#iswm action hero mark

[groven4]

ACTION HERO MARK ICONS

you're free to use these without credit. they're literally just screenshots.

[trashbag-usa]

it feels like a lot of people have given up on fully connecting ISWM/Engie Mark to the wider lore (aka WKM) since IRL Mark straight up told us he wasn't Actor.

but not only am i a stubborn son of a bitch, but yknow what Mark also said?

"Engineer Mark isn't Actor Mark, but Actor Mark just might be Engineer Mark."

so hear me out, y'all.

preamble; if you saw this in a yt comment section, no you didn't. (that was also me i didnt steal this i prommy-)

i have this entirely insane theory about iswm that Engineer Mark is actually Damien, but only sometimes.

the most obvious places i can spot him is in the abandoned ship with the candles ("captain needs their sleep" and whatnot), as Old Mark (specifically in the empty diner), and most definitely as the "Mark" we see as part of the finale, the one who realizes he was wrong.

Actor is allergic to admitting fault so I Don't Believe That's Him.

this explains the thematic focus on sleep and rest in these scenes, things told to Damien and told to US by DARK several times.

("Don't remember" anyone?)

speaking of Dark, it explains why he isn't there. we DO however see the suspiciously Darkiplier-esqe Ms. Whitacre, which it isn't controversial to say atp is CLEARLY Celine.

that is, until the universe does its final kablooey and Dark as we know him, Damien attributes and all, comes to take the warp-crystal.

and besides, think about it.

given Actor's whole goal in all this, as laid out in the Damien Project, do you REALLY think he would write a story in which all problems arise from HIS OWN NEGLIGENCE? NO!

that would make him a villain, and all he ever wants is to be portrayed as the hero, literally for eternity!

but you know what i think he would do? set up a farce for the most troublesome of his "co-stars".

you, the viewer, want genuine choices? you want to have some real control over the story? some responsibility? FINE.

everyone looks to you, but under your leadership everything goes wrong, no matter what. you don't know why, but you're actively villinized and the harder you try to go back and fix things, achieve an "ending" on your own, the more people HATE you. the more the thought that maybe there IS something wrong with you specifically will stick in your mind as a possibility.

all these options, but none of them "right", creating MORE suffering instead of fixing it just to find that ever elusive end.

damien wants control of the narrative? he wants his old friend, you, the District Attorney to be released from his eternal story and given back to him? FINE.

here's his role back in earnest, given the possibility to engage and choose instead of intrude and twist like usual.

(yes, i do think Damien/Engineer is genuinely going down his own hopeless path while we find our own. in one of the descriptions leading to the final "Hold On/Let Go" confrontation, it says "you're not the only one making choices. you're not alone, you never were".)

he is allowed to fight for the safety of others, side by side with his closest companion, just as they did when they were alive.

BUT, the twist is Damien becomes a genuine villain. in his quest to do the altruistic thing and help at all cost, he is personally responsible for the death of LITERALLY EVERYONE EVER.

this is a personal hell for someone like Damien, as seen from WKM, all he ever seemed to want was help others and guide them towards peace.

for his actions/leadership to fail so unthinkably catastrophically, seems like the exact hell a bitter Actor would want to subject his "old friend" to for meddling. :/

Actor sets the stage for a theatrical punishment game. Mayor and Attorney, together again, taking an impossibly long stay in a personally crafted hell for the horrendous crime of ever even thinking they'd be worthy of ✨️staring roles✨️.

Actor turns you two against each other, and once Damien is brough down to the depths of despair and you have finally learned that true responsibility can lead to catastrophic, painful results, we're brought back to our proper places.

you go to a proper ending, with the Engineer role now being played by Actor once and for all, and Damien once again becomes part of Darkiplier, pocketing the warp-crystal to plant on the box in Heist.

Engineer isn't Actor, it's a role he plays when it suits him and his goals, to make his enemies suffer. he's willing to be Damien's understudy, if only for this purpose.

but at the end of the journey, Actor becomes Engineer to take in the fruits of his labor. ..and maybe invite you to a Heist while he's at it.

BUT HEY, THAT'S JUST A

very long winded """theory""" that is pretty much only insane fanfiction-

[ariminiria]

Okay, as promised, here is the theory:

I have reason to believe that Engineer Mark is NOT the Actor. I have no solid proof for who he is, other than some wild guesses, but my theory of who he isn’t stems from this amazing theory by @oswinunknown​ that suggests that ISWM is a choose-your-own that has been designed by Darkiplier rather than the Actor. You should definitely go read it, because this theory is the basis of what I’m about to propose, and actually touches on it in Section 1.3!

