- For the character also known as "??????", see Elwurd.
The only panel of Blood Spade, as seen on our version of MS Paint Adventures.
Blood Spade, also known as ??????, is an apparently secret "story" that consists of a single page that can be located here
. It is a picture of a gray spade shape on a black background covered with numerous blood splatters. There are no links to this page anywhere on the MS Paint Adventures site and the only way to reach it is by typing in the URL. Within the Homestuck universe, however, this page is apparently the start of the current adventure at mspaintadventures.com. The new story (which has the in-universe title "Midnight Crew") concerns the Midnight Crew and their desire to implement nefarious plots. The adventure starts traditionally, with the Midnight Crew trapped in their hideout after some unbelievable jerkass parked their getaway van on top of the hideout's manhole entrance. This version of the crew does not seem to include Shadow Mobster Kingpin. The adventure quickly devolves into wanton violence, some of it directed against the Felt. The story seems to be incredibly long, having already reached Act 1031.
The first panel of Midnight Crew adventure.
John Egbert is the first to access this page, noting that the story on it wasn't as interesting as the previous one. Dave Strider has also been known to check it from time to time, while Jade Harley skips straight to a later point in the story.
Although it features the same characters, the first Homestuck intermission is not actually part of this main Midnight Crew storyline. In fact, Andrew has stated that the "Blood Spade" story seen by the kids is like a bastardized window to the events of post-apocalptic Alternia; the reverse window of this is the Homestuck comic Spades Slick briefly reads
in the intermission before deciding that it's all a load of nonsense. Apparently, the intermission to the Midnight Crew adventure is a bastardized version of Homestuck, although Jade only reads the last panel of said intermission. Later it is revealed that the intermission was created by Caliborn as part of his retelling of Homestuck.
Appearances in Homestuck[]
The spade behind Jack Noir.
Despite apparently being a placeholder image, the Blood Spade has appeared numerous times in Homestuck in relation to Jack Noir.
- It briefly appeared
when Karkat woke on Prospit and recognized the demon as Jack Noir. - It featured alongside Spades Slick and Snowman exchanging hate snoggings.
- It appeared when the Peregrine Mendicant was chasing Jack through the Furthest Ring. Jack however, while fleeing from her, was shown with a heart counterpart to the Blood Spade.
- It appeared on the uniform of the B2 Jack Noir after
blowing up half of Prospitescaping a Prospitian jail.
Trivia[]
- Andrew has stated on his old formspring that the "Blood Spade" was an homage to the adventure he considered doing after Problem Sleuth. Obviously he decided against this in favor of Homestuck.
- The idea of a bloodstained symbol to a somewhat antiheroic group parallels that of Watchmen.