does anybody else have songs that like you link to specific characters but there isn't really any good reason why you just. do.

The Invisible Itch Pt. 2 (Demon!Michael x Reader)

Summary: Michael introduces himself after last night and you find yourself on the short end of the proverbial stick by your own doing, no less. Demons don't play nice and Michael puts you firmly into place.

A/N: This is a little interlude to the next part of this series, no smut just yet I'm afraid but plenty of dominant Demon!Michael. He's so much fun to write and the back-and-forth between him and the reader are some of my favourites.

Warnings: Cursing, Power-Play, minor violence and hurt (reader-receiving), mentions of smut

Word Count: 2.4k

Tag List: @prophecy-is-inevitable​ @jimmlangdon​ @drasangel​ @leatherduncan​ @sexwon131​ @rocketgirl2410​ @9layerdevilfoodcake​ @vulgarprayer​ @michaellangdonstanaccount​ @michaellandgons-sunshine​ @iwillboilyourteeth​ @michael-langdon-owns-my-soul​, @kitty4860​

After you'd awoken the night after an encounter you couldn't begin to make sense of, you had quite literally grabbed whatever your hands could reach out the wardrobe and sprinted out the door, not daring to even enter the bathroom. You felt whatever, whoever had introduced himself the night before lingering in the place you called your home and that knot in your stomach wound tighter as the day went on. You were going insane. Surely,  for the truth of the matter meant that there were forces in this world - and apparently in your apartment  - that you couldn't fathom.

You needed answers and so you began to scour the Internet, not caring if your work search history took a weird turn. You still felt his fingers between your legs, his teeth on your shoulder and his grip on your hip. God, the way he had pleasured you was unlike anything you'd ever felt. You tried to shake the lustful thoughts flitting through your mind, the image of him standing before you burned into your retinas.

Demon. That word kept popping up on the websites and subreddits you found and you swore you felt those strong hands on you again as you read page after page of first person accounts with the supernatural. The more you read, the more you became alarmed, mentions of people having unwittingly sold their soul to the devil himself despite not believing in these kinds of things. If this was any other time, you would have scoffed at the idiotic posts. And yet here you were, baring the bruises of something you couldn't explain. The work day drew to a close far too soon, the day feeling like you spent it in a daze, a thick fog hanging over your mind, visions of him clouding your senses. Maybe you had sold your soul, given it to that man, that demon. That would explain the haze you walked through,  that ache between your legs.

"Hey (Y/N), you alright? Anything going on, you didn't seem right today," Cindy from accounting said as you both stepped into the elevator.  

"Hm? Oh yeah sorry, I'm just tired I think ," you replied with a little embarrassed smile several seconds after she had turned to address you as the doors slid shut. She mustered you, taking in the slight dark circles under your eyes, apparent because you hadn't even bothered to put on any make up. You forced a smile, not feeling up to any small talk.

"Heard Kevin's been bragging about you two going down to his lake house this weekend. Please tell me that's not true, " she continued and you were glad she didn't mention your appreance.

"He did what?!" you shrieked, now suddenly rattled into the present by her statement.

"Thought as much," Cindy replied, a small chuckle on her lips. You two didn't get to speak often but she was one of the few people in the office who showed her disdain for your manager and his creepy ways openly.

"This is turning out to be an even worse day than it already is," you groaned, making Cindy snicker beside you.

"Just be careful, I know he's all bark and no bite but you wouldn't want to get yourself in any situation," she said, patting you lightly on the shoulder as the elevator doors slid open to reveal the underground parking lot.

"Yeah, definitely won't do that. Thanks for the heads up," you called after her as she stepped out to head to her car, waving at you without turning around. You liked Cindy and her no-nonsense attitude. Too bad you were already in a situation of the supernatural kind. You'd kick Kevin's balls any day if he tried anything. The demon in your flat however was an entirely different beast to tame. If that was even a possibility.

