Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, Mk. XXXVIII: This Show Blew My Boogeyman

[Kris Strife]

it totally undermines their credibility as villains.

Bit late to worry about that.

[Johnny Blade]

The plan is really stupid. It could only work if everyone in the audience was a gullible moron willing to believe the worst of their leaders.

Like I said, it's the best plan Celesto could have come up with.

[colonelslime]

Bit late I know, but I just read the strip now....

If this was Celesto's plan all along, then it actually relied on Dominic being there and performing his "SEE THE TRUTH" malarky to function. Without Dominic (apparently) sucking everyone into the Psychoplane, only Chance would be seeing this.

So, was this Celesto's plan all along, and will he appear gloating at Dominic in a few strips, explaining how the puppetmaster was the puppet this time?

I hope so, even if Celesto's plan is stupid, because it will be the first time Dominic has lost since WoH.

[Lord Raziere]

ok, I think I understand more now.

Celesto wants to frame the king.....for something he is already doing....but he is going to make it worse.....by showing the the monster killing a young rich boy.....who is a jerk who never gotten over being bullied for being a rich boy........who according to future vision stuff, will grow up to be even worse than he is now......

but people don't like the Masters family anyways, they'd think it good riddance....Celesto is in fact, probably going to make the King look better...

....unless of course he is relying on the fact that not everyone is a seer and are all idiots who think Chance is an innocent boy.....

....but said boy has been seen acting out and stabbing at people....and people now probably see him as dangerous, and some have outright said he needs to be contained, and the DD's allies are the ones speaking out against the logical course of action....

and now suddenly the squid thing and the king appear in the sky, and will try to kill the dangerous stabby boy, while DD and Co try to protect stabby out of control boy. which will not go over well with the crowd....

....I can't possibly see any of this ending well. this has got to be the weirdest most screwed up plan ever......and either Chance will die and the monster will be cheered for putting a dangerous young swordsman down, or DD and co will be seen as idiots that protected said out of control boy and will be thrown in jail........

my head hurts.....

[random11]

Bit late I know, but I just read the strip now....

If this was Celesto's plan all along, then it actually relied on Dominic being there and performing his "SEE THE TRUTH" malarky to function. Without Dominic (apparently) sucking everyone into the Psychoplane, only Chance would be seeing this.

So, was this Celesto's plan all along, and will he appear gloating at Dominic in a few strips, explaining how the puppetmaster was the puppet this time?

I hope so, even if Celesto's plan is stupid, because it will be the first time Dominic has lost since WoH.

If that was the plan, it's even worse.

Same plan could be easily done in the physical world (exploding boy + message, how hard can it be?)
Adding Dominic only inserts more variables to the plan. He has magic, he can predict Celesto's plan, he can be blamed instead of the king or can admit the truth and blame Celesto.
And it's not like adding him brings any advantage to the plan since Dominic has no credibility in that city.

[Zaq]

If that was the plan, it's even worse.

Same plan could be easily done in the physical world (exploding boy + message, how hard can it be?)
Adding Dominic only inserts more variables to the plan. He has magic, he can predict Celesto's plan, he can be blamed instead of the king or can admit the truth and blame Celesto.
And it's not like adding him brings any advantage to the plan since Dominic has no credibility in that city.

Does Dominic have credibility with anyone who's not Second Caste or above?

[Silva Stormrage]

Wait I just read Tuesday's comic... WTF just happened? I may be tired but seriously?

[Palmer]

Ah, so that was Dominic's plan, to make Celesto's plan all that much easier! Genius! One gold star for you.

[guttering flame]

This is madness! (no, seriously)

In Mookie's defense he's just attended a "Domestication party". Maybe it screwed with his head making today's comic even more lame and bizarre.

So... is Dom trying to frame another mustached warrior?

[Zaq]

Oh, that's what Scarlatti reminds me of in panel 2! Anyone have Complete Arcane? Check out Morthos's goofy pose on page 72. Here's a tiny version (there might be a better version out there if you search for it):

Spoiler

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What's that line near the top of panel 8? Are they standing in front of a really close Inappropriate Wall?

