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SubG
Aug 19, 2004

It's a hard world for little things.
Gentle necromancy.

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Mordja
Apr 26, 2014

Hell Gem
Thanks Dominic for making things more boring

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
So, knowing Dominic Deegan's legacy was to cause a dramatic shift in the nature of magic as we knew it in the original series, Mookie...spent the last two years meandering around the Wild Edge, showing us no magic. Almost no magic, I guess, since we've seen the Ink Witch's battleship and the necromancy.



subtle.



gentle!

Also in the og series Dominic saw that magical dominance would leave Callan and shift to the orcs, leading to a return of the chandaks and their society flourishing. So it sounds a lot like whitey got scared and puppet mastered a scenario where the orcs would inherit a lemon.

YF-23
Feb 17, 2011

My god, it's full of cat!


Oh gently caress yeah mookie's ascended to writing a different story every page.

Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
I was waiting for the comic to prove me wrong about Snout standing next to walls of text for multiple days but no, he really went and did it.

Joe Slowboat
Nov 9, 2016

Higgledy-Piggledy Whale Statements



TheHan posted:

Also in the og series Dominic saw that magical dominance would leave Callan and shift to the orcs, leading to a return of the chandaks and their society flourishing. So it sounds a lot like whitey got scared and puppet mastered a scenario where the orcs would inherit a lemon.

Wild how Mookie managed to back his character into actively undermining the orcish golden age.

Happy Landfill
Feb 26, 2011

I don't understand but I've also heard much worse
The real Legacy of Dominic Deegan was the friends we made along the way :downs:

FlocksOfMice
Feb 3, 2009
See, magic used to be a nightmare! It was CUH-RAZY! Everyone just ran around throwing fireballs and poo poo! The worst! Thankfully Dominic Deegan did something to stop that!

Now our goal is to find out how he did that, because if someone goes out of the way to seal up dangerous power, it's our JOB to figure out how it's sealed up and how to get it out, just you know, in case.

Like okay so this is his legacy, why the hell do they even need to investigate it? Is it in danger of failing and magic is gonna come back? Are they bored? Is this just CURIOSITY as a wild goal itself?

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa

This land is peaceful, its inhabitants kind.

Billy Gnosis
May 18, 2006

Now is the time for us to gather together and celebrate those things that we like and think are fun.
This is going to be another case of Mookie being obsessed with Jocks vs Nerds despite not understanding either and being like 30 years out of highschool isn't it?

The Chad Maltakian vs The Virgin Dominic. Rock on

Ague Proof
Jun 5, 2014

they told me
I was everything
Aggressive jock magic vs gentle nerd magic.

Riot Bus
Jan 8, 2020
I don't think he knows what "subtle" means. The transition from flashy scientific magic to more mysterious arcane magic could be a genuinely interesting bit of world building, but literally none of the magic we've seen in this comic so far has been subtle. He started us off with a magic spaceship of all things.

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
Because being able to fly has never, ever been used to wage war.

Who What Now
Sep 10, 2006

by Azathoth
Lol is he using a different font than on Mondays strip?

amigolupus
Aug 25, 2017

So if there's no more battle magic, then how do people defend themselves from monsters or the like? Because of Ink Witch's ship can blow up Snout's house, then it sounds to me like Dominic just made everyone defenseless and vulnerable.

Riot Bus
Jan 8, 2020
Also why does Snout seem to be reading this from a huge sheaf of papers? What else is being explained on them that would take up so much space? It seems to be suggesting that we are seeing only the highlights of this huge essay but I have zero idea what could be filling the rest of the space because they are just like "Dominic changed magic to be more chill, idk."

Dabir
Nov 10, 2012

Despite having spent years building a career primarily out of putting ink on paper, Mookie does not know how big a piece of paper is.

Medenmath
Jan 18, 2003

Riot Bus posted:

Also why does Snout seem to be reading this from a huge sheaf of papers? What else is being explained on them that would take up so much space? It seems to be suggesting that we are seeing only the highlights of this huge essay but I have zero idea what could be filling the rest of the space because they are just like "Dominic changed magic to be more chill, idk."

Well, the first arc in this comic had the characters all seeking a bunch of pages that represented two or three sentences worth of text, so it's consistent in that regard.

ryde
Sep 9, 2011

God I love young girls

Riot Bus posted:

Also why does Snout seem to be reading this from a huge sheaf of papers? What else is being explained on them that would take up so much space? It seems to be suggesting that we are seeing only the highlights of this huge essay but I have zero idea what could be filling the rest of the space because they are just like "Dominic changed magic to be more chill, idk."

