Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, Mk. XLIV: Stunt Bro and Hella Jayden

[Toast1862]

Well. Nothing in this arc made me angry enough to spaz out and then replace someone with a banana. Or angry enough to say or do much at all. I guess the last few panels of this would have been kind of cute if it had been done at the end of a better arc with more interesting characters? I guess?

I dunno I found this arc more bluh than the last.

[Nerd-o-rama]

I bet you 30 lunas that jayden is going to get pissed off at either milov or a group of angry flea bitten mutts who object to a cheating harlot coming back to their neck of the woods, and she will break out the whistle. Just because that was way too hamfisted of a reference for mookie to pass up on. And stunt is now a crotchety 70 year old man. "Aww GEEZ! Not another HUGGER!" Misogynist or not, that is an attractive woman with a huge rack giving you a hug. She isnt asking you to cry, or share feelings, just give the hot chick a squeeze back and enjoy it! Honestly, I see less whining from 8 year old boys being hugged by great aunt martha.

I dunno, I'm fairly certain Stunt's not interested in women. Whether that's because he's asexual, gay, or mentally eight I couldn't tell you, but regardless, his dislike of physical affection and looking uncool is fairly consistent across genders.

[WyvernLord]

~snip~

Yeah Jayden is going to do something stupid. There was no real resolution to their relationship. It's going to be hard for her not to her in trouble somehow.

Some people just don't do physical contact unless they really like someone. I'm one and apparently so is Stunt. It's pretty simple.

[Mr. McGician]

Wait, is the arc seriously over?

...That was the most anticlimactic thing ever. Even for this comic. Probably because Mookie had gotten my hopes up by building tension for a whole week, whereas in other arcs the tension never lasted more than a single strip anyway.

Well, I'm just glad there weren't any more boring flashbacks like I predicted. And I'm glad this stupid filler arc is finally over, anyway. Maybe Mookie will get around to the main plot sometime this year, now that he's warmed up with a filler arc.

[random11]

That's it, I figured it out.
Mookie has plotophobia, or at least a severe allergic reaction from plot points.

Why else does he create something that might be interesting only to run away from it the next day?

[elros]

It deserves to be said again: Mookie desperately needs an editor.

Mookie being unable to separate himself from his characters

That is exactly it! Mookie loves his characters so much that he does not see that they are unbelievable and boring. He is so proud that each is not a classic stereotype ("see, my hero is not super-strong!) that he doesn't realize that he has created characters that are worse.

He does it again in today's comic: Jayden did exactly what EVERY female character in DD does: she got all mushy and huggy around a strong guy. Can't he see that she is not consistent with her earlier behavior? To make it worse, do you know any woman who would have reacted that way? Can't he realize that, once again, he is making the women in his comic look weak? Seriously, how can Mookie not see this pattern? And not only that, how can he not realize that the pacing this week was a disgrace! A competent editor would point all of these things out.

If Mookie ever does anything in the future, he should find an editor who can point these things out to him. Unfortunately, his friends are people like Tim Buckley, Ananth Panagariya and Mohammed Haque, Fred Gallagher, and Scott "Pantsman" Ramsoomair, so I don't see any help coming.

[Coidzor]

One does have to wonder sometimes if the Mookie-wife spends most of her effort into avoiding ever reading the comic.

[Domochevsky]

...
If Mookie ever does anything in the future, he should find an editor who can point these things out to him. Unfortunately, his friends are people like Tim Buckley, Ananth Panagariya and Mohammed Haque, Fred Gallagher, and Scott "Pantsman" Ramsoomair, so I don't see any help coming.

Sidenote: Glad to see that the badwebcomics wiki is still a pool of pointlessly inept dickery. I don't want to be associated with that.

[Trazoi]

I think this might be another, subtler case of Mookie being unable to separate himself from his characters. He knows that Stunt is ultimately trustworthy (admittedly not because of his character, but because that's how he's going to write him), and therefore Jayden does too. He knows that the MacGuffin is going to be perfectly safe, therefore Jayden and Rilian do too.