This post will contain spoilers for all of In Space With Markiplier. You have been warned!

Working off of this theory that Dark is indeed in charge of ISWM, the pieces begin to fall into place.

Timeline

The timeline of the choose-your-owns can definitely get confusing at times. My personal preferred order is:

WKM -> WMW -> Damien -> Markiplier TV -> AHWM -> ADWM

You may be asking, “Where does Space fall on this list? (And what does this have to do with Engineer’s identity?)” Just bear with me for now.

I believe that ISWM is after ADWM in this lineup.

“But Ari, Warfstache just made our interview appointment! That means AHWM is up next in the timeline!”

Allow me to focus on the minutiae of it all for just a moment and I’ll clarify.

If you’ll notice, Wil also tells us not to focus so much on when said interview is happening... could be in the past, could be in the future!

Now you say, “Okay, but that could still be in the future, Wil technically didn’t clarify...”

Which is true, BUT... Allow me to present this:

We recognize Yancy. Not just the other way around.

Just look at our accusatory point! That’s clearly a “You! Yancy! It’s you!” gesture.

This means that we have been through AHWM and know who Yancy is. Therefore, although Warfstache hasn’t done the interview yet, we’ve already been through it. Timey wimey stuff! It’s a Doctor/River Song situation.

Now, I’m gonna shift gears here, but bear with me, and remember this for later!

The Actor

We know who the Actor is. He stole poor Damien’s body and led to the creation of Darkiplier (and our subsequent removal from our own body). He’s the one who led us through Date and Heist. He also popped up in Damien, to taunt said title character with the fact that he needs a villain.

Why?

Because he wants to be the hero of his story. Simple as that.

And we see this consistently throughout Heist and Date. Yes, we make the decisions, but ultimately, we are guided along by Mark or an Ego at our side the whole way. He has a compulsive need to be involved in the story. He is in the spotlight and we are the sidekick along for the ride.

But in ISWM... we’re the hero. And we lose Mark. A LOT. We even spend some time fighting against him. But it’s odd that we’re left alone by him at all, when you think about it.

Another thing - think about Actor’s ego (not the character kind). I personally do not believe that that man would ever apologize or take responsibility for anything. Mark, real YouTuber Mark, has said before that Actor doesn’t even think he’s done anything wrong.

That feeds into why he comes to Damien to ask him to be the villain. He really thinks that Damien will just go along with it, because of course he will! Actor is giving him the chance to be apart of something, why wouldn’t he be ecstatic?!

Now, see here the moment of realization, when the Engineer suddenly understands that it was his fault all along:

This is the face of a man who is capable of recognizing his actions and their impacts on others, and regretting what he has done - aka, not the Actor.

There is a case to be made that perhaps spending an eternity playing the “hero” role actually got to him and made him care, but I don’t see the Actor being so dedicated to the role - especially a role that involves selflessly saving others instead of just his own skin - that he would continue to go through all of that pain just for a part.

So who is he? Again, I don’t know for certain. I just have theories. But, I have a feeling I know where he came from. Which brings us to...

Darkiplier

Every time we’ve encountered Darkiplier, there has been a recurring theme: The lack of choice.

At the very beginning, he used the images of Celine and Damien to trick us into letting him in. Of course, we had a choice, Celine reassured us. But, of course, we only had one way to get back to the world of the living. Not really much of a choice, huh?

We next see Dark in Heist, going by my order from earlier. He appears to us and talks at us the whole time, never giving us an opportunity to even talk back. Then, instead of giving us a choice at all, he boots us back to the beginning to do it all over again.

Finally, he crashes our date.

Now here, he claims he’s going to give us four whole choices! More than Actor ever gave to us... But only one of those choices can actually propel the story forward, the others are false ends. Not to mention, the original plan, according to YouTuber Mark, was to have all four links be to the same video.

Now, Dark says he is “tired of giving people a choice”. Then comes the scene in the real world where we pick one to shoot and go on to an ice cream ending. But that leads us to ISWM. Remember, our earlier deducing places ISWM next in the lineup.

And think about it - ISWM was no real choice. We all went into Part 1 expecting the same thing we got from Date and Heist, but what we got was a single ending. Again, Part 2 rebooted the universe and we expected to finally find some numbered endings! But no... there’s just one ending. The choices are a bottleneck that lead to the same place in the end.