Im just thankful we haven't gotten the Dominic Deegan version of the John Galt text.

Happy Landfill
Feb 26, 2011

I don't understand but I've also heard much worse

ryde posted:

Im just thankful we haven't gotten the Dominic Deegan version of the John Galt text.

Patiently waiting for this edit

FlocksOfMice
Feb 3, 2009
For 200 years, you have been asking: Who is Dominic Deegan? This is Dominic Deegan speaking. I am the seer who loves his life. I am the seer who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the seer who has deprived you of magic and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread books—I am the seer who will now tell you.

You have heard it said that this is an age of souls of storms and wars in hell. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that jocks are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the magic you demanded. Since magic, to you, consists of fireballs, you have demanded more fireballs at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those infernomancers which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to racist knights. You have sacrificed reading books to sportsball. You have sacrificed reason to forgiving abusers.

You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your magic. It is your magic ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I—I am the seer who has granted you your wish.

Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of magic was designed to destroy with fireballs. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach with the Asinotaph. I have removed the source of all those magics you were casting one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind. SEE THE TRUTH.

Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren’t. In my mind, I am fifty feet tall, have three eyes, and have eye lasers. The eye lasers of my mind are without compare. There are none who can survive my mind's eye lasers.

While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of booklearning, of heavy metal, of DBZ auras, of nerdy jokes, of punmakers—I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that magic code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality—mine. It is mine that they chose to follow. They SAW THE TRUTH.

All the men who have vanished, the men you bullied in highschool even though I just wanted to play pokemon, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. Our big, book-filled minds. I've read so many books. God I love books, especially comic books with big tiddies.

FlocksOfMice fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Feb 24, 2021

Invisible Clergy
Sep 25, 2015

"Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces"

Malachi 2:3

FlocksOfMice posted:

For 200 years, you have been asking: Who is Dominic Deegan? This is Dominic Deegan speaking. I am the seer who loves his life. I am the seer who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the seer who has deprived you of magic and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread books—I am the seer who will now tell you.

You have heard it said that this is an age of souls of storms and wars in hell. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that jocks are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the magic you demanded. Since magic, to you, consists of fireballs, you have demanded more fireballs at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those infernomancers which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to racist knights. You have sacrificed reading books to sportsball. You have sacrificed reason to forgiving abusers.

You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your magic. It is your magic ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I—I am the seer who has granted you your wish.

Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of magic was designed to destroy with fireballs. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach with the Asinotaph. I have removed the source of all those magics you were casting one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind. SEE THE TRUTH.

Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren’t. In my mind, I am fifty feet tall, have three eyes, and have eye lasers. The eye lasers of my mind are without compare. There are none who can survive my mind's eye lasers.

While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of booklearning, of heavy metal, of DBZ auras, of nerdy jokes, of punmakers—I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that magic code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality—mine. It is mine that they chose to follow. They SAW THE TRUTH.

All the men who have vanished, the men you bullied in highschool even though I just wanted to play pokemon, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. Our big, book-filled minds. I've read so many books. God I love books, especially comic books with big tiddies.

Invisible Clergy posted:

For two hundred years, you have been asking: Who is Dominic Deegan? This is Dominic Deegan speaking. I am the man who loves his wife.

Men do not live by the mind, you say? The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose minds aren't to the astral plane. Then I told them to stop being so clothes-minded.

Sweep aside those hatred-eaten mystics. They only end up turning into spaghetti and meatballs.

Man cannot survive except by gaining knowledge, and saying "gently caress you, see the truth" is his only means to gain it.

A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False?—Right or Wrong? These dichotomies are false. All that a man need know is whether a thing is Deegan or Not-Deegan.

Are you beginning to see who is Dominic Deegan? I am the man who has earned the thing you did not fight for: I do not have to be in this lovely comic anymore.

If there are degrees of evil, it is hard to say who is the more contemptible: the Deegan who assumes the right to force the mind of others or the Non-Deegan who grants to others the right to force his mind.

To a savage, the world is a place of unintelligible miracles where anything is possible. I am a loving wizard, so that is how objective reality is. I suppose we are all savages, then.

I swear—by my life and my love of it—that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine. Unless I oracle myself to death and go missing for 200 years.

But what're the odds of that?
The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > BSS: Batman's Scrappy Sidekick > Dominic Deegan: Who is Dom Galt?

Great job; yours is much funnier.

