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Mm, that's possible too. I really hope there isn't any gender stuff in this sidequest. There's no way Mookie would be able to navigate it in a way that's not terrible. If inkwich was just waiting around the corner in another chamber of this cave and got Snout to go back onto the main questline, I honestly wouldn't even be surprised.
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Aug 26, 2020 01:18
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Snout (in writing): "You killed these people to lure me back to you???" Ink Witch: "Yes! I hope you can still trust me!"
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Aug 26, 2020 01:21
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lol. The skinless guy is Arudak. Snout just didn't recognize him without his hoodie.
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Aug 26, 2020 01:22
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I'm so glad Snout found a new mommy in the woods to take care of him. I wonder how this one's going to give him bookstore money?RoboChrist 9000 posted:Hence the sexy rapist. I'm pretty sure Heroic Rapist Orc was because Mookie has or had rape fantasies but wants to consider himself Lawful Good, so he needed to contrive a way for rape to be a circumstantially Good Act so he wouldn't feel like a bad person for having a darker fantasy. Never mind that the real heroic act would've been Stonewater using that event to show his leadership and nobility by using diplomacy to convince the council of Orc Clans that the old ways were bad; or at a minimum at least inciting his Clan into waging war on the Clan that demand a woman be either raped (and made into another Orc's property) or killed. But nope, Orcs are just a collection of noble fantasy vegans who practice institutionalized rape as a cultural cornerstone and don't consider women to be people. They're the good guys because at least they're not racist against Orcs! PoptartsNinja fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 02:19
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And then it's retconned that the Marital Rape ritual is meant to only be between consenting adults, and also it was the chieftan would was responsible for this and acting alone and not the society that saw this and did nothing. Which is so *chef's kiss* liberalism.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:24
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:Mookie is at least in theory an ally and that it seems most likely any offensive poo poo he does WRT transpeople is more the result of him being a myopic idiot than him being genuinely hateful or dismissive Mookie's output, as we'll definitely see in a lot of DD as the re-read continues here, is pretty much a perfect example on how being a well intentioned but myopic idiot, and being unable to examine the poo poo the intellectual baggage you've internalized, can lead to some really vile poo poo.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:32
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SardonicTyrant posted:And then it's retconned that the Marital Rape ritual is meant to only be between consenting adults, and also it was the chieftan would was responsible for this and acting alone and not the society that saw this and did nothing. Which is so *chef's kiss* liberalism. Which makes the situation even worse, because it gives Stonewater, Orc Paladin and Greater Avatar of Mookie, immense leverage to prove the Rape Chief to be both wrong and a creep. He could've used that as a threat to get them to back down privately so they don't lose face publicly. Again, at a minimum, it would've given him a moral reason to pick a fight with Rape Chief and then he never would've had to become a rapist. Even at the most generous reading (and I'm not inclined to be generous, Mookie's not a bumbler, he wanted to write a rape into his comic) it was supposed to be a "would you commit a heinous act to save someone's life?" type of question and the problem is rape is the most easily avoidable heinous act in the entire world. Stonewater's answer to "would you rape this woman to save her life?" could have just as easily been "no, but I'll commit a murder to" instead of "yes." The former would've been a heroic act, the latter was an act of cowardice.