Remember, this is Dark’s puppet show, and he is tired of giving people a choice, so just like in Date, he gives us the illusion that we have all these options, all these possibilities, but really... there’s only one path that we can ever go down.

Now, finally... The end credit scene.

The crystal on the ground. The tip of Dark’s shoe. The hand. The ring. The IMPRESSIVELY controlled aura.

“So much trouble... all for something so small.”

An echo of the line from Heist. Perhaps trying to point us to the fact that the box also had a warp crystal, but I think it has a deeper meaning.

The trouble he refers to is the whole of ISWM as a choose-your-own. It was a lot of trouble for Dark to have to step into the storyteller mantle, the puppet master role that Actor usually fills... all so he could get that crystal. Why? Who knows. Maybe it will be answered in the next project. But it’s clear that Dark served as the operator of this adventure, and he didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as Actor does.

Engineer

So that leaves us with the lad this whole theory is about. Dark is in charge of ISWM, as we’ve established, and he wouldn’t want Actor messing up his plans - so there’s no way he would let him in as a character.

So, my theories on the possible identity?

Engineer could either be what Dark thinks we want from Actor Mark (as shown in Date, where he passed as Mark by acting far more sympathetic to us in the Chocolate Ending), or what Dark himself wishes Actor could be - perhaps a shred of memory from Damien and Celine of the friend they used to know, before the House twisted him. In either of these options, I see this as Dark, or some piece of him being apart of the adventure in the same way that Actor usually is.

Or... Perhaps Engineer is an Ego made by Darkiplier, which interestingly, puts Dark into a similar playing field as Actor. If Actor is guilty of creating and abandoning Egos like toys, well... now Dark is guilty of the same thing. Although, an argument could be made that at least Dark gives Egos (both Mark’s and his own) happy endings - Yancy is up to apply for parole, whereas the Actor made him never want to be free, and Engineer, Dark’s Ego, gets to be saved from his own mistakes and start a new life on the planet with us.

Conclusion?

Maybe I’m right, maybe I’m wrong. To me, the evidence says that Engineer is not Actor, but maybe Mark (actual Mark lol) will completely blast this theory to smithereens in the livestream on Sunday and I’ll look silly for putting in this much thought and effort lol.

If you made it this far, thank you for reading this whole thing! Keep at it, Lore Hunters, let’s see what we can find.

[faecaribou]

Anger Issues

ISWM Part 2 fic

ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/38934357

Hold On Scene Except Mark’s more violent toward the Captain in his anger before he realizes that he built the warp core

You, the beloved Captain of the Invincible II, enter the warp core- finally, finally! You’ve been traveling through wormholes for who knows how long, and you’re exhausted in every aspect of the word. But you keep pushing through, and here you are!

“Hi, Captain.” You spin around just in time to see your head engineer swing a fire extinguisher at your head, a determined smile on his face. The impact sends you to the floor, head ringing and vision blurring. You black out briefly, but you come to before Mark can even put the fire extinguisher down, which he does by dropping it. You grimace at the sound as it hits the hard ground.

“Sorry about that,” Mark says, but he doesn’t sound very sorry. “Couldn’t afford to let you make another mistake.” While you’re still stunned, he crouches over you and grabs your hand, pulling out pliers and ripping the warp crystal from your hand. The action is violent, and that startles you more than any pain you might’ve felt. You grip your hand and your eyes water anyway. Mark doesn’t notice; too busy gazing at the warp crystal in his hands and talking almost to himself.

“Funny thing to say after an eternity of nothing but second chances-” You reach out desperately toward the warp crystal. You had to stop him-! He catches your hand lightning fast, a death grip around your wrist. It’s bruising. His face flattens into something bordering hate, dark and rageful, and it makes your stomach drop. Even though you knew it was Mark that ruined everything, you still felt fond when you saw him. But he didn’t appear to feel the same way toward you.

“Don’t,” He demanded, voice low, his lips curled up in a snarl. He pulled away from you, releasing your wrist, and stood up

“You don’t have to keep trying anymore. There’s no time anyway.” His eyes stayed on you, tracking your movements for any sign of resistance. You grit your teeth. You came to the warp core to stop him, not to give him the last thing he needed-!

“Mark-"

He ignores you. “Another thing I never thought I’d say again. But I’m gonna fix the damage you caused.” He gestures at you accusingly, and you stare back.

I caused? You think incredulously.

He heads toward the warp core, still watching you. You grab one of the railings to get yourself back to your feet.

