Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, Mk. XLI: No Morals! No Quarter! All Brutal!

[Welf]

And some of the early arcs like "Luna" aren't bad if you think Dom and Luna are meant to be freaks and everyone else is trolling them.

by the way: Didn't that happen back in Jocktown? And isn't that a inhabitant of Jocktown expressing support for Dominic's perceived homosexuality/crossdressing? huh.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Mookie's Heroes and Villains, Part 3:

"This is a bit of advice about what I want give about writing romance. I love romance, the gooey and sappier the better. ... But don't write the hero's girlfriend."
"Make sure the love interest, when they're by themselves, can hold the spotlight. Because, I don't know about you, I hate it when I hear this kind of dialog: I was nothing before I met him. He taught me - I can hear you guys groaning already - He taught me so much about being myself I don't know what I do without him. (sarcastic) Don't you just love that?"
"Do you feel happy for them? Do you feel happy inside? No! You want to kick them in the face!"

We need to e-mail Mookie this and the URL to the comic where Luna says this to Melna.

And then, we will figure out once and for all if he's really that forgetful (except when going on random archive trawls) or of he's a cunning mastermind and masterful actor who's putting his talents to use by trolling the people who read webcomics.

[mwchase]

We need to e-mail Mookie this and the URL to the comic where Luna says this to Melna.

And then, we will figure out once and for all if he's really that forgetful (except when going on random archive trawls) or of he's a cunning mastermind and masterful actor who's putting his talents to use by trolling the people who read webcomics.

Maybe it's "OR YOU'LL END UP LIVING IN A VAN BY THE RIVER" brand advice. OTOH, that's not what someone booking an entrenched webcomic creator is really looking for.

[TheArsenal]

Maybe he is intentioanly teaching us? That way he is showing what NOT to do in a webcomic at his own expense.

[Mr. McGician]

I use the singular they all the time. I've had arguments with profs over its application. It starts sounding more natural after you get used to it, certainly more natural than e and eir ever will, for me anyway.

And singular they gets rid of the annoying third person singular conjugation. Although you still have to use it with regular nouns...

[BlackDragonKing]

I think reading Dominic Deegan forces one to discard the notion of Mookie as an idiot or someone not worth paying attention to.

He is either one of the most amazingly clueless people I have ever heard of and must be watched simply to observe his thought process for future studies, or he is the most profoundly brilliant human being alive today and must be watched in the event that he one day tires of toying with us.

[engineer-errant]

I use the singular they all the time. I've had arguments with profs over its application. It starts sounding more natural after you get used to it, certainly more natural than e and eir ever will, for me anyway.

Out of curiosity, do you ignore verb-subject agreement or try to force it?

Most of the time, I end up using singular they and then ignoring verb-subject agreement, but in cases where I need to refer to a specific being, who is either genderless or of unknown gender, I find it awkward.

[Traab]

Absolutely no reason not to! I just thought it was kind of funny, given that it was implied that it took a demon to make Melna get all uptight about it.

I think it was more the excessive level that was blamed on the demon. For example, had dominic grabbed the nearest sharp object and started stabbing right off the bat, id think demonic influence. Being unhappy that a bastard devil worshiping infernomancer showed up is just expected.

[engineer-errant]

I think reading Dominic Deegan forces one to discard the notion of Mookie as an idiot or someone not worth paying attention to.

He is either one of the most amazingly clueless people I have ever heard of and must be watched simply to observe his thought process for future studies, or he is the most profoundly brilliant human being alive today and must be watched in the event that he one day tires of toying with us.

I really hope that it's a masterfully executed long troll. It's the only hope I have left for this comic.

[Trazoi]

More wisdom from Mookie, this time about villains, from part 4 of his Heroes and Villains talk!

Spoiler

Show

In my opinion the best villains are the ones who still think they're heroes. There is a place for "I am doing this for evil He-Man, nyah!" but there's a place for that.

But the best villains are in my opinion are the ones who still think they're heroes. The ones who think that they are, you know, doing the right thing, but have terrible ways about going about it.

And again, you don't have to go very far about getting this kind of inspiration …

You have a hero and you have a villain and the both and are at a crossroads, right. And the hero looks at one path and says "Wow, that is messed up. That's way too easy. Crazy. But this path which is much harder and is going kick my ass, and I might not come out the same person, but I'm going to go for it because it's the right thing to do. I'll see you later" - and he goes down the hero's path.
And the villain goes "That is ****ed up, and crazy, and awesome." But they're justified doing it. They are justified doing it to themselves. For themselves I should say.

And again this kind of motivation is not hard to find. Look to what you know best, yourself. Everybody in this room knows the answer to this question: "If you could kill anyone, and you knew you won't get caught, who would be it be and how would you do it?" Every single person in this room knows the answer to that question. The villain acts upon it, and is justified by it.

The rest of the talk is him discussing examples from the anime Ruin Explorer and animated Batman.

