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Man, 15+ years later and I still hear Dominic in my head with the voice of Numbah 1 from Kids Next Door. Won't lie, it's actually kind of fun going through the old comics even thought i don't remember most of this. Pretty sure I tapped out not too long after he started doing updates seven days a week.
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Sep 24, 2020 23:43
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Yeah I don't think mookie would write the same arc now, and there's definitely parts of it that are reflective of the politics at the time. Like gentrification for one. But there's something just so weird to me about writing this arc where the ungrateful mob of townspeople don't appreciate Moomeegan's academy for gifted youngsters. Just the idea of writing a character like Miranda, who is an all powerful archmage and extremely rich, and then writing it so that the your protagonist is on the side of this person against the powerless townies is insane. It might literally just be Mookie's idea of subversion again, the rich powerful investor in the town doing it for purely magnanimous reasons, while the activist woman is the one who's really being greedy. But that's crazy, you'd have to literally not understand how people work to think that humans would sympathize with Miranda.
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Sep 24, 2020 23:51
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Happy Landfill posted:Man, 15+ years later and I still hear Dominic in my head with the voice of Numbah 1 from Kids Next Door. Yeah, but then that means you’re also hearing him in Young Joseph Joestar’s voice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GaJUmefY1I
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Sep 24, 2020 23:59
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if you’d asked me how mookie was going to gently caress up this arc in part 1 “gentrification is good and so are garish ego-boosting memorials” would have never even crossed my mind
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Sep 25, 2020 00:02
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I want to object to projecting modern ideas about gentrification and such onto this, but that would require me knowing what the hell he was going for in the first place.
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Sep 25, 2020 00:08
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I think this part of the arc could've been saved if the Deegans had lost somebody as part of the whole mess too. Then both sides could be hurting and most of the dumb actions momgan takes would have a sort of reason But No they're just fully justified and their actions don't need to be looked into at all because some people are cartoonishly evil I guess
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Sep 25, 2020 00:23
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Dadeegan thinks the majority of mankind is scum and he's supposed to be the optimist? Dominic's probably halfway through the manifesto on why he rained eyelasers down on the unwitting masses. Oh also, Friday's new page is live  Of course, she's another broken woman to be fixed. How's he not sick of this song and dance by now? Will her and Snout bang even though she's canonically a week old, has a blank mind and is the trapped soul of the man Snout watched die?
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Sep 25, 2020 00:52
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How disgusting.
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Sep 25, 2020 00:55
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The Little Death posted:Yeah I don't think mookie would write the same arc now, and there's definitely parts of it that are reflective of the politics at the time. Like gentrification for one. Bad news about Mookie While that's a facile swipe, in the end, I think that trying to see subversion or some attempt at a mature plot that has been mishandled into lameness is missing the forest for the trees. Mookie constantly tells us he doesn't enjoy subversion or playing against type; he hates "Chaotic Good" types or "villains with a heart of gold" or anti-heroes. He wants real superheros who do real superhero things and fight real villains who don't need interesting back stories. He is filled with DBZ and '90s import anime that told never-ending stories of powerful heroes bulging their magic auras to laser blast bad guys, and he played D&D Monty Haul campaigns where the DM's job was to set up cardboard enemies for the good guys to punch, and that's what he wants his comic to be. Mookie is, at heart, in it for power fantasy where everyone he likes is unambiguously good, and everyone who opposes him is unambiguously terrible, and his stories reflect that. Of course Miranda upstages everyone with how amazing and over the top her memorial is, and of course everyone loves her more for it, because good people are super good and Miranda is the super bestest of all of them (because she's Mookie's mom!!!!!!) and anyone who is against her actually turns out to have one hundred different evil motives driving them to do such dastardly dastardly things such as holding heroes accountable. At heart, Mookie is just completely