Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire

[Khosan]

This dialogue makes even less sense.

P.S. Page 300

[Oracle_Hunter]

Ranger general? Seriously, Mookie... Ranger General?

Also: Man, the "Sad Jayden" face is clearly improved when you add tusks

Re: OVER 300!!!!!!
We're totally over 300 now.

Quick vote: shall we box all of our fancruft like so many Arks of the Covenant and move them to a new thread, or shall we keep on rocking here?

[averagejoe]

@ averagejoe:
What about the watcher and the mysterious informant?
They don't fit 100%, but this character doesn't seem to be covered by a single trope - at least not by one that I could find.

Hmmm... not quite. This guy could be either, but doesn't have to be.

Unfortunately it was the only thing I could find, if you add flanderiseation you could get the people you're talking about.

I may be able to make a new trope if I can get an idea of how and if you can provide a few examples.

Hmmm... well, it doesn't show up a lot these days, admittedly, especially in the sort of stuff I usuall watch. Let me think about it...

I remember Brian and Stewie doing it to each other on one of the earlier Family Guy seasons. Brian did it to Stewie when Stewie had a love interest in Janet, and Stewie to Brian when Brian's interest in Lois was revealed.

'Course, this isn't a huge deal, I was more curious than anything.

[Gez]

Why is Acibek wearing a scarf in this strip? Seriously, why would a glorified robot wear a scarf? I mean, I can accept the skirt thing hes wearing, because maybe he's aware of etiquette laws that say you have to wear pants/skirts/kilts over your lower regions. He is a being of pure law and order, after all. But the scarf? What's up with that? Is Mookie trying to say that Acibek is a alternative version of Dominic, or what? Maybe in Dominion, there is a law that requires certain characters to wear a scarf?

I am very confused by this.

Magic item slot?

[Morty]

Ranger general? Seriously, Mookie... Ranger General?

Now I just wonder wheter this title is Mookies "original" invention or Warcraft ripoff.

[ElfLad]

WOW, ELF, YOU JUST TALKED FOR LIKE, A MINUTE OR TWO WHILE DOMINIC AND I INTERJECTED A LOT OF COMMENTS! WHY DON'T YOU STOP RAMBLING, YOU F'AGg'oT?

[ElfLad]

Quick vote: shall we box all of our fancruft like so many Arks of the Covenant and move them to a new thread

Excellent idea.

Dibs on the new thread.

[Johnny Blade]

Re: OVER 300!!!!!!
We're totally over 300 now.

Quick vote: shall we box all of our fancruft like so many Arks of the Covenant and move them to a new thread, or shall we keep on rocking here?

I vote for a new thread. 300 pages was the goal, after all, and continuing this thread would do nothing besides allowing a certain done-to-death meme to rear its ugly head.


Regarding Elvantic:

Well, as you know, lower-case is used by Mookie to express things said in a pained voice. So Elvantic or however it's called probably sounds like the voice of a young teenage boy going through puberty, you know, when the voice is breaking and they speak normally and suddenly go high-pitched before a return to normal.

References to weak, pained voice in lower-case:
1, 2, 3, 4...

Looks like you're right, although it has been used on happier occasions too. This implies that lower case letters really mean that a Dominion Ape loses his voice and emanates a choked squeaking voice.
Apparently, Elves do that on purpose.

[Monnock]

It just occurred to me that I think Mookie mis-conveyed his point. I don't think that they were all scouts/assassins/spies, I think that each one was likely a different kind of specialist...

Or maybe not, since apparently "general" was tacked onto ranger for no reason.

The only logical way to solve this problem is to say that they were the leaders of each respective division, rather than doing the fieldwork themselves, and that the picture of him fighting is an exception rather than the expected role that they are to fill. Since they did end up losing the rebellion, you would imagine that during desperate times the generals would put their practical experience to use in the field.

[Oracle_Hunter]

It just occurred to me that I think Mookie mis-conveyed his point. I don't think that they were all scouts/assassins/spies, I think that each one was likely a different kind of specialist...

Or maybe not, since apparently "general" was tacked onto ranger for no reason.

The only logical way to solve this problem is to say that they were the leaders of each respective division, rather than doing the fieldwork themselves, and that the picture of him fighting is an exception rather than the expected role that they are to fill. Since they did end up losing the rebellion, you would imagine that during desperate times the generals would put their practical experience to use in the field.

See, that's why General is dumb. It has the connotations of being very bureaucratic, a "lead from the rear" kind of guy. Not necessarily the case, after looking at The Other Wiki, which caused me to delete my proposed rant.

But it's clear what Mookie was going for. He wanted to make the point that this guy was a super-ninja guy (remember kids, elf ninjas = rangers) and that Raffy gave them super-regeneration or something, which turned out to be a Blessed with Suck kind of deal.

