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Here we go again, back into the glittering world Midnight City and everything that entails. Dames, dads, danger.

As we’ve all learned from being on the Internet over the last decade, the thing about irony is that it tends to disguise a staggering sincerity. It is very difficult to satirize something if you don’t love the source material, or at the very least, hate it in the sort of way that makes you obsessed with it. The entire Problem Sleuth sub-plot in MSPA is, obviously, satire of the noir genre. Taking it to absurd levels. That’s what I’m doing here, but the truth is, I absolutely 100% sincerely love noir, in all its absurd problematic decadence. And what I always want to do with Classic Genres is take them and twist them to fit my own Political Agenda. I.e. take a story that is traditionally about a hard-boiled tough guy and a flighty broad, and make it about a hard-boiled tough guy and a Dad.

That said, Haven’s art is absolutely everything I could have ever dreamed of for this sort of story. It’s like 100% vibes. And that’s mostly what noir is, when you really get down to it. Attitude and a couple killer lines of dialogue.

Anyway, whose legs are these???

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This is a very forbidding lightbulb. This is not the sort of lightbulb you want to wake up in the morning.

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A little rich of Diamonds Droog to refer to Dad as a “dandy” when he has some very dandy tendencies himself, but I guess it takes one to know one.

Another thing you don’t want to wake up to see—a chain, no matter how skillfully foreshortened.

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God, this picture. Got me feelin’ some kind of way. It’s not that I like to see people suffering (although that’s a whole different discussion) but there is something incredibly narratively interesting about watching characters who are usually in perfect control having that control taken away. Stripping power away from someone who is used to being powerful is a very good way to get down to the core of their character. Which is why I find torture scenes to be so very interesting.

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God, DD looks so vulnerable without his hat. Really, what is a gangster without his hat? Pretty much a cheeseburger without ketchup. I don’t actually like ketchup so I don’t know why I said that.

Here we get the implication that DD has done a little torture of his own back in the day. The Good Old Days, before he was Sad and Drinking By Himself. Now the only person he’s got the wherewithal to torture is himself, and his liver. If he even has a liver.

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I described this guy as a “tough” in the notes, and Haven was like, okay but what do you want him to look like? And I was like…you know. A tough.

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Dad is very worried about his dapper new friend. Even though a different version of him kept him captive one time many years ago. Of course, I’m pretty sure the Draconian Dignitary didn’t do any torture on Dad, because he wouldn’t want to risk dirtying his impeccable ensemble. DD has his priorities straight. So to speak.

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DD’s life is just an endless round of betrayal it would seem. Spades Slick is really not turning out to be the man he thought he was. Or maybe he is exactly the man he thought he was, just he never expected him to be that man in his direction.

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It’s just absolutely incredible how Haven takes these designs that are supposed to be just rough outlines of people and gives them so much personality and dimension. Dad doesn’t even have FEATURES but somehow I can tell exactly how he’s feeling here.

Dad is here engaging in what’s known as some “misdirection”, playing along with Spades Slick in order to make him let his guard down. A well-known trick in any Dad Arsenal.

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I know that there’s been a lot of speculation as to what universe this side story takes place in, the timing of it, why certain people are alive when they should be dead, why certain people have eyes and arms when they shouldn’t. To that I say—don’t think about it so hard. Enjoy the ride. It’s a mistake to ever base any plot understanding on timing in Homestuck. Everything could be happening before, after, or at the same time as anything else.

As to what version of the characters all these people are, well. That remains to be seen.

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God damn this is such a good panel.

When I was initially imagining it I thought of it as like…way more “cool”. Like a cool angle, from which a very Cool Dad would deliver a Cool Karate Chop. But this is infinitely better and I really wouldn’t have it any other way. This is just a very dopeyl way to kick someone in the knee.

See you next time!!