M: Anita Begay, Rhythm Revolutionary Codename Trance
trance
GENRE: Futuristic political dystopia.
ARCHETYPE: Overprotective, anti-social workaholic? Maybe?
REPRESENTATIVE JOURNAL ENTRIES: ONE
REPRESENTATIVE ROLEPLAY LOGS: Forthcoming!
PERSPECTIVE ESSAYS: Forthcoming!
NAME: Born Anita Begay, but answers most to Trance, Ana Lynch, and Sarah Yazzie.
DATE OF BIRTH, AGE: 30 May 2052, 23 as of 4 April 2075.
AFFILIATIONS: Rhythm Revolution, Blitzkrieg
PROFESSION: Stocking clerk, Vinyl? Never Outta Style!, where she has worked for three years and managed to meet many, if not all, of the band mates of Blitzkrieg. Her duties include stocking shelves, tabulating stock prices, making sales displays, throwing spitballs at some of her more favorite coworkers, writing up staff music recommendations, and the occasional (and unfortunate) sales pitch. On the weekends and evenings, she's busting her ass as the guitarist of Blitzkrieg.
PERSONALITY: Even before her brother's untimely death, Trance was many things to the casual observer: succinct, blunt, curt to the point of ambiguous rudeness, frigid, dry to the point of humorlessness, and certainly not, by any stretch of the imagination, kind. Not to say that she is intentionally cruel, but it would be a mistake to say that she is a welcoming figure or easy to befriend; her eyes have always been hard, her jaw set, and her words few and carefully chosen for their mission. She prefers the company of those who are quiet and retiring, which considering the company she often keeps in actuality means that Trance is frequently an island unto herself. Although Trance should never be recommended for the welcome wagon of anything, she is quite capable of being polite and can certainly have civilized conversation, but most of her words are short, clipped, and so incredibly to the point in order that she might recede into the crowd and be left alone as soon as possible. Her taciturn tendencies are born from a violent combination of culture shock, social maladjustment, and a honest desire to not quarrel with people as much as she ends up doing -- not, it must be noted, for grief, and many find it either strange or callous that this is the case.
But, of course, people are just too interested in pushing buttons, and so the only other quality that Trance is widely known for within the Revolution other than her eerie silence is her quick and violent temper. When Trance wishes to be loud, she is more than deafening -- her little Box certainly helps. Often running ragged on one end of insomnia or the other and hopped up on caffeine, Trance's mood is brittle and prone to shattering at the worst of times, frequently resulting in the unfortunate recipient of her rage gaining battle scars in the form of tiny fist-shaped bruises, bleeding eardrums, and cuts from various things she might've thrown at the individual's head. Her rage, in her mind, is not careless nor flippant, but it frequently is over the smallest of offences -- touching her notebooks is a no-no, stopping in the middle of rehearsal is enough to get a shrieking guilt lecture, and if you dare try to enter her room without express permission or wake her before any period of her slumber might be over? Well. It was nice knowing you, sir or madam; the afterlife, I hear, is plush and inviting.
But there is more to Trance than sharp mood swings and sullen periods of quiet, and as shocking as it might be to hear, most of the following news on the girl is good. She's clever, for one thing -- and by clever, it should be read that Trance is quite intelligent for one who has taught herself most of the knowledge within her head. Her wall of notebooks is substantial because they are the only textbooks the girl could (and can) afford, and Trance's system of note-taking and organization makes it a particularly valuable resource to any who might want to learn more about a particular subject within the Revolution. (It must be noted that if one were to even remotely hint towards wanting to see her notes on anything, it is the one time in which Trance is practically pushing someone towards her doorway.) Her blunt and acidic tongue lies in the fact that Trance values honesty in word and deed, even though she might have problems expressing such sentiment. She finds obfuscation of the truth to be unneeded and cruel to those involved on either end, and thus attempts to avoid such tactics at all costs. And her determination! It is this, beyond all things, that probably forges Trance, for she is a woman of will and steel. It is why she has not cried for her brother nor will give herself the time to expel such emotion; instead, she channels such energy into what she thinks will honor his memory best, which is advancing the Revolution's aims and pushing Blitzkrieg to enough skill to be considered a band to be noted equally for accomplishment and for message. Since she cannot bear to leave something started unfinished, most of her insomnia stems from this habit, and so one of her more admirable traits sadly feeds one of her worst.
That being said, there is, of course, the question of the nature of a friendship with such an individual to be discussed. Surprisingly, after getting through the tough outer cover (and rest assured, my darling masochists, she will make it a journey that is not soon forgotten), Trance's companionship can be rewarding and even enjoyable -- well, if you're into that sort of thing. Conversations are an unsaid reward of Trance's approval, and once she loosens up around a person, she has a surprisingly playful and almost childish sense of humor that is certainly a family trait, if anyone knew anything about Techno prior to his unfortunate demise. There's a quiet loyalty to Trance that her parents taught her, and so she considers those worthy enough to care about (and who care in turn) to be worthy enough to die for. In that readiness, there betrays Trance's excellently hidden naivete; she believes, even after the disappearance of her family and culture and the death of what was left, that there can be a goal to work for that's enough to salvage it and everything, by virtue of her musical mission and her continued membership within the Revolution. But she's a clever girl, wise, and knows this is not a sentiment to be worn on sleeves; so, Trance keeps on being sullen, if only so that she can survive despite the chances as a testament to a promise of love and all that romantic shit she likes to claim is a big pile of crap.
