Work Text:
SNAKE: hey.
OTACON: Oh! David, I didn’t hear you come in. I mean, I never hear you come in.
SNAKE: i need a shower, it’s like a sauna out there.
OTACON: You’re dripping sweat. How was the run?
SNAKE: sweaty. why are you covering your laptop screen like that?
SNAKE: we’ve been through this, i don’t care about whatever weird cartoon porn you’re reading. after the thing with the tentacles, i feel like i’ve seen it all.
OTACON: Well, there’s definitely more than one thing with tentacles…
OTACON: But this isn’t porn! It’s just…the story is at sort of a weird place.
SNAKE: let me be the judge of that, i seriously doubt any of it can be weirder than that show about the kid everybody keeps yelling at to get in the robot.
OTACON: Stop jerking me around, I know you know what it’s called.
SNAKE: yeah, but it’s always funnier to pretend i don’t. let me see.
SNAKE: huh.
SNAKE: is that a cartoon clown with a huge—
OTACON: Yes. But I promise it makes more sense in context.
SNAKE: really.
OTACON: Well, yes and no. This guy is an alien. But also a clown, for religious purposes. There’s a whole backstory to it.
SNAKE: hn.
SNAKE: aren’t aliens usually a little…rounder? less hair?
OTACON: Maybe if you’ve only ever watched movies made before the 1980’s!
SNAKE: i’ve mostly watched movies you’ve made me sit through at gunpoint.
OTACON: ha ha.
SNAKE: so what is this…big dicked clown story?
OTACON: It’s called Homestuck! It’s a completely free story online.
SNAKE: so it’s…what, a comic?
OTACON: Sort of!
OTACON: It’s a little hard to explain. See, I’ll show you the beginning.
SNAKE: “a young man stands in his room.”
SNAKE: this looks a little more normal.
OTACON: Heh.
SNAKE: what?
OTACON: The legendary Solid Snake, wanting something to be normal.
OTACON: Fought any giant robots lately?
SNAKE: as the guy who designed those robots, i don’t think you have much of a leg to stand on here.
SNAKE: we make our own normal.
OTACON: Well, the story doesn’t stay normal for very long. The presentation is really unique, it isn’t anything like the usual multi-panel format of most webcomics, and it focuses much more heavily on prose and dialogue than almost any other visual-heavy story out there.
OTACON: The author has said that he is way more concerned with speed than with uniformity and the story develops organically, reacting to the audience in real time!
OTACON: It’s honestly revolutionary!
SNAKE: you sound pretty into it.
OTACON: I mean…well, I’m quite a bit older than the comic’s main demographic, but there’s a pretty active online community.
OTACON: And it’s something to do while I’m waiting for code to compile.
SNAKE: huh.
SNAKE: wow, that’s a lot of text.
OTACON: Oh, that’s nothing.
SNAKE: might be a little much.
OTACON: Don’t try to pull the meathead routine on me, I’ve seen your cognitive test results!
SNAKE: a high iq doesn’t mean i want to give myself a migraine reading colored text on a grey background.
SNAKE: oh, looks like there’s a dave.
OTACON: There is! He’s one of the four main characters.
OTACON: …There’s actually a Hal, too.
SNAKE: no shit.
SNAKE: do they know each other?
OTACON: Hm…I’m not sure if they’ve actually met yet.
SNAKE: is hal a skinny nerd with terrible taste in snack foods and pornography?
OTACON: Sort of…?
OTACON: He’s actually not a real ‘person’.
OTACON: He’s an artificial intelligence programmed into a pair of glasses. You know, kind of like the Hal I’m named after.
OTACON: He’s actually a copy of Dave’s brother’s brain.
OTACON: Or, well. He’s not really Dave’s brother, he’s TECHNICALLY his father, but they’re the same age, since they come from different time continuity’s.
OTACON: But he grew up thinking they were brothers.
SNAKE: uh huh.
OTACON: Aggghh, I’m not explaining it well at all!
OTACON: It’s really good though, I think you’d like it.
OTACON: I’ve actually thought about reaching out to the author in a, you know, exploratory fashion.
SNAKE: oh yeah? you think a comic book author would want to join philanthropy?
OTACON: It’s just…some of the things he writes about hit a little close to home. Almost as if he might have some experience with the Patriots, and their suppressed technology…
SNAKE: is that right.
OTACON: Why are you looking at me like that?
SNAKE: are you sure you aren’t just trying to meet an author you like?
OTACON: W-What? I’m insulted, Snake! I’d never waste Philanthropy resources on something like that, it would be incredibly irresponsible in my role as information specialist!
SNAKE: sure.
SNAKE: anyway, i need to shower. have fun with your dick clowns.
OTACON: Yeah, yeah.