" videos on youtube that are all like "HACK your BRAIN for PRODUCTIVITYMAXXING in THREE EASY STEPS with OBSIDIAN" or like "notion for beginners!" videos that begin by explaining the concept of notes. or my favorite is some guy making a dire ass youtube short like "ummm guys. bad news. obsidian is only useful for you if you sit down and write" like buddy i too have sacrificed time and storage at the altar of productivity but if i spend too long thinking about tech people downloading notetaking apps expecting their lives to be changed by this sort of prosthetic memory only to be crestfallen to find that you cannot outsource cognition to material if you are not willing to give any of your thoughts unnecessary material form i am going to gnaw at the windowsills and there's too many lead-lined windows still left in this town for that to be a wager worth making. anyway. i just found onenote

[power-chords]

It can’t fill the hole in my heart left by the sheer bombastic spectacle of the Menken and Ahrens production that no longer runs at Madison Square Garden every year, but I did have tears in my eyes by the end, and Jefferson Mays was a tour de force carrying the whole thing on his shoulders. It really is my single favorite story of all time. And this staging leaned heavily into the psychedelic, sepulchral horror evoked by Dickens’ writing, which some productions understate in the interest of being more family-friendly, but I had the pants jump-scared off me within the first five minutes. 10/10.

[unearthedmirrors]

CONCRETE WINDS

STRAIGHT OUT OF HELL!!!

↯↯↯

Who else is eager to get FACE-RIPPED by their upcoming SELF-TITLED album on August 30th, 2024 on Sepulchral Voice Records ?

After hearing INFERNAL REPEATER last week one can already tell that the chaotic fury of the previous albums has gotten even more vicious - and that production is really making it EXPLOSIVE!

BLAST IT BLAST IT BLAST IT

Follow them at: Concrete Winds

Book them if you dare at: Goetia Productions

[grandhotelabyss]

Not looking for your opinion of the show, but what do you make of the strange fact of Faber & Faber publishing the complete scripts of HBO’s Succession (4 vols, 3000+ pages)?

Since a little before the first folio—or maybe since the Romans invented closet drama—it's been accepted that a script for performance can be read for pleasure or studied as literature, so the grounds to object have long gone.

The obvious objection, which also applies to reading song lyrics from Homer to Bob Dylan as poetry, is that you lose something when you just read the written basis for a performance. Or, to make the argument the other way around, that literature proper shouldn't depend on performance with all its limitations and sensationalism, as in the late Martin Amis's oft-repeated Nabokovian mockery of drama per se, which I found in at least two books of his that I've read—the nonfiction War Against Cliché and the novel London Fields—as well as on a quote site I discovered by googling, from what book I don't know:

I will now take the chance to repeat my contention that the drama is handily inferior to the novel and the poem. Dramatists who have lasted more than a century include Shakespeare and—who else? One is soon reaching for a sepulchral Norwegian. Compare that to English poetry and its great waves of immortality. I agree that it is very funny that Shakespeare was a playwright. I scream with laughter about it all the time. This is one of God’s best jokes.

Too strong, Martin! Joyce, one recalls, said that Ibsen was a better playwright qua playwright than Shakespeare. Anyway, 20th-century dramatists leaned into the inevitability that their scripts were destined not just for the spectator but also for the reader. Shaw, O'Neill, Miller, Williams, Wilson, and Stoppard wrote even their stage directions as serious prose with an eye toward the reading public and the classroom. Maybe screenwriters and television writers will adopt this attitude as well. (One of my favorite books when I was in middle school—God knows if it holds up—was Harlan Ellison's published unproduced screenplay for his projected film of Asimov's I, Robot.) Or comic-book writers: the almost absurdly dense literariness of Alan Moore's scripts, the systematic publication of which many have called for as necessary to the culture, almost had to have been written with posterity in mind. Such ambitions can only improve the quality of the resulting product.

[moongalovesbally]

Bally's Unforgettable State Visit to the Holy Land of Israel🇮🇱💘🇿🇲

Just as Genesis 12:3 foretells that "i will bless those people who bless Israel🙏🏿"

God has surely blessed the people of Zambia🇿🇲 ♥️ thru Bally's captivating journey of love💘 x solidarity with the extraordinary people of Israel🇮🇱

Step into the enchanting tale straight out of Biblical Wisdom of Bally's state visit to the Holy😇 nation of Israel! From the 31st of July to the 3rd of August, Bally embarked on a fascinating journey, exploring the rich history x technological marvels of our beloved ally Israel.

The old city of Jerusalem welcomed Bally with open arms, offering a glimpse of its sacred sites. From the iconic Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall, to the hallowed Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where the legendary King Jesus👑♥️ was crucified, Bally soaked in the spiritual essence of this ancient city.

But it wasn't just a spiritual journey; Bally was captivated by Israel's thriving tech ecosystem, which fosters boundless innovation. He met with Israeli companies at the forefront of technological advancements, leaving him in awe of their creativity x progress.

During an exclusive interview with i24 News, Bally delved into the success of Zambia's debt restructuring deal x the paramount importance of peace x stability in Africa. His thoughtful insights struck a chord with viewers worldwide.

A monumental meeting awaited Bally at Beit HaNassi in Jerusalem, where he sat down with President Isaac Herzog. The exchange of ideas x mutual respect deepened the bond between Zambia x Israel.

Paying tribute to visionary Theodore Herzl, Bally visited his resting place x tenderly laid a wreath🏵 - ️a poignant symbol of honor x gratitude.

The visit to the Holocaust History Museum left a profound impact on Bally, witnessing the heart-wrenching atrocities suffered by the Jewish community. It strengthened his commitment to promoting human rights x fostering an environment of compassion x understanding.

A symbol of lasting friendship, Bally proudly planted an Olive 🫒 Tree for Zambia at the Grove of Nations in the Jerusalem Forest. This small act embodied Zambia's mesmerizing support x solidarity with Israel.

President Herzog x his wife graced Bally with a splendid state dinner🧆🍹showcasing the warmth of Israeli hospitality. It was an evening filled with camaraderie x celebration of a friendship that spans generations.

Among the highlights was Bally's meeting with the esteemed Israeli Prime Minister, the Great Benjamin Netanyahu, at Misrad Rosh HaMemshala in Jerusalem. Together, they explored a wide range of topics, promising a prosperous future for both nations.

At the Israel-Zambia business event in Jerusalem, Bally's captivating keynote speech assured prospective investors of a welcoming business environment in Zambia. He pledged to continue developing x opening up Zambia's agriculture sector, inviting Israeli investors to set up shop x flourish in Zambia's fertile grounds.

As the sun set on the evening of the 3rd of August, Bally returned home safely, with cherished memories of a beautiful x productive state visit to Israel.