adverse to conflict. We've seen it already over and over in these DD strips and we'll see it more as we go through - he sets up some sort of inter-personal conflict or struggle or genuine disagreement and then, literally in the next strip, boom it's all over and everything's resolved to everyone's satisfaction. The few times he sets up long standing conflict because the story desperately needs it, it always turns out to be demonic possession or magical influence or some force that can be stopped and then suddenly everyone's back to happy and friendly and pals! He simply can't allow himself to set up a situation where people have genuine differences of opinion and don't work together well. Conflict is for good people to wallop bad people, not for gray situations where nothing goes right or things are gained but at what cost? There are no real costs in Mookie's ideal world, just new powers suddenly developed and powerups suddenly gained to allow for more bad guy walloping. He is so adverse to conflict that he set up a spooky Halloween story in the beginning of September, and it's almost resolved before October because he just can't sustain bad things happening to his characters. He is so adverse to seeing shades of gray or dubious motives that when people started pointing out that Ink Witch, the manic-pixie-wounded-dream-girl-with-his-wife's-body-love-interest was actually pretty sketch and maybe even manipulative of edit: hahaha holy poo poo, of course the sudden new villain flips in a single strip into a new broken woman looking to be saved
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Sep 25, 2020 01:06
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Before the isekai scourge got exported here/really got started in Japan, there was Dominic Deegan to fill the hole of totally shameless power fantasy. This is the tier below Sword Art Online, where there's no attempt to have anything but the self-insert plow through obstacles and grow in power and harem size.
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Sep 25, 2020 01:12
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TheHan posted:Dadeegan thinks the majority of mankind is scum and he's supposed to be the optimist? Dominic's probably halfway through the manifesto on why he rained eyelasers down on the unwitting masses. Kavak posted:How disgusting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsqmU3v0hVA
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Sep 25, 2020 01:30
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skeleton warrior posted:At heart, Mookie is just completely adverse to conflict. We've seen it already over and over in these DD strips and we'll see it more as we go through - he sets up some sort of inter-personal conflict or struggle or genuine disagreement and then, literally in the next strip, boom it's all over and everything's resolved to everyone's satisfaction. The few times he sets up long standing conflict because the story desperately needs it, it always turns out to be demonic possession or magical influence or some force that can be stopped and then suddenly everyone's back to happy and friendly and pals! He simply can't allow himself to set up a situation where people have genuine differences of opinion and don't work together well. Conflict is for good people to wallop bad people, not for gray situations where nothing goes right or things are gained but at what cost? There are no real costs in Mookie's ideal world, just new powers suddenly developed and powerups suddenly gained to allow for more bad guy walloping. Now I'm wondering, do Dominic and Luna ever...have an argument? Or a disagreement? or even differing opinions? Their relationship seems so completely devoid of conflict in a weird way, they're always on the same wavelength and have all the same preferences. I'm not saying writing a relationship that's healthy into your story is bad, but even healthy relationships have disagreements on something. Like even Dominic's argument with his mom ended with him going "Yes, I understand. I am wrong here" He was, but it would've been interesting if he didn't think he was. It'd add a new dynamic to the hero's party, with Dominic being unwilling to work with some of his allies due to his own prejudices. Instead he totally agrees and their conflict is forgotten, because Mookie thinks Dominic was bad there so everyone knows he was being bad, including Dominic.
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Sep 25, 2020 01:48
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TheHan posted:Now I'm wondering, do Dominic and Luna ever...have an argument? The closest we come is when Luna finds out she'll never have children and Dominic has to one-up her by being sterile and it's resolved instantly when Luna donates her (human) eggs so that the Orcs (who can't interbreed with humans) can have healthy children somehow because Luna is a repository for "noble savage" Waaaagh energy or some bullshit.
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Sep 25, 2020 02:19
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The Little Death posted:Ugh it's going to be one of those scenes. Lady is angry, but she's really sad and afraid. Her face softens, and she stars bawling and hugging the dude she was smacking previously.
