Dominic Deegan: Oracle for Hire, Mk. XLVI: A Tark of the Klones, Electric Boogaloo

[rocketpony]

Man, I hate how late in the day everyone's said what I want to say already.
Can I just voice anyway that calling it "The Cloak of Ara" is just the clunkiest way for humans to talk? You knew Ara, Dominic. She was literally inside you once. This isn't some impossibly distant or mythical figure, I think you can go ahead and just say "Ara's cloak."

[Gez]

It's the same deal as the Lost Treasure of Luana, which is only ever referred to by full name, and this despite never having been actually lost since according to Jayden every cleric knew exactly where it was.

[Trazoi]

Originally Posted by Gez

It's the same deal as the Lost Treasure of Luana, which is only ever referred to by full name, and this despite never having been actually lost since according to Jayden every cleric knew exactly where it was.

The video game writing format <INSERT_STRING_CONSTANT_HERE> makes sense given early everyone in DD is Mookie's MMORPG character.

Originally Posted by Gez

So, I am quite confident that there will be a self-insert for the artist too, and that if they bounce "ideas" between each other for the story, it'll probably be even worse than what Mookie would come up with alone.

There is still a chance that merely the act of collaboration will foster improvement and they will be less blind to the flaws of the other's fantasy worlds than their own.

Although what I expect will happen is that Mookie will underestimate the amount of work Garth has to do for the art and after a short while Garth will get frustrated and burn out.

[Trazoi]

Sneaky Gate is up. Turns out Ara's cloak is a modem.

There's a double sneaky gate for Friday, which I'll spoiler if we want to hold off on that for another day.

Spoiler

Double sneaky gate for Friday.

Originally Posted by Rhapsh

Additional note. If this cloak is instrumental in saving the day, it retroactively makes the king look like an even bigger idiot. I've mind controlled this air elemental for months, and they possess a powerful magical artifact.

Turns out we were both right. It is going to be used to mine info on the king, done in a way the makes the king a massive idiot. Sucks for him he's not as smart as Dominic.

[BlackDragonKing]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

There is still a chance that merely the act of collaboration will foster improvement and they will be less blind to the flaws of the other's fantasy worlds than their own.

Although what I expect will happen is that Mookie will underestimate the amount of work Garth has to do for the art and after a short while Garth will get frustrated and burn out.

Mookie's obliviousness to problems with Dominic Deegan aside, he doesn't really seem like a stupid or inconsiderate person, so I'm not going to suggest the new project is doomed simply because Mookie's involved.

I do think that the comic is probably going to have to deal with Mookie being rather impulsive with his storytelling or Garth not being able to keep up with the kind of update schedule Mookie's used to working in, but I also feel that this is a good opportunity to shock Mookie out of the rut he's been in. I really do feel he's sort of just going through the motions with Dominic and has been for a while now; it's been around long enough that he's stopped looking at it critically and is just focusing on getting it done the way he wants it.

And that's worked for him, so there's really no reason for him to reconsider. His comic has a hatedom, but so does everything on the internet, so I don't think he's going to feel a distinct need to improve himself until he's separated from Dominic and has both the freedom and the responsibility that come with starting from scratch.

I like to think that this will be good for both of them, since I did not enjoy the process of ceasing to sincerely enjoy most of Dominic Deegan and would rather not go through that again.

[rocketpony]

Early questions!

Why is Katya being standoffish here
Why does Nimmel's explanation fail to explain anything, and instead just makes things muddier
How does a beacon help you when you are riding lightning - not controlling it, just being torn along helter-skelter

[Johnny Blade]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

There's a double sneaky gate for Friday, which I'll spoiler if we want to hold off on that for another day.

Spoiler

Double sneaky gate for Friday.

Turns out we were both right. It is going to be used to mine info on the king, done in a way the makes the king a massive idiot. Sucks for him he's not as smart as Dominic.

No sense in that, the floodgates are open.

Still, I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler

Well, then. So, extraction?

I must say I'm a bit confused by that, seeing how the implication here is that Ara became a little magic typhoon and rushed through the king, which he apparently didn't deem that noteworthy even considering that he presumed Ara to be under his direct mental control at the time.

[guttering flame]

Originally Posted by Johnny Blade

No sense in that, the floodgates are open.

Still, I'll spoiler it.

Spoiler

Well, then. So, extraction?

I must say I'm a bit confused by that, seeing how the implication here is that Ara became a little magic typhoon and rushed through the king, which he apparently didn't deem that noteworthy even considering that he presumed Ara to be under his direct mental control at the time.

Was Katya always taller than Nimmel?

Spoiler

He's so hardcore he doesn't even notice when a typhoon passes through his nose. He sneezes guys/galls (what does it even mean for a bag of wind like Ara to be female?) like Ara for breakfast.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

Sneaky Gate is up. Turns out Ara's cloak is a modem.

There's a double sneaky gate for Friday, which I'll spoiler if we want to hold off on that for another day.

Spoiler

Double sneaky gate for Friday.

Turns out we were both right. It is going to be used to mine info on the king, done in a way the makes the king a massive idiot. Sucks for him he's not as smart as Dominic.

