The Legacy of Dominic Deegan II: Don't Be Clothed-Minded!

[Kantaki]

New comic

Once more the comic gives me hope Snout will get eaten.
And, inevitable, once again it shall be crushed.

[Pax1138]

I was so surprised something had actually happened I didn't know what to do with myself.

[Kantaki]

New comic

Ah, Snout doesn't get eaten, he does the eating.
Tasty too it looks like.

How exactly is this different from those orcs eating the sunflower guys?

[Celestia]

Apparently, Snout has gained the ability to change his size but only while in freefall.

[Silly Name]

Ok, so, either Mookie just killed off Sunflower Guy in the most random, senseless way possible and for absolutely zero narrative reason, or Sunflower will just pop back up a few pages from now, and probably able to regenerate his arm, making this whole sequence even more pointless.

It's worrying that I can't decide which option is narratively worse, nor what is more likely to happen given Mookie's track record.

[Gez]

It's worrying that I can't decide which option is narratively worse, nor what is more likely to happen given Mookie's track record.

Aren't these just two different ways of saying the same thing?

The reaction of the rest of the cast would tend to go with "Sunflower guy is gone for good"; and yes that was very random and pointless.

[Celestia]

Snout wanders off for no reason despite being told that they were about to leave. He encounters a dangerous creature right outside of Arcana's home for some reason. It was just a fake out and the creature isn't dangerous after all. Immediately after, he encounters another dangerous creature, still outside Atronach's home, and this one kills Flower Guy for no reason.

What utter nonsense.

[Vinyadan]

I expect resurrection from the arm.

[Kantaki]

Well, I guess there had to happen something to delay the main quest.
Flowerface getting eaten and needing rescue* might be good for a few filler updates.
Or it's gone for good and there will be much sadness.

The only reason Plant-dude being plant food bothers me is that Snout was right there!
We were this close to being rid of him, but no, the saladman gets it instead.
Somehow I don't think that was the intended reaction.

*I mean, "our teammate got eaten by a monster, now we have to track it down and kill it before they're too digested to raise them" does sound like a interesting starting point for a story, but so did the premise of this story...

[Vinyadan]

Remember how old DD was defined as an equivalent of the Flintstones, but with fantasy and magic as a theme? Now I wonder if this is also like the Flintstones, except the theme is that everything is a plant. Our herbivore protagonist visits a people of herbivores, in a land that used to be happy, until flowers turned into people and nationalist orks decided that it was their given right to consume their succulent fibres. Then we meet a plant that is actually a benevolent beast, then another plant that is a malevolent beast, but now we find out that this monstrous plant eats plant men. Meanwhile, one of the characters is a magical human vine clone. And remember the murderous tree that Snout killed by impaling it with one of its own branches, which it could shoot like a hail of harpoons?

[Shogo]

Honestly, with the way this thing has been going, my expectation is that the plant guy is just gonna regrow his entire body from that severed arm.

[MetroAlien]

This entire plot thread remind me of those whammies they do in the beginning of an anime to establish that the show is gonna be dark.
(think madoka magica, ga-rei zero, deadman wonderland, etc...)
mostly because it came completely out of left field, but partly because I'm confused as to what mood Mookie is trying to convey by putting it in the story at this point in the timeline.

except that this isn't an anime, this is nowhere near the beginning of the story and by God nobody is under the illusion that anything's gonna be 'dark' in the botanical adventures of snout.

[Celestia]

This entire plot thread remind me of those whammies they do in the beginning of an anime to establish that the show is gonna be dark.
(think madoka magica, ga-rei zero, deadman wonderland, etc...)
mostly because it came completely out of left field, but partly because I'm confused as to what mood Mookie is trying to convey by putting it in the story at this point in the timeline.

except that this isn't an anime, this is nowhere near the beginning of the story and by God nobody is under the illusion that anything's gonna be 'dark' in the botanical adventures of snout.

To be fair, considering how little has happened, it does still feel like the beginning of the story. I'm not even joking. I'm still waiting for the story to actually start, and I'm getting a creeping dread that this is the real story.

[MetroAlien]

considering how Mookie decided that he's only going to use his favourite way of story-telling: walls of monologue...
I'm afraid this is as 'story-like' as this comic is ever gonna get

[Kantaki]

New comic

Yeah, Snout. Just go home.