I agree, except for that it's "subtler" because it's screamingly blatant. It's one of the most annoying things about the comic.

The other side of the same problem is that because Mookie is only focusing on one thing, like Stunt and Jayden becoming friends, then that's all those characters care about too. Not only does the friendship feel forced and fake, the two have had their previous personalities erased to have Mookie's new version installed. It's the same reason the abomination in the form of Greg who sings whiny emo metal songs and smashes bleeding invalids with his guitar is absolutely nothing like the stoic healer at the beginning of the comic.

Also: I agree Mookie needs an editor, but more than that he needs to edit. If he wrote out his arcs in advance and did a couple of drafts I'm sure they would be a heck of a lot better. Even without another editor I'm sure Mookie could catch how he front loaded this arc with a lot of irrelevant fluff with angry cart drivers, the Baron of Burglary and those Luanian lover priests that went absolutely nowhere, and how the ending is the biggest rushed piece of nonsense in ages.

[Mr. McGician]

I agree, except for that it's "subtler" because it's screamingly blatant. It's one of the most annoying things about the comic.

It's also the reason why this comic holds tension the way a thimble holds water (this arc's ending being a prime example.) Mookie seems to have a mortal fear of putting his characters in danger, because he himself wouldn't want to be in those situations and he can't separate his characters from himself.

[elros]

Mookie seems to have a mortal fear of putting his characters in danger, because he himself wouldn't want to be in those situations and he can't separate his characters from himself.

Listen to Alfred Hitchcock describe cinematic tension, and you will learn how to overcome that problem. And there are so many other examples where writers are able create tension with their characters, even though the reader knows that they will ultimately pull through. The writers do because they allow the readers to understand the nature of the threat and can relate to the characters on an emotional level.
Mookie derails tension because he works with underdeveloped and inconsistent ideas, Mary Sue characters, overuse of ultimate power spells (e.g. "see the truth"), and ill-timed jokes (which break the tension).
We know what a bomb can do, so we perceive it as a threat. HP Lovecraft mastered the "threat of the unknown" by giving just enough information to make us realize a threat, and then allowing our imagination to make it even scarier. Mookie, on the other hand, leaves the readers in the dark about what is actually happening. This link states it beautifully:

When the main character’s in trouble and the rules you’ve established so far don’t give her any loophole, you don’t have to say that she’s in trouble –the audience knows

Mookie also ruins the fear of the unknown by undermining his villains and using ill-timed humor.
Really, it's amazing that Mookie keeps making these mistakes. Plus, not all links are "pool of pointlessly inept dickery"

[Acanous]

I think this arc was a definate improvement over Maltak.

[Welf]

I think this arc was a definite improvement over Maltak.

Indeed. And it was much shorter. It took only a third fourth of this year, instead more than a year.

A third fourth of the year. Four THREE months. FOUR Three MONTHS.

First strip: January the 2nd

Last strip (more or less): March the 30th.

What happened in this FOUR THREE MONTHS? Jayden meets Stunt, we get a tiny little exposition about Lunaism, Stunt has a flashback, two random encounters with the burglar king and mommy bug, then the gig with Necromancer Rillian and the Giant Magic Space Mantaray. Oh, and they got two missions to start new arcs.

Seriously, what was accomplished? I'm no writer and ain't know nothing about pacing, but that arc should' have taken around 500-520 panels (13 weeks with 5 updates with 8 panels).

[Gez]

A third of the year. Four months. FOUR MONTHS.

First strip: January the 2nd

Last strip (more or less): March the 30th.

If you're going to bookend this arc, I think the best dates to use are January 13 and March 30. Go, on look at them both.

Seriously:

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[rocketpony]

A third of the year. Four months. FOUR MONTHS.

1. January 1-31
2. February 1-29
3. March 1-31

Here to help

[Domochevsky]

...
Plus, not all links are "pool of pointlessly inept dickery"

I have yet to see one link going there that isn't. It doesn't even matter if they have good points. If they can't state them without throwing in extra insults these points don't matter.

