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Random musings about humor
3 years ago
I have a pretty big handful of unfinished projects at this point, both on and off FA, so I took a moment to think about why. My personal projects slow down because I'm so afraid of doing art, which I've been trying harder to overcome lately (feel free to give me advice!).
My FA projects, however, are mostly writing. I think those may be slowing down because I lost what made me originally start writing them: dissatisfaction with the prevalence of certain themes, and wry comedy. Wry comedy being the more important of the two. There was a central, often-minimized joke embedded in every Species file that helped inform the rest of the document. They were as follows:
- Muskel: Empire of tough, muscular soldiers that love war and hate love, but like to sneak off in the dead of night to snuggle teddies and watch anime.
- Footdot: Cute little freaks that wouldn't normally be allowed anywhere, but they are because the muskeli will overreact to any perceived aggression. The Little Sister, Big Daddy dynamic from Bioshock, basically.
- Human: Opposable thumbs and really, really powerful marijuana.
- Peak: "Theoretical sex." Unlike most of the others, I wrote that whole document based off just that one line, and I'm still laughing at it to this day. I'm telling you, "theoretical sex" is the holy grail of sexual comedy.
- Fetid: The original joke was just about the randomized clothing. Their society is purposely built to make no sense from outside. This was also the onset of the idea of the writer being angry about something.
- Slai: Dragon hoarding. "Please don't send me angry letters calling me a racist."
- Meebit: Sweet, innocent figurative-unicorns... but if you try to bed one and you die, it's entirely your fault. If I was in the habit of using graphics, that file probably would have been covered in more warning stickers than Floodvee.
- Raker: ...No underlying humor here, actually. I just really liked this species.
- Shlreshshlren: Tentacle monsters are people, too. "Please stop shooting them."
- Etch: Casual, non-sexual watersports.
- Ferr: Trolls.
- Zynkrolik: Art is everything.Censorship is bad.
- Knochen: "They're strong, they're heavy, they [assault] women, everything the knochens are and more." Based off a line I heard in a certain podcast. I don't know, a species idolizing the muskeli for all the wrong reasons was really funny to me at the time. It probably came off as preachy, but it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
- Lodo: Their very design. It's so lazy that the rest of their story writes itself.
- Nameless: Probably doesn't need to be said, but the humor here was in the speaker, not necessarily the race itself.
Writing is just so much easier when I'm laughing. It doesn't all have to be fun and games, I liked doing the Omissions documents, but when it comes to moods that are between "light" and "dark" I start drawing blanks. This doesn't mean I want to go full-clown and start filling canvases with memes, there just has to be some central gag that I can build around. It can be subtle, it just has to be there, and hopefully pinning that down will help me actually finish something.
My FA projects, however, are mostly writing. I think those may be slowing down because I lost what made me originally start writing them: dissatisfaction with the prevalence of certain themes, and wry comedy. Wry comedy being the more important of the two. There was a central, often-minimized joke embedded in every Species file that helped inform the rest of the document. They were as follows:
- Muskel: Empire of tough, muscular soldiers that love war and hate love, but like to sneak off in the dead of night to snuggle teddies and watch anime.
- Footdot: Cute little freaks that wouldn't normally be allowed anywhere, but they are because the muskeli will overreact to any perceived aggression. The Little Sister, Big Daddy dynamic from Bioshock, basically.
- Human: Opposable thumbs and really, really powerful marijuana.
- Peak: "Theoretical sex." Unlike most of the others, I wrote that whole document based off just that one line, and I'm still laughing at it to this day. I'm telling you, "theoretical sex" is the holy grail of sexual comedy.
- Fetid: The original joke was just about the randomized clothing. Their society is purposely built to make no sense from outside. This was also the onset of the idea of the writer being angry about something.
- Slai: Dragon hoarding. "Please don't send me angry letters calling me a racist."
- Meebit: Sweet, innocent figurative-unicorns... but if you try to bed one and you die, it's entirely your fault. If I was in the habit of using graphics, that file probably would have been covered in more warning stickers than Floodvee.
- Raker: ...No underlying humor here, actually. I just really liked this species.
- Shlreshshlren: Tentacle monsters are people, too. "Please stop shooting them."
- Etch: Casual, non-sexual watersports.
- Ferr: Trolls.
- Zynkrolik: Art is everything.
- Knochen: "They're strong, they're heavy, they [assault] women, everything the knochens are and more." Based off a line I heard in a certain podcast. I don't know, a species idolizing the muskeli for all the wrong reasons was really funny to me at the time. It probably came off as preachy, but it was meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
- Lodo: Their very design. It's so lazy that the rest of their story writes itself.
- Nameless: Probably doesn't need to be said, but the humor here was in the speaker, not necessarily the race itself.
Writing is just so much easier when I'm laughing. It doesn't all have to be fun and games, I liked doing the Omissions documents, but when it comes to moods that are between "light" and "dark" I start drawing blanks. This doesn't mean I want to go full-clown and start filling canvases with memes, there just has to be some central gag that I can build around. It can be subtle, it just has to be there, and hopefully pinning that down will help me actually finish something.
