The Electric State, Into the Dust Bonus
The Nantz Diaries
These diaries were written after each session by Alex Marchant, who played Nantz in the game. With Alex’s permission, I’m reposting them here on the blog. They brought a wonderful sense of atmosphere to the sessions, and I always looked forward to reading them, so I’m delighted they’re now preserved here for posterity.
Content Warning: Copious amounts of the word f**k
Character sheet
Name: Nancy ‘Nantz’ Alvarez (She/They pronouns)
Age: mid-late twenties (edited by player)
Archetype: The Outsider
Favourite Song: More - Sisters of Mercy (edited by player)
Dream: Write "the great American novel”
Flaw: Any time someone tells you what to do, you rebel and do the opposite.
Initial character description (created by player, based partially on pre-gen picture):
Everything about Nancy ‘Nantz’ Alvarez says "go fuck yourself". Her 'resting face' is a sneer. She stopped trying to fit in a long time ago and now leans into counter culture just as hard as the normies cling to... well, whatever everybody else is into. They hate it about themself, but they think they’re superior to everybody else. Androgynous looking, bright pink hair with a severe undercut, wooden ear stretchers in both ears, a mix between goth, punk, and metal clothing. They carry a notebook where they are writing their Great American Novel, along with copies of American Psycho, The Great Gatsby, and Little Women ("you think that's weird? Go fuck yourself").
Why write an ‘in character’ journal?
Considering this character is meant to have the dream of writing the next ‘Great American Novel’, I thought it would be neat to have them carry a notebook, be writing in it in any downtime period, and share ‘in character’ journal entries with the other players and GM as a kind of summary between each session.
I loved writing these!
Sometimes, actually sitting down and writing them was a bit of a burden as real-life pressures meant I didn’t have much time between sessions. But I persevered, and I think it came out well. It really allowed me as a player to get a handle on how Nantz was feeling about the setting, the events, and the other characters.
I loved it so much, I’m now thinking of ways to make this a regular thing in other campaigns. A letter home to dear Papa in Good Society? Keeping Ma informed from her sick bed in Tales of the Old West? A reflective journal by a scientist in Cosmic Dark? A pen-friend correspondence in Trail/Call of Cthulhu? Or simply keeping a diary?
Nantz’s journal entries after each of the eight sessions of Into the Dust
Session 1: Juvenile delinquent wrecks? My ass!
What the fuck is happening to this world? Just today, there’s a kid. Yeah, he’s a kid, but he’s got smarts, you can see it. He knows his own mind. And he’s being pursued by a dogged social worker across the city. Like, what the fuck? He just wants to be free. To be free to do what he wants to do. And not to be hassled by The Man. He just wants to have a good time.
And then further down the road, there’s a bunch of middle-aged construction workers, who, mid-shift, can’t resist the pull of the Electric State so much that they down tools in the middle of the road, jack in and bliss out. Like, what the fuck?
Fuck Figaro fiddling whilst Rome burns. We are all just pissing into the wind, smoking a cigarette, and blissfully watch the moral disintegration of society. And The Man calls us Juvenile Delinquent Wrecks? Well, The Man can kiss my fucking ass!
Session 2: Reach out and touch faith? Bull-fucking-shit
What is it with religion? Some folks need it, others not, but when some folks need it, they REALLY need it. Before the world went to shit, small-town America relied on faith. Faith in The Dream, faith in The System, faith in… Jesus? For a moment there, I thought o’ JC was being drowned by the Bliss wave, but here in Littletown, Buttfuckofnowhere, there they all are, all jacked in and blissing out on the archangel Gabriel himself. Like, what the fuck? Just reach out and touch faith and get your own personal Jesus. It’s all bullshit man. Bull-fucking-shit. Something weird is going down here, and we’re gonna help these folks see the light.
Why? Why us? Jeese, did I just say to the others that “if we don’t help these folks, who will?”. Fuck, what’s up with me? I’m suddenly back in my teenage D&D campaign, fighting against my murder hobo friends. Well, this bunch of chucklefucks seem to think it’s a good idea - I’m not sure what I’m more surprised by - myself, these fuckers risking themselves for some strangers, or the strangers themselves, looking for their own personal Jesus. Well shit, it seems like we’re doing this… fuck.
doing this… fuck.
