Midnight Crew Biography
The Midnight Crew is a group of antagonists originally paid to appear in Problem Sleuth through a donation by Mayonaka, their original designer during a series of tabletop games. However, since their use in Andrew's following adventure Homestuck, they have grown to be major characters within the story.
First appearing in extra episode 13, they were summoned by Problem Sleuth to take on Demonhead Mobster Kingpin, but then changed their alliances to DMK's side due to a slight mishap with a set of some Hunk Rump cards. The crew members are all based on one of the four suits in a deck of cards respectively, with the exception of Mobster Kingpin, who was not an original member of the crew. After the conclusion of Homestuck: Act 3, the Midnight Crew was re-introduced as an intermission to the main adventure, where they are trying to get one over on a rival gang, the Felt.
In Homestuck, the Midnight Crew were created from the same character templates as Jack Noir and his Agents in the trolls' Sburb session, and became exiled to the trolls' planet, Alternia. Spades Slick, possibly with the help of the rest of the crew, proceeded to make this townSburb Logo, rebuilding society in the style of a noir cityscape, naming it Midnight City, and began to run all types of criminal operations parallel to the Felt. The Midnight Crew were four of the exiles that helped the trolls with their session of the game. Each member of the crew comes equipped with five weapon slots and one inventory slot, much akin to how Problem Sleuth characters would have five inventory slots and one weapon slot. Their hats default to having color-based candy stored inside of them already, and that slot is not shown when interacting with their inventory as it is assumed you would never want to take them out from the hat anyway. The five weapon slots all carry various weapons, and all the weapons suffer from that pretty annoying and kinda dumb glitch in the form of playing cards, which each crew member holds in their inventory slot. The deck of cards is used as a container for even more weapons, or sometimes it is used as a prison for those who need to be kept alive until a later date. The ace card of each member's particular suit is their weapon of choice, which they often use in a very violent fashion. Curiously, other cards can be combined to make new items, such as combining the ten of spades and four of diamonds (Ten-Four) to make a communication radio that can be used to talk to other crew members.
The dangerous band of mobsters threaten you with their sinister shadow-based magic.
Members
Spades Slick AKA Jack Noir,
The leader of the group. He wields the Cast Iron Horse Hitcher. He has a low tolerance for a lot of things, but he especially hates clocks. He is violent and resentful, but very capable and extremely dangerous. He has no patience for the Felt's time shenanigans, and although he does not appear to have a particularly well thought-out strategy in mind when dealing with complex conflicts, his methods are nevertheless effective. The exile of Karkat Vantas.Slick is the same height as Problem Sleuth, is physically capable, and wears a trench coat much like his Sleuthy counterpart. 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 magicMspa icon using cards to project his powers.
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 Hegemonic Brute, the Draconian Dignitary, 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.
Hearts Boxcars AKA Hegemonic Brute,
The tall, brawny-looking member of the group. He wields a TV antenna. He is the safe cracker of the team, opening safes using a less conventional method: tearing them right off the wall using his brute strength. His jaw can expand to a frightening degree, demonstrating this ability by biting and swallowing Eggs' head right off of his shoulders. Hearts is also known for the fact that he ALWAYS ROLLS BOXCARSMspa icon. The exile of Tavros Nitram.
HB, short for the Hegemonic Brute (or Hearts Boxcars in one case) is among the elite tier agents of Derse in any Sburb game session, along with the Courtyard Droll, the Draconian Dignitary, and the archagent, Jack Noir. His size and strength speak for themselves, and his penchant for brutality makes him an invaluable asset, in theory. Three distinct incarnations of the Hegemonic Brute from three different sessions have appeared in Homestuck, as well as an additional (the original) non-canon incarnation.
The Hegemonic Brute does not interact very often with others, so his personality is a little hard to pin down. Nonetheless, he is seen to be in an almost perpetually surly mood. Befitting his monicker and incredible strength, HB has remarkably violent urges and thoughtsSburb Logo, and has a temper which can flare quickly. In spite of this brutal psychological profile, the Brute has a passion for (flushed) romance, and he is a loyal and efficient agent.