(Here's something to discuss for the weekend: Validity of statements and the tone with which these statements are made. Discuss.)

[Helanna]

I have yet to see one link going there that isn't. It doesn't even matter if they have good points. If they can't state them without throwing in extra insults these points don't matter.

(Here's something to discuss for the weekend: Validity of statements and the tone with which these statements are made. Discuss.)

Yeah, I read those linked reviews, and they were just mesmerizingly nasty. And I thought we occasionally got nasty here! Ironically, the Dominic Deegan page wasn't nearly so bad as the others I read.

Re: Tone vs. Validity, I didn't trust the reviews I read because of the tone. If you're going to be that incredibly negative about everything, and rarely if ever give any actual examples that don't boil down to "I didn't like it", then why should I think you have any idea what you're talking about? We get pretty negative about DD here, but we have legitimate examples to back it up, not just "THIS IS STUPID AND I HATE IT" with worse language, over and over.

[Welf]

1. January 1-31
2. February 1-29
3. March 1-31

Here to help

Counting is a hard

If you're going to bookend this arc, I think the best dates to use are January 13 and March 30. Go, on look at them both.

Seriously:

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, just
And isn't it more effort to copy and scan these panels than it is to re-draw them?

[Lord Raziere]

I think this arc was a definate improvement over Maltak.

Of course, this is the faintest praise since Ned Stark said that Robert Baratheon was a better king than his predecessor….

and yea……that is kinda copying the stuff there…..the "book ends" trope only works if your clever about it and has actual meaning to the story, you don't just throw in some stuff that looks similar and go "oh look its all ending as it began!" it has to be y'know, actually symbolic of how everything is returning to the beginning….or something….

[Veridis Quo]

So in the last three months Stunt has moved from being the voice of the audience to another deegan. Three months is what it took to make this character less interesting.

[random11]

So what did we have in this arc?

We had a few weeks of a drama queen saying that she is going to die to every random person she meets. That point became completely pointless since it is not real death, we all knew it, but never really figured out what it's supposed to mean.

Then we saw how religious people are, unlike EVERYTHING we saw until now in the comic.

We saw Tarvis, someone with a potential of being an actual villain, or at least a side character. But then he was wasted as nothing more than a mean of transportation, which is ALSO pointless since the same way back took even less time...

We met new characters, the halfling and human priest. I thank the gods that they were wasted on just an awkward sex scene, I never want to see them again anyway.

Three more threats were ignored almost immediately:
Falling down a cliff? Nothing more that a comic relief.
Sand worm? Convenient sleep spell.
Giant beetle? Auto heal.
All three threats took 7 strips total. That's an average of ~2.3 strips per threat, meaning reveal and instant resolve three times in a row!

Between the outpost, the cliff, and the desert, Jayden and Stunt shared their stories and feelings. We already knew Jayden's story, so this part was pointless, and I wish we never saw Stunt's story, because it was made just to take all the responsibility AWAY from him.
Either way, both characters already figured out everything about their lives, so they didn't really need each other or this arc for the "character development".

Then we had a promising few days. We saw them attached by an arch-mage, met Rillian, finally saw the treasure, and learned that they must split up, provide a diversion and have a quest to save the world.
Result? Rillian's warnings were ignored for a few more minutes in the scrying pool, we already know Stunt intends to change the plan and make a detour while completely ignoring an arch-mage.
Worst of all, the icing on the cake was a time skip of the only part that could have been interesting in this arc.

So final thoughts:
It is not a world building arc since we never really discovered anything new about the world.
It's not a character development arc since we had no new information that moves the character forward.
It's also not an adventure arc since all the potentially interesting parts were completely ignored, changed or skipped.
So what the hell did we waste three months on?!?!

[Lord Raziere]

a few random events, a random conversation, a random Rillian appearance, and a random ending. there is your answer….random11.

this arc was really nothing but a bunch of random events.

[Coidzor]

I keep getting reminded of that one line from the Scottish Play whenever we are keenly aware of Mookie playing a game of madlibs in his head in order to determine what's going to be the next strip....