Session 3: Did we just kill a “new god” with a Empire Strikes Back move? Cool-as-fuck dude, cool-as-fuck
So, it turns out the archangel was a big drone. But here’s the real zinger - no fucking human manning the thing… and it wasn’t ‘just’ on auto. There’s something out there man… a new form of… what? Intelligence? Life? That’s hurting my phenomenal mind, but you know what? Here is the next Great American Novel. Here’s my niche. This is my gateway to literary immortality.
We took it down like a motherfucking AT-AT, metal cables n’ n’all. That little Willy has got some big balls… that sounds weird, even for me. Shit, I need to ask the little fella if he really wants to be called Willy - does he not know that in Britain they call a weiner a willy… He needs to listen to more UK music - I’ll start him on a bit of Bowie, I think, then some Sisters, and then maybe come back to some punk - I think he’ll like the pistols… he’ll definitely like the pistols, the little asshole.
Cade, man - he’s seen things in the neuroscape - he needs a bit of tlc. He ain’t gonna get shit from me, apart from the odd smoke - he’s too nice. What’s up with him? Need to peel off that veneer, me-thinks. But maybe he touched on something there with his mutterings of “new gods”, like, what the fuck is that thing we encountered?
Billy-lee just smoked a guy. Like, flat out took him down with one shot. The guy, sure, he had a gun, but he hadn’t fired it yet… man, that’s cold. But…. he did protect the innocent parties involved, so maybe I shouldn’t have given him a hard time about it. He looked pretty shook up by it, even if he was all matter-of-fact about it the next day, cold. Not sure I can trust someone so pragmatic. Him and people like him are the reason we’re in this mess. Don’t give him an easy time - he doesn’t deserve it. He was a soldier. He’s taken other people's lives too. Sure, Jimmy was definitely an asshole and would have killed us all if he had the chance, but damn… that intellect, that utterly unique individual, all their hopes and dreams (as vile and decrepit as they may be), their memories of playing ball with their parents, their potential to change… all gone… like blood down the drain (less poetic than tears in the rain, but more apt - still, needs work). Maybe I should give him that lighter I’ve got, the one from the soldier in Vietnam… might help him in some way… yeah, but does he deserve it? Shit.
Session 4: Who does a girl have to fuck around here to get a bic biro?
Sorry dear imaginary reader, but my pen ran out of ink. What’s a girl to do? Fortunately, I found a crewed-up bic stuffed down the couch in the lobby. And what’ya know? It still has a little bit of juice still left in it. Looks like my luck is up.
As if meeting the archangel Gabriel wasn’t weird enough, we just ran into a child-like drone with super strength that wanted to play hide-and-seek FOR-EV-ER. What the fuck is happening? Was that drone piloted by a child? Or was it… na, that’s bullshit. I mean, even IF there is something sentient and autonomous in the Neuroscape, it can’t be producing children, can it? Wouldn’t it just copy&paste itself or something?
Looks like my Great American Novel will be a piece of bleak speculative ‘fiction’ set in the uncanny valley. In the face of that hellscape, no wonder someone chewed the fuck out of this bic.
Session 5: “Liberty needs to be deconstructed”
I don’t wholly disagree. Does that make me as bad as that… cyborg?
Am I an agitator that will shepherd in a new Age of Enlightenment in this age of disembodied bliss and societal decay? Or am I just part of the disease? Escapism via literary bliss and the daydream of another Great American Novel. WAIT! Where’s that gun…!? WILLY!!!!
Session 6: A hippy utopia on the edge of nowhere
I’m struggling to think of a reason to leave this place.
Sure, there are scary men with guns, but there are scary men with guns everywhere. At least these ones seem to have their own thing going on and aren’t insisting on us pledging allegiance to some sort of ‘New America’ - what the fuck was that all about?
Jesus H. Christ, Mother Mary, and the Holy Father, please deliver me from this insanity.