God🙏🏻 Bless Israel🇮🇱🤍

God🙏🏿 Bless Zambia🇿🇲💚

God🙏🏿 Bless Bally👑🏆🥇💕

[cyarsk52-20]

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MUSIC

The 50 Best Weeknd Songs

From dark alt-R&B jams to sleek summer hits to synth-pop revelations, and beyond

BY 

TOMÁS MIER, WAISS ARAMESH, JULYSSA LOPEZ, CHARLES AARON, ANGIE MARTOCCIO, ELIAS LEIGHT, JON FREEMAN, MOSI REEVES, JON BLISTEIN, SARAH GRANT, JOE GROSS, SIMON VOZICK-LEVINSON, JON DOLAN, KORY GROW

FEBRUARY 14, 2022

IF YOU HAD “Siouxsie and the Banshees fan from Canada remakes R&B in his own image” on your Pop Music in the 2010s bingo card, congratulations! Abel Tesfaye came out of Toronto in 2011 with a stunning series of spacey, sepulchral EPs that proved the start of a landmark run. Pretty soon he was lacing summer hits, sharing tracks with Ariana and Lana, creating epic albums like After Hoursand this year’s excellent Dawn FM, and even playing the Super Bowl. To coincide with the release of his new Amazon special, The Weeknd x The Dawn FM Experience (available this Saturday), we’ve decided to honor the Weeknd’s decade of moody pop dominance, with our list of his 50 greatest songs. You’ve earned it!

50

‘Less Than Zero’ (2022)

KEVIN C. COX/GETTY IMAGES

‘Can we meet in the middle,” the Weeknd offers over the elegant romanticism of “Less Than Zero.” His despair has rarely sounded so vulnerable, and his need to connect has rarely seemed so genuine, as he reaches out further and further with each new ascending keyboard bloop. The result might be his greatest slow-dance entreaty. —J.D.

49

‘The Party & the After Party’ (2011)

FRAZER HARRISON/GETTY IMAGES

“The Party and the After Party” not only has a chipmunk sample of dream-pop duo Beach House’s “Master of None” at its center, but also a waltz-like rhythm reminiscent of the Velvet Underground’s “All Tomorrow’s Parties.” The Weeknd’s lyrics betray an impressive attention to detail. “Louis V bag, tats on your arms, high heel shoes make you six feet tall,” he croons. “But I’ve got what you need.” Midway through, the track switches to a highly sexual volley of vocal thrusts and flickering guitar, as he tries to illustrate “the feeling that I’ll give to you.” —M.R.

48

‘Save Your Tears,’ feat. Ariana Grande (2021)

YOUTUBE

Just when you think the Weeknd has finally released a vacuous little earworm of a pop song, he twists the knife. “I saw you dancing in a crowded room/You look so happy when I’m not with you,” he sings. It would be like if you took “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now” and replaced Mickey Thomas with Sade. This love-forsaken-at-the-club song wouldn’t be anything without Grande. Together, their voices are indestructible, which makes this particular song all the more harrowing. —S.G.

47

‘Life of the Party’ (2011)

GUS STEWART/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

Coming on like Smokey Robinson at a black mass, Tesfaye crooks a finger, howls into the death-rock void, and cues the riding-crop percussion. Is this just another dubiously consensual orgy between a rich, coked-out female fan and some fame-adjacent, coked-out music bros? Or does the woman actually represent Tesfaye’s conflicted feelings about his own career choices? Regardless, be careful out there, kids. —C.A.

46

‘Tears in the Rain’ (2013)

JEFF LOMBARDO/GETTY IMAGES

The Weeknd’s R&B plot twist is that his falsetto croon, cunning production, and vulnerable charisma offer a tender caress until you find out that love is really a serial killer hiding in the closet. Inspired by the replicant Roy Batta’s dying monologue in Blade Runner, this gorgeous ballad is a spectacular bell tower of distorted guitar and rippling synths that gives you goose bumps. Too bad you’re lying next to the toilet. —C.A.

45

‘The Fall’ (2011)

VINCE TALOTTA/TORONTO STAR/GETTY IMAGES

The foggy darkness of “The Fall” is a vintage remnant of the Weeknd’s bleakest, most sedated soundscapes. A chugging beat and ominous, choir-like vocals nearly drown him out, but his slightly moribund voice continues with the steely resolve of someone who intimately knows rock bottom. And though the production comes from his early-aughts mixtape era, it’s also ahead of its time, feeling like something that could easily soundtrack a depressing episode of Euphoria. —J.L.

44

‘Privilege’ (2018)

IRVIN OLIVARES/RCC/AGENCIA EL UNIVERSAL/GDA/AP

On this theatrical text to an ex, the Weeknd tries acceptance! Co-producer Frank Dukes suspends the mournful inamorato amid a swell of supportively filtered keys, and Tesfaye counsels himself to move on. But a fingersnap beat enters and he instinctively reaches for his old woes. Synths encase everything, his multitracked wail fades to vocoded static, and it’s clear: litigating sin is his one forever love. —C.A.

43

‘I Was Never There,’ feat. Gesaffelstein (2018)

KEVIN WINTER/GETTY IMAGES

It’s appropriate that the Weeknd at his most publicly distraught — after breakups with tabloid damsels Selena Gomez and Bella Hadid — would be soundtracked by elegant techno brutalist Mike “Gesaffelstein” Lévy. Hello, stylish dystopia. A piercing synth siren swoons and keens above clacking desolation; when the beat later brightens to a warped gurgle, Tesfaye turns spiteful, suicidal. Call it his safe space. —C.A.

42

‘La Fama,’ Rosalía feat. the Weeknd (2022)

YOUTUBE

Call him “El Fin de Semana.” The singer takes a complete turn from his typical R&B style as he joins Rosalía on the electro-bachata track about the downsides of fame. The Weeknd sings in perfect Spanish as his vocals channel the likes of bachata legend Romeo Santos. —T.M.

41

‘Heartless’ (2020)

YOUTUBE

This first single from the 2020 album After Hours finds our hero self-consciously returning to his baller ways, grabbing some of his pals (co-writers Metro Boomin, Illangelo, and Dre Moon), loading up on subdermal bass and trappin’ hi-hats and heading out for a night of licking toads, getting ladies high, and spilling whiskey on himself. Once again, he’s in full players-playing mode and he doesn’t make it sound very fun at all. —J.G.