LIKES: Coffee, organization, quiet, sleep, cleanliness, Therapy Cat, her own particular definition of modesty, doing it right the first time, a good work ethic, knowledge, honesty, thoughtfulness, respect of her boundaries, idealized concepts, writing, ballpoint pens, composition books, heels of any type, skirts that don't get in the way, ambiguous haircuts, music so loud and hard that a person can feel it in their bones, the Gibson, vinyl 45s, decorative bumper stickers from underground factions, sharp colors for outside, soft colors for inside, the Way, Dinetah, sign language, secretive culinary exploits, a well-formulated argument, finding exactly what she wanted in good time, Blitzkrieg and its nucleus, strenuous exercise, the out of doors, the morning routine, and freedom on many scales.
DISLIKES: Talking, invasion of privacy, her insomnia, tampering with the Notebook Shelf, sudden loud noises, sudden loud noises whilst attempting any sort of sleep, a botched job, cleaning up after a botched job, any mention of her tits/ass/legs/body part that may or may not be attractive, laziness, lying, deceit and trickery, careless actions, purposeful annoyance, her currently abnormal state, the color pink, nuclear wasteland, cities, insinuation that she has no sense of humor, stupidity, thinking that stupidity is intrinsically linked to book smarts, the current state of things, outright culinary exploits, grappling with cultural orphanage, and having to hide the fact that she likes plants she can nurture as well as small and cute animals.
HISTORY: In honesty, the story that Anita Begay heard as a child was certainly romanticized, but the basic facts remained the same -- which is that as the handful of those that call themselves the People would say, when the bomb was dropped, they tried to dig into the Fourth World. The Dinetah, which was known by many names -- Navajoland, the Navajo Nation, or simply the Rez -- was wholly unprepared for the onslaught of the nuclear winter. New Mexico and Arizona's landscape did not lend itself (themselves) to burrowing, to hiding from the waves, but the People tried as best as they could. Some still managed to thrive, make children, continue the Way, but it was difficult in the wake of such desolation. Hatałii, their importance in the society renewed by the sudden nuclear holocaust, started to speak of a proverbial "Sixth" World, to the west, and that if altse hastliin and altse asdzaan were within their midst, they would begin the march. Others cried afoul; what elders would dare command abandonment of Dinetah if they were going to be traditional as to invoke such literal religious imagery? Many who had been waiting for the excuse to leave the Rez ran out in numbers, either for fortune or at the risk of death. There were earlier groups, led by hatałii, who managed to make it to the fledgling city and make groups of their own free will. But, when the government came to the Nation and said, "Let us buy or die," all those left went with "die."
The dirty, filthy savages, as they like to say, usually go quietly.
Anita Begay's family was one of the groups that went with the hatałii. It was a small band of clans, not necessarily matrilinerally linked, that Sarah Tsosie traveled across with in the dying Ford pick-ups that weren't meant to go any farther than from Window Rock to Winslow and yet were running from what was Alberquerque to what might've been Boston and what might've been Charleston. No one could really tell. Eventually, the little mix of the People tried to make it in this proverbial Sixth World, this after-the-apocalypse, and for a while, they made it. Sarah Tsosie made cow eyes at Brian Yazzie. They married, made love, had children. Natasha was her youngest; out of the womb by 35 and a beautiful child with shining eyes, a hearing deficiency, and cleverness, but Sarah was used to this, as her children always just managed to have something a little off that she knew wasn't due to inter-clan marriage or shame.
By this time, the family was in the City and the damn savages were hungry and poor -- but, they were quiet, though, so Shusai could ignore them nicely, which they did. By necessity of culture and indignance, other small, battered Navajo smelled each other out in the desperation. It was how Natasha found Gregory Begay, a strong and tall man that smelled of honest work and imitation Old Spice. She was pleased to know that her first twin, another Gregory, came out screaming and healthy, but it unnerved her when she learned that the doctor couldn't hear the second. The news was, after a bit, that the child merely couldn't speak, and Natasha knew that Anita had her family's unfortunate genetic luck. Still, it was a family; something the young woman had wanted from her youngest of years and was quite frightened she'd never have.
