Sime~Gen Roleplaying: Householding Naros Scenario
Episode #178: If a Gen Falls in the Woods (11/16/99)
Buggfa is glad of a chance to stretch his legs.
Lalique climbs slowly down from her horse.
Buggfa is used to traveling by train and coach and only going horseback to get around town, so is rediscovering some of the effects of long distance road tripping.
Lalique pulls off her broad-brimmed hat and shakes out her long brown hair.
Buggfa does his level best to saunter, rather than hobble, over to a nearby branch where he can tie his horse.
Lalique peers in pleasure around the glade drifting with many-colored fall leaves.
Lalique takes a deep swig of water from her canteen. It dribbles down her neck.
Buggfa glances at the others, who are all safely occupied; only Lalique is nearby.
Buggfa still feels a bit trapped, although the stress is fading as he becomes more and more thoroughly lost and in trouble and the decision-making process is far behind him.
Lalique reaches up and unties her shiltpron from her pack.
Lalique: Hey, Buggfa, how about a bit of a jam session?
Buggfa looks surprised.
Buggfa: Well... OK.
Lalique: We're far enough out so we won't bother anyone.
Lalique: Or are you on vacation from music, too?
Buggfa laughs lamely.
Buggfa: No.
Lalique: Just for fun, then!
Buggfa finishes with his horse and turns toward Lalique.
Buggfa: Where?
Lalique tramps a bit deeper into the glade, where she spots a good heavy tree trunk to sit on.
Buggfa follows.
Lalique kicks up piles of yellow and red leaves as she walks.
Lalique positions the shiltpron and starts to tune it.
Buggfa slouches along with his hands in his pockets.
Lalique: Well, sir, what's your fancy?
Buggfa has vocal warm-ups he should theoretically do before any singing, but this probably isn't going to be very heavy duty singing anyway, just judging from what he heard her playing the other night.
Buggfa would feel self-conscious doing them out in the woods with a bunch of strangers anyway.
Buggfa: Nothing that goes too high. I didn't get any sleep last night.
Buggfa smiles ruefully.
Lalique tunes the bass tines and the vibrations seems to go straight through the earth.
Lalique: Still worrying?
Buggfa walks around a little bit around the trees, not wanting to sit down after all that riding.
Buggfa: Yeah.
Lalique: Sometimes ya gotta improvise.
Lalique executes a lightning run of mellow notes.
Lalique: Why don't you pick the tune?
Lalique: I noticed my repertoire didn't exactly bowl you over.
Buggfa laughs, obviously self-conscious.
Lalique: Today we're playing just for us.
Buggfa: I don't get into the Ancients much. [admits]
Buggfa: It's just so... disconnected.
Buggfa: I want to know that it really happened to somebody.
Lalique: Okay, what means something to you?
Buggfa: Um, well, how about "Ravishing Babes" by Janeese Ferone?
Buggfa tries to pick something that isn't a total mosh tune.
Lalique: Ok, well, I can't do all the harmonics with no tentacles, but I'll give it a go.
Buggfa: I heard a guy in Louis do a guitar version of it once.
Buggfa: You had to sort of make believe it was a shiltpron, but it kind of worked. He got a good reaction.
Lalique: Okay, I'll try it and you sing lead.
Buggfa thinks that's what's really important after all; the audience's reaction.
Lalique rasps at the tines of the shiltpron, producing a raucous howl like a cat in heat.
Lalique vibrates the middle string, producing heavy panting noises.
Buggfa looks around for some kind of audience, and noticing that Riyyh and Nick have wandered off, settles upon Lalique as the only audience available.
Lalique sets up a deep, rhythmic thrumming bass accompaniment.
Buggfa takes a moment to find his place in the song, since everybody seems to start the beginning part differently.
Buggfa strikes a pose.
Buggfa always has to get into what his bandmates call "girlie space" to do girl group cover tunes.
Buggfa: "Hello, ladies!"
Buggfa smiles at Lalique.
Lalique bows over the instrument and nods.
Buggfa puts out about 4 times as much personal energy when performing as when just being himself, which is probably a good thing considering.
Buggfa jumps to the side, grabs a small sapling about the size of a microphone stand, and "dips" it dramatically.
Lalique uses the shiltpron to magnify Buggfa's personal energy in a way that makes him feel like he is expanding outside his body in all directions.
Buggfa: "He loves those ravishing babes, he can't help it/ She'd like to shoot him when he comes home late at night"
Buggfa can't say much for the rhyming scheme, but it's nearly a classic.
Lalique growls and rasps, conveying furious jealousy and rage.
Buggfa: "He sees them walking on the avenues, his eyes go vavavoom/ She's about to put out his lights"
Buggfa: "She puts on mystery, sweet seductive lingerie/ He's back at 5am, she's drunk and gone to bed"
Lalique broadcasts rotting sweetness.
