Dominic Deegan/YMMV

• Accidental Innuendo: The tosser.
• Alternate Character Interpretation:
  • Tons of it, though it's usually done for laughs. There's a interpretation for almost all the characters. See Fanon.
  • Some of it can be quite disturbing as can be seen here.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • Luna's rather philosophical reaction after finding out she's been rendered sterile via Maltak's restoration.
  • There's a quick Lampshade Hanging about "not letting it spoil her victory," so this'll either be played straight or there will be massive angsting/questing for Phlebotinum down the road.
  • And boom goes the dynamite.
  • And it turns out that they couldn't have had kids anyway because Dominic was sterile all along. So any future drama issuing forth from Luna's problems just got nerfed by a big wall of "It wouldn't have mattered."
• Anticlimax Boss:
  • Neilen looked as though he was going to be the real Big Bad of the Maltak arc, but then he vanished from the story for a few months for no good reason. Cut towards the end where he comes out of nowhere to stop the heroes...and promptly gets his ass handed to him horribly. TWICE.
  • The Beast from beyond the planes of reality (or at least the parts of it that we've seen) is a lot less scary now that its been defeated TWICE, first by Dom creating a teddy bear in the Plane on Destruction and planting it on ole Beasty (creation is a big no-no there), and then when it ran away after Dom disguised himself as the "crab cop" that attacked it in the Plane of Destruction. It looking like an evil version of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, taking humanoid form the first time and spouting generic villain one-liners the second isn't helping its image either.
• Arc Fatigue: The Maltak arc, which took just over a year from start to finish. It got to the point that the forums started a small scale meme replacing "Are They Still On Namek" with "Are They Still In Maltak".
• Ass Pull:
  • To many, Siegfried's murderous racism just came out of nowhere. The argument goes that he would have treated Luna a whole lot worse if he were as racist as he was depicted later on in the comic. It can be argued that it was implied earlier in a not very obvious way, such as Siggy being repulsed by Luna's tusks because they make her look like an orc. Also, he's pronounced the word "orc" in bold and used it as an insult even before the racism was ramped up to much more obvious levels. Of course, that sort of thing is commonplace in the general population of Callan.
  • Sfter the author began hinting that Tonight Someone Dies the fans figured it would be either Siegfried or Luna and hoped it would be Luna since her characterization was finished while Siegfried was developing into an interestingly flawed hero. When the author heard about it, he disliked that everyone wanted one of his favorite characters dead and made extra-sure no one wanted Siegfried back.
  • And he failed. Badly
• Badass Decay: Jacob, who went from destroying five members of a death cult highhandedly, to having his arse kicked by Huk Thak, The Shintula Chief, and Neilen, all fights were essentially ended with one move.
• Complete Monster: The Infernomancer, Caylin Bren, Serk Brakkis, Warlord Damaske, the Bikta Spirit Father... there's more than a few.
• Creator's Pet:
  • Milov has no problem telling us how great Nimmel is. From his point of view, it's all true, but one wonders what Milov would say if he knew Nimmel's real reasons for coming to Coldfire.
  • Luna danced around with this for a while, then after Maltak, her Wesley status has pretty much been cemented in the fandom, largely due to her being little more than a MacGuffin during the arc and taking the credit despite mainly being led by the hand by The Powers That Be.
• Designated Hero:
  • Dominic has some, ah, interesting methods at his disposal. And for that matter, some rather dubious motives at times.
  • All of Luna's contributions to the salvation of Maltak were accidental, as she was manipulated by higher powers the entire time. That doesn't stop her from taking the credit.
  • Nimmel reveals that the basic reason he transferred over to Coldfire Academy was because of the ego boost he could get by knowing he had the ability to beat up all the werewolves because the spells he specializes in are stronger there.
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Lord Siegfried "Siggy" Damaske.
  • Writer Revolt: Siegfried's development and involvement in The War in Hell and Shadow of Siegfried arcs.
• Ensemble Darkhorse:
  • Vilrath, despite technically never appearing in the comic, enjoys quite a fan following, as does Caylen Bren.
  • And people are fond of the nameless dwarf who punched Dominic in the nuts.
  • They're also developing a fondness for Pamela Chayner, due to her ability to "resist the Deegandrug".
  • Mookie seems to have his own Ensemble Darkhorse in Bort the Mongrelman.
• Evil Is Sexy: Many lowcut bustiers and skintight outfits for the female villains in particular, but men get their share as well. Most notable in Amelia Travoria, Helixa, and briefly, Jayden.
• Fan Hater: To the extreme. John Solomon's line was that anyone who would defend Dominic Deegan was a morally bankrupt retard and so their arguments were automatically invalidated. Snarkers are more "tolerant", only describing fans as rather dull and a tad creepy.
• Genius Bonus:
  • In the form of knock-knock joke
  • There is a professor at Miranda Deegan's academy named 'Runcible Spoon', a nonsense phrase from the Edward Lear poem The Owl and the Pussycat.
  • Dominic having an injured leg is a near-universal sign of a special or magical person (see Achilles, "Iron Crutch" Li, Daoist Immortal, Dr. House), though like the Watchmen Shout-Out it might be a coincidence.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the current story, Greg is about to invent heavy/black/grunge metal music (the critics aren't exactly sure which), inspired by his hellish nightmares; in real life, god of heavy metal Ronnie James Dio passed away.