Spoiler

Yup, DJ Callan is now officially the... 5th worse Archmage? He's still better than all the jokers who were cold mind-controlled by him but only just barely

[random11]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

There's a double sneaky gate for Friday, which I'll spoiler if we want to hold off on that for another day.

Spoiler

Double sneaky gate for Friday.

Turns out we were both right. It is going to be used to mine info on the king, done in a way the makes the king a massive idiot. Sucks for him he's not as smart as Dominic.

Spoiler

To make things worse, it's now official that Dominic's team got a hold of all the information they needed without doing anything themselves.
AGAIN!

[Sweetie Welf]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

Sneaky Gate is up. Turns out Ara's cloak is a modem.

There's a double sneaky gate for Friday, which I'll spoiler if we want to hold off on that for another day.

Spoiler

Double sneaky gate for Friday.

Turns out we were both right. It is going to be used to mine info on the king, done in a way the makes the king a massive idiot. Sucks for him he's not as smart as Dominic.

Thursday:
Good think we see that struggle for survival in a flashback. We wouldn't want to see a potentially dangerous scene in action. That might upset us.

Friday:

Spoiler

So the cloak's special ability is to give info dumps.

Rest: See random11, including the ""

[AgentofOdd]

Originally Posted by Trazoi

Spoiler

Double sneaky gate for Friday.

Turns out we were both right. It is going to be used to mine info on the king, done in a way the makes the king a massive idiot. Sucks for him he's not as smart as Dominic.

So knowing how someone obtained information also lets you know how to access the information? This logic is silly.

[T-O-E]

Two people generally don't say the same things to each other at the same time without stopping, especially not six words. They usually have different ways of saying the same thing, but then, all the characters have the same voice (twu wuv I guess.)

Unless this is her clairaudience informing her what Nimmel's going to say and her repeating it as he does, but that'll only be the explanation if enough people email Mookie about it.

Oh and I genuinely thought that Nimmel the white was supposed to be the king at first (the king's main physical attribute is wearing white.)

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by T-O-E

Nimmel the white

Oh, no.... Is that a deliberate reference, do we think? Nimmel gets spontaneously kidnapped, dumped into an empty void, accidentally slays a Balrog trips over the way home and now gets a massive power boost 'just because'?

Because that could quite probably finish me off, I think.
Bad enough that Katya gets omniscience just dropped on her as if from some sort of Divine Lottery Machine, and that Dominic has just been handed the equivalent of a magical iPad with the 'Wikipedia' app installed, but the racist boy wonder now gains a 'the White' epitaph in what might be the might unfortunately appropriate nickname thus far seen in DD?



Quick Question: If Nimmel is linked to Ara's Cloak, and Katya is linked to Nimmel, and Katya has just discovered Oracular powers, wouldn't it make better narrative sense for the two of the to work together to unlock the Archmage's secrets rather than just hand it over to Dominic who just goes: "Oh, an Archmage's encrypted flashdrive? Yeah, I can do that without even trying."

[Mr. McGician]

Katya's face looks really creepy in panel six. If I saw that face in front of me, I'd want to go away from it rather than toward it.

Spoiler

This would be a lot more interesting if it all weren't so vague. So Ara wove information into the cloak? HOW did she do it? And HOW did Dominic find it? This isn't a story, this is a summary of a story.

[elros]

The Katya-Nimmel relationship just got even creepier. Katya basically "fell in love" with the school bully after having unrequited love for Milov. There is nothing healthy about that!

As far as Garth & Mookie, it could be interesting, because each has some strengths. But Comedity was the ultimate "self-insert" comic and it revealed things about Garth that were, to put it mildly, disturbing (was he lusting after his computer?).
Garth will deliver upgraded art, but I doubt they can maintain the daily update schedule. And face it, the best thing about DD is the frequent updates! If they lose that, I don't see much point in following it.

[T-O-E]

Originally Posted by Wraith

Oh, no.... Is that a deliberate reference, do we think? Nimmel gets spontaneously kidnapped, dumped into an empty void, accidentally slays a Balrog trips over the way home and now gets a massive power boost 'just because'?

Because that could quite probably finish me off, I think.
Bad enough that Katya gets omniscience just dropped on her as if from some sort of Divine Lottery Machine, and that Dominic has just been handed the equivalent of a magical iPad with the 'Wikipedia' app installed, but the racist boy wonder now gains a 'the White' epitaph in what might be the might unfortunately appropriate nickname thus far seen in DD?



Quick Question: If Nimmel is linked to Ara's Cloak, and Katya is linked to Nimmel, and Katya has just discovered Oracular powers, wouldn't it make better narrative sense for the two of the to work together to unlock the Archmage's secrets rather than just hand it over to Dominic who just goes: "Oh, an Archmage's encrypted flashdrive? Yeah, I can do that without even trying."

"Nimmel the White" isn't from the comic, it's just something I said.

Originally Posted by elros

The Katya-Nimmel relationship just got even creepier. Katya basically "fell in love" with the school bully after having unrequited love for Milov. There is nothing healthy about that!