Lalique forces the sensations of a hangover into the ambient.
Buggfa releases the sapling [which snaps back, dropping the rest of its dead leaves] and starts to dance across the "stage", but trips on a hidden root.
Lalique: Watch out!
Buggfa skids but manages to remain upright.
Buggfa: Do you know what it means when the shiltpron player drools out of both sides of her mouth? [to the "audience"]
Lalique: [gleefully] No!
Buggfa: "It means the stage is level."
Buggfa slaps his knee.
Buggfa: Oh shen, I can't do this.
Buggfa sits down on the log.
Lalique: Why not?
Lalique chuckles.
Buggfa: The styles are so different. I didn't know what to do with all that stuff you were doing.
Buggfa can't zlin, but he can tell when they are competing nagerically.
Buggfa: Maybe if we plan it out.
Lalique: I know a lot of styles. Didn't mean to throw you a curve.
Buggfa: What did you do?
Buggfa: ~ curious ~
Lalique: Well you said you wanted to sing about something that really happened to someone.
Lalique: And that's what shiltpron is all about.
Lalique: Not just remembering something that really happened, but making it happen to everyone in the room-- now.
Lalique: It's not just music, it's magic.
Buggfa: So what did you do?
Lalique: I made you feel.
Lalique: Directly manipulated your emotions by modulating the ambient nager
Lalique: A Sime would have been bowled over, but even Gens can get some of it.
Lalique: That's what gives the music its power.
Buggfa thinks back over what happened.
Lalique: You sang about feeling drunk, I made you be drunk.
Buggfa: Oh man. Is that what that was?
Lalique: Yeah, intense, isn't it?
Buggfa: I'm not used to taking it so literally.
Buggfa: Like the words are real, but the music part is just giving an overall feeling.
Lalique: Usually one Gen can't affect another Gen that way, but with a shiltpron you can cut right through.
Buggfa: "Ravishing Babes" is all about, you know, wanting somebody you can't have. But there's, like, all different angles to it, and everybody has been in those different positions before.
Lalique nods.
Buggfa doesn't want to come right out and say that it's not cool to make 25,000 screaming teenagers feel like they just woke up from a 3 day bender.
Lalique: And I wouldn't usually use all these tricks on an audience.
Lalique: But I thought you might be interested to see what is possible.
Buggfa: Hey, man, I've been around the block once or twice myself you know.
Buggfa: I can't always tell what's going on but I know how to do my part.
Buggfa doesn't like the implication that he's incompetent and hasn't been paying attention to the biz over the last few years.
Lalique: Of course. When you sing that song about getting burned, you take the whole crowd with you.
Lalique: You make them feel the pain and the fear and the betrayal.
Lalique: Just like I made you feel drunk right now.
Lalique: It's a gift.
Buggfa thinks it was more like being terribly hung-over, but doesn't say so.
Buggfa: But we have it all choreographed.
Buggfa: It's all decided, how far is all right to go and what can be covered.
Lalique nods.
Buggfa: I do my part, and then Rock and T have their parts.
Lalique: But the feeling comes from you. Your emotions drive it. Your memory of what really happened.
Buggfa: The way you did that in the bar, the way you had them on the floor and then crying and laughing and stuff, that is so much more graphic than what we do in its own way.
Buggfa: When it comes down to it, what we're giving out is a certain energy level, a certain vibe that is mostly about being young and trying to figure things out. And we take it easy, taking the transitions real smooth.
Buggfa is not very articulate; what he's trying to say is that wildly opposite emotions in subsequent songs is, to him, the moral equivalent of wearing a pink plaid shirt with chartreuse pants.
Lalique: And it's good to take it easy at first.
Lalique: But that type of playing, it's more than just music.
Lalique: And it's certainly more than a product.
Lalique: It's a power.
Buggfa has also been trained to never, ever throw the audience a distasteful emotion.
Buggfa: Yeah?
Buggfa can't tell what Lalique is getting at.
Lalique: Okay, I'm going to play something more relaxing.
Lalique: See what you think of this.
Lalique plays an instrumental piece that is very ethereal, light and bubbly.
Lalique conveys a feeling of serene joy.
Lalique's music is so enchanting it is difficult to move or think clearly.
Buggfa listens, his eyes on her fingers.
Lalique concludes the song.
Buggfa does not have a Donor's vocabulary, and thinks of nageric interaction in its simplest terms: Is he driving the ambient, are others supporting or fighting him, is he irrelevant in the ambient, is it buffeting or pushing him around randomly. That sort of thing.
Lalique: That one isn't for entertainment; it's a healer's song.