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40

‘In Your Eyes’ (2020)

KEVIN MAZUR/MTV VMAS 2020/GETTY IMAGES

“I know it hurts to smile, but you try to,” Tesfaye croons to his dirty Diana through the smoky air. Can’t you feel the weight of his stare? “In Your Eyes” has such a suave Eighties groove, it takes real concentration to appreciate its manifold layers. Tesfaye mined late New Wave bands like Roxy Music, A-Ha, and Cocteau Twins for the song’s backbone, let Max Martin do his pop wizardry, and let the sax rip. —S.G.

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39

‘Adaptation’ (2013)

JOHNNY NUNEZ/WIREIMAGE

“Adaptation” is Kiss Land‘s most direct tour-life lament, essentially Massive Attack featuring the Weeknd, slightly pitch-shifted. Over a breakbeat loop, an eerie echo chamber, and a gnarled, ghostly sample of the Police’s “Bring on the Night,” Tesfaye explores his vocal range and imagines tipsy young models as vessels of pure, uncut love. It all sounds exquisite, but his regret is a false confession. —C.A.

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38

‘The Birds Pt. 2’ (2011)

GUS STEWART/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

On the Weeknd’s most intense recorded reckoning, our unreliable narrator delivers a harrowing moral: Don’t fall for self-obsessed, predatory fiends (like me) or somebody will suffer. Forever. Producers Illangelo and Doc McKinney underscore the point — sobs and a gunshot bleed into reverbed whirlpools of decaying surf guitar, an unforgiving snare thud, and Marina Topley-Bird croaking “sandpaper kisses, paper-cut bliss” like Madame Lamort. Then the crows caw a bitter adieu. —C.A.

37

‘Pretty’ (2013)

YOUTUBE

One of the Weeknd’s cooler, earlier tricks is the goth level of melodrama with which he infused his work. “Pretty,” from his debut full-length, Kiss Land, takes an industrial level of synth dread and drum clatter and sets it to the time-honored tale of the road dog coming home to his partner, who may or may not have cheated. Conclusion: He’ll make you feel beautiful if only because it helps him keep the demons at bay. —J.G.

36

‘In the Night’ (2015)

THOMAS CONCORDIA/FILMMAGIC

The first song co-written with pop magus Max Martin, “In the Night” conjures an Eighties neon raincloud with a whoosh of drum pads, pulsing synths, clattering effects, and Visionquest pathos. Principally, it coaxes Tesfaye’s most openhearted vocal to date. His taut yet fluid phrasing (a nod to Thriller-era Michael Jackson) delivers the story of an abused sex worker with an unusually sincere ache. —C.A.

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35

‘Prisoner,’ feat. Lana Del Rey (2015)

CHELSEA LAUREN/WIREIMAGE

This criminally underrated duet is a true relic of the fleeting 50 Shades of Grey-era of 2010s gloom pop, sung and co-written by the genre’s foremost falsettos: the Weeknd and Lana Del Rey. “I’ve inspired her, she’s inspired me,” Tesfaye said at the time. “I feel like we’ve always been talking to each other through our music.” Together for the first time, they sing “I’m addicted to a life that’s empty and cold,” like two dark souls twisting in the wind. —S.G.

34

‘Crew Love,’ Drake feat. the Weeknd (2012)

IAN WEST/PA WIRE/AP

The remarkable opening of “Crew Love” is a true test for the Weeknd, pitting the singer’s siren call against a callous, punishing opponent — a mash of crashing cymbals that seems intent on crushing the life out of anything in its path. But the Weeknd’s sweet croon partially camouflages his own militance. His opening line is every bit as cruel and cutting as those cymbals: “Take your nose off my keyboard/What you bothering me for?” And once the Weeknd puts his enemies on their heels, he presses his attack. “This ain’t no fuckin’ singalong,” he snarls prettily. “So, girl, what you singing for?” —E.L.

33

‘Coming Down’ (2011)

TIMOTHY HIATT/WIREIMAGE

Emerging from the dusted carnage of “The Party & the Afterparty,” this might be Tesfaye’s most emotionally resonant performance. A cold wind blows past a twinkly, taunting mini-motif as various intoxicating agents exit his system. Racked with regret, he convincingly plays the fallen prince; his ah-ahs, la-la-las, and refrain of “I always want you when I’m coming down” are acutely relatable. —C.A.

32

‘Often’ (2015)

YOUTUBE

Over a tear-jerking sample of “Ben Sana Vurgunum,” by Turkish singer Nükhet Duru, the Weeknd boasts about the sexual freedom he gets by being a “young god” in his hometown of Toronto. “She asked me if I do this every day, I said often,” he sings on the chorus. The alt-R&B song gave fans their first taste of the leap forward he was making with Beauty Behind the Madness. —T.M.

31

‘Acquainted’ (2015)

PETER DEJONG/AP

Oh, the humanity? ? On this neoclassic Weeknd tale of compulsive wanderlust, boosted by Illangelo’s crisply cavernous, dubstep-tinged production, Tesfaye coos (and even cries out) with new vulnerability about whether a commitment to “real” love/life might be a risk worth taking. Answer: No, “but, girl, I’m so glad we’re acquainted.” —C.A.

30

‘Wanderlust’ (2013)

OWEN SWEENEY/INVISION/AP

“Wanderlust” hinted at the brightly uptempo, Eighties-inspired pop that eventually launched the Weeknd to superstardom.  Produced with help from DannyBoyStyles and DaHeala, it makes fanciful use of Dutch group Fox the Fox’s 1984 synth-pop hit “Precious Little Diamond,” as the Weeknd depicts a La Dolce Vita life that’s full of thrills and short on love and commitment. It’s a metaphor for the first rush of success, and a predictor of bigger fame to come. —M.R.

29

‘Love Me Harder,’ Ariana Grande feat. the Weeknd (2014)

When Republic Records introduced its hot new R&B act to the world, it used an old-fashioned tactic (Trojan Horse) the new-fashioned way: an Ariana Grande song. Produced by Max Martin, “Love Me Harder” is a coy, synth-driven jam about the joys of rough sex. What takes it to that next level is the indelible way Grande’s sumptuous vocals ricochet off of the Weeknd’s icy falsetto. Two great artists in their own right. But like Pat and Neil, these two just belong together. —S.G.

28

‘Loft Music’ (2011)

CHRISTIE GOODWIN/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES

“Loft Music” is one of Abel Tesfaye’s quintessential baby-making moments and a standout from his debut mixtape, House of Balloons. During the chorusless first half of the track, the Weeknd convinces a woman that “baby, it’s OK” for them to hook up, while the second half features a haunting, three-minute outro. —T.M.

27

‘Kiss Land’ (2013)

ARTHUR MOLA/INVISION/AP

Perhaps the Weeknd was worried his major-label debut wouldn’t be perceived as authentically malevolent. The title track settles that — a disorienting din of post-industrial drone and moan, plus oral-sex quips and a witchy brew of booze, blow, and pills. Cloudrap producer Silky Johnson sustains a K-hole of suspense so when Tesfaye cries, “Goddamn, I’m high,” it’s actually startling. —C.A.