Seriously though, didn't we already go though this exact song and dance?
Not like he's been less (or more) useless since.

[MetroAlien]

once again...
I'm still confused as to why Mookie decided steer the action in this direction, at this moment.

If I didn't know better, I'd say somebody is trying to derail the comic.

Wait a sec... what am I saying?
I don't know better!

Can somebody prove to me this isn't a derailment?

[Shogo]

Well, I admit I expected it to be a bit more instantaneous than this. But it does in fact seem he'll be regrowing his body from the severed arm. Fear my ability to peer into the future. If only this gift of prophecy could be directed at the lottery or something.

[Celestia]

Oh wow. Plant guy isn't dead, and there was once again zero danger or consequences. What a shocker.

[MetroAlien]

I think it would be funnier if it was just the arm from now on.

Just a severed arm that's alive.

On a side note, how random is it that they just put the arm in a pot like that?
I feel as though a "normal" webcomic would go into detail explaining that exact thought process. At the very least, it's a missed opportunity for humour.
(or were we gracefully saved from attempted humour? who knows...)

Also, how much time is supposed to have passed here?
Did they just decide to "plant" the arm as soon as they got it?
Did they go through at least a few stages of grieving before trying it?
Does anyone besides snout even grieve sunflower-man?

[Pax1138]

Maybe they all already knew you could just Groot one of the plant men, but that doesn't erase the initial shock. It's still traumatic when your friend is attacked by a dog, whether they came out of it ok or not.

[Gez]

Plant guy is a plant, so you can grow a new plant guy by planting his cut arm as a cutting.

That said, is the arm really plant guy? Or is he a new plant guy, separate from the other? For instance, where are plant guy's memories and thought stored, anatomically speaking? The anthropomorphism of plant guy's complete form would lead one to believe it's in the head, in which case plant guy is dead. This is just a new plant guy, cloned from his arm, but without his memories and personalities.

Plants IRL are fascinating organisms, and we understand very little of how they work. Enough experiments have been done to establish that plants do have sentience (nitpicker's note: I'm talking about sentience, not about sapience; the two concepts are often confused) but we have no clear idea how it works. Plants can "hear", or at least perceive vibrations, since plants were tricked into growing their roots in the direction of speakers playing the sound of flowing water. Plants can communicate since when one is grazed it starts to defend itself chemically, the other nearby plants will also go into defense mode despite not having been attacked yet. Some plants stop growing in a given direction when they sense the presence of another plant this way; while on the opposite some other plants will attack their neighbors. And what's most interesting in the present case is that a plant often behaves more like a colony of organisms than like a single organism. Which is why cutting and grafting are possible.

[MetroAlien]

And what's most interesting in the present case is that a plant often behaves more like a colony of organisms than like a single organism. Which is why cutting and grafting are possible.

So what you're saying is that sunflower man is like the imposter-alien from John Carpenter's The Thing.
But with less blood-burning and more pot-growing.

Also, we know that souls exist in the DD setting. Did sunflower man's soul split in two?
Or is the arm like a Nobody from Kingdom Hearts? (i.e. a new, separate person)

[Celestia]

Translation for the sign language: "Follow the path home."

[Silly Name]

All aboard the plot train! CHOO-CHOO!

Aall the weird dream stuff and the sequences about Snout gaining confidence were pointless, because the actual plot progression was happening off-screen! Hooray!

[MetroAlien]

I don't know if people discussed this aspect of Mookie's writing already, but to me it's a prominent one.

Namely, that a lot of his back-stories or off-panel events sound like much more interesting things than what we actually get to see.
Two examples that bugged me in Star Power:

1.
what happened off-panel -> star power punched a warlord
what happened on-panel -> star power sees it replayed on the news

2.
what happened off-panel -> detective whats-his-face collected evidence of police corruption
what also happened off-panel -> star power beats up the mafia
what happened on-panel -> before-after montage of star power arresting up the mafia, with the actual beating-up skipped over

[Neoriceisgood]

I've not been keeping up with the Legacy of DD (I might, not sure. The no-dialogue part of it kinda turns me off. But I did notice a lot of panels do have text?)

I have however been doing a full re-read of the comic, I've just finished A Storm of Souls. I might throw some thoughts in here as I go through this stuff, I've not seen some of it for well over 10 years honestly, but I am mildly curious.