Kurui Reiten
Apr 24, 2010

FlocksOfMice posted:

For 200 years, you have been asking: Who is Dominic Deegan? This is Dominic Deegan speaking. I am the seer who loves his life. I am the seer who does not sacrifice his love or his values. I am the seer who has deprived you of magic and thus has destroyed your world, and if you wish to know why you are perishing—you who dread books—I am the seer who will now tell you.

You have heard it said that this is an age of souls of storms and wars in hell. You have said it yourself, half in fear, half in hope that the words had no meaning. You have cried that jocks are destroying the world and you have cursed human nature for its unwillingness to practice the magic you demanded. Since magic, to you, consists of fireballs, you have demanded more fireballs at every successive disaster. In the name of a return to morality, you have sacrificed all those infernomancers which you held as the cause of your plight. You have sacrificed justice to racist knights. You have sacrificed reading books to sportsball. You have sacrificed reason to forgiving abusers.

You have destroyed all that which you held to be evil and achieved all that which you held to be good. Why, then, do you shrink in horror from the sight of the world around you? That world is not the product of your sins, it is the product and the image of your magic. It is your magic ideal brought into reality in its full and final perfection. You have fought for it, you have dreamed of it, and you have wished it, and I—I am the seer who has granted you your wish.

Your ideal had an implacable enemy, which your code of magic was designed to destroy with fireballs. I have withdrawn that enemy. I have taken it out of your way and out of your reach with the Asinotaph. I have removed the source of all those magics you were casting one by one. I have ended your battle. I have stopped your motor. I have deprived your world of man’s mind. SEE THE TRUTH.

Men do not live by the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those who do. The mind is impotent, you say? I have withdrawn those whose mind isn’t. There are values higher than the mind, you say? I have withdrawn those for whom there aren’t. In my mind, I am fifty feet tall, have three eyes, and have eye lasers. The eye lasers of my mind are without compare. There are none who can survive my mind's eye lasers.

While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of booklearning, of heavy metal, of DBZ auras, of nerdy jokes, of punmakers—I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that magic code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality—mine. It is mine that they chose to follow. They SAW THE TRUTH.

All the men who have vanished, the men you bullied in highschool even though I just wanted to play pokemon, yet dreaded to lose, it is I who have taken them away from you. Do not attempt to find us. We do not choose to be found. Do not cry that it is our duty to serve you. We do not recognize such duty. Do not cry that you need us. We do not consider need a claim. Do not cry that you own us. You don’t. Do not beg us to return. We are on strike, we, the men of the mind. Our big, book-filled minds. I've read so many books. God I love books, especially comic books with big tiddies.

:five:

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!
Friday's page gets two Snouts standing next to walls of text.



Just, so lazy. From the names (Open hand...) to other Ink Witch's sub-Care Bear level motivation.

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

Finally an explanation for why Inkmommy doesn't have a name!... But then, if they give each other nicknames, isn't that just, you know, their name now? Why wouldn't our Ink Witch go by HER nickname instead of the generic term? That's got to get confusing.

Also, "Redactor", lol. I'm sure that seemed real badass in Mookie's head.

And yeah, confirmed that Skullet is Rannon Mhorgs, the villain Mookie came up with in high school but couldn't find a place for. I'm guessing "open hand" is a martial art? And of course, he's a prodigy who spent years of hard work training, which was a ton of hard work and dedication... So of COURSE he's a bad guy. Good guys never have to work, they just get things handed to them, like Snout.

Also also! STILL no clear driving motivator for the plot, or a reason Snout has to be involved in this.

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Feb 25, 2021

rannum
Nov 3, 2012

Amid all the blunt exposition from literally-just-character-profiles i think its the footnote (in a separate font??) about why ink witch doesnt have a name that kills me the most

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002

rannum posted:

Amid all the blunt exposition from literally-just-character-profiles i think its the footnote (in a separate font??) about why ink witch doesnt have a name that kills me the most

I THINK maybe the typed font is supposed to the the orc speaking writing, and the written font is supposed to be the ink witch? It's pretty unclear.

Edit: if that is the case it wasn't like that when the orc spoke wrote to Snout a few weeks ago.

Rotten Red Rod fucked around with this message at 19:21 on Feb 25, 2021

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

Rotten Red Rod posted:

And yeah, confirmed that Skullet is Rannon Mhorgs, the villain Mookie came up in high school but couldn't find a place for. I'm guessing "open hand" is a martial art?

You mean outside of this DnD class?

Billy Gnosis
May 18, 2006

Now is the time for us to gather together and celebrate those things that we like and think are fun.
Dialogue-free*

*free from trying hard. Rock on

Rotten Red Rod
Mar 5, 2002


lol i should have loving known

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa

That's 5th ed. This character is older than that.
I mean it's possible, but for once I don't think it's the case. 'Open Hand' is just a pretty obvious and low effort name for a unarmed fighting style. Although it's usually more benign, which is also something he put in the backstory. Jade Empire had Open Hand and Closed Fist as its morality system, for example.

