#and none of the other 5*s either like there's fucking seven of them i've gotten two there are FIVE others it could give

[thingswhatareawesome]

i hate you stellar warp, i hate you i hate you i hate you i fucking HATE you

[sleeperagentclone]

@figsandphiltatos Tagged me!

shuffle your on repeat playlist (on spotify) and list the first 10 songs and then tag 10 people

1. Roses are Falling by Orville Peck

OOOOH BOY. So like I have a very vivid imagination and a very good minds eye and for years I have been plagued with visions when listening to this song. *Exterior, wild west, sunset* A cowboy stands smoking a cigarette and watching the sunset, back to his companion who is rummaging through a saddle bag "I guess they say nobodies perfect" The second cowboy turns "But they've never" aims his revolver at the first cowboy "Met a devil" cocks the gun "like you" a single gunshot rings out across the prairie. Anyway I can't fucking draw so now I'm writing a book about outlaw lesbians in the wild west who have a totally normal and fun time and nothing bad happens to either of them, I promise

2. Miss Chatelaine - Iron Hoof Remix by k. d. land and Orville Peck

Imma be real with you, never heard this song before in my life, I have been shuffling Orville Pecks entire discography recently while working on aforementioned book and I've definitely fallen asleep to it, so I guess it played than. It's good, I like it

3. Brick By Boring Brick by Paramore

I am too shy to tag people in this but I will tag @ribbittrobbit because I've been listening to their Crisis of Faeth playlist and I doubt this will be the only song from it making an appearance. Absolute banger of a playlist, absolute banger of a song

4. Seven Nation Army By The White Stripes

What did I fucking say, another Crisis of Faeth song! Fucking love The White Stripes and this is undoubtedly a classic. Fun fact I was at the thrift store a couple of weeks ago and found a White Stripes funko pop set for probably at least half as much as it would be new

I normally think funko pops of just full on real people of a little odd but I had to fucking do it

Other fun fact, to me Gorgug is very Meg White coded, widely considered one of the greatest drummers of a generation but steps out of the limelight because performing just isn't for them

5. I Don't Care - single version by Fallout Boy

Say it with me now, Crisis of Faeth! Listen to it! I like never on purpose listen to Fallout Boy but I was a teenager in the 2010's so I do love Fallout Boy

6. Dead of Night by Orville Peck

I love Orville Peck, I have a pinterest board that's just outfit inspiration for if I ever get to go to one of his shows

7. Dancing on My Own by The Regrettes

Besides being another Crisis of Faeth song, all of The Regrettes song are so fucking Fig Faeth coded to me, like nearly a 4th of my Figayda playlist is The Regrettes because they just sound exactly like something Fig would write about Ayda

8. Satanist by boygenuis

Crisis of Faeth also finally forced me to listen to boygenuis, and I can almost listen to them without having an existential about Lucy Dacus now so 👍👍👍

9. Summertime by Orville Peck

It's extremely unfair that none of the other Orville Peck songs that remind me of my outlaw lesbians come up, like it's a great song, but, come on man

10*. Fences by Paramore

Fucking love Paramore dude, Haley Williams is truly one of the greatest vocalists of a fucking generation and they put on an incredible fucking show (The only thing that could ever get me to go to a music festival is Paramore, I would love to see them live but I know they tend to do some like flashing effects so a dark venue would not be ideal for my epileptic ass) (This is also a Crisis of Faeth song)

*I cheated on this one because the real 10th one was a song Orville Peck featured on that I just don't like very much so I skipped it

[digitaldiscipline]

Take three days off of melatonin and then go back on, and yowza*

Lest anyone think I am a party animal, I tried to go to bed before 6pm last night. In that, I was a resounding success - in bed at 5:28pm, bay-bee.

... and couldn't get to sleep until nearly 9pm, at which point, I trundled to the bathroom for a melatonin gummy. I'd given the brainmeats a break from sleep aids, and apparently, the previous two nights' sleep of "being in an accident in my parents' first minivan" and "shopping for soup" weren't going to cut it.

I need to preface this next bit by saying that I have never watched an episode of The Office (either flavor); I've only seen memes and gifs, primarily of the American version. This matters, because I spent about 3/4 of my dreamshit time last night as Steve Carell in what I assume was a third-rate knockoff of the show, because none of the rest of the cast was there (or if they were, I didn't recognize them).