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Aug 26, 2020 02:56
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My impression of Mookie has been that he understands on a surface level when a broad action is wrong, but he's not willing to understand why and how it harms people, or how it can be expressed in a subtle but no less damaging way, or how it can be so insidious that someone can absorb those beliefs without even realizing the damage they're doing. So, for example, he knows racism is bad. But he can only seem to grapple it in extreme ways, like having orc genocide or a planet wrapped up in wars. It doesn't blip on his radar that there's something weird about dedicating pages of worldbuilding just for listing off fantasy slurs (nor does it blip that at least one of them actually is used in real life). It doesn't blip that his heroes are making what would in-universe be classified as a racist joke about their friend. It doesn't blip that he's essentially gone "Both Sides!" at a war that involved internment camps, and that the only way he could make sure the readers didn't sympathize with either side was by having them both punch down at mixed families. This same reaction of his, by the way, can also be seen with the space mafia (transphobia) and Siegfried (more fantasy racism). Or, let's tie it in with both the DD reread and Legacy's previous arc. Mookie understands abuse is bad. But he can only ever seem to show it as a blatant, grandiose way where the abuser is very aware they are the villain and in fact openly revels in how evil and cruel they are, as Luna's mother shows. He can't seem to grasp more subtle forms of abuse, like Ink Witch's complete disregard for boundaries or for Snout's well-being. Even obvious red flags (like how Milov murdered and mutilated an illusion of Jayden without a hint of hesitation, and without any prior knowledge that she wasn't the real thing) slip by because only villains abuse people, and how can his precious Milov and Stonewater and Ink Witch abuse someone if they aren't gloating about how evil they are every five minutes? I assume Mookie wants to be a good person that supports others, because few people would say they don't. And, honestly? Had he actually taken the time to learn from his past and accepted that he has blind spots, and accepted that there may be subjects he can't handle with tact and that he should try to avoid covering them in depth or at all, I don't think people would be giving as much poo poo about Legacy as they are now. There are other webcomic artists out there who started off by farting slurs and violence onto their site and calling it edgy humor. Most of them have mellowed out and either pay careful attention to what they're writing and how, or have slipped into obscurity to avoid association with their old shame. I want to give the benefit of the doubt to people who were assholes online back in the 00s, because I want to be able to believe that even people in their 20s, 30s, and older can still learn something new and take it to heart. But in 18 years he hasn't learned a single thing from the criticism about his DD storylines, and in fact doubles down as soon as someone suggests his story's love interest is a massive creep and warps the story to make her look better. And that is the true legacy of Dominic Deegan. Yes, I want fries with my order. MiracleFlare fucked around with this message at 09:04 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 08:58
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MiracleFlare posted:Words I agree with your analysis. I think Mookie shows a deep insecurity and instinctive defensiveness, which means that any time he gets uncomfortable about his beliefs or ideas, he retreats, rationalizes, or doubles down. And that means that he doesn't improve or change. He has a 90's after school special's understanding of diversity and social justice, which seems to be where his social mores and opinions formed, and is totally unwilling or unable to change from that. Even his lawful good speil is just reflective of a desire for clear dividing lines, so that he never has to critically self-reflect. Speaking of which: Chapter 2: The Curse [Part 2] When we last left our protagonist, he had just made a pun to a woman he had never met, who was about to hang herself   Again, here come the Plot Vision to cut down on all that unnecessary story building. Dominic is now aware of Croona's entire scheme, which is to drive her daughter to suicide via rejection by jocks. Luna is skeptical, but...  Thankfully, Croona steps in to immediately vindicate Dominic. I will say that I think Mookie fell into a habit of using these sorts of immediate twists as a way to finish strips. Because he was updating on a daily basis without planning, every strip had to have a stinger of some kind at the end for him to feel it was complete. So we have this immediate beat and counter-beat, with the pacing of a newspaper joke, except it's not a joke.  Croona's plan is essentially an insurance scam, with Mookietrope #6: Anachronistic Bullshit a little on display. This one is actually sort of believable as a law, so I wouldn't call it out, but Mookie will make a pattern of using Callanian law (that operates in a way that makes no sense for a feudal setting) for easy plot mortar in his stories, so I want to point it out here as the first instance of that.  Again, this at the time didn't read as creepy to me, but now shaming Luna for her sexuality, even thought it's coming from a villain, feels off. Anyway, a comedy strip ensues where Dominic knocks Croona out with a trout to the face. This is possibly the most active dominic ever is in terms of actually directly fighting people, instead of passive puppet-mastery, and it's beaning an old woman in the face. Just sort think that's funny  The Dominic acts incredibly creepy and infantilizes Luna, and seeing as how Croona is an old woman, I don't know what they are running from. He coudl maybe give her time to process that betrayal.  Dominic goes to get the potion, and runs into Siggy. Siggy says ominously that Stunt and Bumper got what they deserved, but you don't see them again until Chapter 4.  Siggy is going to arrest Dominic, but Luna kicks him in the dick.  She then proves her use as a romance option for Dominic's Player Character, in the most boring magic effect ever drawn. I stand by this, even back then. It's just really boring as a way of showing magic being done.  Dominic provides convolutes exposition that doesn't really matter, other than to confirm that yes Dominic did just save Luna's life. Croona wakes up and gets ready to just murder her daughter and Dominic, giving her best Scooby-doo villain speech.  She prepares a spell...   and is brutally beheaded by Sigfried, in again something that may just have seemed edgy at the time, but in retrospect is very vicious, and a little creepy. Having the panel bisect her neck is a good touch though. I like that. That's the resolution to this, a sudden brutal beheading. After that we get two more strips wrapping up, both with comedic pacing. One wher we learn that Luna gets nothing from her horrible mother:  And another where this happens:  I have to admit, this last one actually did get me laughing. Again because of how blatant and sudden it is. Like I said, I think the comic at this point is still ok, especially for the time, but you can see the problems developing. Luna attempting suicide again after the whole arc of this story is also one of those things that just demonstrates how terrible a character she is. She hates herself, she has no self esteem, she's literally suicidal, but all it will take is some more condescention from Dominic for her to become a codependent insecure waifu instead. More on that next time in Chapter 3: Luna. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 10:00
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I think it's simpler than that: Mookie believes in the succlib idea that racism is because of bad individuals and not a systemic issue. I'd argue that Mookie also believe evil and cruelty are individual acts and not systemic problems, but that would require me to re-read the comic for evidence and I'm not going to do that. Regarding the beheading, I wouldn't say we were all a little meaner back then, I'd say we sort of tolerated a level of meanness we don't anymore. SardonicTyrant fucked around with this message at 10:16 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 10:05
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Wow, letting other characters do the killing so Dominic keeps his hands metaphorically clean started even earlier than I thought. Also this might be the least sexualized murder of a woman he's ever done.
