There's a Dick Joke subtly Hidden in this Blog. Again. It's the Second Time I Use that Sentence to Title a Blog. · 2:18am Jul 4th, 2015
Aragón: so, you know that story I’m writing right now?
Lucky Roll: yeah
Aragón: I’m having just a teeny tiny bit of trouble writing it
Aragón: thing is, I have it all planned out, but maybe I need a better way to approach it?
Aragón: I think that's the problem
Aragón: like
Aragón: presentation
Lucky Roll: well
Lucky Roll: you realize I cannot really help with you, do you?
Lucky Roll: because I have no idea what the fic is about
Lucky Roll: or what the scene is about
Aragón: well yeah
Aragón: but bitching at you does helps me
Aragón: you force me to state things out loud, thus clearing my thoughts and actually organizing them
Aragón: instead of just starting a line of thought then getting distracted and ending up singing Barbie Girl by Aqua
Aragón: which is what happens when I try to think without saying shit out loud
Lucky Roll: you’re so dumb it’s almost cute
Lucky Roll: almost
Lucky Roll: but you miss that point and turn pathetic instead
Lucky Roll: also, unrelated to this, but I believe you have a huge penis and you are extremely handsome and your butt is amazing. This is something I myself am saying, and not just you editing my words before posting it in your blog
Lucky Roll: and I obviously don’t need to say this, but your penis is definitely bigger than mine
Aragón: why, Lucky, you’re flattering me
Aragón: and indeed this is a real conversation we’re having and yes I have a huge dong
Aragón: but going back to what I was talking about
Aragón: the scene that’s hard to write
Aragón: thing is, the humor in that scene is highly visual
Aragón: so maybe I should try like
Aragón: stating what is going on, matter-of-factly
Aragón: then switching to the straight man wondering what the fucking hell is going on?
Aragón: like
Aragón: bait-and-switch
Aragón: I think that would work, yeah
Aragón: I’m such a genius
Aragón: and my dong is just huge, man
Lucky Roll: well, I like visual humor, but smart people say it doesn't work for fics
Aragón: my humor tends to be highly visual tho
Lucky Roll: that, and dick jokes
Aragón: yeah
Aragón: but like
Lucky Roll: sometimes the two mixed up
Aragón: think of that old fic of mine, Crime and Funishment
Aragón: that had a lot of visual humor
Aragón: thing is, visual humor doesn't mean visual as in the show for me?
Aragón: you can't paint an image
Aragón: so you describe it
Aragón: the funiness is in describing it
Aragón: you gotta make that work, with the wording
Aragón: not just describing something funny like you describe a potato
Aragón: "Pinkie was making a silly face and it was funny" is not good visual humor when written
Lucky Roll: yeah well obviously
Lucky Roll: but visual humor as a whole just doesn't work as well as if people would actually see it
Lucky Roll: so visual humor in a fic is not exactly the best way to go I think
Aragón: nah it can work!
Aragón: like
Aragón: lemme showya
Aragón: Here I just wrote a nonsequitur with visual humor
Aragón: Look:
"We're so sorry, Applejack," Twilight said, her voice soft. She patted AJ's shoulder and offered her a sympathetic pout. "She was an amazing mare."
"Today is truly a sorrowful day," Rarity added, hugging Applejack as soon as Twilight let her go. "We're here if you need us, okay?"
"It's okay to cry if you want to," Pinkie said. "I mean, I know you don't wanna smile today, but it's okay, I promise."
Applejack still didn't say a word. She just nodded to her friends, acknowledging her words, and then walked away towards her family. The Apples were all hunched together, looking at the ground with grave faces.
"This is so sad," Rarity said. "Poor Applejack is devastated."
"Yeah."
"But at least Applejack knows she has us, right?" Pinkie asked. "She has her friends!"
"Yes, she knows. Although, Pinkie, dear? I'm not going to lie -- I think your words would have been more powerful if you hadn't attended this funeral dressed like a chicken. "
"Hey. This is how I honor my elders. I dress like a chicken."
"We're honoring the dead."
"I honor a lot of things dressed as a chicken."
Aragón: see
Aragón: that's visual humor
Lucky Roll: no
Aragón: …
Aragón: what do you mean no
Aragón: no what
Lucky Roll: that's conversation humor
Lucky Roll: sort of
Aragón: yeah but it's a visual punchline
Lucky Roll: no it’s conversation
Lucky Roll: the whole chicken thing didn't make it more visual
Aragón: but it IS visual!