• Hollywood Homely: Aside from the tusks, Luna is really not a bad-looking girl, as far as you can tell. Siegfried specifically found her quite attractive when her mouth was covered by a veil. When the tusks are visible, everyone acts as though she's thoroughly hideous. Most of those who find her ugly are portrayed as prejudiced or evil in other ways as well, such as the idiot villagers who were also unkind to then-crippled Greg, the fantastically racist Lord Siegfried, or her poor excuse for a family who spent a good chunk of time off screen attempting to drive her specifically to suicide.
• Ho Yay: From the moment Stunt and Bumper were first introduced fans everywhere got gay vibes from them.
• Jumping the Shark:
  • Depending on who you ask, the comic has already jumped long ago--but those who say it has are divided over the exact point, citing a specific story arc or even a specific comic strip that they found to be the shark jumping moment.
• Like You Would Really Do It:
  • Due to Word of God, this now extends to pretty much every important character.
  • For a specific example, Luna's dying. Yeah, right.
  • And lo and behold, she's alive, while technically dead for a few strips, everyone predicted she'd be brought back.
• Lowest Common Denominator: Mocked in one strip's author comments, when the first (in the comic's six year history) instances of dick and fart jokes, done by the title character. It Makes Sense in Context, as Dominic was in a Battle in the Center of the Mind with a virus-spell that was taking swings at his mind and screwing up his bodily functions.
• Mary Sue: One of the criticisms most often levied against the strip is that the protagonists are all Mary Sues. Let's leave it at this and engage in neither snarking nor justifying edits.
• The Masochism Tango: Dom and Luna.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Scarf, Dominic's scarf.
  • Also Warlord Mustache, who, after killing almost all the orcs, went into the Nakta. Then he killed the Nakta and assumed its place, devouring the souls of all orcs ever, and using the fuel this gave him to kill more orcs. As a final insult, he led a group of piggart-loving Callanians around on a pointless sidequest for weeks, then tricked them into letting him steal all the orcs' powers and use them to turn all the orc souls into fertilizer. Then he did it all again, and laughed about it.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Curse you Runcible Spoon!"
  • "My landmass erupts with kittens."
  • "Jayden is the worst priestess ever."
  • "Death is not zombies."
  • Among some anti-fans, Dominic Deegan is referred to as "Lord Dominus," an amoral overlord who uses his second sight to control all of his friends and loved ones.
• Never Live It Down: Orc rape! Supergreg!
• Nightmare Fuel:
  • Jacob.
  • The "tosser", which looks like an elephant with a humanoid body.
  • The fate of Miranda's Teacher at the hand of the beast.
• Nightmare Retardant: One word: Pissfartpuke. Szark finds it terrifying. The reader, especially given the context? Not so much.
• Scapegoat Creator: The some of the harsher members don't just go after the webcomic--they go after Mookie himself.
• Snark Bait: And how. Discounting the current thread, there are 1294 pages, averaging slightly less than 30 posts a page. Most of the major forums are now dominated by people who are in it just for the snark.
• Squick:
  • Jacob's mentioning of how his body still "aches for mortal wants" while cradling the chin of a female corpse with his skeletal arm.
  • Mookie's decision to draw a thong clad ass shot of Rachel while she was dying because her blood had been turned into ice invoked this in some readers.
  • Mongrelfolk medical practice seems to involve a lot of regurgitation. Stunt's reaction? "How is that helping?!"
• Straw Man Has a Point: It's hard to argue against the racists who feel that orcs are savage and violent when so many orcs are savage and violent.
• True Art: Greg's music is very complex and creative; unfortunately his hastily-assembled band can't keep up with him and after he dumbs it down it sounds awful and they fire him ("I changed all my music for you guys! It was the only way you could keep up with it! If anything you brought my music down!").
• True Art Is Angsty: Defied by Word of God; he had considered killing off Luna for real at the end of the Maltak arc for a "powerful ending", then changed his mind because it would have destroyed Dominic and he was experiencing that same sort of loss with his grandfather and that wasn't the sort of thing he wanted to write about at the time. The accompanying newspost for the strip where she comes back to life included him saying he doesn't believe the bravery or quality of a writer is measured by his "main character body count."
• Unfortunate Implications:
  • Accusations are a dime a dozen, but the biggest furor is about the Blizzardian Orcs. Not only are the Orcs completely unable to save their own people, relying instead on Dominic to save them, but he does so by engineering a battle amongst the orcs where there were plenty of casualties. The cost of the battle was not brought up afterward.
  • Some critic: "If you don't agree with Dominic (and think the forced-rapist is a bad guy) you are literally possessed by demons."
  • This strip originally had in the second panel Elanora saying, "They'll actually take on the genetics of the recipient. It will truly be their child." After it went up, Mookie realized how it could be taken the wrong way, and promptly changed it to what's up there now.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Melna. Her past shows that she's a rape victim with a tragic history but her violent personality and constant acts of Disproportionate Retribution towards male characters has left considerable portions of the comic's audience calling for her blood. It doesn't help that the last character to be shown in this exactly light was Siggy, and unlike her he was frequently called out on his actions. Not to mention being turned into a demonic slave.
• Villain Decay:
  • Jacob Deegan went from being one of the most insanely powerful people in the comic to being easily defeated by Chief Thuen Gor.
  • It bears mentioning that Jacob was forcibly depowered by Rilian earlier in the series, and that it's mentioned that Thuen Gor, and the rest of the Shintula, were stronger than they ever were because of the state of Maltak, so there's an in-story reason for it.