Out of the classic DD arcs, how would everyone rank them from best to worst (and why?)

I'm not *entirely* sure what true actual arcs there are, the first 7 chapters prior to visions of doom are kinda just random introductory stuff for example;
But I guess top 5 and bottom 5 might work well enough.

I think the first couple of arcs (visions of doom, extacy and evil & storm of souls) hold up well enough and have a lot of mistakes that I'd consider 'forgiveable', iffy puns, cheesy writing, some tonal dissonance. But from what I remember it's snowsong, maltak and some of the final arcs that get particularly grating, no?

[Kantaki]

I've not been keeping up with the Legacy of DD (I might, not sure. The no-dialogue part of it kinda turns me off. But I did notice a lot of panels do have text?)

Well, there is no dialogue as such, seeing that the main character is deaf.
However, the author, in his infinite brilliance*, found a workaround.
Writing. Everyone just writes down everything.
From the reasonable "Hey deaf guy, this is what's going on" over live subtitles during a fight to "Dear diary, I'm in a dangerous situation.Life threatening probably. I think I should run".

*Sarcasm warning.

[Vinyadan]

Well, there is no dialogue as such, seeing that the main character is deaf.
However, the author, in his infinite brilliance*, found a workaround.
Writing. Everyone just writes down everything.
From the reasonable "Hey deaf guy, this is what's going on" over live subtitles during a fight to "Dear diary, I'm in a dangerous situation.Life threatening probably. I think I should run".

*Sarcasm warning.

I have to admit that the forced mutism gives the early strips an occasional Wile E. Coyote aura, like when he fights the tree.

I think the first couple of arcs (visions of doom, extacy and evil & storm of souls) hold up well enough and have a lot of mistakes that I'd consider 'forgiveable', iffy puns, cheesy writing, some tonal dissonance. But from what I remember it's snowsong, maltak and some of the final arcs that get particularly grating, no?

To do an actual rating I would have to reread the whole thing, and it's not really something I plan to do. There were two major weaknesses that come to mind, however. The first was the "caste system": how right people were depended on their relationship to Dominic.

The second was Dominic's mom: she was capable of solving any problem Dominic had, and even gave him a job, which killed tension and also sent Dominic in a very different direction, in which he got all the nice things he (or the author) wanted and then saw this beautiful reality upset by capricious writing (like developing a sugar habit or having a comical breakdown), best example being the fertility arc (in which Luna was upstaged by Dominic having it worse than her, possibly with the actual intention of putting them on an even footing fertility-wise). Also the saviour syndrome kinda got out of hand (again, Luna's eggs).

The final arc was extremely slow. I don't remember exactly what was wrong about it, but I think the mistake was that it was really about Miranda instead of Dominic, and so he had to be shoehorned in somehow.

[MetroAlien]

surprisingly, I don't really hate "Snowsong"...

Imho, what brings it down is mostly when in the overall narrative it happens.
For snarkers like us, we have our 'established' lore and expectations for characters and """world building""" by that point in the comic.
In that regard, it either reinforces our already negative predisposition or contradicts them in a dissatisfying way, making Mookie's attempt feel ... dishonest?

As a story taken out of context, I think it holds up better than the arcs immediately before or after it (what were those again??)
But yeah.... it requires ignoring the context, which is what Mookie wishes we'd do.
Because that's how he, himself, works: by ignoring his own context and writing standalone 4-panel strips.

I think the same can be said for Nimmel House.
It's an average enough standalone story for me.
Tbh, I might be saying that only because I remember their storylines the most. But hey, that's still saying something!

Now I realise that I'm also ignoring the "likability" of characters, and how the purported "heroes" are complete scumbags, with context or without.
I should clarify that I'm a firm believer in the "death of the author", i.e. I'm reading the material as it is presented to me, not as the author might or might not have intended.
It doesn't make the story better, but it does allow me to adopt a kind of 'detached' reading of the material, in that I choose to read DD as a comic about scumbags.
(while realising in the back of my mind that they aren't supposed to be)

Yeah, for me, they are the top 2 "late stage" arcs, with the "going to the desert TO DIE" as a close 3rd place, simply for its meme value.
Still below all the early stuff, mind you... but that goes without saying.

[Celestia]

Out of the classic DD arcs, how would everyone rank them from best to worst (and why?)

No idea. I can't remember any of them.