Aragón: like
Aragón: okay so it's conversation-based
Aragón: but that's a given
Lucky Roll: it's half-visual AT BEST
Aragón: if you want to use visual humor, you need to mix it with something
Aragón: like
Aragón: descriptive humor
Aragón: dialogue humor
Aragón: something like that
Aragón: you can’t just add a fucking picture in the middle of the fic and say YES THAT’S IT I’M DONE GIVE ME FAME AND FORTUNE AND SEX
Lucky Roll: yes, descriptive humor
Lucky Roll: that is what is actually visual
Lucky Roll: visual, as opposed to conversational
Lucky Roll: real visual humor in a fic is when you describe it
Aragón: well I don't think that
Aragón: thing is, visual humor is all about the revelation -- it's not just how what you see is funny, it's how it's timed and stuff
Lucky Roll: nah it’s descriptions
Aragón: hmm
Aragón: it’s an interesting debate, actually
Aragón: you know what I should, like
Aragón: ask this
Aragón: to people
Lucky Roll: what do you mean asking this
Aragón: as in
Aragón: I can take this whole conversation and make a blog out of it
Aragón: and ask HEY GUYS YES YOU THE BLOKES WHO ARE READING THIS WHAT DO YOU DEFINE AS “VISUAL HUMOR” AND DO YOU THINK A CONVERSATION WITH A PUNCHLINE BASED ON VISUALS LIKE THE ONE I JUST SHOWED YOU COUNTS AS THAT”
Aragón: and then they comment on the blog
Aragón: either answering to the question or asking me my personal schedule
Aragón: so they can ambush me and stab me any day now
Lucky Roll: that’s literally the laziest motherfucking thing you can do
Aragón: so you don’t mind if I do that
Lucky Roll: nah
Lucky Roll: but if you do that
Lucky Roll: don’t forget to remember mentioning my HUGE PENIS
Aragón: absolutely
Aragón: and I swear I won't edit it to make it look as if you think my dick is bigger than yours and that I am extremely handsome
Lucky Roll: oh, I know you’re more mature than that
So, you know. Tomorrow I'll be alone in my house from 5 pm to 8 pm. But I'll be wearing chainmail.
Your fucking move.
Visual humor is certainly possible in a textual medium, but it's contingent on the reader, who has to visualize the scene in order to properly appreciate the joke. Of course, people should be visualizing what they read, but there are a lot of things people should do, but don't.
Distinguishing visual humor from descriptive humor in text is a matter of whether the joke reflects something's actual appearance or if it's just a humorous bit of descriptive figurative language. The above example with Pinkie in the chicken suit? Definitely visual humor.
This was a weirder blog than normal.
I think you've got it right. It's about the reveal but it's also in how the characters (and to an extent the readers) react to the "visual" as well; whether they knew Pinkie was in the chicken suit for the whole funeral or they only just noticed once the funeral was over. The reaction is just as important as the visual itself.
I love you.
*cough* Excuse me... In other news, This is actually an interesting point. I think the best way for ME to actually visualize it in my head is when it's described, but there are some instances where I'll take a conversation and actually visualize it in my head. The given example was one, although that was mainly because the whole thing with it was that it was supposed to be visual.
To reference the literature:
What makes this particular example so funny is not precisely that Pinkie Pie is dressed like a chicken. It's that for the beginning of the scene we are picturing a normal mourning scene, and then with that line it's like the moving-picture-thingy in our head pauses and *pop* Pinkie is now in a chicken suit. It's not exactly visual, it's kind of a comedic whiplash when we find out that the whole thing is retroactively much weirder than we thought.
So, it's visual in nature, but it's not visual comedy per se. It's we get a punchline we weren't expecting, kinda. Comedic recontextualization? I'm running out of ways to make it sound like I know what I'm talking about. So I should wander off and look at spreadsheets for a while until I feel smart again.
Love waking up at 5am and finding an Aragon blog post, kinda sets the tone for the day.
(today is going to be a shitty day for me and this blog will be the only thing that makes me smile)
Firstly,
AHEM...some of us are Ladeees don't you know!!
Secondly, do you know what would have been visually funny? If you'd included pictures of the fore mentioned penises so we could have made our own judgments on whose was the biggest.
i79.photobucket.com/albums/j125/Sarah_Wilby/Mobile%20Uploads/image_zpsskkpsrpc.jpg
My move is Pinkie in a chicken suit
In case anyone is having trouble finding the dick joke, I've highlighted it in the quote below:
Regarding visual humour... well, the humour is based around a visual, even if we're only 'hearing' about it from a conversation.
But then what exactly is conversational humour?
Oh wait, I'd forgotten that they kept talking after the reveal that Pinkie's wearing a chicken suit at a funeral.
That's visual humour that then continues into conversational humour.
Presented in a textual format that's then interpreted by our braaains.
I think this is definitely visual humor. the punchline could be wordplay or irony, but only visual humor is funny because it unexpectedly changes the scene we are imagining. would this scene be as funny if we weren't imagining Pinkie in a chicken costume amongst the serious, darkly dressed crowd? Eating from the buffet by pecking at the vol au vents? It would not.
Visual humor can work, but I think the timing and the way in which you describe is almost as important as what you are describing. I think in the case you cited the humor comes from the surprise of imagining Pinkie dressed like a chicken in a completely alien setting. The humor comes from the contrast, and it wouldn't work as a scene in the cartoon without some cheating (not showing Pinkie until the reveal or something similar).
Here is a brief example of something I think is visual humor:
This is only a small piece in a larger scene that escalates, but you can see slapstick humor, a very visual thing, described. It is obviously not only a matter of fact description, timing is everything in comedy and lacking other ways to control the flow of the reading it is necessary to manage it in some other way, in this case with little asides.
These blogs always make my day. It's kind of pathetic actually--though that hasn't stopped me from laughing my butt off.
Oh dear god those tags.
...
I'm sorry, you wanted me to actually contribute to the discussion?
Well, I don't claim to be a big expert on comedy and its various forms but I know what I like and I liked that excerpt. Don't have to be a chef to know when food doesn't taste like ass and all that. Off the top of my head I 'd call it visual comedy, but it seems like other people here have a far better idea than I do. Basically, just keep doing what you've done above, and I'll keep reading your stories - yours is a distinct and brilliant style, and I think as long as you enjoy what you're writing I'm sure we'll all enjoy it as well.
That suddenly became a lot more profound than I intended it to be. Let me just repeat the word ass a few more times to regain some humor. Ass. Ass ass ass. Aaaaassssssssssss.