You sat in your car outside your apartment building for a good 10 minutes, looking up at the dark windows, debating on whether or not you wanted to spend the night  there. What had gotten into you, a tiny voice in the back of your mind berated you. You weren't scared of horror movies or graveyards, you laughed your way though haunted houses you and your friends went to on Halloween and yet the thought of stepping foot into your safe space suddenly filled you with dread. You could explain all those things away by good editing, special effects and makeup. A real-life demon on the other hand...With a huff you swung open the car door and stepped out into the chilly movember air and headed for the entrance. As you passed under the streetlights,  you swore you could feel those eyes of his on you, watching from above.

The lock clicked, unlatching the door. You entered, expecting to come face to face with him and yet you were greeted by silence. You ventured into the kitchen, switching on the lights, back rigged. Empty. Next you headed for the bathroom. It looked as if you'd never even took a bath last night, no wine bottle, no glass on the floor, no water puddles on the ground. Slowly but surely you were beginning to think that you'd had a very vivid dream, one that would definetely warranted a visit to your pyschologist, and somehow managed to bump your hip and scratch your shoulder. It made no sense. You knew you were being watched as you stepped out the car. God, maybe you were finally at your breaking point,  brought around by nothing in particular, you just simply snapped.

You ventured into your bedroom to change out of your clothes. The note...was gone. You swore you'd left in laying on your covers. After several minutes of franticall searching under the covers and around the bed, you gave up. Maybe your breakup was fianlly catching up with you in an unusual way or maybe it was the loneliness. Whatever it was, all that remained of last night were the bruises. You changed into an oversized t-shirt and some cotton shorts, examining the blueish imprints on your hips. Perhaps you had gotten so drunk last night that you'd simply not remembered hitting your hip and this morning, still drunk your brain had conjured up the note just as it has the demon that fucked you raw in the bathtub last night.

Having let your guard down at finding nothing out of the ordinary, you padded into the living room, your phone in hand that was currently reinstalling tinder. Might as well get back in the game if I'm dreaming up hot demon bathtub sex, you thought to yourself.

You switched on the light, revealing the demon from last night perched lazily on the sofa,  looking at you with a mischievous glint in his eyes.

"MOTHERFUCKER!" you screamed, dropping your phone. So much for not being scared.

"Good evening to you too, (Y/N)" he chuckled, taking in your frightened expression, those pretty (Y/E/C) eyes of yours ripped wide open.

"What are YOU doing here?" you hissed, trying to calm your heart that was currently in overdrive. He wasn't real, he wasn't supposed to be real.

"What do you mean what am I doing here. Didn't we assess last night that this is my domain? I should be asking you that question, Angel," he retorted, that grin of his widening into a dashing smile, his awsner punctuated by a wink that shouldn't have the effect it had on you.

"S-so this, last night, this was all real?" you whispered with your hands gesturing around you, disbelief in your voice and realisation flitting over your face.

"Oh it was real. A demon fucking that sweet little cunt of yours. Very real and very enjoyable I might add," he rumbled, hia brazen words making your cheeks flush. You stood in the door flabbergasted.

"I'm Michael by the way. I didn't get to introduce myself properly last night since you passed out. Not to worry,  I take it as a compliment of my expertise," he winked once more.

You watched him as he revealed why you couldn't remember getting out the tub or falling asleep. So he was a demon. A spawn of satan. Your mind went back to all the things you'd read earlier about his kind, that knot in your stomach suddenly coiling in on itself.

"Did I sell my soul to you last night?!" The words spilled over your lips, your (Y/E/C) gaze shooting daggers at the demon who looked more bemused by the second, taking in your flustered appearance. He hadn't expected you to be so straightforward.

"No, you'd know if you did," he smirked, tapping his chin, a cocky smile on his lips as he watched you deflate slightly. You didn't dare breathe a sigh of relief yet.

"This is like if you're a cop, you have to tell me. You can't lie, you can twist the truth but you can't outright lie," you responded, not satisfied by his half answer.

"Oh, we've been hitting the books at work today? Smart girl," he chuckled. You hadn't done nearly enough research to know the pile of proverbial shit you had landed in unknowingly, but you had done enough between work meetings and over your lunch break to know that a demon was bound by whatever force held them to this plane that made it impossible for them to lie if called upon directly. Your hands clenched by your sides, waiting for his reply. He groaned at your resoluteness. You were a lot smarter than you knew and he was growing impatient with the incessant line of questioning. Usually it was him with one hand on the lever.

