Spades Slick is the notorious leader of the Midnight Crew and comes from the Alternian trolls' sgrub session (A2).
In Homestuck his preferred weapons are knives, however in his original appearance in the non-canonical Problem Sleuth donation commands he is able to wield shadow-based magic
using cards to project his powers.
Biography[]
The Midnight Crew originated as Agents of Derse in the post-scratch trolls' session of Sburb. Spades Slick is the trolls' version of Jack Noir.
Jack formed an alliance with Karkat Vantas, cooperating with the trolls to remove the Black Queen from power. Jack, the Black Queen, the Draconian Dignitary, the Hegemonic Brute, and the Courtyard Droll ended up exiled to the destroyed Alternia.
As an exile, Jack Noir took on the name Scurrilous Straggler
and wore wrappings similar to the Wayward Vagabond, only with a Spade on the side. Due to time travel shenanigans he sees his future self and takes a moment to approve how plain and serviceable his hat is. He never suspects that the stylish stranger is in fact himself.
At some point, the Scurrilous Straggler took on the identity of Spades Slick and formed the Midnight Crew along with three of his fellow exiles. He embraced the reference to the frog god Bilious Slick in his new name as a big "fuck you" to the former Black Queen. It is unknown exactly where and when he picked up the moniker. The term "slick" is also used to describe the Ace of Spades, due to a different finish from other playing cards. Spades and the Midnight Crew would rebuild society in the form of a Film Noir-style cityscape where they would compete with rival gangs such as the Felt.
On one occasion, after Spades Slicks favorite casino was knocked over by the Felt, the Midnight Crew attacked their Mansion, owned by Lord English. While at the mansion, the Crew killed most of the Felt, but Hearts Boxcars, Diamonds Droog, and Clubs Deuce were presumably "killed" by temporal distortion. As Spades attempted to unlock the vault to Lord English's treasure, the Black Queen reappeared, now a member of the Felt by the name of Snowman. She destroyed the key to the treasure, removed Spades's arm, and locked him in the vault.
Spades' wounds.
However, by flipping his sprite, Slick was able to use the barcode on his arm to enter the vault. Inside was a computer with twelve screens. The only active screen showed Karkat. Recognizing the young troll, Spades began to type Karkat a message. Slick had been watching the trolls run amok all along since he was locked in the vault, and is thoroughly aggravated by the fact they keep kissing every time he looks at the screen, yelling that he hates them all at Karkat.
After getting from the vault to Alternia's moon, he later on bursts into Doc Scratch's manor, with an eyepatch and robotic arm, dealing Scratch a vicious drubbing with the Cast Iron Horse Hitcher as Scratch tries to calm him down. This particular Spades Slick would have been killed by Quarters shortly after setting Scratch's manor on fire. However the killing of this possible future Slick is seen by Snowman, who proceeds to kill Quarters before he mows Slick down with minigun fire. After Spades' safety is ensured, he advances toward Snowman with Crowbar's crowbar, appearing to be attacking her. He then drops the weapon and proceeds to have a sloppy makeout session in Doc Scratch's home, to which the said Doctor reacts with shock and consternation. After Scratch shoos Snowman away, Slick proceeds to attack Scratch's grandfather clock with his crowbar, damaging it, possibly cancelling Vriska's resurrection by tilting it into landing on 'just'. Scratch begins to recount every rude gesture Slick has shown since his entrance, and beats him to a pulp with his scrapbook. As Slick is lying in a pool of his own blood, Scratch mentions how disappointed he is in him. Scratch gives Slick his gun, tells him to kill Snowman, and teleports Slick away to an unknown location. It is shown before he is teleported that Jack does have his finger on the gun, aiming at and preparing to kill Scratch.
We later see Slick facing off against Snowman on a rooftop, presumably that of Scratch's manor. Snowman taunts him, telling him to draw, despite the fact that killing her would mean the end of the universe. With nothing in particular left to lose, or live for, Slick complies. At this point, the trolls' universe ends, and Spades Slick is somehow saved by Hussie from dying with it. Because of this, Jack Noir is in effect the one who directly destroys both universes.
While he was originally presumed dead with the destruction of the Alternian universe, Hussie claimed that he lived and that he was personally nursing him back to health, a claim that was later confirmed to be true. While Slick survived the destruction of the universe he was greatly injured and has been further cyborg-ified, and given a piece of red glass to replace his eye (this would later be used as an actual cybernetic eye, which confused Hussie quite a bit). When Andrew Hussie's building was invaded by Lord English, Hussie pushed Slick over the side of a balcony to save him, causing him to fall into the water below.
He was later seen to have survived the fall and had climbed up the side of the building. When he reached the top, he stood upright and accepted a glass of milk from the butler, showing that he was not fully bedridden. He then investigated the scene of Hussie's death, took the gun Lord English used to kill him, and met up with Ms.Paint.