Let’s see how this plays out. But the idea of a bit of "Turn on, tune in, drop out” doesn’t sound too bad to me. Maybe all that social anthropology that I‘ve read might come in useful after all - “Meaning making in a meaningless Electric State: perspectives from The Fallen and The Risen”. I’m sure the editor will butcher that to something like “Jack in, Tune out, Drop dead” or something else you’d find on a t-shirt in Venice Beach… [sigh]
Session 7: The State of the Nation Group
Cade looks better. Better still, with a guitar in his hand. He’s come out of his… coma?… and is even sounding good on stage with the band. There is a fragility behind that smile. An earnestness beneath that bravado. God damn it if I’m not beginning to like the fuck. I’m getting soft.
Willy is growing up fast. I mean, he had the street smarts already, but he’s maturing. He knows when to take, when to ask, when to acquiesce. Not just with us, but the rest of the world. He’s shown some balls that one. I’m confident he’ll find his way.
Billy-Lee, there’s no hiding that trauma. Not if you’ve spent the best part of a week with the fella. I gave him my lighter from Nam. It has an engraving on it: “Bury me upside down so the world can kiss my ass”. I didn’t quite realise, but I do now. Even those that are, or were, ‘The Man’, can still find their punk and raise their middle finger to the world. It seems to me that Billy-Lee has some ghosts to bid farewell to. And if he can’t do that, well, I hope he finds his middle finger and tells them to fuck the right off.
And me? What is there to say, dear imaginary reader? I’ll let good o’ HST say it for me: "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, 'Wow! What a ride!'".
Session 8: Is this the End?
Some things come to an end. Others endure. Some wither and fade away with no real point of inflexion. How are we meant to know? Does it even matter?
Billy-Lee, Cade, Willy, and myself all set out with a common end goal, to get to the Blackwelt Exclusion Zone. We began with that achievable and quantifiable end in sight. Only one of us made it. Is that the end?
Good for you, Billy-Lee, you made it. I hope you find what you’re looking for in the zone. And even more importantly, I hope that in the finding of It, you find some peace. I hope Billy-Lee remembers it’s OK to just say ‘Fuck it’ sometimes. Now, more than ever, that seems like an appropriate response to this shit show of a world we’re living through. Hope is a scarce commodity, but after spending a week with the dude, I’m willing to spend some of mine on Billy-Lee. He needs it.
Cade seems to have re-found himself here in Soleri and is looking to hang out for a while. His smile is now more than skin deep, and when he’s up on stage, I see a momentary transcendence in his face. An analogue transcendence, without a ‘new god’ in sight. I’m happy for him, the cheesy fuck. I’m not entirely convinced by his chosen genre of music, but I am convinced music is his element.
Willy could probably do with meeting some teens of a similar age. Ones that might show him what a bit of normality looks like. Well, normal for teens who live in Soleri - a combination of an RV park, a music festival, and a wicker man-esque burning of a military drone ritual, all sandwiched between two cults. Normal is, always has been, and always will be, relative.
And me? Well, I too am gonna hang out in Soleri. For a while, at least. This pseudo-utopian commune seems like a fine place to chill and start writing properly. I have an expansive semi-autobiographical road trip novel vivisecting what remains of the American Dream coming together in my mind. Perhaps it’ll be the next Great American Novel. Perhaps not. But I’ll write it anyway. Oh, and I swear a certain desert goth gave me the eye the other day. So perhaps I could persuade dear Molly to educate me in the ways of her kind. As long as she’s the one teaching, I’ll be willing to listen.
So, is this the End? And does it even matter? I guess it’s not really about the end. Or the beginning. Or even the journey for that matter. But rather, where you find yourself right now. Be it saving a town from the archangel Gabriel, solving a series of murders conducted by a cyborg janitor, or brokering peace between a technohead cult and a group of Luddites. Live whatever comes your way and fuck everything else. And if anybody tries to stop you from enjoying the moment? Well, there’s always the middle finger, a Doc Martin in the groin, and a screamed “Fuck off” in their face. That normally does the trick.