It began as a contemporary episode, but quickly morphed into a flashback to what I assume was high school/college/20's, where they were all being low-grade, innocuous delinquents together, and somehow shared a rambling but cramped apartment.

I had two notable skills, because I otherwise had no idea what the fuck was going on at any point:

I could throw with realistic accuracy

I would not take any shit from any one at any time about any thing

These came into play repeatedly.

First, we went to a dilapidated, hidden arcade, where someone was enthused there was a pinball machine (there were actually three, but they were all occupied, or real-life me would have been on them like snot on a doorknob). There were some fratbro types engaged in a competition on one of those miniature basketball games, trying to make shots from long distance with a surprising amount of success, but the ball bounced over to me on the other side of the venue when one of them missed.

Being me, I whipped it at the hoop on a bounce and nailed it. While impressive to the frat bros, this had the unintended and unwanted consequence of getting the attention of two undercover cops, who came over to say "we don't need three cops here."

Obviously, since my ACAB ass isn't one, I took this as an opportunity to go off.

"The Verillas kilt, which is pro-LGBT, doesn't give away that I have cuffs in my pocket like your jeans do. I'm wearing scuffed cowboy boots, which I'm pretty sure aren't in the dress code. Just because I am a scruffy white guy with a shaved head doesn't make me some kind of fascist shithead."

Because this was a dream, and not an actual place, I didn't get the shit kicked out of me immediately in the process of being arrested; they just left.

I went with the other Office Guys to the restaurant/bar that shared a back wall with the arcade, and it was apparently the ice cream shop from Stranger Things (I am basing this exclusively on the fact that they had those silly hats, and one of them looked like Steve; I have not watched ST since the end of the first season. Again, gifs and screenshots only).

One of the waitresses was complaining about how busy they were, which was immediately submarined by the shift manager wandering around and collecting empty beer cans and chugging the occasional half-empty glass of whatever, and, for reasons unknown, I asked him for a job.

Fortunately, the rest of the gang saved me from capitalism by deciding it was time to go hang out in a leafy glade with a rusty swingset in it, where we were approached by a horrible little kid (like, seven or eight), throwing sticks at us.

So, I did what came naturally, and pegged him in the head with a rock the size of an unshelled almond.

This was apparently A Cause For Concern, because the horrible little kid was one of the office guys' cousins, and they were allowed to be a violent little shit within certain constraints. This irritated me, so I left, and in the process of walking out of the forest, ended up in my childhood back yard, and made my way towards the garage and house.

Why there were NBA players playing HORSE on a hoop that was not where the one lived in reality, I can't surmise, but, again, a missed shot came my way, and I made a very fancy basket by bouncing the ball behind me and into the hoop as I ascended the porch steps. This was greeted with some impressive hooting, which promptly soured when I said it was a lucky shot, and not something I could do on purpose.

"I'm not going to try it again. I'm quitting while I'm one-for-one."

Said porch was absolutely crammed with shit from the garage, which was also half-full of shit, for some kind of rushed renovation my parents were doing, and which I found deeply annoying, not leastwise because it made getting into the house impossible, and I spent a lot of time getting yelled at for moving shit around to try and make a path, which devolved into some vigorous shouting by all involved before I said fuck it and went back into the back yard.

Which was almost normal, except for the fact that one of my friends was out there, singing, very loudly, with some kind of gospel choir broadcast on a portable television. Since he is Jewish, this was a little weird, but, hey, it was nice to visit the artificial pond and scrap-wood fort I'd made as a kid, though falling into said pond (4x deeper in the dream than it was in reality) and having to rescue myself and my dad before hypothermia set in was unwelcome.

After drying off, it was back to the present, where the office guys and I were still sharing the same apartment, and they were getting increasingly suspicious that I didn't know shit about shit, but kinda-sorta played along.

Then the SWAT team showed up, and one of the guys activated an alien artifact that was basically a Sontaran terracotta warrior, who apparently kicked the ever-living shit out of the cops.

Then one of my cats made barfing noises and woke me up.

*i do not apologize for inflicting psychic damage on @tricktster with that word, though no tits were involved in said dreams

[seenashwrite]

Dearest Nash, I've touched on this before in (I believe) in a discussion re: why some mainstream fics get oodles of notes while more original ones do not, *but* I wanted to get a bit more specific here. There are certain writers here whose writing has a definite vibe to it (if you will) that separates their work from others, and your name is one of the first that comes to mind. Bear with me, because trying to detail what makes your writing stand out is difficult while trying to articulate a Q

^ this is a gif with parts 2 - 4, just FYI

Hmmm… this is a bit of a brain buster. But I can answer it, and I think succinctly, maybe with a touch of that Spidey sense you mention:

Thank you for your inquiry, hope that helps! 