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Aug 26, 2020 12:11
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Zerilan posted:Mookie's output, as we'll definitely see in a lot of DD as the re-read continues here, is pretty much a perfect example on how being a well intentioned but myopic idiot, and being unable to examine the poo poo the intellectual baggage you've internalized, can lead to some really vile poo poo. Oh, yeah, absolutely. And a lack of introspection is, in my book, a moral failing. Mookie's basal beliefs about transpeople being people and their identified genders is the starting point, not the ending point like he seems to think it is. I'm just saying that I doubt we'll see Mookie pull a Rowling or anything like that because unlike Rowling, I don't think Mookie's a bigot in his beliefs, only in his actions. Pyrotoad posted:Wow, letting other characters do the killing so Dominic keeps his hands metaphorically clean started even earlier than I thought. In fairness to Mookie, and I forget if I said it in this thread but I know I did in the old DD ones, that's a shonen staple. It's fairly rare for the shonen protag to be allowed to kill people, and usually killing the villains is one of the duties of the edgy rival character. Goku and Vegeta come to mind with Recoome being the platonic ideal of this. Goku defeats Recoome, but Vegeta is the one who kills him. Hell, technically Goku doesn't even kill Frieza, Trunks does. Naruto takes it a step further even in that Naruto isn't allowed to even try to kill people, generally, and Sasuke tries to kill them but usually it's one of the vllains he pals around with who gets the actual kill. 'The main character is not allowed to kill' is definitely common in shonen. Although then again, other than DBZ, most of these shonen anime weren't that big in the late 90s or early aughts that I can remember. In fact a lot of the anime that was held up on a platter was edgelord poo poo like Ninja Scroll and whatnot. So while I just wrote a lot of words explaining how Mookie's use of this trope is kind of understandable given the genre conventions, the miasma of anime tropes he lived - and still does - in doesn't really include it. In conclusion, Mookie is a land of contrasts.
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Aug 26, 2020 13:13
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SardonicTyrant posted:I think it's simpler than that: Mookie believes in the succlib idea that racism is because of bad individuals and not a systemic issue. I'd argue that Mookie also believe evil and cruelty are individual acts and not systemic problems, but that would require me to re-read the comic for evidence and I'm not going to do that. Literally true - from the Facebook post on the page where a mafioso insults Semme's gender:  The system is good! Only CRIMINALS are bigots.
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Aug 26, 2020 15:28
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Yeah, see. The Crime families do it because they are bad and bullies! It's not even a cultural thing for Axiosis, just the baddies. Interesting then that it is so common, and yet there's no mention of it anywhere until it's used for bigotry. Very weird.
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Aug 26, 2020 15:36
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Once again, I turn to Zot! as an example of doing this well. From an issue where one character is dealing with the realization she's gay in a high school where that will get her tormented: The context is that Zot (the guy on the right) is from a scifi utopia alternate dimension, which is explicitly a fantasy meant to be contrasted with our world. And even then it's more grounded than Mookie's federation. And Harry is another kid who came out as gay and was then paralyzed as a result of a hate crime.  Also this comic has an issue where two teenagers have an awkward but healthy conversation about whether they should have sex.  I don't mean "this happens during one issue" I mean that is the entire issue. Have I mentioned I love Zot!? You should read Zot!. Zot! is the good version of Star Power.