Hey, he's a nerd, not a jock. Only jocks can be bullies in this comic.

Dominic Deegan is a black/white fantasy like Lord of the Rings, only with jock/nerd instead of evil/good.

[Wraith]

Originally Posted by T-O-E

"Nimmel the White" isn't from the comic, it's just something I said.

I know, but now that I've seen it I can't un-see it!

[Cavelcade]

Originally Posted by T-O-E

I just wanted to see Nimmel dead.

That's why it would have been perfect.

As for today and tomorrow's updates?

is about right.

[Rhapsh]

Hmm. Mookie Beta brings a magical object to Mookie Prime that is exactly what he needs to get all the relevant information.

This is the exact same conclusion of the Desert to Die arc, where Mookie Delta brought Mookie Prime a magical necklace which gives him all the relevant information. It's like some horrible writing ouroboros.

See you all in a week.

[Mewtarthio]

Originally Posted by Mr. McGician

Katya's face looks really creepy in panel six. If I saw that face in front of me, I'd want to go away from it rather than toward it.

"Must... lightning-punch... stupid... runt... face..."

[Zaq]

Originally Posted by Rhapsh

Hmm. Mookie Beta brings a magical object to Mookie Prime that is exactly what he needs to get all the relevant information.

This is the exact same conclusion of the Desert to Die arc, where Mookie Delta brought Mookie Prime a magical necklace which gives him all the relevant information. It's like some horrible writing ouroboros.

See you all in a week.

The worst part is, just a little bit of planning and forethought (both anathema to Mookie, naturally, but hey) could make that basic setup at least a little more tolerable.

Give Lord Dominus a reason why he can't do this stuff himself (say, he has Mominus craft him a small magical "safe house" where he can hide from DJ, who is actively looking for him, so he can't leave it without massive risk), then have him do his puppetmaster thing where he identifies the tools he needs (i.e., the various Macguffins) and sends his underlings friends out to get them. If it were intentional that these characters were seeking these things out, and they had a reason to return them to Lord Dominus, and there were a reason why he couldn't do them himself . . . it could be made to work. Hell, Dominus doing all the thinking and having other people do his dirty work for him is basically his entire shtick in the first place, isn't it? But no, instead, we get the adventures of The Amazing Passive Man, stumbling around and just handing Dominus exactly what he needs before he knows he needs it.

[Trazoi]

Originally Posted by Zaq

The worst part is, just a little bit of planning and forethought (both anathema to Mookie, naturally, but hey) could make that basic setup at least a little more tolerable.

The bit that gets me is that if Ara has simply told Nimmel why her(?) cloak is so important at the beginning it would explain why getting it back is so important and give the Nimmel sequences more tension. But that would require a little bit of planning, and then Mookie might write an arc where the heroes actively seek out one of these MacGuffins instead of passively waiting for one to land in their laps and solve all their problems.

[rocketpony]

Luna, I don't hope Dominic's right.
I hope that the cloak is cursed, and it takes Dominic out of the fight for a bit, because maybe when something that's too damn good to be true just drops in your lap, maybe it behooves you to take a second and ask serious questions about how reasonable it is that everything would just tie itself in a bow for you, that you can ride serenely to victory on the charity and corpses of strangers and defectors.

[random11]

In some stories, the protagonists win because they are smarter, and can use the antagonist's flaws.
In others, they win because they are stronger, either thanks to a quest for a mcguffin, or because of intense training.

In DD, the protagonists win because they out-luck the antagonist.
Since it's pure luck more or less since the twin arcs, there was no need for development, training, or doing any actual action.
Not only that it's boring, there is also less to snark about it since NOTHING HAPPENS!

[elros]

In DD, the protagonists win because they out-luck the antagonist.

In DD, the protagonists win because the entire world is designed for them to win. Mookie the almighty cannot allow anyone other than the Deegans to win- any of their accomplishments will be destroyed simply by having Dominic "see the truth."
The villains are basically building snowmen in the desert, leaving the readers wondering why someone would be so stupid to do that.

[T-O-E]

In DD, effort is a sin. "Building snowmen" isn't just pointless, it's heretical.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Newspost!

Originally Posted by Mookie

So that's it from me! I'm off on my annual summer vacation! Next week, in place of regular updates, there will be concept and teaser art from the incredibly talented Garth Graham that showcases some of the ideas from the superhero webcomic we've been working on! I'm really excited to show off his designs, and I hope you all like what you see in place of a comic next week.

Get excited?

Also: Has Mookie always taken a week off during the summer?

[T-O-E]

It'll be interesting to see how this thread will respond to Mookie's next work. These kind of partnerships have a tendency of ending prematurely.

[Musashi]

I remember Garth's comics. They were irritating me a lot less than Mookie's work, and at least, he can draw, though I always thought Finder's Keepers was always very cliche before you guys pointed out just how much was actually copied from preexisting works. And, well, none of it was very good, in retrospect.
I think the point I'm getting at is that I really don't know what to think of their collaboration, both in what it'll produce, and how long it's going to last. I'm really curious. But not optimistic at all.