I kid. But this is a brain-turner. And a characteristic which, like you say, ain’t limited to me. I’d honestly throw comedians under this umbrella, too, not because I’m necessarily gunning for a laugh every time, but because it’s pretty much their job to take a “basic” (a tenet or fact of life or present reality or whatever) and present the observation with a twist. I think of storyteller comedians specifically, your Patton Oswalt-s, Maria Bamford-s, Kathy Griffin-s, and John Mulaney-s.

So if I can sum up, assuming I’m tracking with you, what you’re more or less driving at with the “how” is this –> Is there anything beyond simply personality, or an auto-pilot thought cascade (for lack of better terminology) that contributes? Are there things someone could do/be proactive about, to perhaps cause this same sort of reaction to happen in their brain?

I think there just might be.

Folks reading this, let me ask you a question, and you cannot look it up:

What was the name of the Sherpa guide who led Sir Edmund Hillary up Mount Everest?

.

.

.

His name was Tenzing Norgay.

Nash, what in the name of the frozen corpse of George Mallory does this have to do with Lion’s question?

I shall tell you.

My father told me that fact when I was quite young, so young I legit couldn’t even ballpark my age for you. The context was that having little facts tucked away in your brain may come in handy. Not in a Jeopardy kind of way, more in a conversational way. I’ve no idea why the man thought the Sherpa guide who led Hillary up Mt. Everest would ever come up during a conversation with enough regularity to justify my knowing that fact (aside from him randomly quizzing me throughout my life) but hey, I guess it just did.

But speaking of Lil’ Nash, the situation for her was that she was the eldest of all the Nash litter by miles… like seven or eight years, I’m not bothering to check. So I had a lot of alone time, and my grandmother was my chief babysitter, so prior to kindergarten and then til I was in about second grade (so: all day long during the week, then every weekday after she picked me up from school), I was pretty much always at her house. Yeah, there were toys, but not a lot to do. And I’d read. I’d been reading on my own for a decent while, not because I was some prodigy but because my dad read to me *constantly* when Lil’ Nash was Itty-Bitty Nash, and it “took”. My mom also, every time she went to the grocery store always - and I mean always - brought back a book for me. It might’ve been an Archie comic—-

Mandatory #fuck the CW’s Riverdale tag

—-or a Babysitter’s Club, or Sweet Valley High, Judy Blume, Madeleine L’Engle, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, you get my point. Some small paperback. It would piss Dad off because he’s a cheap bastard and two buck books once or twice a month were really gonna cut into the savings [eyeroll] but also, in a way, because I’d kill it in a half day/a day. Wouldn’t put it down. After awhile, I started writing my own silly little kid stories, then - and this is where the creative writing love came about -  I started writing soap operas for my Barbies. (When I was older - like, 5th grade? 6th grade, maybe? - none of my peers were still playing with Barbies, and I got made fun of when, at a sleepover, they saw my stash. And I was like - No, no, no. Those aren’t for playing. That’s my cast.)

Time went on, and when I was bored at post-church lunch/dinners, I would also read the old encyclopedias at my grandmother’s, the ones from the late ‘60s/early ‘70s that she had for my mom and my aunt. As I got even older and became fascinated with rooting through the boxes in gran’s basement, looking at all the cool old clothes, I stumbled upon my aunt’s collection of Whoa-Hooooo Shit There’s No Way My Grandparents Knew You Read These books. Those kinda Harlequin-esque ones, except my aunt’s tastes run close to mine, none were the same shtick with different covers, shmultzy-sappy romance, there was always some sort of intrigue along with the sexy times, and she also had, like, every legit V. C. Andrews (meaning: not the ones from the ghostwriter, this was way before her death) book.

What is my point? I read a LOT. Now-a-days, other than fanfic (which… straight up: I don’t read a lot of that, either. I peace out on probs 80% of it before the third-to-fifth paragraph. It’s gotta sell me fast, yo) I haven’t read fiction in probably, oh…. 12 years? I think the last ones were the first couple Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Wait, no! I lie! I read the 50 Shades books when I was traveling 2x/wk for a job about 4 years ago, and I needed the laughs. It worked. Oh my days, that woman can’t write. The screenplay might’ve been worse, it goes her, then Buckleming, then everyone else. It’s bad. In any event, past decade or so, it’s more historical stuff and true crime and science stuff and all that old fart jazz.