After collecting his belongings from a box in one of the many pantries, Slick realizes that he has Die's doll in his possession. He then pulls out every one of the Felt mob's pins out-except Snowman's, reviving the Felt and claiming the position of their new boss. Slick offers Ms. Paint the possession of the eight-spot in the gang, and she accepts. Then Slick commands Crowbar to show them to a suitable hideout, and they walk through the fifth wall into Doc Scratch's old apartment. Hussie's centaur butler accompanies them. Eventually finding a suitable exit through Doc Scratch's grandfather clock, Slick puts the crew into Biscuits' oven, places the oven in his inventory as a playing card, and lights Doc Scratch's apartment on fire before going through the exit himself.
Once through, Slick sees that that the exit led to the Furthest Ring, where he stands inside of the server that activated the ~ATH program to summon Lord English. Looking up, he sees the Alpha Kids' Incipisphere, calls it a "jackpot", and flies towards it using a rocket built into his robotic body. It is speculated that he faded into irrelevancy and ceased to exist (similiar to Rose pre-dream bubbles).
Post-retcon, Slick eventually arrives at the Incipisphere, first landing on the Land of Mounds and Xenon. He drops the oven containing the Felt (as well as Ms. Paint and the butler) onto the planet to fight Jake English, and while he initially planned to fight him as well, his interest in the current situation quickly diminishes when he suddenly sees Lord Jack in the sky. Being the closest thing to Lord English in this session, Slick follows him to the Land of Tombs and Krypton in order to finally get the closest thing to a payback for his casino (which never stopped being a thing).
Upon arriving at the planet to fight Lord Jack, he is also confronted by Terezi Pyrope, Dave and Dirk Strider. And after a long battle involving multiple time, heart and mind shenanigans, Slick traps Jack in a choke hold, while Jack himself was busy choking Dirk, giving Dave the opportunity to decapitate them all at once. As Lord Jack's head exploded, destroying most of LOTAK and Hussie was unavailable due to his death, it's likely that Spades Slick is gone for good.
Personality[]
Slick has no tolerance for things he doesn't want to do. His vicious demeanor, sarcastic nature and nasty attitude are readily apparent, and he exhibits a lack of concern for life that isn't his own. He is very black and white in his judgements, and quickly makes decisions with little to no forethought. His reactions to given commands are of swift and clear certainty. He will do the things he says he will do, or he will quickly end whatever he doesn't want to do. He is very temperamental, and when Slick is not involved with violence, his countenance is often surly and vulgar, albeit outwardly quiet. He keeps his thoughts to himself and responds with violent actions rather than words. He is not very good at uttering cold blooded one liners, instead letting his knives do the talking for him. In the Blood Spade adventure he is seen using Occam's Razor to solve the problem of the pinned heist plans quickly and simply. If completely frustrated, he will succumb to soul-blackening rage and sport an unnecessarily elaborate assortment of fancy blades. In the Intermission he deals with whatever is in his way by often stabbing it or ignoring it. He seems to care a great deal what others (particularly Snowman) think of him, wanting to be seen more seriously as he throws down his hat in disgust when she sees him Riding his Horse Hitcher and pretending to joust, claiming that he'll never live it down. He is also very determined, seemingly never giving up in the face of any threat, fighting against the Felt, who outnumber and outgun his crew, and attempting to kill Doc Scratch, with the gun given to him by the Doc, even after Scratch had beat him to the edge of death. This validates Spades' total badassery and ability to not care and persevere even when the odds are infinitely stacked against him.
While both Spades Slick, the former Jack Noir, and Bec Noir, the Sovereign Slayer of the human session, are essentially the same person, their personalities are slightly different. Perhaps because Spades Slick wasn't tortured with horrible clothes as much as Jack Noir was, because he didn't get the ring, because of his experiences following Karkat around, or just because there isn't much to do in a post-apocalyptic wasteland other than create. While Jack Noir has an all consuming, homicidal rage for all existence, killing innocent people for pleasure, Slick is a far more constructive thinker, seeking to rebuild civilization in his ideal of a noir style gangster utopia. Anyone who tries to cause him trouble is a dead man, most specifically anyone related to the Felt, but he has an agreeable relationship with anyone who works alongside him, even if he hates them a little.
Based on what has been said, Spades Slicks personality is of one that is defined by: violent actions against what he doesn't like, confidence in his own beliefs, personal care and attention for how others view him, tries to keep a serious demeanor but tends to be sillier when he thinks no one is looking at him, mean and crude nature but still has a lesser homicidal nature compared to the other Jack Noirs and builds off more bonds than his counterparts, wheter that would be his Kismesis with Snowman, or his love towards Ms. Paint.
Inventory[]
Slick and the other Midnight Crew members have a peculiar inventory set up where they can wield five weapons - all of them suffering from that same confusing and idiotic glitch in Problem Sleuth.