"Sweet (Y/N)," he inhaled deeply. "You didn't sell your soul to me last night. It's still firmly sat behind your ribcage, all yours. I'd swear on my heart if I had one. I do have integrity, you know. Are you satisfied now?" He sneered, watching your face as he waited for your reply, one eyebrow cocked expectantly, a hint of offense on his features. You sighed in relief at his statement.

"Thank God," you breathed. At least some of what you'd found on various internet sites and reddit threads seemed to be true. At the name, Michael's eyes darkened and he stood up to his full height from the sofa. Your spine straightened as he approached you, his demeanour growing even sourer.

"Don't mention him in my presence," he rumbled, coming to stand before you, the tips of his pristine parent leather boots touching your bare toes. Had he approached you like this when you had entered your apartment, you would've shrunk back but your little research endeavours had struck a hint of Gold, a fact that had emboldened you as much as his admission that he infact a demon. You wanted to try and see what else you could use against him. Resolute, you stood your ground, neck slightly tilted back to meet his gaze. He may have scared you just now but you were not one to back down, for better or worse.

"God," you uttered again, watching his eyes grow dark, an inky blackness swallowing his blue irises.

Michael tilted his head to one side, those shadows starting to creep up behind him like they had last night. A silent warning.

"Jesus Christ," you continued to test him.

"(Y/N)..." his voice rumbled low out his chest, and the depth of it sent shivers down your spine.

"In the name of the father, the son and the hol-" His right arm shot up and he grabbed you by the throat roughly, cutting off your breath before you could finish the sentence. In the blink of an eye you were pressed between the wall, Michael's hand around your throat pinning you in place.

"Shut your fucking mouth or I'll do it for you," he hissed, his body pressed firmly over yours, his black gaze burning into you, and a searing pain exploded behind them. You screamed in terror and anguish as it felt like he was burning your eyes out their sockets.

"FUCK, I'M SORRY, I'LL STOP, PLEASE!" you cried, your vision going blurry from pain and tears that had begun to spill out the corners. At your cries, Michael's hand loosened the grip around your neck and stepped back. You slid down the wall at the loss of his body holding you up, gulping in air, fingers gingerly touching the skin around your eyes, afraid they would come up bloody. Unbothered, Michael watched as you regained control over your breathing, mustering you with a hint of disdain. He crouched down before you, making you press yourself against the wall in an effort to keep the distance between you.

"Don't ever think you're smarter than me, little one. Test me again and you'll see. I dare you," he chuckled, one hand catching your quivering chin in his hold to assess the damage he'd done. Only several small burst blood vessels bloomed in the whites of your eyes. Nothing permanent and yet enough to remind you that you were in his domain, abiding by his rules.

"Now that we've established who's in charge once again, why dont you tell me about your day? I took the liberty of getting some wine," he said, any trace of anger or demonic demeanour wiped from his chiseled features, that small smile playing on the corners of his lips again. He was psychotic or just simply demonic, that little voice in th back of your head whispered while you watched him, the back of your head and shoulders pressed into the wall.

He offered you his hand to help you off the floor, as if the last minutes had never taken place. You debated whether or not to refuse but seeing as how you were on the much shorter end of the stick firmly in his grasp, you took his hand and were hoisted up to your feet by Michael. You recoiled from his grasp as soon as you were steady on your feet,  eyeing him warily. Alcohol sounded like a good idea even though you wanted to keep your wits about you around him. There was no doubt in your mind now about who it was you were dealing with and this was far worse than you'd anticipated and yet it didn't seem like you had much choice. Your lease wouldn't run out for another 6 months and there was no way you'd go back to your best friend's couch.

“Why the hell not,” you muttered, earning yourself a gleeful grin from the handsome devil before you.