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Sep 25, 2020 02:45
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Regalingualius posted:Yeah, but then that means you’re also hearing him in Young Joseph Joestar’s voice. Ahahaha excellent Regarding the new page: didn't someone predict this exact outcome a page or two ago? Jesus Edit: ^^^^ yup, there it is
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Sep 25, 2020 02:54
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TheHan posted:Now I'm wondering, do Dominic and Luna ever...have an argument? Or a disagreement? or even differing opinions? Their relationship seems so completely devoid of conflict in a weird way, they're always on the same wavelength and have all the same preferences. I'm not saying writing a relationship that's healthy into your story is bad, but even healthy relationships have disagreements on something. I don't remember what it's about but I do remember them having a somewhat serious fight at some point. Domininc fixes it by proposing, immediately ending the fight and turning all thoughts to planning the wedding and joyously telling everyone the good news.
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Sep 25, 2020 02:55
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PoptartsNinja posted:The closest we come is when Luna finds out she'll never have children and Dominic has to one-up her by being sterile and it's resolved instantly when Luna donates her (human) eggs so that the Orcs (who can't interbreed with humans) can have healthy children somehow because Luna is a repository for "noble savage" Waaaagh energy or some bullshit. See I remember that shifting all the sympathy to Dominic and Luna shifting into coddle mode. But I kind of think they disagreed on alterists? Even though we recently saw Luna has the same opinion on them as Dominic. Baller Ina posted:I don't remember what it's about but I do remember them having a somewhat serious fight at some point. No, nooooo, that can't be true. No human would unironically write something so toxic.
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Sep 25, 2020 03:25
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Kavak posted:Before the isekai scourge got exported here/really got started in Japan, there was Harry Potter
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Sep 25, 2020 03:26
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Happy Landfill posted:Man, 15+ years later and I still hear Dominic in my head with the voice of Numbah 1 from Kids Next Door. Why would you do this? Why would you ruin me like this so completely??
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Sep 25, 2020 03:28
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Harry Potter has done irreparable damage to western culture but it's a different kind than DD. They have similar views on morality though.
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Sep 25, 2020 03:29
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Who What Now posted:Why would you do this? Why would you ruin me like this so completely?? Because it demanded to be shared.
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Sep 25, 2020 03:48
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I blocked out so much of this. Mookie's moral compass is so hosed up.TheHan posted:Dadeegan thinks the majority of mankind is scum and he's supposed to be the optimist? Dominic's probably halfway through the manifesto on why he rained eyelasers down on the unwitting masses. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGHH
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Sep 25, 2020 05:23
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TheHan posted:
Is... Is Mookie writing a narrative to explore the fantasy of having his self-insert be the savior to an abused black woman?
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Sep 25, 2020 05:55
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Maybe but where are you getting the black part from? Was that in the diary entries?
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Sep 25, 2020 06:03
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Regalingualius posted:Thinking on it, I’m also rolling my eyes at how Klo Tark just automatically assumes that Celesto must be evil because he’s the “champion of chaos”, and immediately goes on the attack instead of trying to convince him to turn on the Chosen. Especially considering that literally the very first thing his master ever did was to reject the control of his creator and assert his own morality and beliefs instead. Stuff like this is why people tend to find his intended villains and anti-heroes more compelling; you see how they could be more, you see how they were denied the chance, so on and so forth. It seems so clever and makes them sympathetic you'd think it was on purpose, but--against all obvious assumptions--it really does seem to just be on accident and he expected the audience to also hate these characters. We've been doing a stream read of the series on a discord server I run with a bunch of people who have never seen the comic, and it's been amusing watching everyone perk up when Celesto shows up and then be tremendously disappointed when Terraciano does to him what is always done.