Okay, so that’s #1: Read. And not just anything, be well-read, and that doesn’t mean developing some level of expertise, by “well” I’m saying to cover the spread. You’re building your tool kit, is all. You won’t use most of it, but it’s nice to have options. You also don’t always have to get this stuff from reading now-a-days, because podcasts. Cover the spread there, too. Lemme look at my bookmarks…. 

[Spongebob narrator voice: A few moments later]

I’m back. Science - Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe; General current stuff without being news - CGP Grey’s Hello Internet; current events with shittons of pop culture, past and present - Greg Proops’ Smartest Man in the World; fun history stuff - The Dollop; entertainment stuff - How Did This Get Made.

#2: Keep a notebook with you and jot down turns-of-phrase that spark something in your brain - things you read on websites, on twitter, in articles, things you hear people say (real life, TV, movies, podcasts), and write it. Don’t snap a pic with your phone or make a note in your phone. There are studies behind this, I’m not hunting them down, you’ll just have to trust me, but there are, and it goes to being reflexive, a brain “muscle memory” thing, if you will. You’re not doing it to plagiarize, you’re doing it to dissect it, kind’ve like you did with the example you gave on me —> went from punch action to punch spiked with booze to a punch with a spiked gauntlet.

Which leads to #3: Mental dictionary. I have a large vocab repository, and it stems from the tons of reading - I stop and look up stuff if I either don’t know it, or it’s used in such a way that I think they’ve got it wrong and want to double-check that maybe there’s another usage I don’t know - and also stems from a drive to combat the (still fairly thick) deep South drawl I can’t kick, and not for lack of trying. But see, I couldn’t have whipped out that progression if I weren’t aware that one definition of “spike” is “to add alcohol to”, or of the common shtick in stories of spiked punch like at high school proms typically, or knew about the existence of spiked gauntlets / old school armor. 

And I guarantee you that a good chunk of people didn’t really “get it”, and just thought “Nash Be Nashin’, that nutty gal”. So they “get it” on that level, but don’t Get. It., if you see what I’m saying. And that’s fine. Maybe it got something cranking in the back of their mind and it’ll hit ‘em in the middle of the night, or they’ll be watching Game of Thrones or something, see a gauntlet and be like “Oh goddamnit, I just got a throw-a-way one-liner from three years ago” and have a chuckle.

Related, re: looking stuff up and things that people “get”? I didn’t know fuck-all about Twilight, but it seemed of import to the folks around 5 years younger than me, the Nashlings wouldn’t shut up about it, so I got a good working knowledge of it. Same with Harry Potter, and through it I got to “know” J.K. Rowling, who I find to be an exceptional writer, so that was great, and I’ve watched the movies for the most part over the years at Christmastime, and I don’t give the first shit about what “house” I’m in, nor do I care about what Patronus I’d fart, but I have a working knowledge of what those are, and horcruxes and who Snape and Voldie are, you get my point. I can keep up. But to do it, I had to take the time to look it up. One thing I would not trade for gold is Michael Sheen chewing the goddamn scenery in that battle segment from the last Twilight movie. Have I watched the movie? No. But that scene is the shit. And that baby CGI is horrific on several subtle levels. And not-so-subtle. I’ve digressed.

Back to those notes: So if you’ve got these notes jotted, you might see something else and think “I feel like that could’ve been snappier…. why do I think that….” And you’ve got a resource at your disposal, that little notebook. Hell, jot that thing down - things you think could be done better. I have in many documents a highlight around chunks of scenes for my big dog story where it says in bold above or below “DO BETTER”. Meaning: there’s a better way to get from A to B, but I’m just not quite there yet. I’m pretty quick on the uptake and can crank out something snappy on the fly (like say, in CASPN chat or when banging out a short reply or thank you note) but there’s definitely times I gotta slap a DO BETTER on it and walk away til that snappy something-or-other light bulb goes off. 

Here’s a recent one where I backtracked, matter of fact - that noir spoof thing I wrote? Along with my co-writer, Moscato? There was a line that I couldn’t hit with a good zinger, so I just said moments were going by like a fat hamster on a wheel, which is cute, but not really grooving with the setting/the vibe. Less tipsy, when I was correcting some inelegant formatting and a misspelling [sigh], I went “Oh! Why didn’t this occur to me last night? Right. Wine.” So the line is now about moments dragging like a rolling donut with a copper on its tail. Get it? The cop’s a fat ass. The donut-cop stereotype.