“I knew you'd come around, Angel,” he grinned, those hooded icy blue eyes glinting.

blog 08 - neuromancer

So as an introductory note, I’m actually quite a big fan of cyberpunk. I’m a hobbyist DnD player and the first campaign that I’ve Dungeon-Mastered for was actually a simplified version of Shadowrun that I wrote all the backstory and lore for. It’s in what I would call a “sequel” right now that I’m very much enjoying. So bla bla bla I was excited to get to Neuromancer this whole time because I’m a genre fan.

a brief primer to cyberpunk

So western Cyberpunk owes its roots largely to the detective fiction genre-- most notably the hardboiled detective archetype, a darker western interpretation of your Sherlock Holmes type who is usually a jaded antihero that works for money, but still has a sense of justice deep down. You see this more reflected in Blade Runner than you see it in Neuromancer’s Case, but there are still a number of correlations (Funnily enough, Neuromancer and Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep both end on nearly the same line-- “He never saw Molly again.” and “...and I never saw her again.” respectively.) Interestingly enough, Case kind of spawns his own kind of cyberpunk hero trope-- the rebellious hacker, seen in Neo. 

If detective fiction owes itself to the inescapable aura of The Great Depression, then cyberpunk owes itself to the Reagan administration. Cyberpunk’s whole thing, at least in the west, springs forward from the fear of unregulated corporate growth in tandem with the rise of technology, and what the mixture of the two might bode for humanity at large. Both Neuromancer and Blade Runner owe their entire aesthetics to the vision of a world taken over by neon advertisements, bereft of nature, replaced by plasticity. 

Now, why the primer? Well, I think it’s important to preface the discussion of this novel with the idea that cyberpunk is a deeply political genre in a way that not many other genres inherently are. (All fiction is, of course, inherently political, whether intentional or not, but most genres don’t regularly feature as much political charge as cyberpunk, is what I mean.) Neuromancer is politics from an era before most of us in this class were born, and as such, atop being a seminal work of genre fiction, it’s a lurid look into what the landscape looked like in the 80s. We are living now in the times that 80s Cyberpunk once called “the future”-- and, well, what does it look like for us? Are we living in the Urban Sprawl?

not quite

Our dystopian future is significantly more...mundane than coffin hotels and the television sky over Chiba. You might say we got all the corporate deregulation and none of the glimmering aesthetic slickness of cyberpunk-- we really are living in the worst timeline. If i’m going to have to labor under capitalism for the rest of my short life, couldn’t I at least have a slick pair of mirrorshades?

the text

There’s a lot about Neuromancer to like. It earned its reputation wholeheartedly-- it is definitely the legendary cyberpunk novel that it is well-known for being. Its writing style can often be abstract at the same time that it’s luridly detailed, and it uses strange and interesting words to create vivid images in the reader’s mind of this foreign landscape of the Sprawl. It uses a lot of “old world” associations to lend deeper weight to its descriptions (the Tank War Europa game comes to mind in tandem with the Screaming Fist operation that looms over the plot). 

The book doesn’t shy away from the visceral nature of its own plot and setting-- drug binges and cramped love affairs in coffin hotels, fear and violence are all described in visceral detail that grounds the book hard in its reality while simultaneously indulging in a sort of dream-like surreality. I really admire the ways in which Gibson writes physical sensation whether it comes to the sex or the pain or the weirdness of cyberspace. The introduction of the novel sort of failed to catch me until Gibson went into detail about Case’s harrowing journey after losing his ability to jack into cyberspace and the intense, surreal affair with Linda Lee. Perhaps my biggest issue with the writing of Neuromancer is, however, Gibson’s tendency to throw a lot of world-building terminology at you really fast. Nothing bogs down a fictional story more than having to pause to wonder what certain words mean.

Describing cyberspace during a time in which VR wasn’t even a thing yet had to have been a challenge and a half, but Gibson found interesting ways to visualize the experience, and coined interesting terminology for it (ice and icebreakers, most notably). The Sense/Net bits are also pretty cool, but I’m also biased because anything that gives Molly Millions more screentime is just the best thing.

Did I mention Molly is my favorite character? I just can’t get over her. It sucks that her and Case break up in the epilogue, but it also feels fitting in a weird way. She really struck me as a standout character for a woman in a cyberpunk novel-- she’s an active player in her own sexuality, she’s violent and the stronger of the two between herself and Case. She has a sort of unapologetic way about her that feels very fresh even today. The first time Case uses Sense/Net to see through her eyes, I was hit in an unexpectedly hard way by the description of people in a crowd moving out of the way for her-- for most girls in real life, that’s a fairly unheard of experience, and to me, as a female reader, it did a lot to establish to me just how powerful she is.

