morgue princess

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ALBUM STORYLINE

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morgue princess is a concept album about the life and death of a neurodivergent, transfeminine, codependent hyena-dove girl named katherine (kathy) d'amore.

at the start of the album, kathy (they/she) is 20 years old and has very recently moved out of their bigoted, alcoholic father's house. ever since elementary school, they've been treated poorly both outside and at home because of their autistic traits, their father refusing to pursue a diagnosis but still subjecting them to ableist verbal abuse. they had also been battling gender dysphoria since puberty and almost avoided the topic entirely as to not out themself, but were still called transphobic slurs as their confusion and consequent dismissive view towards social cues, including gender roles, led them to dress alternatively and not understand why people would find them weird. their father, despite his disapproval, let them dress this way because he wanted them to “face the consequences” of wearing feminine clothing - as in, SA. this unfortunately did happen, to which kathy told him, only to be met with an “i told you so.”

in an exhalation of their pent-up feelings of uselessness, they rush to become a bartender to support themself and fill the gap of their father's expectations. caught in the cycle of good-paying jobs requiring experience but needing those jobs to gain said experience, they finally settle for a low-rated bar named burning snow bar. the male customers have a tendency to hit on/pursue unsolicited romance towards femme-presenting employees, kathy included, however her voice would usually out her which disinterests them. eventually she discovers that playing into/returning the suggestive comments almost guarantees a tip for her service, regardless of whether she gets clocked or whether they actually respect her not.

eventually, she meets 26-year-old virgil hawthorn (he/him), a jackal who was apparently a frequent customer, as kathy's work friends were all familiar with him. it was midnight and there was a downpour of heavy rain outside, but that didn't stop virgil from heading over to binge drink blackberry wine and vent about his own job as a mortuary cosmetologist. like many others, he asks kathy if they're trans, but the difference is that he's way more chill about it. in fact, virgil reveals that he is trans too, FTM. clearly intoxicated, he writes down his phone number instead of signing his name. usually kathy would just brush this off, but this time they were interested in finding an escape from their job. mortuaries pay a lot, don't they?

when kathy was finally at the hotel she was living in, she texted the number virgil wrote down. after confirming it was him (via photo of him holding a NIN vinyl) their conversations fluctuate between drunkenly flirting with each other, sharing their experiences with transphobia and corrective SA, and laughing at the absurdity of their situations because if they don't laugh, they'll cry. after about a month of contact, virgil offers to let kathy live with him.

now living with virgil, the two were clearly interested in each other but were waiting for the other to make a move. virgil went down this roundabout path of pushing kathy to ask him out, if that makes sense. so now that they're dating, kathy's latched onto him even more than they already had, dependent on him both for validation and survival. remember the mentions of them both having sexual trauma? well with virgil, this manifests as a quenchless desire to be in control of himself and those he finds himself close to. however with kathy, she feels obligated to serve others whenever possible and assumes everything is her fault. virgil feels the need to play with this, as the sense of control gives him a sense of security. he holds this over her head whenever she's reluctant to do certain things with him in bed, mainly scratching her fur with the glass from broken bottles, and threatens to leave her until she agrees.

this clearly makes the relationship rocky both in terms of libido and loving each other, as virgil is doing this to feel in control and escape the chains of his trauma, but as a result pushing kathy deeper into self-worth issues catalyzed by their own. amidst virgil breaking empty glasses of wine on her back and rubbing in how hopeless she was without him, was his honeyed energy that brought them together, stories at dinner with braised lamb shanks and wine from their job, drunk makeout sessions, everything else. virgil was paid well too, so despite the nausea he feels handling corpses and such, he still wants to support kathy. they're both still genuinely in love, they're just fucked up. they're both crushingly in love to the point where one misstep feels like complete betrayal. yet she depends on him. virgil is above letting her die, and that is good enough for her.

kathy is not virgil's first partner. he has a reputation of hooking up with many others, hence why their coworkers recognized him. due to this, many sex-based rumors spread about him (not least because of his trans identity) which, in tandem with his occupation, eventually snowballed into false accusations of necrophilia. what he brushed off as a stupid joke had been blown out of proportion seemingly overnight. kathy had quit her bartender job a while back after hearing virgil got a raise, but now that virgil was getting fired, she didn't know what to do.

upon virgil's arrival home, kathy was instructed to get in the car with him and go to the bar again. he stormed into the bar, grabbed as many bottles as he could and then ran back into the car, blasting off, driving with one paw and chugging with the other. some of the glass would hit him and kathy as he threw the empty ones into the backseat, but none intentional, nor could he feel the pain compared to the raw adrenaline he was feeling. the two eventually arrived home, but crashed into the front door as virgil couldn't think straight. the fan collapsed on top of him while kathy hit the wall and made a hole. she made her way out and immediately contacted 911, who sent them both to the nearest hospital. virgil was confirmed dead, and a funeral was reluctantly planned by the very place that fired him.

kathy attended the funeral and was the most emotional, remorseful and hysteric person out of everybody there, even more than virgil's relatives. the burial came around and out of sheer refusal to let go, kathy jumped in the coffin with the intent to grab him and drown in the ocean with him, but got locked inside. she is now buried six feet underground with nothing but the memories of what was once a complicated love life, and the stench of what her lover is now. she tries to make out with him for the last time, as they die together.

