#it's about PURPOSE
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Comedy Is A Lie: I’m Going To Explain The Joke And It’s Going To Make Everything Worse
A buddy asked me why I cut a good joke from one of my fics and my immediate answer was “it killed the tension,” which, upon reflection, is a pathetic answer that is mostly inaccurate and does not even come CLOSE to how much thought I put into comedy in my writing. So I guess I’m going to write this out and excise the demon of over-explanation.
Part The First: What Is Funny
The biggest thing I try and keep in mind when writing editing comedy (and anything, really, but especially for comedy) is rhythm. Lots of parts to rhythm! Most obvious is the word-to-word/sentence-to-sentence flow. Timing is a really important aspect of verbal comedy, which is why performance is a good medium to use. You get to control the delivery of every sentence and the spaces in between. But when you’re writing, you have significantly less control over how a reader will interpret the rhythm: all you can do is word your sentences as best as you can and give them rhythm cues via punctuation. (This is why I use so many em dashes and commas… I'm working on that…)
The other part to rhythm is on a more macro scale. There are jokes that will roll along with the flow of a story. For me, these are jokes that don't deviate from the context of the scene too much. They connect one subject to the next, or they build off of each other (a ‘yes, and’ sequence, for example). Alternatively, the joke is delivered in a really understated way. Like passing off something objectively batshit as status quo. Either way, they flow!
Then there are jokes that will halt a scene in its tracks. These are jokes that recontextualize a situation, or make a particularly large leap from the current topic. Or, you've been setting up for this punchline for a while and this joke is payoff. Or the joke is just really, really funny. These are the kind of jokes where you need to give the characters (or the reader) a beat to process them. Sometimes. We’ll get back to that.
Part the Second: How Is Funny
So the point of all that rhythm stuff is that comedy has a flow! If every line is a witty one-liner, none of the lines are witty one-liners! If every joke is a one-hit-KO, you have left your reader unconscious. Basically, if you are constantly being #Funny, you become repetitive and predictable, and that is the death of tension (and humor is a tension-driven element).
One way to think of comedic pacing is setup (AKA building tension) and punchline (AKA payoff). It’s a balancing act: the more you build up tension, the more satisfying the payoff is going to be, but if you spend too long building up, you start dragging. You want the reader to think, “I can’t wait for the punchline!” and not, “oh my god, PLEASE get to the punchline already.”
Fun way to make the tension last longer is to put all those flow-y connector jokes along the way. The reader’s anticipating the Joke, so by giving them little jokes, it meets their expectations in little ways so that they don’t get too antsy.
Hey, what’s tension, you ask?
Part The Third: Why Is Funny
When I read a book, there are two emotions that get me to turn the page:
I don’t know what’s going to happen next, and I’m curious!
I know X is going to happen, and I’m anticipating it!
That’s tension. (Something something semantics—I’ve never taken a creative writing class, I don’t have a vocabulary)
You can have the calmest, low-stakes fluffiest fic in the world but as long as your readers are experiencing either curiosity or anticipation, Congrats! You have tension! I, however, like putting readers on fast-paced rollercoasters, so that’s the lens through which I’m tackling this section, which is: how do I use jokes in a story structure context? What purpose does a clown serve?
I mentioned earlier that some jokes are bricks to the face: they demand to be processed. Most of the time, I put high-impact jokes in places where I need the story to “reset” in a way: force a beat so the reader can process both the joke and the plot. That’s using humor to release tension. Literally. Laughter relieves stress.
But! You can also use those jokes to make the tension even worse! If you drop a bomb and immediately press forward, no processing allowed, you get stressful comedy. You want to laugh, but also a bunch of other stuff is happening and it feels kind of rude to laugh, so you get stressed. Sometimes humor can undermine a climactic moment, but if you use the right joke in the right spot you create shrimp emotions. If you’ve read DotF ch8 you know what I’m talking about.
Jokes also just make for good plot points? A lot of jokes are built on recontextualization. Everybody loves a good twist/reversal/surprise in a plot. Just make a joke and re-frame it, and bam! You’ve plotted! (Everything I’ve ever written started off as a joke.)
Wait, What Was The Question?
Why did I cut the joke? It was a waste of a brick to the face. It was too referential, it required the audience to know/agree with something completely unrelated to the story, it didn’t build upon what I already established. It ruined the rhythm.