Y'know what I would have called them? Master Rangers. Or, if the elven term was really confusing, make it Ranger-General, since it is a blending of skill and rank, not merely "the guy who tells the rangers what to do."

We've already said that Mookie Doesn't Know (MDK) Warfare, so I wasn't going to belabor the point. But then I noticed we were very close to getting OVER 9000 (posts). So we go on for a bit, but I am mostly prepared to set up a new thread (got the .txt of most of our stuff) once we hit post 9001.

[Killersquid]

Or General of the 101st Division...oh wait America already has that I think as paratroopers.

Anyway, I just stumbled onto this thread and comic (as you can tell a few pages ago with my post), so what badness should I know about the comic so I can follow along and rip into it with you guys?

[Gez]

The first post of page 301 should be post 9000. The second post of page 301 should therefore be the one that puts this thread above nine thousand.

Once this goal is reached, we can close up shop and move to another location. But going over nine thousands is important. I'm sure Mookie would agree.

[InkEyes]

I'm almost rather glad they brought Exposition Elf out just to fill us in hamfistedly in three days about why the orange robot didn't get any credit for stopping the BBEG. It means Mookie can move beyond this and meander around for another month or three before hopefully stumbling over an actual plot to go along with this. While filling us readers in on the world around his author avatar is certainly useful (I'd even go as far as saying it's necessary), having no overarching point in-comic just leads to all the pointless exposition we've gotten so far.

If this comic were ever revised, I'd recommend Mookie just do a timeskip to the return of Dominic and Luna. This would also be an opportune moment to take a break out-of-comic to plan and practice drawing. During the time let there be filler called "Dominic's Travelogue" which basically look like pages from a notebook written by Dominic and Luna with an accompanying map. It allows for all the exposition we've been getting in a medium where it might slightly less annoying.

[Mx.Silver]

The first post of page 301 should be post 9000. The second post of page 301 should therefore be the one that puts this thread above nine thousand.

Once this goal is reached, we can close up shop and move to another location. But going over nine thousands is important. I'm sure Mookie would agree.

I dunno, I'd really like to see if we get the post count into quintuple figures. Y'know, just so we could get that distinction.

[Trazoi]

There's a clear typo in today's strip. Everyone knows the correct plural is "Rangers General".

[Oracle_Hunter]

There's a clear typo in today's strip. Everyone knows the correct plural is "Rangers General".

Touche, Trazoi. Touche

[Nibleswick]

With this being the 300th page and all, I felt compelled to to this:

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I'm sorry.

[Oracle_Hunter]

With this being the 300th page and all, I felt compelled to to this:

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I'm sorry.

*facepalm* I completely forgot about 300! Man, I wasted all those posts making DBZ references when I could have been referring to 300!

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Dominic: I see I was wrong to expect the Wolves' commitment to at least match our own.
Milov: You there, Callanian! What is your profession?
Jayden: I am a trollop, sir. Please don't slash my throat!
Milov: And you, Callanian, what is your profession?
Nimmel: Marty Stu-in-training, sir.
Milov: Marty Stu-in-training. And you?
Miranda: Deus Ex Momina.
Milov: Sea Wolves! What is your profession?
Sea Wolves: Arooooooooooooooooo!
Milov: You see, old friend? I brought more furries than you did.

[Jayngfet]

Madness? THIS. IS. MOOKIE!

[Oracle_Hunter]

New Comic!

Good thing that none of those stories the old elf told were plot-relevant enough to detail. It'd be terrible if Mookie used this world-building cruise to set up or advance some plot or something. If he did, then we wouldn't have just wasted this past week learning that Mookie's elves are exactly like D&D elves.

Oh, and they're hippies, which I guess is different(?)

[chionophile]

If that guy likes talking so much and knows so much history, why doesn't he get a job as a tour guide? It'd keep him busy while he waits to die and everyone else could get to hear the oh-so-special history that Dommie and Luna got to. Problems solved.

[Jayngfet]

Hang on, Mookie's been aware of Lunas announcing her feelings.

[Oracle_Hunter]

If that guy likes talking so much and knows so much history, why doesn't he get a job as a tour guide? It'd keep him busy while he waits to die and everyone else could get to hear the oh-so-special history that Dommie and Luna got to. Problems solved.

Because he's so depressing (like those miserable pslams ). You want the tourists to come back, after all - and it's hard for them to do that if they all jump off the airship on the return trip.

But yeah, Dommy-Stu gets another super-special lesson because nobody else could be bothered to listen to this kindly old man (and ex-assassin).

[commie comrade]

See, that's why General is dumb. It has the connotations of being very bureaucratic, a "lead from the rear" kind of guy. Not necessarily the case, after looking at The Other Wiki, which caused me to delete my proposed rant.