That being said, this is a good place to segue into the conversation you know my Obnoxious Feminist Ass has been waiting to bring up.

cyberpunk vs women

You can tell a lot about a person’s base assumptions about the world by the way they talk about people in their works of fiction. Now when I say “base assumptions” I don’t mean their political leanings, I mean something that’s on a deeper, more subconscious level-- in this way, base assumptions are inherently neutral in a way, they’re incapable of being truly malicious, even if they’re harmful, because they’re just the base coding of how a person regards things inherently.

What I’m getting at is that at the time of writing this book, I don’t think Gibson had much of a regard for women at all. When the first mention of women in your novel is calling them whores, I’m going to be forced to assume both that you don’t like women very much and that women are primarily sex objects to you-- or at the very least that women factor into your view of the world in a very marginal way that is largely informed by porn culture. Now, let’s suppose that maybe it’s actually the POV character Case that’s just a raging sexist-- that theory might hold water if this were a character trait that is brought up as a flaw, or indeed, if it were really brought up at all in his personality, but it’s not.

To my great frustration, in the Neuromancer world, it seems like “whore” is about the only job available for women! Who knew the job market would shrink in such a way? Now, perhaps you could argue that Gibson was actually trying to make a point about the way in which porn culture commodifies women into sexy leg lamps for male consumption, and I won’t claim to know his intent, but to me, it doesn’t really seem that deep. It seems like to me that, to Gibson, women being mostly vapid sex workers in his dystopia is a foregone conclusion-- he didn’t think about it that hard, that’s just his stereotypical image of what women in an criminal underbelly do.

This problem of a lack of regard for female perspectives in cyberpunk narratives that largely concern themselves with themes of objectification and oppression under capitalist systems and the regurgitation of harmful sexist tropes certainly isn’t exclusive to Neuromancer. Cyberpunk is a economic-political type of genre, so oppression in the genre tends to fall upon class lines rather than race or gender lines-- and perhaps, this could occur in a far flung future in which capital manages to supersede bias, however, I can’t help but feel that this is a lazy way to write a political narrative. Blade Runner, Blade Runner 2049, and The Matrix all have distinct problems with addressing the idea of intersectionality when it comes to the ways in which ones gender and race plays into their role in a capitalist system. 

Cyberpunk, for all its shining successes as interesting fiction and pointed political commentary, totally fails in the regard that it co-opts the struggle of lower-classes and applies the romanticized aesthetic to white male characters completely unironically. (You can read a pretty good take on Dystopias and post-racialism here.)

east versus west

So, when I went over the primer to the rise of Cyberpunk earlier, I left something out (on purpose!). During the 80s, there was another prime ingredient to the mix of the nascent genre’s formation: the rise of Japan as a technological leader in the global market. Before World War 2, and indeed, during it, American’s conceptualization of the future, was, well, American. They viewed themselves as the originator of innovation within the world and the blueprint from which the rest of the world should be based. However, this all changed in the post-war era as Japan began to participate in the market, leaving behind their isolationist ways-- suddenly, Japan was what the vision of the future looked like in American imagination-- the Tokyo urban sprawl.

The imagery of Japan is ubiquitous in western Cyberpunk, whether hardcore or or softcore or simply an incidental portrayal of futurism. Disney’s Big Hero 6 features San Fransokyo, San Franciso and Tokyo jammed together complete with neon signs in Japanese letters. During the 90s, Marvel launched Rampage 2099 and Spider-man 2099, both set in glittering neon cityscapes. The series Firefly featured a strange universe in which everyone seems to speak Chinese pidgins (but there’s no Chinese people in the show, funnily). MTV had Aeon Flux, a U.S. take on anime. Even movies like Total Recall borrowed the bright neon flavor. Video games such as Deus Ex and Cyberpunk 2077 feature these influences heavily, with less-bold-but-still-there influence being seen in games like Remember Me and Detroit: Become Human.

