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

[BlackDragonKing]

Dominic: Hey, my body's not messed up from fighting in the psych-planes for once! Sweet!

Celesto: Let me help you with that.

Now, would Dominic be capable of dragging this fight back to the mental plane, where he can fight back, or is Celesto going to use the fact he has superpowers in the REAL world and Dominic doesn't?

Either way, Dominic's going to have to be saved with the way this is going.

[Humbug]

So is there a reason why Dominic doesn't have the usual headaches and nosebleeds? Or is Mookie so attached to his babies that they can't even suffer a papercut?

[Palmer]

Even Dominic doesn't consider his consequences a big deal. Celesto might as well give him a slap on the back for bringing his plan together. Sure, Chance isn't dead, but who cares? We're never seeing him again. He's like the trainer of the day in Pokemon.

[Trazoi]

Oh man, that newspost. I almost thought this was a sign of some weird unexplained mystical shenanigans that could spell trouble further on, but nope. Turns out our protagonist being flawlessly awesome is Mookie's idea of a "twist".

I'm not sure what to make of this. I know the manta that "it always gets worse", but really... how?

[T-O-E]

So is there a reason why Dominic doesn't have the usual headaches and nosebleeds? Or is Mookie so attached to his babies that they can't even suffer a papercut?

He gained a secret powerup. He is now even more powerful than before due to something something. Celesto will try to attack Dom or the boy. This is where he will just know how to use his new superpower of whatever and save the day again.

I'm guessing.

[rocketpony]

I'm not sure what to make of this. I know the manta that "it always gets worse", but really... how?

Celesto wants to congratulate Dominic for coming up with a better plan.
"The least I could do was transfer your mental suffering onto myself," he explains, hinting that a valid seer strategy is to get your teeth kicked in on the mental plane and then just reassign who it goes to on the physical plane, which will never be explained, explored, or even really mentioned ever again.
They all go back into the tournament hall. However, in a surprise twist, since both Celesto and the king have a beard, people mistake Celesto for the king, and the mob sets upon him. Celesto's brief fling with being a functioning human being disintegrates, and he escapes.
Somebody sums up the whole mess with alliteration (So Scarlatti's Sword Shooting Seers Baffled the Beasts Beautifully!), which Mookie uses as a transition to what's happening with Spark. The panel shows Spark in some apparent peril, but after the weekend passes, it turns out that there's no fish allowed at this art panel because the main sponsor has a seafood allergy, and he's just being dramatic about it. And until about November, it's the Luna (so great) and Spark show. We meet Bumper's family! They're snobs, fops, and also racist against piggarts as well as talking cats.

[T-O-E]

So Celesto the seer scammed some stylish snobs solely using seer skill.

Kill me.

[Thark]

Ugh...that was dumb beyond reason

[Cen]

question:

So is there a reason why Dominic doesn't have the usual headaches and nosebleeds? Or is Mookie so attached to his babies that they can't even suffer a papercut?

answer

Whenever Dominic really exerts himself on the psychoplanes he usually ends up with a pounding headache and a bleeding face in the real world. Celesto, on the other hand, has had a relatively effortless time of making people explode and stirring up planar chaos.

I think it's nice to see the tables turned for once.

He thinks it's nice
I don't want to read this comic anymore :(

[random11]

Please, stop quoting the newsposts.

The only thing i have left is hope that stuff like that are considered to be mistakes and will improve over time!
Seeing confirmations that the author sees random stuff like that as "cool" is depressing.

[Traab]

Yeah, there is either going to be a LONG exposition in the immediate future, or this arc is getting glossed over completely. Quite frankly im not sure which would be worse. But im guessing everyone with a talking heads square is going to check that one off damn soon.

[Johnny Blade]

I don't want to read this comic anymore :(

Not that I'd want to see you leave, but if those last days and their completely inane twists and turns aren't what you read the comic for, then what is it that makes you come back?

I, for one, can finally say that I liked more than one strip this week again. I think the last time that happened was when Greg's supporting Metal Stooges got their respective mini-arcs in the spotlight, and only because they're so slayable.

Also, I'm honestly not sure if whatever happened yesterday really qualifies as beam spam or if Dominic just shot out of the sword he then immediately held himself (Yeah, I don't know...) and used to cut through the Snugglies, but the light show this resulted in is enough for me to take some liberties, so:

Spoiler

Show

Come on, Mookie...just one more...

[Mauve Shirt]

Either way, Dominic's going to have to be saved with the way this is going.

I don't see how that would help at all.

