November was a very stupid month. I mean, stupider than the rest of the year, which is saying something. Didn’t Destiel happen in November? Fuck, it feels like Turbo Hell became a thing at least a year ago. Whatever. Between personal life stresses, a pandemic, the election, and scrambling to get last minute details squared away before we shipped Act 2, I arrived in December with my brain feeling like a large, floppy mushroom growing between my ears. A large, floppy mushroom that did not want to do anything besides kind of ooze around, and definitely not come up with any clever ideas for comics.

And listen—I know we’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but this is my favorite part of working on HS2—this storyline. When we were hashing out potential bonus content at the beginning, this is what I wanted to do the most. I think I’ve already tried to articulate why in other commentaries. I like cheesy noir bullshit and homoerotic tension. Simple as.

But for the life of me I couldn’t come up with a good way to end the arc. I knew I wanted to do something sort of Midnight Crew intermission adjacent, with time shenanigans and all of that, but I couldn’t figure out how to keep it short enough to fit in the usual update format, and not overtax the artist. So I turned to an expert for help.

Andrew got back to me in about twenty minutes after I asked him if he had any ideas. He sent me a whole outline that went a little bit like this

“DD urges dad to pick up the knife and free him, which he does. DD stands up, dusts himself off, and looks pitifully at his boss on the floor, who is bitching and moaning from the fall he just took.

Dad notices Slick on the floor and suddenly looks extremely alarmed. He rushes over to attend to the injured Slick, as if to suggest he has a big heart, and has pity even for his ruthless captors. But it turns out he is just highly distraught over the damage caused to Slick’s nice suit. This is an emergency. When DD understands this is the source of dad’s concern, DD agrees wholeheartedly.”

And so on and so forth.

He also agreed to do the art because as things were, we were already cutting it pretty close, and it was December, people had plans, people were thinking Holiday Thoughts and stuff like that.

PAGE 37

Extremely nostalgic, this vibe. Andrew’s art is a very specific sort of simple, but invigorating. It’s kind of like Italian cooking, right. Like, you use very few ingredients but they all meld together so well and are so fresh that it doesn’t matter that the food isn’t complex. It’s just good.

Even DD notices the slight difference in their usual rendering. Dad tells him not to worry about it. Dad is a pretty chill guy.

PAGE 38

Some Stern Tailoring Concern happening here. Dad is very worried about the suit situation, and can you really blame him? Spades Slick is a dickhead, but he’s always been pretty well turned out.

PAGE 39

Dad is pretty alarmed by this. He obviously didn’t mean to bat Slick through the wall like a cat playing with a mouse, but sometimes a guy’s mangrit gets the best of him. DD isn’t really surprised. At this point he’s realized that this guy is a little different.

Also notice how DD has begun calling Dad his friend. Aww. Really makes you think. Maybe the torture we underwent and the missing dictator daughters were the friends we made along the way.

PAGE 40

It’s been a while since we’ve seen the guys over at Serious Business. Really good to know that Dad has made a new group of friends on Earth C, and that he still respects the classics. I wonder if he had to have that PDA specially made, or if a bunch of fathers on Earth C have brought them back. At any rate, they’re very concerned about Slick’s wardrobe and its malfunction. I’m sure all of their advice will be invaluable and not completely worthless immediately.

PAGE 41

Smh. Nice car, though.

PAGE 42

Snowman is quite the enigma. She’s the Black Queen, and there are certainly versions of her that know that. Are there ones that don’t? Are there an infinity of sessions out there, all with Black Queens serving different functions, playing out different games with a different version of her Archagent and his followers? I find it interesting that although it’s the war between the Dersites and Prospitians that always starts off a session, it’s an act of betrayal that kicks it into high gear.

Not that this has any bearing on this particular story, I just think it’s cool.

PAGE 43

Memes.

This is the first panel that Andrew drew, and he sent it to me around 10 pm like “Is this the right vibe?” It was, but even if it hadn’t been, I would have immediately altered the vibe in order to match this vibe.

PAGE 44

I didn’t notice the “Gay Fatherly Tittillation” in the corner until right before we posted. I’m glad Dad is having a good time.

PAGE 45

Andrew’s idea was that, instead of having them perform a whole Intermission-esque song and dance, we should just have them skip it. A very clever and not-at-all obvious narrative device in order to wrap things up faster. Snowman is really annoyed by this, since it’s her real and not made up job to make sure that the timeline stays on track. God damn but she’s really been letting down the team in the last year or so. Shit is REALLY wack over in the main story. Maybe she should head over there next and start hitting people with her car.

PAGE 46

This page underwent its conception thus.

Andrew wrote: Dad seems tentative. Gives a half hearted tweak of the cuffs, and shrugs. They’re way too strong. DD seems to “blush”, or whatever the equivalent of that is for him. He says, yeah. Looks like the strongest pair of cuffs he ever saw.

In the panel outline I described it as “Dad and DD look at each other in a really yaoi way.” Then Andrew drew this.

And yet I still was not prepared for this panel. Damn.

See you guys next year!