…….Fine, it ain’t my best, but it fits better. Moving on.

And this leads nicely into #4, and a specific tip I can impart - assuming you’ve got a passable-to-high level of vocabulary in your tool belt, practice messing around with making nouns into verbs, and twisting random stuff into descriptors and using bizarre words/things in metaphors/analogies. Like, I say “adulting” quite a bit. Ali - @littlegreenplasticsoldier - I thiiiink was writing recently about Sam being drunk, and he’s a tall wobbly Jenga tower on his last Jenga. Going back to the noir, pulpy detective style, try messing with the whole “S/he was like a ___ that ____”. Add on to stuff that’s well known - He was like a dog with a bone, if the bone was a ____ and he was a ____ and we were in a ____. (I have *nothing* in mind to fill those blanks, by the way, feel free to twist it into sumpin’)

What else…. okay, here’s a #5: In drafts, let yourself wander, and see what kicks out. It can be fueled by silliness or anger, but I don’t reckon you’re gonna get the “snappy” you’re aiming for if you’re down in the dumps and going full-court-press angst. The best stuff, IMO, comes from the space in between goofy and pissed, and that is The Land Of Snark. You can always re-style it to bend more dry or wistful should you need to, certainly, depending on the situation.

Have a sample of a primo Nash Digression that was fueled by ire in a recap from Season 12 (episode 19). I had said - RE: the random inclusion of the character Joshua, which still pisses me off because they burned a character that held massive potential for future stuff as he’d been shown to be the only angel with direct access to Chuck, so, y’know, that could never come in handy, like ever again in the series, right? - the following.

Mandatory pre-emptive #fuck Dabb

[Spongebob narrator voice] A few moments later —> 

On god, I have no idea where that came from, and here’s where we go back to ol’ Spidey up there, because end of the day?

All that other stuff’s the foundation, sure, but there’s always gonna be the weird iggy, the thing that can’t be learned or taught, whatever the quirky synapse is that fires off in my/our brains. In my experience, it’s an ADD-ish sort of jam mixed with the Nostradamus effect. Meaning, (A) we’re at Level 10, rapid fire thought processing >50% of the time, and (B) throw out enough stuff for long enough, some of it’s going to stick. And I whiff it plenty. Multiple times in CASPN chat I’ve been like “Whoo, tough room” when something falls flat.

A specific example: @mrswhozeewhatsis - and I think you saw this, but anyone else seeing this may not have - gave probably the most fantastic analogy I’ve seen regarding the whole “getting it” thing, and while it was on the topic of meaty plots that get too far into the weeds (my specialty) and how it can lessen appeal to a broader audience, it still applies here. 

She said “Sometimes, when I’m reading something of yours, I feel like there’s a joke I’m missing. It’s like watching Spaceballs without having seen Star Wars.” I say that to say - nobody’s gonna land references that cover the spread 100% of the time. And, y’know, fine. I figure maybe it’ll prompt someone to do a quick google for - well, let’s use Spaceballs. Most folks will no doubt get the Star Wars part, but maybe not Spaceballs. Maybe they’ll check it out, find something they enjoy. Or learn a new word. Or get a brainstorm for a story. Who knows?

Last tip: Don’t actively mimic anyone’s style. Much fail. And I don’t only mean because if they’re on a social Venn diagram with you, would likely recognize themselves in your stuff——

Takes a moment to wave to the peeps still trying with me! #bless your hearts

—–but because it’s fucking hard. I did it broadly on the noir thing, that’s not a hard thing, to homage generalities, but the way I’m messing with doing this on that silly Princess Bride series? Purposefully styling it like Goldman? It’s good  challenging and all, and it is making it feel more in the groove with the book/movie, but I have to be in the right frame of mind or it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard, and when I have pushed it, then gone back, it’s sloggy, soggy garbage.

I say all that to say: it’s an amalgam of brain-wiring/personality, and world/life perspective(s), and knowledge acquired over time. The first just is; the second will evolve in myriad ways, maybe for the better, maybe for the worse; the last is the one where you/we have control, we can fill bucket after bucket of information, and the well won’t ever run dry.

Sorry this took so long. I kept adding and subtracting. This is the edited version, if you can believe it. Welcome to Nash Brain. 😉