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Sep 25, 2020 06:31
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Ironslave posted:Stuff like this is why people tend to find his intended villains and anti-heroes more compelling; you see how they could be more, you see how they were denied the chance, so on and so forth. It seems so clever and makes them sympathetic you'd think it was on purpose, but--against all obvious assumptions--it really does seem to just be on accident and he expected the audience to also hate these characters. We've been doing a stream read of the series on a discord server I run with a bunch of people who have never seen the comic, and it's been amusing watching everyone perk up when Celesto shows up and then be tremendously disappointed when Terraciano does to him what is always done. Yeah, and he giving the talk by this point. So really you can tell that his talk was really about Celesto and the Infernomancer, and that was it. we still have over 30 chapters of this comic to go through, but what people were inviting him to Cons for has already passed. Also I called it. I'm the goddamn Mookie whisperer. Soon as I saw the tears I was like "what would be the cliche way to end this, that Mookie would think would be a shocking twist to the audience?". Now that he's doing these all in advance, his 3 strips follow the same logic as his invidivual strips used to. There's always a stinger at the end to keep him interested. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Sep 25, 2020 |
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Sep 25, 2020 06:40
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Kavak posted:Maybe but where are you getting the black part from? Was that in the diary entries? Her shading reads to me as black, or at least the way Mookie draws people as black. Maybe, I could be wrong, it's possible my eyes keep misinterpreting her scars as that.
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Sep 25, 2020 06:59
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Pretty sure that's scarring. Though also, given Mookie's history of establishing ethnicity, who the hell knows?
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Sep 25, 2020 08:11
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Rotten Red Rod posted:Her shading reads to me as black, or at least the way Mookie draws people as black. Maybe, I could be wrong, it's possible my eyes keep misinterpreting her scars as that. The hair does give off the impression of being a more natural-ish texture than anyone else we've seen, I can see it too. That being said I kind of don't want her to be too, just because of how much horrific poo poo has happened to her - it would be peak Mookie to introduce a black female character to the comic as a tortured naked corpse. Plus the whole 'soul of a guy who was probably white' thing.
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Sep 25, 2020 09:37
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Pyrotoad posted:Plus the whole 'soul of a guy who was probably white' thing. I will laugh until I die if Mookie rips off Get Out.
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Sep 25, 2020 15:59
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I would have voted for King Dave a third time if I could.
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Sep 25, 2020 16:13
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Nah no way she's black. Mookie's character development is static, never changing from his initial idea. He's also painfully white, so I bet when he first pictures a character–especially a main character and/or love interest–they're white too. I guess recent times could have him thinking more about the rep in his own work, but introspection's never really been his bag.
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Sep 25, 2020 17:17
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Next strip has the first actual speech bubble up until now: “How disgusting.”
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Sep 25, 2020 21:57
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Guess what time it is! Chapter 12: The Storm of Souls Part 6  So like I said what follows is an action sequence that serves no purpose, , because it leads to Dominic having the vision he was going to have anyway of Miranda's students getting murdered.  Dominic innocently manifests new powers, even though this isn't a mindscape as far as I can tell. Like this presumably should be like the afterlife or the elemental plate of chaos or something. Doesn't change the fact that Dominic has magic mind abilities that make him a God here.  Here's some Christmas filler arts where Mookie draws himself exactly like Dominic and his lady friend exactly like Luna.  Again some nonsense, but this marks the first strip where Mookie switched to his 8 panel format that I think would last for the rest of the comic.  Also when you start to see more colour come into his strips. Here is what I mean when I say that the action sequence was pointless. We're about to have an extended vision of the night the Infernomancer attacked the Academy. I don't know if Mookie's ever been to university, but don't make sex jokes about your elderly professor in a seminar class. It's just a weird forced interaction that again is supposed to make Miranda seem like the bestest teacher ever! And of course she had a personal connection which every one of the students who died. Love that joke at the ends, Mookie sure is a master of dramatic irony.  