But it's clear what Mookie was going for. He wanted to make the point that this guy was a super-ninja guy (remember kids, elf ninjas = rangers) and that Raffy gave them super-regeneration or something, which turned out to be a Blessed with Suck kind of deal.

Y'know what I would have called them? Master Rangers. Or, if the elven term was really confusing, make it Ranger-General, since it is a blending of skill and rank, not merely "the guy who tells the rangers what to do."

We've already said that Mookie Doesn't Know (MDK) Warfare, so I wasn't going to belabor the point. But then I noticed we were very close to getting OVER 9000 (posts). So we go on for a bit, but I am mostly prepared to set up a new thread (got the .txt of most of our stuff) once we hit post 9001.

See, I don't think that you what mookie's going for here with the term Ranger General. Rather than being a military rank (a ranger who is a general, or a general who is a ranger), it's a political position, like the attorney general or surgeon general. And, like the attorney general is the administration's top lawyer and head of the Department of Justice, the Ranger-General is the administration's top ranger and head of the Department of stereotypical elvishness Rangerness. This explains why they were so loyal to MaLIKSH: they were his loyal political stooges. Also, it explains why MaLIKSH would enchant the especially loyal ones: their long lifespans would allow him to keep his trusted minions in the important Ranger General positions indefinitely. Or, it could merely be a reward for serving him.

Of course, the fact that there were multiple ranger generals detracts from this theory, as only one could be the ranger general of generic elfland lothlorien Quel-Thelas Faria. Perhaps the earlier Ranger-generals died in battle or were dismissed? Or maybe each province or city in Faria has its own Ranger General, much like each state in the U.S. has its own attorney general.

Or maybe Mookie's just being stupid again...

[Johnny Blade]

So...today we learn that Exposition Elf tells Dominic and Luna some stories about history and culture of his people.
That's cool.

But I always thought that world-building should be done for the readers, not for the main characters.

[Mx.Silver]

My inner historian resents this strip. "A perspective no history book could have provided" Maybe not in Dominion but any earth society with a decent academic tradition would have taken advantange of talking to people who lived through an event, that's what primary sources are: first-hand accounts. History couldn't exist as a subject without primary sources, that's were it all begins. If there were multiple people wandering who'd occupied government positions during a period of immensely significant political upheaval and were willing to give accounts of their experiences to random people in the street* you can bet some academic would have got hold of them at some point.


*Am I the only one who finds this at all odd? That a guy who was a loyal servant and assassin of one of the most brutal tyrants in a nation's history is basically allowed to walk around free as a bird? I mean, you'd have thought there'd have been incarcerations or exiling, if not executions, but no. Hell, it seems the dryads consider someone with that kind of past perfectly ok to allow up in the 'nobility and good people' section of the society. So who am I to argue?

[Johnny Blade]

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My inner historian resents this strip. "A perspective no history book could have provided" Maybe not in Dominion but any earth society with a decent academic tradition would have taken advantange of talking to people who lived through an event, that's what primary sources are: first-hand accounts. History couldn't exist as a subject without primary sources, that's were it all begins. If there were multiple people wandering who'd occupied government positions during a period of immensely significant political upheaval and were willing to give accounts of their experiences to random people in the street* you can bet some academic would have got hold of them at some point.

But history is usually not written from the perspective of those who experienced it first-hand.
And someone who was a ranger, general, spy, scout and assassin all in once probably has some stories to tell that didn't make it into the books.

Although, maybe some historians did approach him and he simply refused to tell them anything.
I wonder why...

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*Am I the only one who finds this at all odd? That a guy who was a loyal servant and assassin of one of the most brutal tyrants in a nation's history is basically allowed to walk around free as a bird? I mean, you'd have thought there'd have been incarcerations or exiling, if not executions, but no. Hell, it seems the dryads consider someone with that kind of past perfectly ok to allow up in the 'nobility and good people' section of the society. So who am I to argue?

Amnesty, perhaps?
Or maybe he already served three life sentences?
Or, probably most likely, he surrendered, Acibek took pity on him and sent him to the druids of ABerThAsT Grove where he had time to think about his misdeeds.

[Gez]

I dunno, I'd really like to see if we get the post count into quintuple figures. Y'know, just so we could get that distinction.

That will be on page 334.

[Morty]

But I always thought that world-building should be done for the readers, not for the main characters.

Well, you could also say that the comic is done for readers rather than for author's amusement, wish fullfilment and to preach author's worldview. But some things just work different in this case.
EDIT: Dammit, I should've waited for someone to write two posts before typing this one.

[pendejochy]

Snarkers, what does the radar say about this thread's postage count?