Buggfa could feel her music plucking at him, although when in music mode he is not always aware of what the feelings technically are.
Buggfa: Oh yeah?
Buggfa: Pretty.
Buggfa has never had the fingers for that kind of playing.
Buggfa tends a little too far towards Gennish lack of coordination.
Lalique: It works as an anesthetic for people who are hurt.
Buggfa: Cool.
Lalique: So you see, it's not just music.
Lalique: What I did in the bar that night--putting people to sleep--wasn't just part of the act.
Lalique: It was crowd control.
Buggfa keeps his opinion of what it was to himself.
Buggfa: Yeah.
Lalique: What I do isn't choreographed.
Lalique: It's interactive.
Buggfa looks skeptical, but nods.
Lalique: Well, why don't you play for me a bit.
Buggfa: Oh, I don't know, I'm not that great.
Buggfa is not too shabby, but isn't sure he wants to play in front of somebody as impressed with her own skill as Lalique seems to be.
Buggfa also hasn't touched a shiltpron in about a month and a half and is probably rusty.
Buggfa eyes the instrument, noticing the brand, which is excellent.
Buggfa: Logan Signature model, hey? Nice.
Lalique: Yeah.
Lalique: Oh, don't worry. We're just messing around here.
Lalique: You trained out-Territory, right?
Buggfa: Naw, I just watch other people. Never got serious on it.
Buggfa never got serious on it to the extent that the professionals he tours with have, but he has gotten serious to the extent of putting in 3-6 hours a day practicing during his more intense periods.
Buggfa knows enough to know just how much of a skill gap there is between him and his co-workers, which is why he considers himself an amateur at it.
Buggfa finally reaches for the shiltpron.
Buggfa: Oh, all right, but don't expect a miracle.
Lalique hands Buggfa the shiltpron.
Lalique: No prob.
Buggfa takes a minute to adjust it and fiddle with all the fittings to make sure everything is in place, more out of nervous habit than for any really good reason.
Lalique settles back to listen.
Buggfa decides to try the song she played, in a simpler form. The chord progression is memorable enough, and the details of the notes aren't that important. Plus, he figures she'd like it if he seemed to be grooving on her speech.
Buggfa's nager starts out featureless, but gradually takes on an approximation of the push he'd felt from her before.
Lalique watches how Buggfa handles the instrument.
Buggfa's hands are sluggish, as if on the verge of being too clumsy for the work.
Buggfa concentrates carefully.
Buggfa of course can go ape-wild on a shiltpron too, but he doesn't get the impression that's what Lalique is into.
Buggfa doesn't really see what the point is in going full out for a bunch of trees either, especially with the rogue and Sectuib What's His Name within earshot.
Lalique maintains awareness of the ambient to see whether Buggfa can convey an emotion besides teenage angst. 1
Buggfa does a passable imitation of her projection, perhaps off a bit because he wasn't thinking of it in terms of the emotion involved, but in terms of the technique.
Buggfa, had he been thinking about emotion, would probably be projecting teenaged angst-- mainly because he's been feeling quite a bit of it over the past 24 hours.
Lalique is pleased to note that Buggfa's control is better than she expected.
Lalique also is encouraged to see that he has an emotional range that goes beyond his own personal traumatic experiences.
Buggfa finishes the tune and his nageric projection ends with it.
Lalique grins.
Lalique: I know that was a very different style than you are used to.
Buggfa: Pushing is pushing, I guess.
Buggfa: But the music's different.
Buggfa wonders how the tune would sound redone for two shiltprons and with lyrics added.
Lalique: You don't approve of pushing?
Buggfa: It's OK.
Buggfa: I mean, it's part of the job.
Lalique: It depends what job.
Buggfa: Well, there's pushing back when the audience tries to go somewhere you don't want to go, and there's pushing to help them along.
Buggfa: I don't like that first kind.
Buggfa also doesn't like being on the receiving end of it.
Lalique nods.
Lalique: And where do you want them to go?
Buggfa: But I mean, in terms of the different kinds of songs, and what kind of ambient stuff goes with it, it doesn't really matter.
Buggfa: If somebody shows me how it should be, I can do it.
Buggfa: Didn't I just do it?
Buggfa can't be entirely sure without audience feedback.
Lalique smiles warmly.
Lalique: Yes, you did.
Buggfa: But I mean the important thing isn't the ambient anyway, it's the music.
Buggfa: The ambient is like, oh, the lighting.
Buggfa: You gotta have lighting, you gotta have ambient, but it's not like crucial.
Buggfa may be speaking from a vocals-centric point of view, but that's probably to be expected.
Buggfa: I mean, who ever heard of ambient poetry that a whole stadium full of people would show up to zlin?
Buggfa: It's the music that really puts it all together.
Lalique grins.