Again Klo Tark just knows poo poo. everyone just knows everything. Mookie lampshades it, but it's never explained!. I must say though I love the fact that it looks like the Infernomancer just Donkey Kong'ed into the room. Again I just have a soft spot for anarchic villains who don't give a poo poo about anything.  This however is a little too edgeord for me. He killed kittens as a kid so that he could kill the mom cat? This is like a bad joker imitation. Of course the student has DBZ laserbeams. I do find it funny that this setting has both magic as as a Chi blast type effect, and also the LARPing method of just screaming your spell name out, and it's never clear why some people do one and not the other.  In theory I don't hate this idea but it's just so on the nose that it makes me roll my eyes. I guess these are some of the good people worth saving, right Mookie?  Once again a lady cannot die unless her boobs are somehow involved in the visual of her death. So here's where enamel becomes important, he is the one who gave Miranda up.  So now the fated battle is on. The champions have been chosen by random people who have no metaphysical claim to lawn chaos at all beyond I guess desiring to enforce them a little bit? Like I said I find it funny that there is this sort of prophetic encounter coming when none of the sides are filling any sort of prophecy or mythic role. Which don't get me wrong is the problem but I wouldn't use words of like "champion of chaos" if I was writing a story like this. It's not even really clear what Celesto's role in all this is supposed to be.  I don't hate this on its own. I think the idea of the student coping like that is fun. All I'll say is that I find it funny that Fierla is a Naga and she's dressed up in Indian jewelry and has four arms.  Panel four makes me laugh so much. I understand that is supposed to be there but this resilience even after trauma and disability, but there's just something about levitating a book when the character has no arms that is just again so dumb that I can't take it seriously. Again Miranda is a great saint who everybody loves. And here's where we learn of the cosmology of the Deeganverse (it's D&D)  The simplicity of Mookie's world sort of contrasts with the idea that all these people are supersmart to understand this to me. It feels like in video games where you go to a tutorial that set in the school and they proceed to explain the rules of the world to you in a way that would be consulting to grade schoolers. Ooooh, these are the advanced students in they're able to remember 10 whole names of incredibly obvious elements. It just sort of feels lazy and undercuts the depiction of Dominic is a supersmart genius.  So that was part six of the storm of souls. Ending with a recap so Mookie can remember what his story is. Largely pointless but gave us a bit back story. Unlike the next section which is not pointless but veers horrifically into Mookie sex negativity again! Chapter 12: The Storm of Souls Part 7  I guess Helixa has just been living in the sewer and coming up the see Celesto and she needs to. What were about to see is supposed to be Mookie justifying Celesto's decision to help the chosen and destroy the world. What it actually is is Mookie's horrible slut shaming nature reappearing again.  So we find out that Amelia was not a good person in any way. This is, I think, Mookie's first retroactive character assassination, but he'll use the technique again a couple times. Just actively stripping nuance and interesting ideas out of the narrative. But here's the thing, Celesto doesn't hate Amelia for being corrupt, he hates her for being a slut. How dare she, a professional sex worker in the sex city, dare to sleep with a man who wasn't her husband (who was into her banging other men), or some other guy that she was banging? What a terrible person she is, to not I guess have instantly fall in love with the man that she must've known for like a couple of days at that point? This is really ridiculous when you think about the fact that Celesto seemingly did come to see Amelia after getting the same vision Dominic did. That pussy is powerful apparently.  Both Dominic and Celesto are preparing for the final belt Celesto having apparently been convinced to annihilate the planet because it turned out that Amelia slept with other men. Gross. I don't care that he's a villain it's gross. They're going to go get Gregory in Barthis though, that's the other important part   I find it weird that Milov knows that Dominic quit smoking. Why would this character know that or care? But here is the introduction of "mavpel", one of Mookie's laziest inventions and the source of many memes and jokes in the Deegan hatedom. He uses a sugar high to figure out all the details of the plot and how to solve the situation, because Mookie is really care about smart characters he just cares about the idea of DBZ'ing things with your mind.   