Anyway, no, in case you were wondering, this doesn't make any goddamn sense. Just, you know, in case anyone wasn't totally clear on that and needed me to confirm it. That's what I'm here for. You're welcome.

[Castel]

Dominic's posing is so cheesy it made the mini-snugglies explode?

[Humbug]

Wow, way to make people think that someone other than Dominic was gonna help deal with the situation, because why the **** did you make a big scene about Scarlatti grabbing the sword only to have Dom just teleport in and deal with the Snugglies all by himself?

Seriously, Dominic seems to be some sort black hole that sucks the competence out of everyone around him that they become totally useless in any given situation.

[Trazoi]

I'm not sure what this is meant to show. It looks like the sword turned into Dominic with the sword (?), which exploded into beam spam which then exploded the snuglets which then exploded the mindscape (???). But that's just... stupid.

[Bobikus]

I'm not sure what this is meant to show. It looks like the sword turned into Dominic with the sword (?), which exploded into beam spam which then exploded the snuglets which then exploded the mindscape (???). But that's just... stupid.

I think that's actually what happened, but looking at the comic is making my eyes bleed so I'm not sure.

[Cen]

So.. if Scarletti was holding a sword that tured into Domonic where do you think his left hand is in panel 1?

[random11]

It looks like the script for this strip was written by five different people.

We will probably get an explanation in a strip or two about what just happened, but I won't aim my hopes for an explanation that will make sense.

[Trazoi]

I like the last panel. Those three are clearly embarassed to be caught up in this mess.

Maybe Mookie should seriously consider a hiatus until his wedding is sorted out. There's no shame in admitting you need a break because you're too distracted by everything else.

[random11]

So.. if Scarletti was holding a sword that tured into Domonic where do you think his left hand is in panel 1?

I was hoping for something like in One Piece, when Zoro used Usopp as his sword...

[Gez]

A goon-made strip slay from the SA thread. It's too great not to share.

Spoiler

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[rocketpony]

So, in order to charge up his slay-everything attack, Dominic disguised himself as a sword, so he could work uninterrupted. To prevent further interruption, he brought an entire stadium full of people into the murder plane, to be meat shields if push came to shove.
Then, at the time when the cunning plan of the false Snugglies was to fall on Chance like a fishing net, Dominic discharges the spell, saves the day, and everyone goes back off-murder-plane, so they can stand about a foot apart and stare at a wall two feet away.

Szark I take back the things I said, it is very difficult to explain this without sounding crazy.

BONUS QUESTION: Since Dominic is/was the Champion of Balance, is he required at times to perform evil, in service of the balance between evil and good? Do jocks continue to thrive on Dominion because it is cosmically demanded, and enforced by Dominic, that evil and mischance must exist?

[Thark]

BONUS QUESTION: Since Dominic is/was the Champion of Balance, is he required at times to perform evil, in service of the balance between evil and good? Do jocks continue to thrive on Dominion because it is cosmically demanded, and enforced by Dominic, that evil and mischance must exist?

Off course not, what sort of champion of balance would dominic be if he didnt solely do acts of good and tried to rid the world of evil....

In all seriousness though, wasnt there something about both absolute law and absolute chaos being evil and dominic had to bring it back into balance or some crap.

[Gez]

The way I always played it in D&D was that balance was only between Law and Chaos. Good is balanced. Evil is imbalanced. There can't be a "balance between Good and Evil" because it'd make about as much sense as talking about a "balance between balance and imbalance". And if you found that, then you could as well go on to find a balance between the balance between balance and imbalance and the imbalance between balance and imbalance" and so on recursively until your brain explodes.

That's why the LG, NG and CG exemplars work together in harmony (they're Good and therefore further balance) whereas the LE, NE and CE exemplars are always infighting (they're evil and therefore seek to upset balance).

[random11]

Evil can cooperate, and good can have very big arguments about the path to take, so it's not always so clear that evil cannot be balanced or the other way around.
In D&D I usually completely ignored alignment, or matched the appropriate alignment only after the character's behavior and motives were well established.

Back to the subject, Dominic was indeed the champion of balance between chaos and law, so there isn't any problem with him trying to do good.