[Humbug]

answer
(Goddamnit Mookie)

He thinks it's nice
I don't want to read this comic anymore :(

Which pretty much leads back to this

Or is Mookie so attached to his babies that they can't even suffer a papercut?

Because a nosebleed is so awful that Mookie can't bring himself to make Dominic experience a second one or whatever.

[Traab]

Which pretty much leads back to this


Because a nosebleed is so awful that Mookie can't bring himself to make Dominic experience a second one or whatever.

Considering that dominic has had more nosebleeds and vicious beatings than he has puns, I dont think thats the case. Im hoping it gets justified. "Oh of course! Since my mental link to my own body was so fractured, a great deal of the mental damage I took was basically, lost in transmission! This is a major breakthrough for seers everywhere! We can get the crap beaten out of our mental aspects, and return to only mildly aching bodies instead of profuse nasal bleeding."

[Mr. McGician]

Looks like my guess was right, unless we're going to have a gigantic block of exposition at the end of this arc explaining step-by-step what happened. Which I, again, doubt, because at this point I think Mookie's just trying to wrap up the arc as quickly as possible and what's happening right now doesn't even make sense to him.

[Garland]

He thinks it's nice
I don't want to read this comic anymore :(

No, you see, he thinks it's nice that Dominic wins and saves the day, for once! A stunning development to be sure.

And now Celesto has developed a butt-chin.

edit: I actually think Celesto's gonna say "Ok Dominic, I'll give up, admit defeat and leave you alone forever if you explain what the **** just happened"

[random11]

Looks like my guess was right, unless we're going to have a gigantic block of exposition at the end of this arc explaining step-by-step what happened. Which I, again, doubt, because at this point I think Mookie's just trying to wrap up the arc as quickly as possible and what's happening right now doesn't even make sense to him.

"Wow, what a hangover.
It seems I was passed out for three days!
Wait... I updated my comic while being drunk? That can't be good...
Let's see what I wrote, maybe no one will notice.
...
...
What?
...
...
What?!
...
...
WHAT?!
Oh my god, I have to finish this arc fast!"

[BlackDragonKing]

I don't see how that would help at all.

It'd be funny?

You know, I was rather liking this arc for a while. We got to see Szark and Scarlatti again, and I still like both of them well enough. Luna wasn't around, which was a plus, and actual foreshadowing and characters more complicated than "Jock Strawman" and "Lovable Loser" were brought into play. Scarlatti was a little off-the-mark at first, but he was able to gravitate back to his initial characterization as not a very nice man but by no means a bad person after the initial bumps...

Then stuff happened, and I rather lost the thread of what the HELL is going on and why. The one good thing out of it getting so confusing was that Dominic Deegan and following this thread finally drove me to ponies.

Suddenly a LOT of jokes made on this board make so much more sense.

[random11]

Then stuff happened, and I rather lost the thread of what the HELL is going on and why. The one good thing out of it getting so confusing was that Dominic Deegan and following this thread finally drove me to ponies.

Suddenly a LOT of jokes made on this board make so much more sense.

Join us! Join us!!

also: STUFF

[Welf]

See, that's my contention. I'm fine with the comic (though today is kind of dumb. Haha! Understatement) but Mollie himself ticked me off, by doing something blatantly, admitting he's doing it blatantly, and then saying "gee, it's really hard to draw a weapon, which throughout the history of media has had hundreds, if not thousands, of unique interpretations, without specifically ripping off this one thing I mentioned a while ago". I rather passionately dislike that level of gee willickers, looks like I flubbed again, sorry guys! Stuff.

If you do something, don't excuse it, own up to it. That's what drew me to DD in the first place. Mookie drew a rape scene, justified it as a good thing, and didn't give a lick what anyone said, he did it anyway. That took some brass fittings.

This mookie (my phone keeps hanging his name to Mollie XD) though, he is a blundering unsympathetic goof. "oops I purposefully did something bad because the other way is hard" burnt up all of mookie's good points with me.

So, you respected him because he didn't care, and now you disrespect him because he doesn't care.
I get what you mean. I had the feeling that since Maltak Mookie cares less and less about his comic and puts less and less love and dedication into it. It makes me sad. You shouldn't waste time and energy for something you don't enjoy and can't be proud of.