Also meet the villains, popular girl and jock.

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


Open Hand is a super general martial arts term that just refers to strikes that use, well, an open hand.

That means that it would make exactly as much sense for it to say "he is one of the most talented practitioners of Punch" in the world.


Also, 'Redactor' isn't even her general nickname...it's apparently just the nickname she was given specifically to refer to the incident that happened with Snout. Which means before she was called...???

Oh, and taking no bets that all other characters will acknowledge Redactor as this character's name with no context for where it came from or previous communication with Ink Witch Prime who named her. This will include Redactor herself who will never question how or why she is called this.

oriongates fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Feb 25, 2021

PoptartsNinja
May 9, 2008

He is still almost definitely not a spy


Soiled Meat
"Our cult is famous for free expression, which is why none of us are allowed to have actual names!"

oriongates
Mar 14, 2013

Validate Me!


And don't forget stealing from people if we don't think they 'deserve' what they have.

It is notable that the reason why Redactor is bad sounds just as vague and meaningless as the reason why Arundak was bad.

And the "bad thing" Mhorgs did to Snout is also basically the same as what Arundak did (make him go to sleep with no significant lasting effects).

oriongates fucked around with this message at 19:49 on Feb 25, 2021

clockwork chaos
Sep 15, 2009




Redactrix sounds so much better ugh come on Mookie

Beelzebufo
Mar 5, 2015

Frog puns are toadally awesome


See, more of this "free expression" creativity facebook stuff. This is literally the posting of smug amateur authors in comic form.

I love how he just handwaves away the Ink Witch name controversy, but introduces the idea of coven politics in a way that he won't examine or bother to think through. Now Ink Witch 1 and 2 knew each other previously, and belong to the same organization, and obviously didn't get kidnapped, so the question of why Ink Witch 1 and Arudak left snout with a concussion on his own really stands out. Even if Redactor has "growing influence", it seems unlikely that she could physically harm another member of her org without repercussions.

TheHan
Oct 29, 2011

Grind, you poor fool!
Grind straight for the stars!

RoboChrist 9000 posted:

That's 5th ed. This character is older than that.
I mean it's possible, but for once I don't think it's the case. 'Open Hand' is just a pretty obvious and low effort name for a unarmed fighting style. Although it's usually more benign, which is also something he put in the backstory. Jade Empire had Open Hand and Closed Fist as its morality system, for example.

Aaah, I didn't realize he's literally just a transplanted character and not just Mookie reusing names like he did with Arudak. That description instantly reminded me of the character class, but Mookie could have just as easily stumbled into the concept.

Kinda curious if Rhannon was always just a balding guy in a tank top though, seems low effort by OG DD standards.

RoboChrist 9000
Dec 14, 2006

Mater Dolorosa

PoptartsNinja posted:

"Our cult is famous for free expression, which is why none of us are allowed to have actual names!"

To be fair, the thing just says they aren't allowed to share their names, not that they don't have them within the coven. Presumably she has some secret coven name that Mommy Witch knows but isn't sharing.

Also calling it now one of hte witches will be revealed to be a Deegan. Or a Travoria. All of Luna's family, even unto the distant descendants, are evil.

Fister Roboto
Feb 21, 2008

I love how the stupid explanation for why the ink witch doesn't have a name, doesn't also explain why Snout never asked for her name in the first place. It's so obviously a retroactive justification when someone probably called him out on how weird it is that none of the female characters have names.

It's really just incredible how much this sucks.

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Twelve by Pies
May 4, 2012

Again a very likpatous story
"Villains work hard and train, while heroes are gifted their powers and never have to do anything for them" is such an incredibly prominent theme in Mookie's work. I think I sort of understand why he has it though.

If someone is the best at something and they worked hard and pushed themselves to the limit, there's always the possibility that someone else could do the same thing, and maybe even become better. This means that they can't possibly be anything special, could eventually be replaced/surpassed, and how could someone who isn't anything special and replaceable truly be a hero?

Whereas if someone is gifted their powers from a god/the heavens/magically strengthened, then nobody who works hard could possibly surpass them. They're special, they'll always be better than everyone else, and that's why they're a hero.

It also makes sense since this means villains are attempting to attain a level of power they aren't allowed to have, they're trying to be as strong as the heroes which is why they work so hard...and of course they'll never reach that level of power but they're always making the attempt.

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