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CREATION OF / BACKGROUND INFORMATION

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so, why did we (we're a system¹) write morgue princess? the story itself essentially boils down to me trying to channel my own frustrations with our life into one cohesive plot line, there's a piece of each of us within both main characters. but also, fictionalizing and exaggerating these topics and allowing myself to touch upon them from a character's perspective rather than just presenting a raw display of our real trauma is better, and healthier.

the story is an allegory for how a hateful upbringing results in tragedy. kathy falls down this horrible path because of her family never being there to guide her in the right direction - her mother is absent and her father is already an abusive alcoholic. this would stunt anybody's growth, but combine that with kathy being something that nobody in her family would ever approve of, and it's a recipe for her life to become this. even after running away, she becomes a bartender specifically because deep down, she still desperately wants her parents' approval. she only ever snaps out of that wish because of virgil, who effectively becomes her new “purpose” in life. and then he dies… our target demographic obviously isn't parent-aged cishets (we're 16) but if the music somehow does make it into the reach of someone like that, i don't want them to brush it off as “just another noisy album for the trans kiddos, i won't get it…” i'd argue that cis people should be exposed to trans stories more often, they're the ones who really need it because they're the ones society listens to when pushing for change.

our previous albums tackle things that are extremely personal to us: on our instrumental mixtapes, we channel body dysmorphia and depression, and on our first two “canon” albums, we talk about our experiences with being groomed/SA. while i firmly believe those albums were necessary to have been made, i can't keep going in that direction. the purpose of those records was to help shed light on the effect of such horrific things, but they took a toll on our mental wellbeing. those other topics may come back given the fact dysphoria, both gender and species wise, will plague me for life. but with SA, it's a solid stop. i don't think any of us have any more songs for that topic, not just because it's deeply personal and writing about it won't change anything, but also because i don't want to upset fellow survivors. if we don't make the severity of SA extremely apparent, or if we write about the same traumatic events so much it becomes routine, it'll deter people. and that's the last thing i want, because then nobody will care for songs that are about changing what we actually can.

morgue princess will most likely be the last time any of us touch topics of sexual abuse. i feel as though the two can somewhat represent the "dirty laundry era" and their burial can represent finally having aired that out and now wanting to let it rest. a lot of us weren't supposed to remember those things, and now that it's said and done, we want to make music that's more healthy for us and palatable to others. the T4T love story also plays a role, as it basically lets me signal the shift in lyrical focus towards queer issues - which i think now, given trump won, is a better time than ever. gothicwvlff as a project has always been an unabashed display of queer therian experience, both the ups and downs (primarily the downs, but hopefully that can change) - vulnerable but also bold, interlinked with our identity… to be that bold, requires me to shield myself and my system with confidence. now that we've gotten our trauma to stop blocking out the creative sections of our brain, we wanna just have fun creating again, and treat music like sticking up the middle finger at the world rather than cowering in fear over it. make something we can all confidently sing in front of others, or that others can sing without turning their vocal cords into a tightrope.

this is also the final release on wolverats² as accepting the fact we're plural has freaked almost all of us out. this has especially been hard on kyrie, the alter who founded the label. it needs a break from the public eye, it already harbors a lot of horrid shit and don't really like attention. it sees publicity as a danger and we've had to talk it out of deleting fucking everything like five times now. i don't know if i make any sense right now, but hopefully at least one listener understands what i mean.

i will probably be taking a break from making music too, now - i'm not quitting, music is my greatest passion on earth, and the others will probably cook something up so i'm not completely stranded. but me personally, i need to sit down a bit after having three records of this caliber back to back stitched to myself while also coming to terms with being transfem. it is also our new year's resolution to stop obsessively checking in on what other people think of me, so we won't be reading as many comments or responding to them either.

when i come back, i want to shift to a more melodic hardcore inspired sound, goth dance music with empowering subject matter. expect singles and smaller drops like that valentine's day one i did earlier this year, but i need to rest before coming back to bigger projects.

i want to thank those who have and will continue to stick with me/us, whether you've been here since we were 13 or if this is your first listen. we'll deliver something better with time, WFLYTD!!! ↜( ///ཀ^๑ )/ ♡

— scarlet darkmagique, of the perfect teeth collective

P.S. please post any fanart to tumblr with the tag #🕯️❄️ (emoji for “burning snow”) - i want to look!

special thanks to ridley, angel, ram, sabree (who also drew the fire ass cover art), jayden, calico, tabby, streber, neptune, victor, chelsea, tori and anybody else who stuck with me/us during the creation of morgue princess. ♡

¹ this statement is written entirely by and from the perspective of our host, scarlet (they/she/it), who manages our pages and came up with the album. other headmates have contributed to the gothicwvlff moniker, most notably kyrie (it/its), who near-independently produced “airing dirty laundry”.

² “wolverats” is a netlabel started by kyrie, hosted on a neocities webpage. active 2023 - 2025.