26

‘King of the Fall’ (2014)

YOUTUBE

Released as a Soundcloud track and a YouTube video in commemoration of his 2014 “King of the Fall” Tour, this is a fan favorite that didn’t get added to streaming services until nearly six years later. It finds the Weeknd at his most insouciantly boastful: “’Bout to leave the crib with a couple of my pirates/Driving by the streets we used to walk through like a triumph,” he sings. Produced with help from Jason “DaHeala” Quenneville, “King of the Fall” has a thrilling, uncompromising edge. When he says, “If you ain’t with me, motherfucker, you against me,” you can feel the tension in his words. “Ain’t nobody can stop me.” —M.R.

25

‘What You Need’ (2011)

JOHNNY LOUIS/GETTY IMAGES

The Weeknd has said that “What You Need” is nothing more than a “sexy R&B song,” but that explanation underplays the kind of emotional power he conjures here. It opens with a loop from Aaliyah’s “Rock the Boat,” and centers on a raw and direct entreaty shorn of contemporary R&B gloss. When critics and fans refer to the Weeknd as a generational artist, particularly in his early years, it’s due to seductive performances like this. —M.R.

24

‘Try Me’ (2018)

MAHMOUD KHALED/AP

The Weeknd sounds alluring on “Try Me,” a highlight from 2018’s My Dear Melancholy. The EP swirls with romantic anguish and the singer’s high-profile breakups; “Try Me,” where he pleads for an ex-girlfriend to come back to him in haunting, gauzy tones, is no different. Some listeners speculated that this was his attempt to recapture his House of Balloons-era bona fides after the world conquering Starboy. But when he sings lyrics like “Once you put your pride aside, you know where to find me,” he sounds sincere. —M.R.

23

‘Moth to a Flame,’ Swedish House Mafia and the Weeknd (2022)

YOUTUBE

“Moth to a Flame” is a petty anthem, masking the bitterness with synth, and marks the Weeknd’s first (of hopefully many) collaboration with Swedish House Mafia. Abel’s vocals shine through a biting chorus that effectively ruins the current relationship of his ex. It should come as no surprise that a list of the Weeknd’s best songs doubles as a masterclass in toxicity. —W.A.

22

‘Snowchild’ (2020)

YOUTUBE

On a trap-chic stroll through the Weeknd’s hipster rags-to-branded-riches story (Morayama, Coachella, and Mercedes are name-checked), Starboy relies on the lovely lilt of his voice to redeem pop-rap groaners like “futuristic sex, give her Philip K. Dick.” And it does, buoyed by a suave whoosh here and chilly wobble there. —C.A.

21

‘The Morning’ (2011)

ROBB D. COHEN/INVISION/AP

Though the first drowsy lines of “The Morning” masquerade as expected Weeknd club sleaze, the song is a surprisingly radiant hustler’s anthem, catching him at an upbeat moment before the blowback from his late-night debauchery sets in. The electric squeals of a guitar follow him as he builds toward a bursting chorus — and once the peak hits, he sings with the carefree indulgence of someone throwing confetti made of dollar bills into the air. —J.L.

20

‘Shameless’ (2015)

JOHN SALANGSANG/INVISION/AP

Compared to the slick dance pop found elsewhere on Beauty Behind the Madness,“Shameless” is an outlier. A stripped-down acoustic ballad that has shades of peak-period Seal, “Shameless” is a triumph of cringe for the Weeknd. “I’ll always be there for you girl, I have no shame,” he swears to a sometime lover who doesn’t want anything from him except the oblivion of a good lay. It’s icky, and the slippery, pornographic guitar solo at the end only adds to the feeling of self-loathing sleaze. —J.F.

19

‘After Hours’ (2020)

YOUTUBE

If there’s a song that captures the Weeknd’s determined progression from brooding club lurker to incandescent pop king, it’s “After Hours,” which starts with echoey synth acrobatics from his early releases. A dance beat trickles in slowly — just hints of it at first — and eventually takes over, thrusting the Weeknd closer to the melodic maximalism that swept him up and blasted him to superstardom. —J.L.

18

‘How Do I Make You Love Me?’ (2022)

RICH FURY/GETTY IMAGES

It takes a lot of skill to make desperation sound catchy, but the Weeknd barely bats an eye as he combines iridescent synth-pop with his urgent, pleading falsetto on “How Do I Make You Love Me.” Just when it seems like he’s reached a breaking point, the song becomes a freeform experiment in electro blips and bleeps that seamlessly transitions into “Take My Breath,” highlighting the tightknit sonic universe of Dawn FM. —J.L.

17

‘Hardest to Love’ (2020)

CHRIS O'MEARA/AP

There’s something singular about “Hardest to Love,” its drum and bass break beat setting it apart from nearly everything else in the Weeknd’s catalog, to say nothing of the North American pop charts (it would obviously feel less out of place in the U.K.). Yet the song doesn’t feel like some tossed off genre experiment or blatant play for a new audience. It remains a quintessential Weeknd tune, that distinct drum and bass groove paired perfectly with woozy, weeping-willow synths and Tesfaye’s heart-melting, self-flagellating vocals. —J.B.

…

16

‘Reminder’ (2016)

YOUTUBE

A response to those criticizing his pivot to a mainstream sound after Beauty Behind the Madness, The Weeknd returns to his vibey, R&B origins, promising he’ll reinvent himself as many times as he wants to. And boy, has he succeeded at it. T.M.

15

‘Call Out My Name’ (2018)

YOUTUBE

After “Earned It” became a massive commercial success, it’s no surprise that the Weeknd returned to the same well a few years later — “Call Out My Name” is another slow-drip ballad set in 6/8 time. But where “Earned It” had those peppy strings and uplifting message (“Girl you’re perfect, you’re always worth it”), “Call Out My Name” is desolate and hollowed out, a parched tale of dependency and despair shot through with the Weeknd’s piercing, anguished wails. “I said I didn’t feel nothing baby,” he sings. “But I lied.” —E.L.

14

‘Sidewalks,’ feat. Kendrick Lamar (2016)

YOUTUBE

“Sidewalks” finds the Weeknd wryly recounting his ascent from growing up without a father and experiencing homelessness to the pop mainstream. “My flow too sick, Kevin Costner couldn’t touch me,” he trills in an Auto-Tuned voice over a guitar-inflected Doc McKinney beat. Meanwhile, Kendrick Lamar responds with a bouncy verse that flips Starboy’s theme about prodigious appetites. “It wasn’t just a random Kendrick Lamar verse,” the Weeknd told Beats 1’s Zane Lowe in 2016. “It was something special.” —M.R.