At length, the twins grew up together happily; poor though they might be, the Begays made a point to teach their children the language of the People and to help observe the Way as best they could. If it wasn't Natasha or Gregory, then it was Sarah -- widower courtesy of McLean -- who molded her little grandchildren. Anita and Greg (for that was what the younger of the two Gregorys was called) were thick as thieves, helping each other out in classes (Greg for sign language interpretation, Anita for homework assistance) and being general nuisances, as children can often be. It was when the two slowly budded into teenagers, shortly after Anita had Kinaaldá and there was talk of seriously training Greg to become a hatałii, that the parents Begay saw a notice for an experimental medical study available to those on or below the poverty line. Considering its mention of new prosthetic device specifically to assist "the deaf, the dumb, the blind, and the mute," they signed their dearest daughter up -- without, might it be noted, asking her. Intentions, however kind, did not seem to find it prudent to see if Anita found it a necessity to speak -- which she did not. She is, as she thought, what she is for a reason.
Still, she went through with it. All papers were signed, everything was done, and she was on the table. Natasha and Gregory held their breath, sobbed inconsolably as one would expect when they heard of their daughter's death on the table. Yet young Greg, who knows of what one feels as a twin and the certain wholeness that is insinuated but never spoken of, was not convinced. He snuck into the room where Anita had been before the surgery and found her, quiet and sleeping, almost ready to be taken by Shusai for more tests that the family would never dream about or know. There were guards, though, who saw the twins together and so they were forced to take flight. Later, months down the road, when they tried to track down the Begays, there was no trace of grandmother nor parents. By this time, the savages were getting a little antsy. The People were starting to become People again. They wanted rights, recognition that Anglo-America tends to forget decade after decade. Anita and Greg could only guess as to what might've happened: racial hatred, nomadic lifestyle, riots?
At any rate, soon after Anita's surgery, the two managed to find the Revolution as a bit of a fluke. The homeless, of course, were not exactly a surprise to anyone within the City, but an elder member now long-dead managed to take the two pubescent children under her wing and managed to obtain suitable housing for the two within Chaos Radio. For years, the two (now known as Trance and Techno) coped as best they could from being plunged from loving family to a group of loving strangers with no knowledge of their culture. Techno especially enjoyed his time within the Revolution; with no school, he enjoyed a rather steady position at a local Burrito Gong as a server and starting up a little garage band to occupy his time in between "hard-core awesome-ass thuggin' missions" called The Nothings. Trance, by this time sullen and taciturn from family-sickness, speech, and no learning, took to the band (and to her multitude of odd jobs, which was markedly worse) with a half-hearted but honest effort. This passive-aggressive reluctance included recruitment; the make-up of The Nothing's sound is courtesy mostly of who Techno brought to the table in terms of people, but Trance did manage to sniff out a brilliant find of a rough-singing front man in a young Revolutionary codenamed Punk when she went to a gig at some hole-in-the-wall after yet another unfortunate pink slip from some seedy burger joint. But, it seemed he was rhythm guitar only, which meant that such a discovery (plus finding an old Gibson electric in a dumpster) meant that the role of lead guitarist managed to fall into her lap.
Although taking onto the instrument reasonably well considering the circumstances, Trance knew she needed outside practice. Her searches for self-help guitar tutorials were wholly successful, ending up blossoming a more earnest hobby: research. Her hunger for knowledge consumed her evenings, making every waking moment more and more urgent as she tried to make up for years of no school and a need to develop her book-smarts and teachers. Eventually, she managed to obtain a job at a local record shop called Vinyl? Never Outta Style!, owned by a bit of a nutcase, but he allowed her to be filled with quirks. Recruits for the Revolution flowed and ebbed out of her life, and everything seemed as normal as it could be for a teenage rebel with a twin, a garage band, and a serious case of insomnia and a coffee addiction.
Then came the Massacre of Santa Clara.
Trance would later recount that she found it ironic that her brother was killed like a dog near a church dedicated to Santa Clara. The Spaniards were who first made the Navajo kneel down and pretend to lick balls, and so that cold night in April of 2074 when her brother was burnt alive, made to be barbeque, a bit of Trance died in irony and Napalm. The band did too, of course; it was a riot and The Nothings were all there, and there went the drummer, the bassist, and the turntablist like a book of matches. Many died that night, of course, but Trance and Punk only dragged one corpse home and prepared it for burial in a place that had no place to dig a hole. She (they, technically, alright?) did it anyway, by spite, at the foot of that fucking Catholic church.
She decided, at the memorial service, that she would not generate any pity for herself. She allowed herself a day to mourn, and then she set to work with what her brother left her. After talking with Punk at length, the two reformed the band under the name "Blitzkrieg" and got to work. What used to be a rather lazy and "for fun" sort of band is now into the craft, devoted, and on a mission to spread Revolution propaganda most subversively courtesy of their good friend rock-and-roll -- and so is Trance, hard as nails and coarse as fuck, and if she's to be frank, rather unapologetic about it.
GAME(S) PLAYED: "nishishoni" at The MAIMED PROJECT at Insanejournal.
STATUS: Active
PLAYED-BY: Dania Ramierz