ok so i’m crazy over butch slick now

normal interactions at headquarters

happy 413 !

bluh i need to draw more spades slick

Who cares

slick and crowbar's mental versions of reality if they were forced to lead each other's gangs - visual concepts

basic hypothesis: their mental states would progress in opposite directions. Slick at first would think of it as no big deal and that he can handle "a bunch of soddin retards," and would treat all of them similarly to the way he treats deuce, dispensing orders and hitting and hurting them as he feels necessary. however after a maximum of 3 weeks with a lack of access to sentient minds and as the repeated corporal punishments show diminishing returns he would begin to feel the ramifications of being surrounded by what he thinks of as 14 deuces. this would go along with the added stress of living in an environment that constitutes his personalised hell (clocks/frogs/green/snowman). the visceral disturbance within him gradually builds up and when someone taller than him tugs on his coat collar and asks him to tuck them in to bed his mind would snap. his violence against them despite being their leader would become gratuitous. when the solid colours use their abilities to prank him he would begin reacting disproportionately. he would be speedwalking through the halls holding his head and hallucinating slime while a felt member is following him begging for something to do. squeezing his eye closed saying "shut up shut up shut up" even when nobody is talking anymore. he would have broken most clocks in the mansion even the ones they try to replace but continues to hear them tick. unless the situation or environment changes he would continue to deteriorate.

meanwhile crowbar would be locked in psychological warfare with the crew who will never accept him as one of their own for biological and ideological reasons. The best metaphor for crowbar's usual environment compared to this new one is if he were a special needs summer camp counsellor now placed with 'troubled teens' who sit through him explaining various preplanned activities then stare at him with contempt and only do whatever they ideologically agree with doing. The first scene would involve this new arrangement sitting in the hideout around the table in silence and he tries to say one thing and smoke gets blown in his face. after a few seconds he starts saying something else and a low growling sound is heard and he shuts up completely. everyone would be conscious of the missing piece in the crew and the replacement that doesnt belong. everything he says would be scrutinised and he would feel the need to explain/justify most of his decisions especially to droog who he thinks of as intelligent and refined. (he fully buys into the image that droog sells). he does everything he can to rise up from the idiotic association of the felt even though he would defend his gang/species to the end of the earth if they were directly insulted. the only one who is nice to him (agreeing with all of his ideas, baking cookies in the shape of his face, consistently making a point of calling him "boss," etc) is clubs deuce which is so disconcerting compared to the treatment from the other two it leads him to believe deuce is the true mastermind in this situation, deliberately trying to earn his trust in order to weaken his defences. He would periodically go back and forth between this paranoia and phases where he is almost "fooled" by deuce's behaviour.

however after 6-12 months of this psychological warfare crowbar would eventually realise he has now adapted to the crew's individual ways and personalities. he ultimately learns how to act so that they will work with him even though he will never truly synergise or fully understand their ways of communication. and when he finally returns to the felt he'll somewhat MISS being with the crew but ultimately rejoin the gang he belongs to with a new outlook and wlil begin making more of an effort to encourage their independence and individual strengths. whereas slick would barely learn anything from this experience because it is pure mental torture for him. He would slither back up to his crew wordlessly and the only thing he would note is how much better it feels to be around them and little else. the scenario would serve no greater purpose either other than hypothetical psychological experimentation that only lats the duration it takes for them to both reach a plateau of torment

arrghgghhhhhhhhh b

still in the process of trying to learn csp animation tools, thought it'd be fun to do a quick animatic thing so I did

itchy and some jacks

happy 413 homestuck number day etc etc now look. the interesting thing about spades slick is that he alone out of all the versions of jack noir managed to develop emotionally beyond “born to kill universe is a fuck 19383727 kids dead” and “if i just murder enough people maybe i can satiate my hatred for all creation and utter boredom with reality.” now im not saying slick isn’t a ultra violent mass murderer because he is. the difference is slick has actual purpose in life beyond wanting to mindlessly kill people for the shits and giggles— he made a fucking city! he partook in creation despite the fact that he’s supposed to be diametrically opposed to it! he’s got a crew to run and needlessly complex heists to plan! spade slick avoids bec noir’s ennui and eventual exhaustion by actually doing something with his life, by actually working towards something productive rather than just trying to subsist off the temporary catharsis of mass murder forever. he is the most actualized jack noir in the sense that he is the only on to go beyond his base instincts and actually create something of value for once.

and the tragedy is that it’s all for nothing. every true spades slick scholar knows the line “nothing left to lose, or live for” but i think it’s worth unpacking what this actually implies— that being, slick is actively trying to end his life in cascade rather than just wanting to settle his score with sn0wman and not caring about the consequences. everything he has ever done has just been part of an LE-typical long con to get all his friends killed, get him into the exile vault, get him to doc scratch, and eventually put him into a position where he has absolutely nothing left and into a headspace where he thinks he might as well be dead anyway. he did literally everything he could have done right as part of the game— helped the players, rebuilt society, aided creation— and yet in the end was still fucked over harder than anyone has ever been fucked over before or since. sorry slick you’re going to be replaced with the version of you with no emotional development at all. sorry slick. but after all, who would ever mourn a jack noir?

tl;dr spades slick is the most tragic character in all of homestuck. WV is a close second but only because he was a grown ass man and a traumatized war veteran and then the narrative decided to make him davekat’s dog

stab stab stab stab stab stab stab stab stab

i’m uh uh um uh huumumumumyumum um Smiles.

Love is when you keep a pack of someone's cigarettes of choice on you at all times in case they run out <3 I hope the clubsdroogers out there enjoy this meal

spades slick is my little doggie i keep him in a doggie house and feed him kibb;es

the midnight crew + sn0wman, composition sucks i know im sorry