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Aug 26, 2020 15:50
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Listen, I cant do what Mookie does. That being said these shots kill me every time. Looking at zot's profiles is like night and day. I don't think mookies profile shots were consistent with his head on shots even accounting for the 'style'.
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Aug 26, 2020 16:42
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 I'm not saying Zot! is perfect by the way - some of its storylines are a bit clumsy in their earnestness, some of the characters are 1-dimensional 80s movie stereotypes, and the anatomy is sometimes funky (especially in wide shots), but for a comic made in the late 80s/early 90s, it was REALLY progressive. The issue dealing with that character (Terry) being gay made me cry. Read it and you'll see why.
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Aug 26, 2020 16:51
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Toalpaz posted:Listen, I cant do what Mookie does. That being said these shots kill me every time. The awkward moment when your face gets a boner.
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Aug 26, 2020 16:57
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The Little Death posted:Anyway, a comedy strip ensues where Dominic knocks Croona out with a trout to the face. This is possibly the most active dominic ever is in terms of actually directly fighting people, instead of passive puppet-mastery, and it's beaning an old woman in the face. Just sort think that's funny You know what. I will allow this. He is shown to clearly puff on his pipe which was the condition of the curse placed on him dropping a fish on his head. It was set up, communicated and then paid off. This is the limit of Mookie's writing; a magically appearing fish joke.
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Aug 26, 2020 17:07
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If Mookie's art got better over time, or if the art stayed the same but the story got better, I'd give Mookie's cheek mouths and other weird art failures a pass. But as time went on, it became apparent that Mookie is just that lazy in all aspects of his work.
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Aug 26, 2020 17:57
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EthanSteele posted:You know what. I will allow this. He is shown to clearly puff on his pipe which was the condition of the curse placed on him dropping a fish on his head. It was set up, communicated and then paid off. This is the limit of Mookie's writing; a magically appearing fish joke. Bit ironic that he chose "FAP" as the onomatopoeia given the fish looks like it's nutting. That's unintentionally funnier than the semi-decent joke. I remember in the first Drinkin stream pointing out that at the start of this mini-arc Siegfried arrives with a massive entourage of stagecoaches and guards, but at the end he leaves by himself on a single horse. Was it something he said?
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Aug 26, 2020 18:27
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They were surely there to make sure Sigfried didn't get distracted murdering peasants on the way. Once he made it to his destination managing him was Luna's Mom's problem.
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Aug 26, 2020 18:29
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I kind of wonder if he had the same attitude to his writing that he does now. The original strips you can tell are just a guy having fun writing whatever he likes (lol at Dominic being both made aware of the problem and its solution by random visions), but the Star Power blog posts make it sound like he takes his process so seriously. I mean Croona and blue lady are equally as threatening but blue lady gets treated as a credible threat by Mookie.
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Aug 26, 2020 18:33
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We joke about Mookie being lazy, but I honestly don't think he is. I think he takes his writing VERY seriously and puts a ton of time into it, as well as managing all the book sales, Kickstarters, managing websites, social media, etc. His laziness happens to come in the form of INTELLECTUAL laziness - he never seems to consider the implications of what he's creating, and he doesn't think he needs to change his process of never planning very far ahead. That and I think he's lazy about his visual art. Not in terms of effort when creating it, but in terms of building his skill. I've seen what it takes to become a good 2d artist, and it takes a TON of time devoted to practicing and learning, which is neverending throughout your life. I severely doubt Mookie has ever done a life drawing class or studied perspective in any substantial way, so even if he puts a ton of work into creating his comic, it's got a ceiling of how good it will look until he does takes the time to do that.
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Aug 26, 2020 18:44
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Tesseraction posted:Bit ironic that he chose "FAP" as the onomatopoeia given the fish looks like it's nutting. That's unintentionally funnier than the semi-decent joke. That page may predate the use of 'fap' as an onomatopoeia for male masturbatin. As I recall reading once the old webcomic Sexy Losers which was also from the early aughts was the first use of the term in the English speaking parts of the internet, and it then spread from there. EDIT: Mookie did Dominic Deegan daily for over a decade. After reaching an early plateau it never improved in art, and in many ways regressed. If you do something daily that long and fail to improve even by accident I think that speaks to either laziness or you being the most stubborn and talentless person in history. Like I daresay most people doing a repetitive action on a nearly daily basis for the better part of a decade would get better at that activity no matter how stupid and talentless they are. It would take deliberate laziness or stubbornness to do that and fail to improve.
