Characters / Midnight Sleuth

All names are left unmarked. However, not all spoilers are hidden, so read at your own risk.

Team Sleuth

Midnight Crew

Diamonds Droog

♦

• Willfully Weak: He, like the others, have shadow magic. They rarely use it, and DD even has a reason for it.

Clubs Deuce

♣

• The Medic: According to this, his specialty is healing.

Twilight Scoundrels

Peccant Scofflaw

Click ^here  to see him.

Click ^here  to see his Sepulchritude dress. SPOILERS

Click ^here  to see his ink form. JUST AS SPOILERY

Click ^here  to see his demon form. SPOILERGEDDON

The Evil Counterpart of Problem Sleuth, who leads the Twilight Scoundrels. Rude, professional and not the nicest person to deal with, he makes for Team Sleuth quite the one to pin down.

When Dead Shuffle starts, he is weirdly absent, until it is revealed he suffers an incurable disease caused by overuse of magic. At the end of Dead Shuffle, he was last seen setting fire to himself and the building of the Fuzz. At the beginning of Apocryphal Antithesis, he has somehow returned...for worse.

Most of these spoilers are connected to what happened in Apocryphal Antithesis, believe it or not, so read on your own risk!

• Ambiguously Evil: Is he really to blame for his actions as an ink ghost demon? Or did he do it because he had turned into a horrorterror, an experience which annihilates one's sense of morality?
• A Day in the Limelight: He already was a pretty important character, but Apocryphal Antithesis comes pretty close to Peccant Antithesis.

• Badass in Distress: Even if he's fallen ill, incurable and fated to die, he still manages to burn the entire Fuzz building down. Exaggerated after his death; then he still comes back somehow and the fight to defeat him is even bigger than the one at the ending of the first part.
• Being Tortured Makes You Evil: Leader of the Twilight Scoundrels + dying from an almost inevitable illness = being convinced the Scoundrels are suffering = becoming a horrorterror.

• Broken Smile: During the end of act 3 of Midnight Sleuth, as he's implied to have been willing to die. Make of that what you will.
• Dark Is Evil: An unusual combination of black and eye-soring light green. His ink form adds white into the mix.
• Dark Magical Guy: He was always steeped in this trope, but by Apocryphal Antithesis, he becomes a horrorterror demon to oppose Problem Sleuth's goodness.
• Death Is the Only Option: Becomes a Foregone Conclusion when Innovator tells Scofflaw's incurably ill. Also, at the end of Midnight Sleuth. It is unknown why he chose to die in his own flames, but as he was laughing while burning, it is likely his motif was a mix between Taking You with Me and Driven to Suicide.
  • Apocryphal Antithesis throws this last thing into a different light. A likely third reason is that Scofflaw didn't want the Scoundrels to watch him die slowly any longer. This image as well suggests it was a peaceful death.

• Determinator: Failure is not an option. The moment he accepts dying, he still searches for a way to come back somehow.
  • In Apocryphal Antithesis, this becomes a mayor plot point, as it is the way Doxy knows that the ink demon is the same as Scofflaw.
    Because you know that Scofflaw would do anything, go to any length, to keep going. To cheat death, to come back to you. Because Peccant Scofflaw does not give up. Not ever.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: In the first image spoilered on this page, he has green eyes. In the comic itself, his eyes are simply white.
  • Also, his hair was previously white too.
• Entitled to Have You: Non-romantic example. He doesn't think he's entitled to have Innovator and Delinquent... but he does think he's entitled to do anything to make those two happy. Him coming back after death was kickstarted due to Scofflaw believing that they were suffering. Just like in Dead Shuffle, Scofflaw won't allow the Scoundrels to suffer for someone else's sake.
• Expy: Is evil? Check. Has a scheme of black and greens? Check. Grey skin? Check. Has magic powers? Check. Is killed? Check. Are we talking about him or Grimbark Jade?
  • The morally ambiguous character who does some dubious stuff associated with flame imagery in the third part of their series including a monstrous demon form resembles Homura Akemi as well.
• Evil Counterpart: Naturally. This becomes especially obvious when at the end of Midnight Sleuth, you can see he's one to Problem Sleuth, making him access Sepulchritude in the process. This link evidences their supreme kinship. They even have the same handwriting.
• Evil Costume Switch: As in Sepulchritude, then Ink-ghost.
• Fan Disservice: One can notice he's quite attractive. By the time he falls ill, he gets ink stains on his clothing. And then, enter his final moments...
• Humanoid Abomination: Ink Scofflaw is, in fact, a horrorterror disguised as a 'human'. He very quickly goes from the least monstrous to the most monstrous horrorterror we've ever seen. In stark contrast, Peccant Scofflaw in the first image in this folder has always averted this, instead leaning to Agent Peacock.
• I Have Many Names: Peccant Scofflaw, Perspicacious Solicitor, Pulchritudinous Scumbag (for a moment).
• Irony: Ink Scofflaw sports a laurel crown, which he even retains in demon form. As is made clear at the end of Midnight Sleuth, he died, failed and lost.
• I Work Alone: Despite him being the leader of a threesome. Exaggerated in Apocryphal Antithesis. After he begins to discover the truth about his death, he tells Spades Slick to let him handle everything by himself. In fact, his refusal to accept help (even from Death) is a theme of the third part. It becomes especially obvious here (Heavy spoilers in link!).
  Isn’t it obvious? Shouldn’t he know you better by now? There’s only one person you’ve ever served. Yourself.
• Mad God: Ink Scofflaw isn't very...all there. He can't spend two minutes without breaking out a Nightmare Face and a creepy speech pattern.