I need to emphasize that, despite all my Thoughts on this, the way I appraise my jokes is 80% vibe-based. I probably could have kept the joke, and it would have been totally fine. But I would know. I would know that my intended rhythm is broken… it would haunt me until the end of time…
#this isn't even getting onto building a Comedic Cast or nailing down a Comedic Characterization or Comedy-As-Action or Varying Your Humor#I'M JUST SAYING#my writing tends toward stupid crack comedy but i take my crack comedy extremely seriously#the short rule is that if it's funny it's valid#the long rule is that the more effort you put into something the funnier it becomes#it's about PURPOSE#writing#lazuli writes#comedy#lazuli talks
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being self aware suuuucks like yeah this thought pattern/behavior is stupid and pointless and a symptom. i know this. [does it anyways
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the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again
#yeehaw#1k#5k#10k#posts that got cursed. blasted. im making these tag updates after... 19 hours?#also i have been told it should say speech loss bc nonverbal specifically refers to the permanent state. did not know that!#unfortunately i fear it is so far past containment that even if i edited it now it would do very little. but noted for future reference#edit 2: nvm enough ppl have come to rb it from me directly that i changed the wording a bit. hopefully this makes sense#also. in case anyone is curious. though i doubt anyone who is commenting these things will check the original tags#1) my friend did not do this on purpose in any way. it was not intended to distract me or to hit on me. im a lesbian hes a gay man. cmon now#he felt very bad about it afterwards. i thought it was hilarious but it was very embarrassed and apologetic#2) “why didn't he use 🫵🏼?” didn't exist yet. “why didn't he use 🆗?” dunno! we'd been using a lot of hand emojis. 👌🏼 is an ok sign#like it makes sense. it was just a silly mixup. also No i did not invent 👉🏼👌🏼 as a gesture meaning sex. do you live under a rock#3) nonspeaking episodes are a recurring thing in my life and have been since i was born. this is not a quirky one-time thing#it is a pervasive issue that is very frustrating to both myself and the people i am trying to communicate with. in which trying to speak is#extremely distressing and causes very genuine anguish. this post is not me making light of it it's just a funny thing that happened once#it's no different than if i post about a funny thing that happened in conjunction w a physical disability. it's just me talking abt my life#i don't mind character tags tho. those can be entertaining. i don't know what any of you are talking about#Except the ppl who have said this is pego/ryu or wang/xian. those people i understand and respect#if you use it as a writing prompt that's fine but send it to me. i want to see it#aaaand i think that's it. everyday im tempted to turn off rbs on it. it hasn't even been a week
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Usamericans should be more anti-war actually. They should be straight up insulting marines and shutting down weapon factories, 60s anti-war protests kind of shit. I'm sorry for pontificating from down here but the US military-industrial complex is currently supplying a genocide, and this is not a new thing, the US has sold weapons to Saudi Arabia to starve millions of Yemenis, the Iraq war, the Afghanistan war, these are within memory. And though some people think it's not the point, it Is also true that there are trillions upon trillions of dollars that could be spent in anything else that go to the black hole of corruption (and call it for what it is, corruption) that is the Pentagon. Any of those resources could be destined to literally any other activity and be better spent.
I'm talking full contempt here. You should outright be HATING the military. Instead of lining up to watch Top Gun you should see it as a glorification of a fucking killing machine that serves imperial interests, enriches megacorporations and supports genocides. For the love of God be more angry about it. Goddamn.
#cosas mias#and yes I don't like my own military either before you ask#I like them just like that defunded and only there for humanitarian purposes if that#we learned a lot in Argentina about what happens when you let the military in power
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Disgust has absolutely no ethical weight. If you are basing your ethical positions on the emotion of disgust you should stop, it is entirely unjustified and leads to a huge amount of harm.
#I've spent a lot of time thinking about the various difficult technical ways in which the world is bad but at some point#you also have to tell people “just stop doing bad stuff on purpose”#because they in fact do this
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don't ask him about that it's private
#for the record if senshi actually did have an illegitimate child he wouldnt know about it#no WAY he’d be a deadbeat on purpose#dungeon meshi#delicious in dungeon#senshi of izganda#marcille donato#chilchuck tims#my art#comic
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Of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept 11 attacks:
15 were from Saudi Arabia (a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)
2 were from the United Arab Emirates (also a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)
1 was from Egypt, 1 from Lebanon.
None of the hijackers were from Iraq.