There’s an interesting cultural exchange going on between the east and west when it comes to Cyberpunk, as the 90s were rife with cyberpunk fiction in both places-- The U.S. saw The Matrix (which was inspired by Ghost in the Shell, as admitted by the Wachowskis in a phrasing that I find really annoying as an animator: “We want to make that but for real”.), while Japan had the seminal Ghost in the Shell and Akira. It’s interesting to note the stark contrast between western and eastern Cyberpunk-- eastern Cyberpunk misses entirely western Cyberpunk’s detective fiction roots, for one. For two, eastern Cyberpunk tends to concern itself more with philosophical questions about the nature of the soul in relation to technology and deep-seated cultural fears about weapons of mass destruction and government.

Neuromancer is deeply entrenched in eastern aesthetics-- many Japanese brands are brought up explicitly by name within the model (Mitsubishi, Sony, etc.). Gibson cites the “Kowloon Walled City” of Hong Kong as something that haunted him after he was told about it, and the idea of Coffin Hotels owes quite a lot to it. Gibson is quoted as saying:

“Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns - all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information - said, ‘You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town.' And it was. It so evidently was.“

One of Neuromancer’s primary settings is The Night City, a supposedly gaijin district of Tokyo on the bay-- this...sort of explains why there don’t seem to be a lot of Asian people in Asia, but the issue still stands. This isn’t a game-breakingly “I wouldn’t recommend this book” bad case, but it is something that I felt I should point out. Neuromancer is a foundational work to the genre, which means that not only are its successes carried over, but many of its flaws as well. Now, I don’t want this cricitism to sound like I think William Gibson is a raging bigot or anything-- I really don’t! I follow him on twitter and he’s a perfectly likable guy, actually. Problems aside, I really enjoy his work.

conclusions

Going into the future, I don’t think Cyberpunk is going away anytime soon, and certainly much of it owes its roots to Neuromancer. With shows like Altered Carbon and games like Cyberpunk 2077 on the horizon, I’m interested to see the ways in which our current economic political climate may effect what our vision of a technological dystopia may look like. Cyberpunk is easily one of the most interesting genres of fiction, and if you haven’t looked into it deeply, I highly recommend checking it out.

[Wonderland Interview] New Noise: South Club

The former boyband babe on his latest venture.

Nam Taehyun crackles. Figuratively, of course, but the restless energy around the 23 year old, South Korean singer-songwriter is so palpable that sitting next to him in a London hotel lounge is as much a visceral experience as a physical one. He answers frequently in English, with concise replies that send the conversation tumbling forward and away from, perhaps, revealing too much about himself; this is a line he’s often teetered on since his departure from the boy group WINNER, one of K-Pop’s major success stories, in November 2016.

The move was a shocking one for his followers, and fans of Korean pop music in general, spawning countless theories as to the reasons behind it, but his former label – the Korean entertainment giant, YG – later cited Nam’s mental health as a major deciding factor. Although Nam publicly acknowledged experiencing depression, he’s been sometimes recalcitrant and, at others, open, on the subject. These days, however, he’s far more focused on his band, South Club.

Made up four members, including Nam, Kang Kunku (guitar), Nam Donghyun (bass) and Jang Wonyoung (drums), South Club’s sound runs the spectrum of Taehyun’s inner jukebox – “Dirty House” is a scuzzy howler, “Believe U” sways through bluesy Americana and “Hug Me” is the melancholy acoustic pop that he often wrote for WINNER. He appears to relish the lack of constraints, the openness and freedom around his work, and it’s now imprinted on his external self; when it’s time to shoot images he makes a fast beeline for outside. Taehyun is visibly more relaxed under the vivid blue London sky and on the wide, empty streets – a man happy to roam – but, as he poses fluidly for the camera, it’s a reminder that he remains a quintessential popstar.

South Club have been together for over a year now; are you settled into a rhythm of creating and being a band?

There’s been up and downs of course, good things happened and bad things happened. But that’s a nature of a band. It will get better.

What were some of those early challenges?

The upside is having fun on the stage and creating but the downside is when there’s discrepancy in the thoughts and opinions between the members, but we don’t fight because I’m the boss [smiles].

Why did you set up your own label instead of signing with another agency?

YG is the biggest, most structured agency in Korea, so after leaving I didn’t see much point in joining another agency. And as I’m capable of making music as a musician, I thought I wouldn’t be a bad idea to do it on my own.