• No Sense of Personal Space: Ink Demon Scofflaw has a habit of creeping up uncomfortably close on people, especially on Spades Slick, like in this image.
• Our Monsters Are Weird: His Ink demon form is probably more full of sheer WTF than any of the other horrorterrors. Initially he appears roughly the same as Peccant Scofflaw used to, but with a different color sheme, a Nightmare Face and ink dripping everywhere. Then he drops the disguise and it just gets stranger from there. There's his great, black head with multiple eyes. Then you have two strange wings around him. And then the surrealistic circles around him.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Arguably the reason why Ink Demon Scofflaw wants to construct a better world.
• Reality Warper: From the moment that he forced Doxy to open the door from the Furthest Ring, followed by his transformation into a demon that starts here.

• Thanatos Gambit: Even if he was Killed Off for Real at the end of Apocryphal Antithesis, he still gets the Scoundrels and the rest to live in the Lotus-Eater Machine he wanted them to get in so badly, just not in the way he planned to.
• Tragic Villain: The third part is essentially about how much of a self-loathing, mentally and emotionally unstable mess Scofflaw has become and how his undying loyalty and determination for the Scoundrels to have a good life causes him to become the villain.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Just look at him! Supplemental fics reveal that he used to be dorky, clumsy and sweet agent of Derse, but committing a crime got him and Innovator (called Inventor by then) exiled. In Midnight Sleuth, his sickness warped him into a cold, lonely Anti-Hero, that, in Apocryphal Antithesis would end up as a God of Evil.

• Villain Has a Point: He traps everyone in a Lotus-Eater Machine, at least, he wants to. Thing is, he also spared them from the same fate as he went through, convinced Doxy and Bawd to continue without him and indirectly tries to get them out of their contract, leaving them possibly powerless. It is hard not to feel sympathy for his motifs. Only, the way he does it is dubious.

• Walking Spoiler: While he was already one of the greatest Walking Spoilers in the original story, the second part and especially Apocryphal Antithesis takes it up a notch and turns him into the centerpiece of many game-changing twists, making it very hard to get into that parts depiction of him without getting spoiled.
• Yandere: Ink demon Scofflaw, in a (to be expected) very creepy way. Also, see this 100 follower image. (Heavy spoilers in link!)
  • Later on, exaggerated in a non-romantic way. He wants to trap the Scoundrels in a new world to protect them from Death and the horrorterrors... and he isn't even doing it to be with the Scoundrels again forever, he's doing it because he genuinely believes the Scoundrels are happier that way, mainly because of his belief that the Scoundrels were suffering before.
  • Just take a look in this pesterlog.

Pernicious Innovator

Click ^here  to see him.

Click ^here  to see his Demonhead form. SPOILERS

• Anti-Hero: He and Angry Delinquent are willing to resort to underhanded techniques and (regretfully) injure others to find out if there is a way to cure their leader. There isn't.

• Brought Down to Normal: At the end of Apocyphal Antithesis, it is hinted that Death is trying to get him out of his contract due to the things Scofflaw did.
• Covers Always Lie: This 150 followers image shows him lying in Death's arms. He doesn't die in the actual adventure, like the image might suggest. Death only helped him get up.

Angry Delinquent

Click ^here  to see him.

• Anti-Hero: He and Pernicious Innovator are willing to resort to underhanded techniques and (regretfully) injure others to find out if there is a way to cure their leader. There isn't.
• Brought Down to Normal: At the end of Apocyphal Antithesis, it is hinted that Death is trying to get him out of his contract due to the things Scofflaw did.
• Healing Factor: His magic works a little different, resulting in this.

Heinous Doxy and Nefarious Bawd

Click ^here  to see them.

• Brought Down to Normal: At the end of Apocyphal Antithesis, it is hinted that Death is trying to get them out of their contract due to the things Scofflaw did.