Slick's weapon of choice is the Cast Iron Horse Hitcher/Ace of Spades. His other weapons include a Double Edged Sword/Eight of Spades, the Bait and Switchblade/Seven of Spades, the Saber Rattle/Four of Spades, and Occam's Razor/King of Spades. He later equips Crowbar's Crowbar, Snowman's Cigarette Holder/Lance, the Butterfly Effect Knife, and the Rapier Wit.
Slick carries the rest of his inventory in his trusty Deck of Cards, which is also a War Chest. The Chest contains Spades' Heist Map, Vendetta Itinerary, Aradia Megido's Crosbytop, a Backup Hat, a Spades Key/Rules for Blackjack card, and an assortment of bladed weapons of great variety, from swords to daggers. As a throwback to Problem Sleuth, he keeps two Licorice Scotty Dogs in his Backup Hat.
He has also stolen Die's voodoo doll and Crowbar's crowbar in preparation with his showdown with Lord English. He also acquired Snowman's Cigarette Holder/Lance, but not willingly, and later had it acquired from himself in turn (in a manner that was needlessly painful, to boot). Crowbar, Sawbuck, and a deceased Stitch were brought from another timeline inside the War Chest (the latter two also in Hearts Boxcars' Wrathtub).
Abilities[]
He has incredible skill with bladed weapons, once beheading three opponents with a single swing of his RAPIER WIT.
He also has the ability to "flip his sprite" and reverse damage to the sides of his body (e.g. his right eye was stabbed out, but he could reverse it to his left at any given time). This is a reference to a common trick used in 2D video games; making a character look the other way simply by flipping the image of that character, like how Link becomes right-handed when he's facing east.
In donation commands, supposedly Midnight Crew members can wield "Sinister Shadow Based Magic" but only Spades has shown anything resembling of the sort. Other than his hand glowing with a dark purple and transforming Mobster Kingpin into a Midnight Crew member, he hasn't really made much use of it. Midnight Crew members can also do a Hive Ragtime. Their Hive Ragtime, Fill'em With Midnight, allows Spades Slick to jazz up a piano hard enough for it to be ridden like a mechanical bull.
Notes[]
- At one point, Spades Slick visits mspaintadventures.com on his Crosbytop, and finds that Homestuck is in fact the current adventure there.
- During the formal introduction of the kids' version of Jack Noir, Andrew Hussie tried to name him Spades Slick after the trolls' version. While he thinks the name has "got a nice ring to it," he rejects it nonetheless. The Draconian Dignitary has also joked to himself that "Slick" would make a good ironic nickname for a post-scratch version of Jack.
- Spades's hatred of clocks may be a reference from the movie Hook, which is mentioned numerous times throughout the webcomic. In the movie, Captain Hook shows a distinctive fear or loathing of clocks and crocodiles, which may or may not be related to the Felt. Also, like Captain Hook, Spades loses an arm and an eye.
- According to Andrew, Slick's main purpose in the intermission was to characterize Jack Noir and foreshadow his rise to power.
- As a leader of the Felt, he only seems to remember
the names of Clover, Crowbar, and Biscuits. However on this page he seems to know all their names, possibly because he has to work with them now.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Spades Slick is the "King of Wands" in the Homestuck Tarot card deck. The card often refers to a leader (He is depicted leading the rest of the Midnight Crew on the card), though inverted it refers to a Tyrant (Jack Noir).
- Ironically, Wands are the Tarot card equivalent of the Clubs suit. Whereas Spades has it's origins in the Tarot's Sword suit.
- Spades Slick loves the candy Scottie Dogs. He always keeps a couple on him, and when he is offered a bottomless bowl of them, he fills his pockets and even his hat with a supply for later.
| Problem Sleuth Characters |
|---|
| Team Sleuth |
| Problem Sleuth - Ace Dick - Pickle Inspector |
| Hysterical Dame - Nervous Broad |
| Four kingdoms |
| Elves - Hogs - Weasels - Clowns |
| The Four Heroes |
| Villains |
| Mobster Kingpin - Madame Murel - Demonhead Mobster Kingpin |
| Deities |
| Death - Godhead Pickle Inspector - Demimonde Goddess - The Devil |
| Allies |
| The Whale - Candy Mecha - Hearst - Hired Muscle - Honeybee Professor |
| Minions |
| Beasts - Whores - Thugs - Worker Bees - Courtesan Angels |
| Non-Canon |
| Midnight Crew (Spades Slick - Diamonds Droog - Hearts Boxcars - Clubs Deuce) |
| Laborer Wasps - Professor Wasp - Zombie Astronaut - Little White Cat - Fuzzy Man Bear and Sarah |
| PS HD - AD FAD ZAD - PI NB PPI FPI PFPI FFPI - MK DMK BHMK MM |