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Aug 26, 2020 18:54
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SardonicTyrant posted:If Mookie's art got better over time, or if the art stayed the same but the story got better, I'd give Mookie's cheek mouths and other weird art failures a pass. But as time went on, it became apparent that Mookie is just that lazy in all aspects of his work. Yeah the art improved in that it got cleaner and less sketchy, but it didn't get better in terms of anatomy. I don't know if it's laziness or insecurity. i feel like Mookie locked himself into a style and became defensive of it, maybe even deliberatly doubling down when criticism would happen. Beelzebufo fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Aug 26, 2020 |
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Aug 26, 2020 19:00
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There's like, exactly one panel of Dominic being drawn in profile with a normal non-snout face.
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Aug 26, 2020 19:15
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It is a certain kind of laziness. I think maybe Mookie's main problem may be impatience. He wants to make the thing and get the story that's in his head out NOW NOW NOW, even if that means it's not going to be very good and might actually take MORE work than prepping it and building his skills.
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Aug 26, 2020 19:15
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Mookie's definitely talked about his art style before right? I could swear he knew it was doo doo and just wanted a medium to convey his masterful storytelling, and there was even one page where he drew a non-snout and was like "See? I CAN draw regular heads, I just choose not to!"
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Aug 26, 2020 19:18
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RoboChrist 9000 posted:EDIT: Mookie did Dominic Deegan daily for over a decade. After reaching an early plateau it never improved in art, and in many ways regressed. If you do something daily that long and fail to improve even by accident I think that speaks to either laziness or you being the most stubborn and talentless person in history.
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Aug 26, 2020 19:19
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Practice and studying means that sometimes you have to learn things that are boring because they're part of the foundation for the most interesting things. Remember how Star Power opens with Danica complaining that Dr. Brightman makes astrology not fun because there's actual work to do instead of just gazing what whatever's currently holding your interest? That's the mindset Mookie holds with everything.
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Aug 26, 2020 19:23
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The Curse is a lot better than Legacy. It could have developed into a good comic. It didn't have to be like this.
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Aug 26, 2020 20:06
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Aug 26, 2020 20:11
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Zerilan posted:There's like, exactly one panel of Dominic being drawn in profile with a normal non-snout face. That was the extreme close up in the arc where mostly he's naked and around a little boy isn't it
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Aug 26, 2020 23:07
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Miss posted:That was the extreme close up in the arc where mostly he's naked and around a little boy isn't it It was from the Oracle Hunter arc, one of multiple arcs that involve an evil relative of Luna's and has incredibly gross treatment of women and relationships.
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Aug 27, 2020 00:52
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oh right. those do all blend together
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Aug 27, 2020 00:57
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Some good discussion going on here all around. In addition to the other stupidities of this arc, Mookie went out of his way to establish Callan law for Croona's insurance scam-like plan. But Siegfried killed Croona. A death occurred on the property while a knight of Callan was there. Even if Luna didn't get any of Croona's inheritance, she would've gotten the weregild from the crown. So why didn't she? Rhetorical question, of course. If she had money, then she wouldn't be forced to be Dominic's maid. She couldn't just associate with him because she wanted to, since women can't have agency in Mookieland. She must be a victim of circumstance. That's how you know she's a good guy.
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Aug 27, 2020 02:56
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I remember when one of Dominic's students in a later arc realized "Hey, so if we convert the dates of all of these cultures, it turns out each culture had its first oracular vision at the same time" And then nothing came of this revelation.
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Aug 27, 2020 03:22
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Invisible Clergy posted:Some good discussion going on here all around. ...how did I never realize that plot hole? I mean, that could have made for a decent gag where she’s still disowned, but is informed that she’s still technically owed survivor’s compensation... and that winds up being more than enough to buy out her mother’s holdings (or at least someplace that’s just as good as her old house) as a way of finally getting one over on her mother after all of the crap she put her through.
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Aug 27, 2020 03:25
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God help me that I remember this, but I'm pretty sure that because Sigfried executed Croona, Luna isn't entitled to the money. Like, it comes up at some point.
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Aug 27, 2020 03:34
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