13

‘Tell Your Friends’ (2015)

YOUTUBE

This track was originally co-produced by Mike Dean and intended for Kanye West, who co-produces and raps on the bridge here. Framed by a coolly twilit soul sample, Tesfaye croons a list of  basic starboy gripes. but quickly the lyrics grow belligerent, as stabbing piano chords propel an antihero eruption. “Don’t believe the rumors, bitch, I’m still a user,” he smirks, as if he’s pimp-strutting on the ledge. —C.A.

12

‘House of Balloons / Glass Table Girls’ (2011)

FILMMAGIC

The second half of this track is one of the most viscerally affecting entries in the Weeknd’s whole catalog, as icy and thunderous as an avalanche. He throws himself into the world beyond blotto: Faces are blurring, the drunks are getting mean, and the threat of violence fills the air. The Weeknd’s voice has always drawn comparisons to Michael Jackson’s, but “Glass Table Girls” draws its lineage back to Prince at his most paranoidly perfect. —E.L.

11

‘I Feel It Coming,’ feat. Daft Punk (2016)

YOUTUBE

The stunning closer from Starboy, the Weeknd’s Michael Jacksonesque voice flows freely over Daft Punk’s retro-futuristic, Eighties-inspired disco-pop production. Lyrically, the Weeknd sheds his lustful approach to sex as he assures the object of his desire that she shouldn’t be so afraid of falling in love. —T.M.

10

‘Starboy,’ feat. Daft Punk (2016)

YOUTUBE

After the world-conquering success of Beauty Behind the Madness, the Weeknd could have worked with anyone. He chose Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, who lent an attractive electro gloss to his next chart-topping smash, French-filtering his vocals on the hook as he literally laughed his way to the bank. With its winking lyrics about old Star Trek movies and ivory lines on ebony tables, “Starboy” was also the Weeknd’s chance to show that pop stardom hadn’t changed him — it just made him even cockier. —S.V.L.

9

‘Take My Breath’ (2022)

YOUTUBE

It figures that one of the Weeknd’s most straightforwardly danceable songs would be about a kink so intense that it can literally cause death. Propelled by the titanic melody of Max Martin and collaborators Belly, Andrea Di Ceglie, Luigi Tutolo, and Oscar Holter, “Take My Breath” throbs with the insistent kick drum, funky guitar, and arpeggiated synths of classic Giorgio Moroder. Tesfaye coos soulfully, deploying his upper register while describing a woman who asks to indulge a fantasy that sounds a lot like erotic asphyxiation. “Bring me close to heaven, babe,” she tells him. The extended version on Dawn FM features an instrumental breakdown that shreds Tesfaye’s voice into a guttural wail, further blurring the line between ecstasy and horror. —J.F.

8

‘Earned It (Fifty Shades of Grey)’ (2015)

YOUTUBE

Wherein the most sexually explicit songwriter of the PornHub era makes the lead single for the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack. “Earned It” (and a very-NSFW video) introduced perfectly Tesfaye’s silk-sheets vibe to mainstream ears. Written in D-minor, which, as  Spinal Tap taught us, is the “saddest key,” “Earned It” is  a Grammy-winning chart-topper full of strings severe and seductive, that falsetto and, of course, a love too weird to last. —J.G.

7

‘High for This’ (2011)

JOHN SALANGSANG/INVISION/AP

“You want to be high for this,” trills the Weeknd on the opening track of his first, career-launching House of Balloons mixtape. It’s a perfect introduction to the Weeknd’s groundbreaking aesthetic: an opiate atmosphere, a sound that hovers between darkwave and bedroom R&B, and endless sensorial delights. Cirkut’s beat is a synthesized whirl of throbbing, stop-start percussion and eerie, organ-like keys, all fodder for the Weeknd to red-pill his listeners: “Open your hand/Take a glass/Don’t be scared/I’m right here.” —M.R.

6

‘Can’t Feel My Face’ (2015)

YOUTUBE

One of the Weeknd’s biggest hits was a dashed-off afterthought. Tesfaye was hanging out with some of his songwriting collaborators, listening to “some modern, disco-y influenced tracks,” as he once said, when they all felt the urge the jam. The whole song — three and a half minutes of R&B-inflected pop with a bouncy, beautifully numbing chorus that may or may not be about cocaine — came together in 40 minutes at the end of Tesfaye’s Beauty Behind the Madness sessions and almost didn’t make the cut. But Tesfaye believed in the song, which became a Number One hit and has since been certified eight-times platinum. —K.G.

5

‘Blinding Lights’ (2019)

YOUTUBE

No pop sound is too dated for the Weeknd to have some fun with: As long as it’s got a little sparkle, he’ll find a way to use it. “Blinding Lights” broke chart records by leaning all the way into a synth-pop jingle that sounds like a Eurovision contender or a mid-2000s ringtone, singing the hell out of each hook in a vaguely Goth accent and daring you to call him cheugy. It’s so spectacularly catchy, you’ll never get the chance. —S.V.L.

4

‘Wicked Games’ (2011)

YOUTUBE

The Weeknd’s first single is a sensual, slow-grooving meditation on coming of age — feeling comfortable in your own skin and grappling with differences between love and lust, but “only for tonight.” In the space of five and a half minutes, Tesfaye tells a movie-length story: He’s just broken up with his girl, he took out all his cash and spent it on coke and his date, and he just wants to feel like a human being. “Bring your love, baby, I could bring my shame,” he sings. “Bring the drugs, baby, I could bring my pain, I got my heart right here.” It’s heavy stuff for a pop song, and it established him as an artist who could tackle Big Problems in a way that makes you want to sing along with him. —K.G.

3

‘Escape From LA’ (2020)

KEVIN MAZUR/MTV VMAS 2020/GETTY IMAGES

Nine years after the Weeknd declared “Cali is the mission” on “The Morning,” he backtracks on this cautionary tale, revisiting a theme that’s prevalent throughout his discography: an obsession over the Hollywood lifestyle that’s just as strong as his contempt for it. Four minutes in, the vibe switches (getting somehow darker) and the Weeknd tells the tale of a Chrome Hearts-clad woman who waits for him to cut his verse before moving on to … other activities. Considering how good this song turned out, we appreciate her patience. —W.A.

2

‘Gasoline’ (2022)

YOUTUBE

Tesfaye has always been great at packaging pop thrills in deep despair (and vice versa). The nihilistic despair of this Dawn FM gem is neatly tucked away in the song’s gasoline-soaked sheen. Even its darkest lines — from “I know you won’t let me OD” to “In this game called life/We are not free” — are barely detectable in the midst of all that New Wave euphoria, like the Weeknd had too much fun getting high to the Cars. Please cover “Drive” next. —A.M.