[colonelslime]

Out of curiosity, do you ignore verb-subject agreement or try to force it?

Most of the time, I end up using singular they and then ignoring verb-subject agreement, but in cases where I need to refer to a specific being, who is either genderless or of unknown gender, I find it awkward.

I ignore verb-subject agreement, but I've had very few moments where I needed to use it for something other than a generic subject that could be either gender (a ruler, a subject, a policymaker, etc.) I like it better than hamfistedly switching between pronouns (ie. using she out of the blue, than switching back to he to be equal) which a lot of literature (like scientific journals) seems to have adopted as a solution. For a true genderless being, hmmmm......

You may be right about the Spivak pronouns. If I was referring to a specific being that had no gender, singular they would be a akward solution.

This is why French just gendered everything. Screw you, complex reality, we like our nouns easily classified.

@ Trazoi: Ugghh, why must he word it like that. I'm not even sure what the crossroads thing was supposed to mean. Also, once again, follow your own advice Mookie! I don't think any villain in recent memory, besides Celesto, has done anything even remotely hinting that they're more than just cookie-cutter antagonists for the heroes to defeat. Mookie must have stolen this panel from a (marginally) better writer.

[Johnny Blade]

And again this kind of motivation is not hard to find. Look to what you know best, yourself. Everybody in this room knows the answer to this question: "If you could kill anyone, and you knew you won't get caught, who would be it be and how would you do it?" Every single person in this room knows the answer to that question. The villain acts upon it, and is justified by it.

Man, what the hell?
I came to talk about raped orc children some more, but now I have to go watch this.

[Trazoi]

Man, what the hell?
I came to talk about raped orc children some more, but now I have to go watch this.

You should. You're missing the emphasis and the gestures.

Don't bother with parts 5 and 6. Part 5 is more villain talk with Batman, Watchmen and Usual Suspects. The highlight is when some jerk answers his phone and refuses to shut up for half a minute.

Part 6's lesson is "Don't put your heroines in skimpy clothes".

Mookie's closing words are worthy of transcribing though:

"Please remember, at the end of the day, no matter what anybody tells you, no matter what anybody advises you to do, no matter what anybody who is an expert says you should and should not do - these are your worlds, these are your characters, and these are your ideas, and keep them as such. Keep them yours, and keep writing."

[Zaq]

In a vacuum, I suppose what Trazoi shared with us out of Part 3 isn't the worst writing advice I've ever heard . . . but the levels of lack of self-awareness, they boggle me.

[Johnny Blade]

I'm at the point where he talks about giving heroes hobbies, fears, weaknesses and whatever. Depth, basically.
That coming from someone whose characters don't even seem to have a life when the camera's not on them is rich.
I mean, as for hobbies and such, Dominic's cooking has come up twice or so, but besides that? What does Luna do in her free time, for example, besides getting drunk with Melna?


I'm starting to believe that Dominic Deegan is actually a supplement to these panels. Like, when people walk up to Mookie after his presentation and ask for more advice, he just jots down the URL and tells them that if they avoid everything the comic does, they'll be just fine.


EDIT: Also, if I take what he says absolutely literally, the best way to make even the most alien characters human and relatable is to give them traits you yourself possess.
That would explain so much.

[TheArsenal]

"Please remember, at the end of the day, no matter what anybody tells you, no matter what anybody advises you to do, no matter what anybody who is an expert says you should and should not do - these are your worlds, these are your characters, and these are your ideas, and keep them as such. Keep them yours, and keep writing."

So yes, Mookie is not clueless. Just ignorant. I can finaly put that nail in the coffin. Thanks for forcing yourself to watch that crap Trazoi. Now I finaly know.

[DemonicAngel]

I came out of lurking just to say that after reading around this thread, I decided to look at mookie's panel.
I wanna cry.
apart from the ghastly preformance ("stop walking around!!") the writing advice. the cringe-worthy, tooth-grinding horrible advice.
He's he really that clueless? I mean, I understand writing a dreadful comic, the snark makes up for it. but that panel is the work of a madman. or a magnifiecnt troll.

[TheArsenal]

The final part shows that he simply is ignorant. He doesn't WANT to believe that he is wrong. He shuts his ears and goes LALALALALALA "I DON"T HAVE ENOUGH TO READ YOUR COMMENT!"

[Johnny Blade]

And in part two I learn that Mookie can get behind shooting lasers but defeating a villain with "words and sentences...paragraphs even" is much more satisfying.
I suppose DD is supposed to be a synthesis of these two concepts?


EDIT: Also, Mookie seems to have his revelations in a very Paulus-like manner - as in, quite like an epileptic fit.

[Trazoi]

I'm at the point where he talks about giving heroes hobbies, fears, weaknesses and whatever. Depth, basically.
That coming from someone whose characters don't even seem to have a life when the camera's not on them is rich.
I mean, as for hobbies and such, Dominic's cooking has come up twice or so, but besides that? What does Luna do in her free time, for example, besides getting drunk with Melna?

