Zeitgeist: The Founders

Occasionally I write bits that won't make it into the story proper. This was written a couple months ago:

******cutting room floor******

(Our trio are relaxing over a few beers)

Scriabin: So, why composers, anyway?
(The others laugh; Scriabin looks from one to the other)
Satie: Audio chat, and booze.
Liszt: See, legend has it that some of the Movement's founders were chatting drunk one night, and when the one guy had to leave for a minute--
Satie (conspiratorial aside to Scriabin): --to take a piss--
Liszt (ignoring Satie): --instead of doing an "afk" or something, he said--
Satie (perfect Terminator imitation): "Ah'll be bach."
Liszt: And so the other guy says, "I'll be Brahms."
(The two of them apparently find this uproariously funny)
Scriabin: Please tell me you're kidding.
Satie (wiping away a mock tear): Nope. Our illustrious Founders--Bach, Brahms, and Ludwig.
Scriabin: Ludwig?
Liszt (grins): He was too drunk to pronounce Beethoven.

[ah, college, where I learned that enough alcohol can make ANYTHING funny.]

******************

And here they are, the revered Founders, back in the day. See, it occurred to me that if my Zeitgeist is set bascially in the present, that the Movement would be at least, oh, say, ten or so years old, since that's when the Internet started really catching on. So my mind started to resurrect the trends of the day, and....there they were.

Bach is basically what goth looked like before there were Hot Topics in every mall, back when live-action Vampire was still being play-tested at cons, and when the Downward Spiral was still a hot, must-have album. Before Marilyn Manson and skater-boy fashion and the whole baggy-pants thing. (Pardon my nostalgia, there.)

Brahams dresses like a slacker-boy from when people were just figuring out that Seattle had a pretty cool music scene. Despite the occasional indulgence in recreational pharmaceuticals, he's a smart cookie, and actually the most conventional of the three. He's pretty laid back, so it's hard to tell.

Ludwig is the charismatic one, the rabble-rousing demagogue, the rallyer of troops, a punk in the DIY tradition. He was the one who inspired and/or pushed the Movement to organize, and remains prominent to this day. The other two were the source of most of the discussion that led to the idea of being able to actively choose the events around your own personal timeline, and the existence of the Zeitgeist--but it all would have stayed in drunken 3-am conversations if it weren't for Ludwig.

This came out well enough to stick in the gallery, which is good, because Verdi and Satie are in scraps, and yet I couldn't help but write actual information on them anyway. I've never drawn a leather jacket before, and will be gleeful about that for at least a little while.