1

‘The Hills’ (2015)

YOUTUBE

A sound-design masterpiece and the quintessential Weeknd hit, with all the pop instincts of his crossover blockbuster era and all the sleaze and self-loathing of his avant-R&B early years. “The Hills” mesmerizes and rebukes like a MIDI-enabled version of Francisco Goya’s Saturn Devouring His Son.Tesfaye limps through fame’s panopticon before launching into a falsetto war of the spirit (“When I’m fucked up, that’s the real me,” he wails). Somehow, this meticulous smear of muted screams, tolling bells, growly sub-bass, and filtered-to-hell synths reached No. 1 and was eventually certified diamond (10 million copies sold). —C.A.

IN THIS ARTICLE:

The Weeknd,

Weeknd

MUSIC

MUSIC LISTS

Sent from my iPhone

[heliotrope-journey]

Tea Break for Our Players

Good evening, vampire hunters.

July’s character render is now available on my Society6 store. You’ll see her in-game in the next updates for Book 1 of Waltz of Sepulchral Silence and The Heliotrope Chronicles respectively, but you’ll have a chance to familiarize yourself with her hospitality by picking up a mini art print or throw pillow to make your nearest café* a cozier, welcoming environment to sip your tea in.

*or living room.

https://society6.com/product/july8442110_mini-art-print

And now, I present to you with July’s bio;

An assiduous, resourceful teamaker with an affinity for exotic fruits, July has come to learn that some contain noteworthy properties that can strengthen the eater’s vitality. Tea is a beverage in the magical sector favored by heroes for many find it safer and more relaxing to prepare than potions. There is, unfortunately, no substitute for ailments that can cure poisons and involuntary shapeshifting, but July hopes to use her experimental skills in tea making to find an antidote for vampirism. Her specialty tea, and the closest she has come to accomplishing her goal, is one prepared using dragonfruit as the primary ingredient. Commonly grown in the Muerto Musica Kingdom, July often comes and goes from her post as Baudelaire City’s innkeeper to travel to the farms that cultivate this special fruit unnoticed by the Veiled Nocturne. Whenever possible in extreme circumstances where her expertise is needed, she blends into the nearest supermarket in the mortal world to seek dragonfruit in its produce department.

Frederick’s and Michaela’s renders have also been added to a few new products and versions of them with new weapons will be showing up on any merch I missed time permitting. The Flower That Blooms in Red (Westley’s Version) version of Eforie with her battleaxe and the first round of Halloween merchandise I promised last year will be available shortly afterwards. The dryads have been implemented in the second level, but Eforie will be disarmed for the time being. She’ll need to evade them however she can if she is to recover her parasol.

Thank you playing and supporting the Heliotrope Journey series as always and we hope you have a great Sunday. :)

Sincerely,

WN

[zosiaskowronska]

Production Proposal final

For my production proposal, I will take Romeos and Juliet final scene. The action will take place in Canada and USA with Romeo played as Ryan Reynolds, who is from Canada, and Blake Lively, who is form the USA, to symbolize the repulsion and stereotypes which are nowadays between Canada and USA.

PARIS

O, I am slain!72

Falls.

If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet.73

Dies.

ROMEO

In faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.74

Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!75

What said my man, when my betossed soul76

Did not attend him as we rode? I think77

He told me Paris should have married Juliet.78

Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?79

Or am I mad, hearing him talk of Juliet,80

To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,81

One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book!82

I’ll bury thee in a triumphant grave.83

A grave? O no, a lantern, slaught’red youth;84

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes85

This vault a feasting presence full of light.86

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interr’d.87

Laying Paris in the tomb.

How oft when men are at the point of death88

Have they been merry, which their keepers call89

A lightning before death! O how may I90

Call this a lightning? O my love, my wife,91

Death, that hath suck’d the honey of thy breath,92

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:93

Thou art not conquer’d, beauty’s ensign yet94

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,95

And death’s pale flag is not advanced there.96

Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?97

O, what more favor can I do to thee,98

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain99

To sunder his that was thine enemy?100

Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet,101

Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe102

That unsubstantial Death is amorous,103

And that the lean abhorred monster keeps104

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?105

For fear of that, I still will stay with thee,106

And never from this palace of dim night107

Depart again. Here, here will I remain108

With worms that are thy chambermaids; O, here109

Will I set up my everlasting rest,110

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars111

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!112

Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you113

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss114

A dateless bargain to engrossing death!115

Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavory guide!116

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on117

The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!118

Here’s to my love!119

Drinks.

O true apothecary!

Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.120

Dies.

Enter Friar Lawrence with lantern, crow, and spade.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Saint Francis be my speed! How oft tonight121

Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who’s there?122

BALTHASAR

Here’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.123

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Bliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,124

What torch is yond, that vainly lends his light125

To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,126

It burneth in the Capels’ monument.127

BALTHASAR

It doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,128

One that you love.129

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Who is it?

BALTHASAR

Romeo.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

How long hath he been there?130

BALTHASAR

Full half an hour.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Go with me to the vault.131

BALTHASAR

I dare not, sir.

My master knows not but I am gone hence,132

And fearfully did menace me with death133

If I did stay to look on his intents.134

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Stay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me.135

O, much I fear some ill unthrifty thing.136

BALTHASAR

As I did sleep under this yew tree here,137

I dreamt my master and another fought,138

And that my master slew him.139

Exit.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

Romeo!

Friar stoops and looks on the blood and weapons.

Alack, alack, what blood is this, which stains140

The stony entrance of this sepulchre?141

What mean these masterless and gory swords142

To lie discolor’d by this place of peace?143

Enters the tomb.

Romeo, O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?144

And steep’d in blood? Ah, what an unkind hour145

Is guilty of this lamentable chance!146

The lady stirs.147

Juliet rises.

JULIET

O comfortable friar! Where is my lord?148

I do remember well where I should be,149

And there I am. Where is my Romeo?150

Noise within.

FRIAR LAWRENCE

I hear some noise, lady. Come from that nest151

Of death, contagion, and unnatural sleep.152

A greater power than we can contradict153

Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.154

Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead;155

And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee156

Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.157

Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.158

Come go, good Juliet,159

Noise again.

I dare no longer stay.

Exit.

JULIET

Go get thee hence, for I will not away.160

What’s here? A cup clos’d in my true love’s hand?161

Poison, I see, hath been his timeless end.162

O churl, drunk all, and left no friendly drop163

To help me after? I will kiss thy lips,164

Haply some poison yet doth hang on them,165

To make me die with a restorative.166

Thy lips are warm.167

FIRST WATCHMAN

Within.