Diamonds Droog AKA Draconian Dignitary,
The tall, intimidating looking fellow of the group. He wields the Ultra-Violence Cuestick. Little is known about him, though he appears to have an extremely short temper. Despite his perceived anger issues, he is rather intelligent and cunning, being able to use the time powers of the Felt against them, and maintaining his composure and formulating an effective strategy while dealing with all of the Felt's time bullshit. The exile of Aradia Megido.
Diamonds Droog was originally the Draconian Dignitary, an Agent of Derse in the trolls' session of Sgrub. He was exiled to Alternia during the course of the session, and eventually formed the Midnight Crew along with Jack Noir, the Courtyard Droll, and the Hegemonic Brute. Diamonds is the tall, intimidating-looking fellow of the Midnight Crew. He wears a suit similar to Hearts Boxcars, but he adds a tie as an accessory, which none of the other members wear. His hat is also easily identifiable as his, and the combination of these personal traits make him to appear to be quite vain, but that's totally justified because of how classy he is.
Though he may have a very short temper while being sadistic and ruthless, Droog is efficient and professional. He has murderous tendencies and an affinity for kidnapping but also considers himself the most well-dressed and civilized of the crew, with multiple Backup Hats and custom-tailored suits in storage rather than just a single Backup Hat like his fellows. His short temper is not quelled by his fellow members, as he will lash out at them if they do something he feels is against his own moral fibers or violates the quality of what it is to be in something as mysterious and shadowy as the Midnight Crew. He also reads the pin-up magazine "The Gray Ladies", but conceals it from the rest of the Midnight Crew (and the Felt) inside an ordinary newspaper.
Clubs Deuce AKA Courtyard Droll,
A short and stout crew member. He wields the Crook of Felony, along with an assortment of other clubs, including the notably spectacular Bull Penis Cane. He is also the Midnight Crew's demolitions expert, and carries a number of bombs on his person. He has an innocent, child-like personality, taking simple, purposeless tasks very seriously, though his ability to perform these tasks is up for debate. He appears to have a terrible memory. The exile of Sollux Captor.
Clubs was originally known as Courtyard Droll, an Agent of Derse in the trolls' session of Sgrub.Clubs Deuce is sent by Jack Noir to spy on the Black Queen.Clubs meet derse sollux.He then comes across Sollux Captor's Dersite dream self. He later acted as Sollux's exile. Just like his kids' Universe counterpart, he appears to love multiprototyped hats, wearing them even when trying to keep stealthy.He was exiled during the game, and eventually joined the Midnight Crew.Clubs is the shortest Midnight Crew member. Like the other members, Clubs is perpetually covered in shadow, and he is quite similar to Ace Dick when he aggresses. Upon meeting Ace Dick, he bludgeons him in the snout to establish similarity. He appears to only have three fingers, and in comparison to the rest of the characters in Homestuck, this makes him the oddball as four seems to be the more acceptable number of digits, though it may be a reference to his symbol, the club, which has three parts to it. Clubs' area of expertise is demolitions, and his inventory is cluttered with explosives alongside various club-type weapons.
Clubs has the demeanor of a small child, holding no soul-blackening rage toward the Felt, or anything else for that matter, and obeys commands without a lot of sarcasm. Nothing seems to faze Clubs, and this trait of his makes him the best at being the demolition expert, as he carries high amounts of high yield explosives with no qualms or attitude problems. If given a more open command, Clubs's responses to what he can do are of the innocent nature, making sure to at least fulfill the task given but not necessarily what was actually wanted, such as torturing Doze by tapping his knee and swapping hats with him. Well, it would be torture if Doze particularly liked his hat or hated getting his knee tapped. Let's just say that if left up to interpretation, Clubs responds with his idea of what the command intends rather than consider the intent of the person who is giving him the command. Typically he is completely off the mark and takes stupid tasks very seriously while the more serious tasks he tends to disregard as unimportant, but still does them anyway... Kinda. He gets sidetracked a lot.