Hey, Dominic has a sweet tooth like that guy from the Pet Shop of Horrors! That's character he's showing.

The best part of Part 1 is "Don't have heroes coming from humble origins like a farm - make him the working class".

Overall the points Mookie makes aren't bad per se, but he makes so few of them and they're all basic stuff everyone should know already. What makes watching the vids a chore is that there's no analysis or discussion of why or how, just Mookie rambling on about examples over and over. You could summarise the entire content of the hour long talk on one Powerpoint slide.

[Bobikus]

working class[/i]".

Overall the points Mookie makes aren't bad per se

Yeah but stuff like that isn't even a point. It's an arbitrary opinion.

[Johnny Blade]

The best part of Part 1 is "Don't have heroes coming from humble origins like a farm - make him the working class".

I'm not sure if that's actually what he was trying to say. Seemed to me like his - terribly worded, in this case - point was that people should make some kind of character who usually plays a bit part or at best assists the hero.

Mookie rambling on about lost princes that grew up on that farm he likes to mention makes this pretty unclear to me, though.

[mwchase]

Yeah but stuff like that isn't even a point. It's an arbitrary opinion.

I think Trazoi's point was, it's a stupid sentence, regardless, because it doesn't make sense. So, not "best" as in "how insightful" but "best" as in "oh boy".

[Trazoi]

I'm not sure if that's actually what he was trying to say. Seemed to me like his - terribly worded, in this case - point was that people should make some kind of character who usually plays a bit part or at best assists the hero.

It's hard to tell. To start with he was suggesting the protagonist should be taken from the roles usually given to support like ordinary guards or the cryptic old guy who gives the young prince a pair of magc shoes. But then he rambled off to merely fleshing out those roles so they're characters in their own right. He apparently calls these the "working class" of the story but never bothered to fully explain his terminology, which made that sentence he said about the farm workers hilarious.

That one is crummy advice BTW because there's narrative reasons for either doing that or not doing that to bit part characters which Mookie didn't even bring up. On its own it's merely a gimmick, and gimmicks can't save bad writing.

[Johnny Blade]

That one is crummy advice BTW because there's narrative reasons for either doing that or not doing that to bit part characters which Mookie didn't even bring up. On its own it's merely a gimmick, and gimmicks can't save bad writing.

Yeah, that's true either way.


I also just watched part 4 and have no idea if I was supposed to take anything away from that besides "villains should have some sort of motivation".

[Trazoi]

I also just watched part 4 and have no idea if I was supposed to take anything away from that besides "villains should have some sort of motivation".

What I took way was that is apparently advice Mookie thinks needs to be said.

How did you find the "who would you murder?" line in video?

[Johnny Blade]

How did you find the "who would you murder?" line in video?

He certainly seems to feel rather strongly about his idea that everyone knows at least one person they'd want to murder in cold blood (and probably in some sort of creative and symbolic fashion).


(I knew it was coming, so a bit of the effect was lost, but it was still kind of jarring to see that guy who had spent the last twenty minutes or so bouncing around the room rambling on about anime and comic books and whatnot suddenly say that stuff, with his index finger shooting forward for emphasis and all.)



Oh, and I have no clue whatsoever what he's even talking about in part 5.

[Trazoi]

He certainly seems to feel rather strongly about his idea that everyone knows at least one person they'd want to murder in cold blood (and probably in some sort of creative and symbolic fashion).

(I knew it was coming, so a bit of the effect was lost, but it was still kind of jarring to see that guy who had spent the last twenty minutes or so bouncing around the room rambling on about anime and comic books and whatnot suddenly say that stuff, with his index finger shooting forward for emphasis and all.)

Even the Transcribe Audio captions went silent at that part, like the software couldn't believe what he was saying.

Oh, and I have no clue whatsoever what he's even talking about in part 5.

I don't know either, which is why I recommended stopping at that point. Something about explosions affecting villains or them using their smarts instead of blowing everything up or some gumpf. He's clearly winging it.

[Johnny Blade]

I don't know either, which is why I recommended stopping at that point. Something about explosions affecting villains or them using their smarts instead of blowing everything up or some gumpf. He's clearly winging it.

He's been winging that part for quite some time, it would seem.

[Trazoi]

He's been winging that part for quite some time, it would seem.

I could tell he was working off a well-worn plan, but I thought he fleshing out the example as he goes, like his notes said "go on about Batman's Rhaz Al'Ghul here" and he adlibbed that part. I didn't know he gives the exact same talk year in year out, anecdote for anecdote.

Oh geez, he even makes the same mistake from Watchmen in 2008 as he did in 2011 - "I did it ten minutes ago". He's corrected by an uber-nerd in the audience in 2008 but he still says ten minutes in 2011. He's got the one talk etched into his brain.