Lead, boy, which way?

JULIET

Yea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy dagger,168

Taking Romeo’s dagger.

This is thy sheath;169

Stabs herself.

there rust, and let me die.

Falls on Romeo’s body and dies.

[hijolehijola]

La soledad es real

  En Estados Unidos es común invitar a fiestas con horarios ceñidos: de 5:00 a 7:00 pm por ejemplo; de 6:00 a 9:00 pm, cuando hay ganas de echar relajo. Las manifestaciones callejeras precisan de un permiso, que no solo incluye horarios sino también rutas especificas. Estudiantes y empleados comen ensaladas en contenedores de plástico frente a sus computadoras o teléfonos mientras checan sus mensajes o ven un video. A las puertas de la oficinas que se alinean en pasillos estrechos, siempre iluminados, no llege nadie sin antes avisar. Tampoco a los hogares. Decía Truman Capote que a Nueva York si iba para estar solo; pero yo no seria tan provincial. Ahora que la teleexistencia se ha vuelto el modo diario de trabajo y de la interacción es imposible no verlo: vivimos a través de ausencias estrictamente reguladas. Nos rodea una profunda soledad. Los ritmos de producción del imperio solo son posibles a través de cuerpos aislados, cuyos deseos o necesidades son satisfechos de manera inmediata o automática con tal de no detener la marcha de la cosas. La pandemia también ha rematerializado esta ausencia primordial, dejando en claro que nos cercan por todos lados espacios vacíos. Los profesores de la pandemia se han percatado de que salen mas agotados de una hora de clase por Zoom que de cinco horas presenciales. La razón es sencilla pero sepulcral: parece que estamos ahí, todos juntos, hablando y discurriendo, viéndonos, pero el cuerpo sabe que no estamos ahí. Esa distancia agota. Esa disonancia nos deja con la boca abierta. La distancia, que precede en mucho a la pandemia, se vuelve intolerable con ella. Resentimos ahora la separación de estos días solo porque no podemos dejar de verla. No podemos hacer tonto al cuerpo de tantas maneras. Acaso por eso hemos regresado a la llamada por teléfono: nos quejábamos de que el sonido de la voz desconectado de los gestos del rostro o del movimiento del cuerpo era incapaz de producir cercanía. Pero nos queda claro ahora que el mecanismo de la voz, cuando va acompañado de la coreografía bastante estipulada del Skype o Zoom, es todavía mas pobre. 

  In the United States it is common to invite people to parties with tight schedules: from 5 to 7pm, for example; 6 to 9pm when there is a desire to relax. Protests in the street require permission that includes not only the specific time but also specific routes. Students and workers eat salads from plastic containers in front of their computers or phones while checking their messages or watching a video. At the doors of offices lined up along the narrow hallway, always lit up, no one ever arrives unannounced. Nor at people’s homes. Truman Capote used to say that he went to New York to be alone; but I would not be so provincial. Now that tele-existence has become the daily form of work and interraction it is impossible not to see it: we live through strictly regulated absences. A profound loneliness surrounds us. The rhythms of the Empire’s production are only possible through isolated bodies, whose desires and needs are fulfilled immediately or automatically so as to not to stop the onward march of things. The pandemic has also rematerialized this primordial absence, making it clear that empty spaces surround us on all sides. During the pandemic, teachers have realized that they are more exhausted by one hour of class by Zoom than by five hours of face-to-face classes. The reason is simple yet sepulchral: although it appears that we are there, all together, talking and discussing, seeing each other, the body knows that we are not there. That distance exhausts us. That dissonance leaves us astounded. This distance, which long preceded the pandemic, now becomes intolerable with it. We now resent the separation these days only because we cannot stop seeing it. We cannot fool the body in so many ways. Perhaps that is why we have returned to the telephone call: we used to complain that the sound of a voice disconnected from the gestures of the face or the movement of the body was incapable of producing closeness. But now it is clear to us that the voice mechanism, when accompanied by the rather stipulated choreography of Skype or Zoom, is even poorer at doing so.

Diario de la pandemia, “Del verbo tocar: Las manos de la pandemia y las preguntas inescapables” -Cristina Rivera Garza 

[gothprentiss]

the devil went down to quantico pt3 (1.5k words)

set post demonology, premise is prentiss is actually possessed at the end of it, inspired by the exorcist; [pt 1 (prologue) | pt 2 (prentiss pov)]

reid pov, first of a 2 parter. jumping forward here to possession manifesting in bau.

“You? You? You?” The voice was terrible. It rasped and pitched, and wound around him; it seemed to emanate from everywhere but the quaking form before him.

From the years 1977 to 1979 Janet Hodgson produced a convincingly sepulchral voice, likely from the vestibular folds of her larynx, as evidence of poltergeist activity … Like kargyraa or heavy metal growls … the effect is guttural, ruptive vocality, the simultaneous production of two vocal pitches, and no lasting dysphonia …

He thought if he told himself this enough it would take on the feeling of truth. Even less plausible was how she knew he was there, staring her down through the reciprocal mirror: profiling only looked clairvoyant to those who weren't in the know. It relied on patterns and order. Everything was disorder now, unknowable: he feinted right and she jolted with him, leaned mockingly forward when he stepped back.

“You, exorcist? Godless, lifeless, purposeless— you, exorcist?”

That almost scans, he thought miserably. It had a sense of meter because of how it racked through her body, stressed syllables spasming along her outstretched arms and upturned palms. He thought back, god, years now, to Emily poking his cheek on the jet, her characteristic mischievous dryness: so lifelike. Demons, he thought, were supposed to speak out loud the things you couldn't speak, or hadn't: dark secrets, unconfessed sins. This sounded more like the beginning of a half-baked profile. Married to the work, as it were; goes home alone; lives an empty, rationalistic life, finds only minor, smug joys in it. And so it would go. Mommy issues, daddy issues, the good doctor a bundle of half-exposed neuroses waiting, ripe, for Emily’s bare teeth to plunge into them.

“You're a wicked piece of shit! You want your father dead, you want your mother dead— are you pretending this isn't real so you can pretend you're not full of rotten SIN?”

He said nothing. The ideas didn't hurt, not really— in some dark night of the soul he knew he might one day walk through, he might well level the same accusations at himself. But there was a sting to it, the sting of a furtive, peripheral glance, an appraising, judging eye. A whisper in the hallway, its syllables blurred but still discernible as his own name.