What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of being your own boss?

Back in YG, everything was taken care of so I all had to do was think about the stage performance but being my own boss gives me lots of pressure and burdens that I have to deal with myself. But those make the music more firm. It’s fun. It gives me more sense of achievement.

You had a couple of months after you left YG to yourself – what did you do?

I just made a song. I was lonely. I was trying to maximise all those emotions that I had and use that when writing.

Did you go out at all or just stay in and write?

I was very depressed and sick but now I enjoy everything. I’m good.

What’s your inspiration at the moment?

Movies, maybe, and [European] techno music.

You’ve been doing DJ spots on Casper Radio where you’ve able to play music you love, and talk freely. What have you gotten from it?

My relationship with my fans became closer.

Is it cathartic?

Sometimes.

“Believe U” came out of jamming and was recorded in one take, is that how you normally work?

I like the natural sound and studio noise and reverb. “Believe U” was a very experimental song, but everything is done differently.

What’s the difference between creating off the cuff and writing down songs?

Jamming is so fun because we hear the mistakes. And for the detailed songs it can be boring later because I have listened to them so many times [laughs].

Then can you still love older songs as much as when they were created?

I love them because everything [I create] is my baby.

On last year’s debut album 90, you explored youth, freedom and escape – are these subjects you’re still focused on or are you exploring new themes?

I don’t put narrative in when I write songs because it can get cheesy sometimes, so most of the time I put “reality”- how I feel at that moment in to my lyrics. And these days I’m into more upbeat music, so I’m expecting some upbeat songs to come out.

The South Club shows have taken you into some intimate venues – what’s that feeling like?

When the audience is that close, there are more gestures I can do so it feels more engaging.

Were the early shows nerve-wracking because you’d come from big stages where it can feel like you’re very far away from the fans?

I was never really nervous on-stage. Because on the stage I am the best, so I don’t care!

You have a lot more ink these days – which one is special?

This one [points to his inner right arm, an image of a sheet of notes] – I study guitar and my teacher wrote down secondary notes, which is the basics for learning guitar, and I took that and made it into a tattoo.

What about the BLISS one? Is that an indicator of something good you’ve experienced?

It’s not very serious when I get a tattoo, it can be quite spontaneous.

You wake up and think “I want a tattoo”?

Yes. Today I want to hurt [laughs].

A year ago you did several episodes of ICON TV, which looked at your day-to-day life, and you talked about loneliness and alienation. You seem happier now; has something changed to bring that about?

I am not happy now [laughs]. But it is better than before, and I’m definitely mentally healthier… because of tennis.

Tennis? I didn’t see that coming. Are you good at it?

No [laughs].

What is it about tennis that’s helping?

The swing… [mimes hitting tennis balls] Stress! Stress!

Stress relief, I can understand that. I definitely recommend boxing then…

I started boxing two weeks ago! But I’m only boxing using a sandbag.

Because you’re more of a spontaneous person, how far do you think ahead?

I don’t necessarily put timings [on my career] but rather I see the whole picture.

When can we expect to hear new material?

Maybe May? Or June? But I’m already playing new songs [on this tour].

Alleys were the only real way to travel in Querevage, even before Salem. Devi, cramming her way through one, should know.