Lalique: You're forgetting your history.
Lalique: Shiltpron music for a crowd in a stadium is really, really modern.
Lalique: And for an out-Territory crowd, everything you say makes sense.
Lalique: But who invented this music? Where did it come from and why?
Lalique: Simes invented the shiltpron, way, way before Unity.
Lalique: Juncts invented this music, to make themselves drunk and to raise intil.
Lalique: When you see it that way, the ambient is everything.
Lalique: It's the music that's just incidental.
Buggfa figures a shiltpron player would see it that way.
Buggfa: Oh yeah?
Lalique: Well, it's a particularly in-T point of view.
Lalique: I realize that.
Buggfa: I'm not stupid, you know.
Lalique: Don't think you are.
Buggfa thinks it's a little hard to tell, what with all the 'way way before Unity's and the 'You're forgetting your history's.
Buggfa: There's a guy, a designer, who's in charge of all that.
Buggfa: Different one every tour.
Lalique: In charge of the ambient?
Buggfa: Designing it.
Buggfa: You know, Lighting Designer, Set Designer, Choreographer, Sound Designer, Ambient Designer.
Buggfa: They get together and trade notes until they come up with something that'll be shaboom.
Buggfa: Pyrotechnics, dance choreographer, all of it.
Buggfa: Then we, us, have a look at it and make sure it's something we can deal with.
Buggfa: Sometimes we get some input, you know, like 'this is kind of a pink song, can we get some kind of pink lighting for it?' and they try to work it in.
Buggfa: But basically if the Ambient Designer thinks I ought to be on the thrust for one song and maybe upstage left for another song, or thinks I should push one way or a different way, I just do it. He gets paid the big bucks to know what he's doing.
Lalique nods.
Buggfa has noticed that the average ambient designer also thinks he gets paid the big bucks to be flighty, hostile and egotistical, but that's just a designer thing.
Buggfa: I mean, I don't even get a choice for what I do most of the time.
Buggfa: The only thing I'm in charge of is whether I do a good job or a lousy job.
Buggfa is nearly quoting his managers on that last part.
Lalique: And that's fine for the packaged performance.
Lalique: But you're not on stage all the time.
Lalique: The ambient is something to be aware of, always.
Lalique: And sometimes you've got to improvise how to push it, as you know.
Lalique: Now, I haven't had the benefits of designers or security guards.
Lalique: When I perform, I'm on my own.
Buggfa nods.
Buggfa can dig that, he just doesn't see what it has to do with him.
Lalique: Your hit song was about getting burnt by a renSime.
Buggfa: He told me he was a channel.
Lalique: And you were hurt, and you felt betrayed, because you should have been safe.
Buggfa: Mainly I was scared out of my wits.
Buggfa: And then I felt like an idiot.
Buggfa: But that was only after I woke up again.
Buggfa: They said I was lucky to have made it.
Buggfa: I still don't know why he stopped before I was dead. Maybe somebody interrupted or something.
Buggfa shrugs.
Lalique: Or maybe you pushed just enough to save your own life.
Buggfa: Maybe.
Buggfa doesn't remember anything except a white hot blinding pain that had his will and body completely paralyzed until he lost consciousness.
Lalique: When I was your age, I was performing in-T down in Gulf.
Lalique: I knew they weren't channels.
Lalique: Lose control of the ambient, and they'd be on me in a flash.
Lalique: But I knew how to push, and that was my protection.
Lalique: The right push and you can make a Sime do anything.
Lalique: That's the trick you ought to add to your repertoire.
Lalique: For the times your ambient designer is on vacation.
Lalique laughs.
Buggfa: Huh.
Buggfa thinks about it.
Buggfa: Well I can't say I agree with everything you do, but that part of it seems to make sense.
Buggfa means, the part about being able to defend yourself when grabbed by an aggressive renSime.
Lalique: You pick it up real fast.
Buggfa thinks he ought to pick that one up before his next vacation... and also some karate skills for the Gens who try to grab him as well.
Buggfa will have to acquire a gun if he keeps getting grabbed by groups of rogues though.
Lalique: I see you put on those dark glasses all the time.
Buggfa looks at her.
Lalique: I can show you a push that will make a Sime forget you're there when you're standing right in front of him.
Buggfa: Oh yeah?
Buggfa wonders what happens when the Sime figures out what you did and gets mega steamed.
Lalique grins wickedly.
Buggfa wonders, not for the first time, what he's gotten himself into.
Notes:
1) This is wildly non-canonical. A Gen should not be able to detect changes in the ambient directly. According to canon, some well-trained Gens can sense their own bodies' reactions to Simes, however there are no Simes in this scene. There is nothing in canon to suggest a shiltpron can substitute for a Sime in this way. [return]