None of the Sept 11 hijackers were Iraqi.
None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq.
#9/11#serious post#not a shitpost#this should be one of the first things kids learn when they learn about the 9/11 attacks#politics#this is just...it's such an essential and brazen fact and i rarely see basic outrage over it#i want outrage. i want fury. i want disgust over the way fundamental facts are disguised and discarded and downplayed#because there are things we should KNOW. basic fact we should ALL KNOW. and they are tucked away in the footnotes.#and no this is NOT to put the blame on other middle eastern countries#we know this was carried out by a specific terrorist organization not a national government#but King George the Second decided (and was encouraged by his cabinet!) to invade a nation!#a nation that was not at all related or responsible!!!#a dictatorship to be sure--but a dictatorship that King George the First had been happy to support#so what changed? why did we go in guns blazing to DEMOLISH a country *we had NO PLANS OF REPAIRING*???#well. because they wanted a villain didn't they. a nice clean war. clarity of purpose. us the heroes against them the villains#and when you're in that mindframe--truth is irrelevant. you can pick your villain (your victim) by rolling a roulette wheel#truth is irrelevant#worse: to the people in charge#truth is a HINDRANCE#'Alternative facts' existed long before it became a catchphrase#facts don't matter. truth doesn't matter. the impulses of a handful of volatile & rich & power-high people--that's History. congratulations
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i think "many queer people are purposefully deprived of regular IRL social interaction with other people, both queer and not, by our society" and "lots of queer discourse on the internet would be rendered irrelevant if the people engaging in it were regularly interacting with other queer people in real life rather than online" are two statements that can and shouls coexist
#spinning my web#im being vague about what discourses im referring to on purpose btw. bc it applies in many cases#before anyone tries to read too much into it
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i'm not like other guys i take an angsty au and make it a comedy
Ford: I've managed to record substantial evidence on tape, such as floating objects, footsteps that are not my own, and radio weirdness; The host or singer will slip in observations of my being that I simply cannot chalk up to coincidence. Whether this being is a ghost, or one of Bills tricks I've yet to discover… There are more dubious encounters such as the whispers, spine shivering chills, and of the brief shadowy figures I see down dark hallways. (Proof of an apparition? or simply a hallucination dreamt up by my sleep deprived mind?) I fear my mind is slipping further and further-
Ford: What is that blasted noise?! Stan: Cartoons got ghosts shockingly realistic! Ford: Reminds me of... being annoyed.
#gravity falls#gravity falls au#frankenstein/ghost au#stanley pines#stanford pines#my stuff#Fords in a horror#Stans in a cartoon#stan knows he's putting ford on edge... just doesn't realise how much#and he may have purposely scared him on occasion#he hangs out around town more that in the shack#he's having a blast honestly. despite dying. as long as he doesn't think about it for too long#Fords... doing unethical science. medic tf2 style#he bill proofs his mind some point#but still doesn't sleep 👍
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you'll make it back.
#WHAT WAS LOKI GOING TO SAY???????#these two will be the death of me and I can't believe that first episode gave me everything ive ever wanted#I'm back in the lokius trenches#can't stop thinking about how connected they are through their timelines#how they're each others glorious purpose#and how mobius was ready to sacrifice himself for loki#and all that in just one episode#UGH#loki#loki season 2#loki spoilers#loki s2 spoilers#lokius#lokius fanart#loki fanart#loki season 2 fanart#loki and mobius#my art#fanart
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inspired by this post, in which Damian does not know what Vine is
#sorry this was funnier in my head#but after i read that post I COULD NOT STOP THINKING ABOUT IT#gen z batkids is the most Cursed thing i've read today and i love it#at first i had so many Thoughts about how my brain CANNOT reconcile tim as anything but a 90s kid but then i read that line about damian and#i feel like they'd mess with him sometimes by randomly quoting memes in unison#almost started to overthink how in This Particular Timeline jason might have missed out on this meme because he was Not Alive#but for the purposes of this silly joke i choose to believe dates are irrelevant#that is all thank you#clarisse doodles#batfam#damian wayne#dick grayson#jason todd
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saw this post and could not stop thinking about @punkitt-is-here as elmo's aunt i NEEDED to draw her
also also while i was drawing i thought up a sesame street episode plot that i think is cute
Elmo's uncle is coming over to visit, but they're looking a little different! They explain to Elmo that sometimes people realise things about themselves and that they start to change, which makes them happier- and though they won't quite be the same as before, that won't make them love you any less. So even if they won't be his amazing uncle anymore, she hopes she can still be his amazing aunt.
ggyuhhg hapoy pride mont 💥🔥‼️💪
letter of the day is T
#tried to think about how someone would explain being transgender on sesame street uhuhm#also i know i used alot of they/them in that last part but it's just for story purposes. do i make sense#i know punkitt is she/her girl woman#art#digital art#doodle#sesame street#elmo#muppets#punkitt#punkitt-is-here#transgender
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i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers
you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.
AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character
see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.
mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.
#anyway yeah i have this whole idea in my head about mumbo’s friendship with grian from a characterization standpoint#bc i agree with the somewhat? common consensus that being friends with mumbo has made grian softer and friendlier over time#but i don’t think it was in a ‘reflecting back the kindness he’s being shown’ way#i think it’s because the more harsh and chaotic you try to be towards mumbo the more you feel ineffectual and out of control#and grian can’t handle it so he slowly becomes nicer until he feels like they’re on equal footing again#like don’t get me wrong i think they genuinely are good friends#and i don’t think this is necessarily something mumbo is doing on purpose#but i think the power dynamic going on under the surface is much more bizarre and weighted in mumbo’s favor than it seems at first glance#mumbling
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The Barbie movie really said. Yes you will grow up and childhood wonder will vanish. Yes you will grow up and learn to hate yourself, your body, your awkwardness. Yes you will grow up and lose your confidence and certainty and sense of purpose. Yes you will grow up and the world will seem a bleaker, lonelier place every day, and society will seem bleaker and lonelier every day, and you won’t understand what went wrong in the span of just a few years, what took you from a happy and secure young girl to a sad, uncertain, scared grown woman.
And yet. You will learn to find beauty again. You will find joy in not having a purpose, in building a purpose for yourself. You will find beauty in connection, with the people and the world around you. You will learn to love signs of ageing as proof of a life well lived, of experience and happiness. You will take that little girl by the hand and tell her “I know, this isn’t what you thought it would be, but it’s real. Let me show you how beautiful it can be.”
#idk I’m just really really emotional about this movie#it hit me in my core#like I loved the political critique obviously but#the message about growing up and losing your sense of identity and purpose just resonated with me#I’ve been crying about this since I saw the movie lmao#and I haven’t really seen a lot of commentary on this theme#barbie#barbie movie
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Extremely serious workout session <3
#ojiro mashirao#hagakure tooru#tokoyami fumikage#shoji mezo#mha#my favs btw#I purposely made them chaotic <3#also Tokoyami is not dressed properly. he will regret this later.#also also I accidentally made tokoyami like two apples tall#he’s devastatingly small but I can’t do much about it now#hagakure is glowing!#bumfuzzled art#bumfuzzled animations#they are not winning the popularity poll. but they’re all winners in my heart
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(click for higher quality!) draconified link concept ive been chipping away at this past week ..... here's my funny little compendium concept for him:
"A heroic spirit has taken the form of this bestial dragon. Unlike it's kin, this creature exhibits an extremely aggressive disposition. It appears highly territorial, and will relentlessly chase down those who disturb its skywide patrols - of which it seems to be endlessly searching for either a long-time vassal or foe. Unfortunately, it seems the spirit within has long since forgotten exactly who it was looking for…"
#now. how on earth do i begin to tag this. um.#link#loz#totk#totk spoilers#light dragon#dragon link#loz au#totk roleswap au#there . i'll add more if they come to me LOL#um i can talk about some of my insps i guess?? might make another post too#so mostly i just dont really like turning him into 'light dragon but male' and giving him slightly darker colours or something like that#this also obviously isnt exactly like the botw dragons either though and its a bit more of a mix of other creature concepts i enjoy#since everyone agrees he'd have a farosh horn i wanted to make him a kirin/unicorn :) which is why his tail looks like that#aside from the obvious eastern dragon insps and what ive picked and chosen from the botw dragons#and obviously this looks a lot like wolf link. thats on purpose#i wanted to give him some fierce deity design refs too but because this is so dark/earthy they didnt look very fitting#but honestly you could do a whole fierce deity dragon design on its own i think#okay lots of tags but IVE THOUGHT ABOUT THIS FOR A WHILE. okay. let me have this.#my art#dragon link au
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