 For better or for worse, the Guardian had become particularly acquainted with the nooks and crannies of the capital. Cool walls draped themselves along the passageway, bricks wet with the night ran against her vision as she moved, glinting silver in the moonlight spilling against her back. Puffs of soot stained her claws black as even blacker crows with empty eyes hung vivid in the sky like painted toys. Their gentle spiralling only kept her on edge. They had changed with Salem. They watched, now. Soft whispered words were the only thing Devi found trustable. They were traceable - a few questions here, and a vague interrogation there, and a source was easily acquired. And that source could be beaten to a pulp until they answered. Only some small part of Devi would cry out in frustration, cry out at the wrongness of it all. The Guardian knew how to silence that voice up. It'd be suicide to follow it, and death to let it tempt her. And the images of BloodMagic's fall were still as fresh as they were the day it happened. She refused to die. The only remaining thing she'd ever been truly thankful for was that the heart of the city had stayed the same. Still made of blood and battle, only further confirmed by the distant roar of two dragons duking it out in the distance. Even if it made her bandaged wounds ache at the sound of it, it was one of the few things still familiar about this place. She kept moving. Sometimes, she’d look up at the moon and be reminded of the sun. Of better times. Of the bright yellow and the gold and the too-red blood. Of Salem. The imperial was a scourge if you asked any self-respecting dragon; the beast had taken this clan between her jaws back with The Fall, and Devi’s home had become unfamiliar. Changes came in the rapid fire of legislation and government and anti-magic laws. Once so vivid with magic, everything had become desaturated with the new-found dictatorship. To think BloodMagic’s legacy had been reduced to this. Appalling. Worse was to think of Barachiel. That backstabbing fiend had been a friend to them both. The price of his ambition had been the freedom and safety of half the Quereven population, and he didn't even regret it. Admittedly, she might not have either if she'd gotten rule of the clan for it. But that would've been before she'd met Alphonse, and realised that BloodMagic had been a lot more than a coliseum partner to her. Too little, too late on that last one. Now, there was a night patrol to watch for, and an Archivist with a neat set of instructions to burn books of magic - after recording all the countermeasures, of course. A whole generation had grown up under their rule, not one knowing the true beauty of the forbidden craft. Not even Alphonse's spawn - children raised in and of and around magic. The Guardian’s moonlit form was a stark white against the walls of the back street. Haloed and aglow in the night, she forged onward. There was a destination in mind, a definite course set for her senseless wandering, but not the place she’d led Ahava to believe. Ahava was a friend, yes, but the Skydancer was too lawful-neutral to be trusted with the secrets of the black market magicians. They could help the way the shelves of a clinic could not. In the state she was in she'd be unable to move the next morning, and she'd have to be dragged back to her den before she unnecessarily spent time there. They could help. The hut was for sleeping and storage. Sometimes, not even that. But right now, her priority wasn't ignoring her current life situation. It was healing. They could help. Trinkets - the small magic shop she wasn’t supposed to know about - was easy to find, if you knew where to look. And the Spiral's enchantments were old friends. Alphonse could help. It was Port street, west side. By the bar. The tunnel would be open (if you were welcome). It's a winding thing, a living being that breathes and pulses. She couldn't tell you if it physically pulsed or magically pulsed, because there was, after all, a difference. Just not one she was sensitive to. Trinkets was the third tunnel to the right - the purple one. Devi knew not to go down the one bright black. (They needed a place to bury the bodies they couldn't above.) And to Not Make Eye Contact with the yellow one. (They didn't talk about that one.) Trinkets was beautiful in a surrealistic way. A countryside manor warped to just this side of recognisable and sheds floated about in and it's west wing crawled up the side of the house, climbing. It had been drip-dyed saturated. A shade of not-purple, flickering between red, and blue and violet like a broken television. There was a garden; Alphonse liked plants and Beachcomber had told the story of Alphonse's insistence for it several times over. It curled around the top of the enclave - a green sky - as the shop sat in its own puddle of mist. Parts of the house flickered in and out of vision like a dying flame. Windows shifted with visions of others. Worst would be the walk over. A pooling sky impossibly opaque would cut her feet off by the ankles, and she'd lose them wherever she placed her step, and half the time spent inside would be put towards convincing her they were still there. But inside were Beachcomber and Alphonse, who made quite the pair. Each quirky and sporadic in their own right, they got on like a house on fire. Universes would bend under their determination, and this sanctuary proved just that. Trinkets was private, and Trinkets was Alphonse’s, and Trinkets was Beachcomber’s. The Spiral was like Devi, a criminal by law, but Beach was a beast of a different kind. As a battle mage, he had power in this system. Traditionally, coliseum members were always renowned amongst the populace, and Salem could only uproot so much of Querevage's history. In the shop, shelving waited in line in once-open spaces. Warm maple wood spread beneath her feet and candles bobbed lazily in the air. Al, always one for dramatic entrances, dropped down from the air like a bat, and upside down he spoke, tone matching the glint in his eye and "If it isn't the great and powerful Devi," his smile spread bright, "You're home!" And she was.

2/?

FR Thread

The Lore That Inspired This

Devi | Alphonse | Salem