The thing is that until now, as the champion of balance he only fought against the side of chaos.
It's very easy to see how excessive chaos can cause harm, but the challenge in such stories is when balance needs to fight against law. Not many authors can do this in a good way, so I prefer DD will never even try to head to that direction...

[Trazoi]

It's very easy to see how excessive chaos can cause harm, but the challenge in such stories is when balance needs to fight against law. Not many authors can do this in a good way, so I prefer DD will never even try to head to that direction...

I've seen law turned up to oppressive levels in stories fairly frequently and it doesn't seem that hard to do decently the way they do it. The usual way I've seen it done is by having the law group imposing rules to oppress individuality, moulding society into a collection of similar drones. Then turning everyone into robots/golems/dolls/etc. if they want to go that extra mile. I think chaos is harder to do right, because there's a temptation to make it either "purple monkey dishwasher" nonsense or just plain kill-crazy.

In DD, I think all we've got is Uber-law is basic tyranny and Uber-chaos is exploding stuff.

However this argument doesn't matter, as Dominic gave up all his Champion of Balance powers because he's good and righeous and doesn't hoard all his power like evil goateed seers and that's why he can transform into a sword and beam laser everything.

[Traab]

Oh. Oh god. OH GOD NO!!!!!! I just had the most terrible thought in the history of ever! Masters family and the rest of the town will blame Dom, (thats not the bad part) Scarletti will stand up for him and back him up, (as a character witness probably, since I doubt he is aware of whats going on) He will get chased out of town as well, and scarletti will end up being forced to join up with dom and szark, forming a really awkward Odd Couple with plenty of snark and talk free panels full of scowls. And then, because I doubt mook will allow any main cast member like szark to end the story unhappy. He and scarletti will fall in love. /urk.

[Oracle_Hunter]

BONUS QUESTION: Since Dominic is/was the Champion of Balance, is he required at times to perform evil, in service of the balance between evil and good? Do jocks continue to thrive on Dominion because it is cosmically demanded, and enforced by Dominic, that evil and mischance must exist?

(1) He's the Champion of Balance between Law & Chaos, not Good & Evil.

(2) The Champion of Balance apparently shows up whenever there is a Champion of either Law or Chaos. Since there are apparently never more than two Champions at a time, this means that Law & Chaos never actually duke it out in Dominion -- that party is always killed by Balance before it gets good.

Re: Comic
I honestly can't comment on anything that has been going on in-comic this Arc. It is too mind-numbingly stupid. This is poorly-executed Axe Cop crap and I'll have no part in it

[Traab]

I've seen law turned up to oppressive levels in stories fairly frequently and it doesn't seem that hard to do decently the way they do it. The usual way I've seen it done is by having the law group imposing rules to oppress individuality, moulding society into a collection of similar drones. Then turning everyone into robots/golems/dolls/etc. if they want to go that extra mile. I think chaos is harder to do right, because there's a temptation to make it either "purple monkey dishwasher" nonsense or just plain kill-crazy.

In DD, I think all we've got is Uber-law is basic tyranny and Uber-chaos is exploding stuff.

However this argument doesn't matter, as Dominic gave up all his Champion of Balance powers because he's good and righeous and doesn't hoard all his power like evil goateed seers and that's why he can transform into a sword and beam laser everything.

V for Vendetta. Using chaos to overthrow oppressive law. Balance is restored.

[random11]

I've seen law turned up to oppressive levels in stories fairly frequently and it doesn't seem that hard to do decently the way they do it. The usual way I've seen it done is by having the law group imposing rules to oppress individuality, moulding society into a collection of similar drones. Then turning everyone into robots/golems/dolls/etc. if they want to go that extra mile. I think chaos is harder to do right, because there's a temptation to make it either "purple monkey dishwasher" nonsense or just plain kill-crazy.

Excessive social laws as an ideology, yes, it is very common. But Law as a force of nature or group of gods is more rare,
This type of conflict is rarely done in a good way when the hero is supposed to side with chaos.

[Seerow]

Today's comic is the first one in DD's history where I read it and literally couldn't follow what Mookie was trying to make happen.

[Gwyn chan 'r Gwyll]

... This is just so ridiculous.

I actually have no clue waht's happening.