Demonic possession, he thought, was a diagnosis borne of desperate, needful hope. It was the hope that the ones you loved could not see you as you were, and were empty of the vastness of cruelty in the world. A mother thought, I should never fear my child, Q.E.D. ... Its corollary hope was that they were only right because of cosmic intervention. Without demonic intervention, the world you confronted was arbitrary and malicious: right under the surface of things, welling up through fractures and fissures, was meaninglessness, which was the same as evil.

Emily stood up, and her head tilted as she regarded the reciprocal mirror which— again— she should not have been able to see through. And it tilted further, degree by degree, to an angle that seemed to teeter on the edge of biological possibility. Her arms trembled, shoulders juddering up and down, like she might explode into a thousand pieces of defective clockwork. Like there was a second ghost in the machine, jamming it. She stepped forward in slow, odd lurches, until she was inches away. He fought the urge to take another step back. The lines of her face seemed alien, even as they were so painfully familiar. She was deathly pallid, as if carved from stone, an impression reinforced by the unnatural stillness of her usually animated features. When she spoke, nothing moved but her mouth.

“Ah. I see. Too smart for this, aren't you, Doctor? It's just a profile, isn't it, Doctor? Just vocal effects, just a collection of half-remembered facts and deductions, just psychosis circling the drain of this vapid little mind's worst suspicions. If that's true, you win, boy. Something very nasty and small in you is vindicated, isn't it?”

 He said nothing.

Two knuckles of Emily’s right hand rapped on the glass. “I KNOW YOU'RE IN THERE…”

The sound of heels slapping irregularly on linoleum interrupted the impasse. Penelope, winded, flushed red with panic and exertion, holding in her hand a thin binder covered in—

“Is that duct tape?”

“Ye— yeah. Story for later, if there is a later. It's the 50s Roman Ritual, Latin and English—”

Reid took it from her hand, and leafed through it. It was only the exorcism ritual, printed in lurid black and red on printer paper, with a series of early modern-looking woodcuts, dubiously demonic, interspersed throughout. The duct tape binder was also red and black, like the ritual needed a mall goth twist. He knew, roughly, the structure, and less roughly the symptoms— sudden fluency in unknown languages, impossible knowledge and clairvoyance, preternatural faculties of mind and body, and then, plurima concurrunt, they built a case. The problem was that the symptoms are highly publicized. If one were to, say, experience a delusion of possession, then the only limit to its believability would be the psychotic's own faculties, and knowledge of the appropriate literature. A vivid imagination could do a lot with The Exorcist alone. Emily's mind, he thought miserably, had probably more faculties at its disposal than religious mania typically got to play with.

“Why do you have this? Is it legitimate?” He asked because it felt like an appropriate question. It was unimaginable that it mattered. Vatican authorization would, but that had never been an option, and scarcely worth thinking. Otherwise the rite was largely impromptu and malleable, its efficacy less dependent on particular ritual structures than on the personal and institutional support of the exorcist. He remembered Father Silvano performing the rite in English, as if the possessed themselves were listening. Some concession to the families, maybe, or guilty refusal to profane the more traditional form of the rite with murder.

Maybe those racking shudders moving Emily's shoulder blades like tectonic plates were stifled demonic laughter. Again, he rehearsed the logic: it's psychogenic nonepileptic seizures. It's stress. It's the setting; like Anneliese Michel, the confluence of psychological crisis and Catholic belief breeding the delusion of possession. Hysterical strength. What Freud would call the death drive. Emily's breadth of knowledge to deploy; profiles, languages, past cases— and anything else they didn't know about her. The Catholic upbringing never came up before this. He wasn't even sure she did believe, but nonbelief had never been a true barrier to religious mania.

“Some of my witchier friends were into that dark hand path stuff? I— um— I don't know how accurate it is, I think it was pre-Vatican II because extra Catholic? I only had it here because Kevin was— well, I already said later, it doesn't matter. It's just the only thing I have on hand that I think could be useful at all—”

Reid nodded grimly. The wildness in Garcia's eyes was no doubt a mirror of his own— here they were, in a place beyond order, following whatever logic they could scavenge. Later, he knew, he would feel that he hadn't been himself during all this, and that none of them had. The idiom was acting like a man possessed. The idea of it was manic excitement, but they were all running cool. Garcia's shoulders were set with a grim determination he knew he'd never seen in her before. She was flushed and skittering through the halls, speaking out of tempo with her racing mind, but her bearing was solid, her posture almost regal. The same must have been true for him— the lancing tension in his neck was also keeping it higher. His hands were clammy but they were still.

We're rising to the challenge, he thought, and immediately rejected the idea. It was fairytale nonsense, from the same universe of fictionality as the idea of demonic possession.

Campbell, he reminded himself, has been rightly discredited.

But inexorably in his mind, parallel to that knowledge, was the structure of the hero's journey. This their supernatural assistance (divine?); to come, the first threshold. The door to the interview room seemed to burn in his mind.

Rarely did he have to remind himself so urgently to be rational. The hero's journey was a trial of the self; it brought the hero to rights with his cosmic system. That evil was vanquished and order restored was largely secondary. It's bullshit. You're being stupid.

Garcia spoke, breaking his mounting frustration. "Is anyone— you know. Seriously going to do an exorcism?”

"No, I— no. Rossi’s getting her a doctor. We can't feed the delusion.”

Penelope rested a shaking, clammy hand on his wrist. "Right. Yeah. Um— what’s going to happen?”

Emily suddenly and dreadfully stilled.

Coarse and hollow, the voice came again: “Come up, Reid! Come up, you fearful jesuit!”

“What?”

Reid blinked, furrowed his eyes. There— on Emily’s bookshelf. Under a tall, cream-colored candle in amber glass: Joyce’s Ulysses. A copy of Dubliners leaning against the candle, its spine creased, colors chipped off.

[beatdisc]

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"Never a band to falter, this opus begins on blast-beats and firestorms of malevolent riffing with more deliciously warped bass lines that provide an intricate tapestry of sound with squealing leads and gargantuan vocals. The punchiness and utterly monolithic production instantly captivates the mind while the musicianship bends into inhuman shapes from the onset, taking us into cosmic realms and sepulchral crypts in sweeps of dynamic brilliance. The technical edge is still very much present, thus fans of insane musicianship can rest easy, faces will melt. That said, this is no obnoxious show of skill without substance as the previous material can attest to. No, FACELESS BURIAL are masterful songwriters as well, whom can string together beautiful atmospherics and odious grooves into an unimaginably bold and vibrant yet still filthily heavy cut of Death Metal."

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[blackmetalstellar]

ΨΨΨΨ/5

ORIFLAMME

[L'Égide Ardente, Metal Noir Québécois, Canada, Sepulchral Productions, 2021]

- https://oriflammeqc.bandcamp.com/releases