[T-O-E]

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Of course, this is the faintest praise since Ned Stark said that Robert Baratheon was a better king than his predecessor….

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He is probably the third best and most competent king (that we see) in a series filled with them, to be fair. It's easy to be good when you live in a universe where Gregor Clegane only just makes it onto the top 10 evil characters list.

[Trazoi]

I have yet to see one link going there that isn't. It doesn't even matter if they have good points. If they can't state them without throwing in extra insults these points don't matter.

I skimmed through that site a couple of years back. I remember one reviewer there who managed to review something like a third of the comics, usually the lesser known ones, who was okay. Mainly because the would say what was decent and kept the rest brief, only focusing on what was the downfall in their opinion.

Most of the rest go overboard on trying to be clever with the insults, but the Dominic Deegan one is actually surprisingly comprehensive.

(Here's something to discuss for the weekend: Validity of statements and the tone with which these statements are made. Discuss.)

I don't mind the acidic tone of hate reviews in general. My issue is when that's the only tone. That was the problem with Your Webcomic Is Bad and You Should Feel Bad - if you blast the comics that are merely flawed, you've got nowhere to go for the truly vile. And if you don't point out elements are good, I've got no way of gauging the reviewer's scale and it becomes clear they're more interested in venting than reviewing.

I think it works better - and is funnier - when the barbs are lighter, subtler jabs for the most part, bringing out the virtiol only for what really disgusts you. It's like swearing, if you ****ing punctuate every ****ing sentence with ****ing asterisks every ****ing second word, it loses all ****ing punch. Save it for when you really need it and it's much more effective.

Edit: I a pony princess. Deal with it.

[Lord Raziere]

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He is probably the third best and most competent king (that we see) in a series filled with them, to be fair. It's easy to be good when you live in a universe where Gregor Clegane only just makes it onto the top 10 evil characters list.

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Sorry, t'was more of a lack of examples I could think up of. It was either that, or compare the faintly praising this arc to faintly praising something about World War II, which would've been in poor taste.

[Acanous]

You know what we wasted those three months on? A Checkov's gun and some fake tension.

Hey, the arc's not perfect, but it's better than any of the arcs in the last...long while. Improvement!

If it continues, we may see a spinoff centered entirely on Rillian.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Edit: I a pony princess. Deal with it.

...okay, this is a pretty great 4/1 thing.

Anyone want to whip up an "Oracle Hunter" Pony for me to use as my Avatar for the next 24 hours?

Reference Link

[TheLaughingMan]

(Here's something to discuss for the weekend: Validity of statements and the tone with which these statements are made. Discuss.)

Sift contents heavily for grains of truth.

EDIT: ...Y'all?

[Veridis Quo]

@random11: You make many good observations. All I can offer is that at some point Mookie had an idea, but then he got bored and rushed to finish this plot to get back to everything else.

More questions that were never answered:
- Aside from what we know about the Luanan "religion" what else do they actually believe.
- Except for their "Birth. Death. Rebirth. Beginning. Ending. Renewal. God is the circle. We are the circle. God is us. We are God." What else do they actually believe?
- Why did Jayden drag out her silence for so long if taking a pilgrimage was a viable option.
- If having little faith causes Luanan's to be unable to use their magic, how is it that Jayden still has the ability to cast sleep spells if she has not come to terms with her past?
- What made the desert of Eldrait magical in the first place? It was basically a normal desert that had a generic ancient ruin somewhere.

That's ignoring anything regarding Stunt, Rilian, Masturel, The Saint of Stealing, and everything else. Somehow Mookie wrote a "world building" plot that leaves more questions than answered. And what is answered was either Frustrating [read: Stunt's new backstory] or Confusing [read: the lost treasure of Luana] or just plain silly [Read: Elemental transport, sand worms, giant beetles, etc]

In 3 months we have learned less, and only taken several small steps towards anything resembling a coherant story.

Edit: Ponies...ponies everywhere. Happy 4/1 everyone.