Celesto wants to congratulate Dominic for coming up with a better plan.
"The least I could do was transfer your mental suffering onto myself," he explains, hinting that a valid seer strategy is to get your teeth kicked in on the mental plane and then just reassign who it goes to on the physical plane, which will never be explained, explored, or even really mentioned ever again.
They all go back into the tournament hall. However, in a surprise twist, since both Celesto and the king have a beard, people mistake Celesto for the king, and the mob sets upon him. Celesto's brief fling with being a functioning human being disintegrates, and he escapes.
Somebody sums up the whole mess with alliteration (So Scarlatti's Sword Shooting Seers Baffled the Beasts Beautifully!), which Mookie uses as a transition to what's happening with Spark. The panel shows Spark in some apparent peril, but after the weekend passes, it turns out that there's no fish allowed at this art panel because the main sponsor has a seafood allergy, and he's just being dramatic about it. And until about November, it's the Luna (so great) and Spark show. We meet Bumper's family! They're snobs, fops, and also racist against piggarts as well as talking cats.

I hate you. Because this is going to happen.

[Palmer]

The thing about the headache and nosebleeds are that they're supposed to be physical consequences for your psychoplane damage, but Celesto has them despite there being psychic stink lines around him. In reality he probably has a runny nose and an itchy scalp.

[Lord Raziere]

....so now Dominic just can't suffer consequences just because Mookie doesn't want him to? no reason at all? this comic is getting even worse. I mean really this is just lazy....

at some point, it might even become bad enough for the snarkers to be driven away by it.

[Traab]

....so now Dominic just can't suffer consequences just because Mookie doesn't want him to? no reason at all? this comic is getting even worse. I mean really this is just lazy....

at some point, it might even become bad enough for the snarkers to be driven away by it.

BAH! Its obvious what the situation is. Dominic has gotten his butt kicked so many times mentally that he has built up resistance to all the damage. Celestro hasnt been trashed that often so he got hurt.

[Bobikus]

At least this is just bad in a writing sense and not as morally horrific like the treatment of Stonewater, Melna being in love with stonewater, Dominic's actions in both Snowsong and Oracle Hunter arcs, etc.

[Trazoi]

I'd still argue that Snowsong is the storyline that would probably require the least rewriting to work. It's so very almost a story about how Dominic's hubris allowed him to take advantage of his own trusting brother and the town of Barthis. All it required was for Pam to be really angry instead of the slap-on-the-wrist, "boo hoo isn't she being unfair to Dominic" ending. If the end was Dominic being slapped with a serious offence and Greg starting to distrust him, it would have been actual character conflict. Instead I get the impression that the storyline about Dominic's hubris was an unintended interpretation of what was meant to be a "Dominic is so awesome" moment.

This arc is so muddled I'm mainly staying out of curiousity of how much of it is going to be recycled into stuff relevant to D.J. Callan and how much will be forgotten instantly.

[Bobikus]

With the same mindset, the Stonewater/Melna thing could have been slightly salvaged if everyone acknowledged that what Stonewater did was really horrible and he had to make serious efforts to atone, and Melna hated him for it. Instead, the only people that had anything negative to say about Stonewater at all only did so because of a demon's influence because Mookie is a hack.

[Zaq]

With the same mindset, the Stonewater/Melna thing could have been slightly salvaged if everyone acknowledged that what Stonewater did was really horrible and he had to make serious efforts to atone, and Melna hated him for it. Instead, the only people that had anything negative to say about Stonewater at all only did so because of a demon's influence because Mookie is a hack.

So much of Dominic Deegan would be so much better if Mookie could bear to give his beloved characters meaningful consequences.

And no, losing a leg doesn't count.

[Trazoi]

With the same mindset, the Stonewater/Melna thing could have been slightly salvaged if everyone acknowledged that what Stonewater did was really horrible and he had to make serious efforts to atone, and Melna hated him for it. Instead, the only people that had anything negative to say about Stonewater at all only did so because of a demon's influence because Mookie is a hack.

The weirdest part of the Stonewater story is how Mookie completely cacked up the presentation of the heroic side of his character. The only way that could have worked would have been to show Stonewater as a hero, then shown his horrific backstory, and then shown even more atonement. Instead most of the heroics is presented via talking heads or through hilarously ham-fisted attempts like this. The fundamental rule is anything shown has much more weight than anything talked about, yet Mookie didn't seem to get that when the first real thing his audience saw of Stonewater was that he's a nasty rapist then that's going to dominate their opinion of the character, and Dominic merely talking him up isn't going to reverse that (it's actually going to make Dom look like a monster too).

[Coidzor]

I often wonder if it could have been done well at all. & what the heck that would look like.

Seems like it'd've necessitated expanding the world beyond the three towns of Callan which would've potentially been a good thing.