I like how these explanations add literally nothing to our understanding. Jacob's Frankenstein monster ( I know he's named quilt but I'm not going to call him that until it's introduced in the narrative) being the beacon that summoned the storm doesn't change anything and even within these two strips is established as meaningless to stopping the storm. It's just magical technobabble that serves no purpose. Obviously they're going to plan to use Dirk to control the storm, but I am sort of confused as to why they need to destroy an order golem to do it. Doesn't seem like any souls could be made into a cage if you just introduced law magic into them? Also I'm not even clear on how Dominic knows that Dirk reacted to the storm. I don't think he had a vision of it at least not that I can remember  Here comes either Mookie's best or his most awful made up word/pun, I can't decide. Elemecca is such a stupid name on its surface, but I think it's sort of clever? It never explains what a city-machine means, btw. The Elemecca looks like a giant techno factory that I guess has just always existed. Please note the "put into balance" line, it's good to be important  You went to the restricted section, oh what a clever little boy you are! It's every YA protagonist ever. Again it seems like Miranda literally did everything about this already so I don't understand why she was so against this idea. The stakes, though vague so far, do seem to be about whether or not the world ends, so the idea that Miranda was like oh it's just too unsafe, when she herself did this 20 years ago, is just so bizarre. It's also just such a great way to undercut the tension in your story to say that the main character's mom did all this once so it will all work out fine. And again going back to my rant on knowledge, I find it interesting that Dominic literally has to do no original thinking in this, no creative new ideas or thinking in new ways. He's literally just repeating what he knows his amazing parents did. Oh? Did you think Celesto's horrible slut shaming rant was over? No no no friends, we've just begun  Here's where Brett's story ends.  So establishing that Celesto has chaos psychic powers that. I do love that these two unrelated stories are now directly linked though, again making the world feel extremely small. Also Mookie got to write fag again! Brett getting killed is acting pretty well drawn Mookie so I'll give him props for that. Here it comes!  This lady is not Amelia, and she does not appear to be rich in any way. The only thing that Celesto has against her is that she is a "dancing whore". The transference is complete, the evil that women do is not being corrupt or killing people, it's just having sex, in this case for money but also in general. This is deftly Mookie speaking not Celesto too, because it makes no sense for Celesto's character. The visual of Celesto holding her by the hair and shaking her around while she's crying is also pretty awful. I don't like it, and I don't trust it from Mookie.  And this section ends with Celesto going on an incel rant about whores dancing for the drat Chads. With all that Celesto has seen including Dominic murdered Amelia, the fact that Mookie twisted it around so that Celesto's motivation, which Dominic never fights against and in fact largely agrees with, is about whores and sex is a really gross. The framing of this story never makes Celesto's motivations unsympathetic, so you're supposed to understand them but that his methods are wrong. you'll see that when Dominic confronts him. So here again we have an example of Mookie being extremely misogynistic and covering it up by having his villains be his mouthpieces. Be prepared, next time we get to see Greg depicted as a literal angel. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 08:32 on Sep 26, 2020 |
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Sep 25, 2020 22:10
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Sep 25, 2020 23:02
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Regalingualius posted:Next strip has the first actual speech bubble up until now: I JUST SAID THAT! Kavak posted:How disgusting.
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Sep 25, 2020 23:27
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Kavak posted:I JUST SAID THAT! I feel sick.
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Sep 25, 2020 23:42
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There's something incredibly funny about an evil guy belonging to an evil order that wants to end the world using the word "jocks" to describe sports players.
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Sep 26, 2020 00:00
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Regalingualius posted:I feel sick. What a disgusting feeling. The Little Death posted:Misogyny Are we absolutely sure this is pre-cheating? Could it have happened more than once?
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Sep 26, 2020 00:05
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Ick. Has there been any indication that Dirk was made up of a bunch of different things? I always thought he was just wearing like, a big furry skin or something. That's some not completely awful anime body horror, completely ruined by a boring, lovely angle. If I wasn't grossed out by the misogyny, I'd be yawning.
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Sep 26, 2020 00:28
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