“I’ve had a long time to spend rebuilding this machine you broke. A long time over too many lives.” His voice is bitter and filled with resentment, and the head engineer before you feels as much of a stranger as Mack was. You lean on the railing for support as you stand on your feet, mind whirling for a way to stop Mark, but your head hurts and you feel dizzy and it’s hard to think of ideas.

Mark places the warp crystal into the machine, continuing to monologue, this time about the science of the wormhole. He moves toward the machine’s controls, hands gesturing as he speaks. Then he glances at you, eyes flat. “You destroyed it.”

You want to run over and stop him, but you worry that the moment you let go of the railing that you’ll fall over.

“I can’t undo what you’ve done.” Mark alternates between pressing the buttons and glaring at you unblinkingly. “Not here anyway.” He grabs the lever. “Or at least, not now.” He pulls the lever.

“Warp core engaged.” The computer hums. Mark steps away from the controls and starts stalking toward you.

“If I could go back, if I could try again! If I could stop you before any of this even started!” His voice rises and grows louder and louder, burning with conviction as Mark enters your personal space, and you take an uneasy step back. He jabs at you sharply with a finger. “Maybe I could save everyone.” He whispers the last phrase breathlessly, and you grimace. He always had to be the hero.

“Warning. Paradox detected.” The computer warns, and your eyes widen. This is what you’re trying to stop! Mark glances toward the warp core in confusion, and you gather your strength and step toward Mark, reaching into your pocket for the sand you picked up from the older version of him. You lunge forward, throwing the sand into Mark’s eyes as he turns back toward you. He shouts, hands flying to his face as he bends over. You scramble past him toward the machine controls.

“Temporal lock unstable,” The computer continues, but it’s almost drowned out by Mark’s yelling.

“What the hell was that?” He screams, still bent over. “Is that sand? Who throws sand?!”

You quickly press some buttons and make a break for the warp core. Mark clears the sand from his eyes just in time to see.

“Captain, no!” He slams his body into you, grabbing your wrist. There isn’t much keeping you upright and you struggle against Mark’s grip.

“You’ll destroy everything! Again!” He screams. The warp core lets out a blast of light that almost knocks you to the ground as a portal appears to take Mark and the warp core back to the beginning. No!

The portal starts to suck Mark away, and he screams in fear, reaching out for you. “Captain!” You grab his hand. He may make your life miserably hard sometimes, but he’s still your friend. You think. You still care about him. “Don’t let go!” He begs, then pauses. “Wait, let me go!”

Your mind whirls as he continues to plead. You’re pretty sure letting go is bad, that it’s going to send him back to the beginning. He sounds so earnest but he’s still blaming you and doesn’t realize that this, this moment, this moment right here, is the problem.

You hold on. Still holding onto his hand, you reach for the warp crystal.

“Captain, please! Let me go, I know I can fix everything,” He yells, but you aren’t listening. You grab the crystal and throw it into the portal, which closes behind it.

“Captain don’t!” Mark shouts, but it’s too late. The two of you fall to the floor before scrambling to your feet. God, you’re so tired. Everything aches, and you head still hurts.

“Paradox resolved,” the computer says, and you reach out to touch the warp core as it powers down, feeling a rush of relief that leaves you light headed. You wobble on your feet.

 “What have you done?” Mark gasps, stepped up to the warp core. “You destroyed us. You destroyed everything.” He stands there, stunned. Then his eyebrows furrow and he turns to you. “This was our last chance to fix things and it’s gone!” You take a step back as his voice rises from a whisper to a shout in a single sentence. Mark is furious, and matches you step for step, hands in fists. “I spent an eternity in hell rebuilding this stupid machine!” He screams at you, reaching forward and grabbing you by the collar of your Captain’s jacket. You let out a noise of alarm. Wait-

“You threw it all away!” He howls, slamming you against the wall. With an oomph, the air leaves your lungs. He slams you against the wall again, and your already injured head cracks against the wall. “I don’t know if you’re evil-” Slam. “-or just stupid-!” Slam. The world blurs and you can’t breathe.

“Mark,” you try to say, but you don’t think a single sound leaves your lips. He slams a fist into your face. You yowl as your nose breaks with a crunch. Your hands fly up to your face, and you feel nothing but pain and terror. Mark ignores the blood and shakes you violently. He, and the wall, are the only things holding you up anymore.

“If I’m not back there to fix it-!” His voice trails off but your vision is so fucked from tears and everything was already a little fuzzy, so when he steps away to view the controls for the warp core you can barely tell. You slide to the ground, back against the wall, gasping for air through your mouth as your lungs kick back into gear. You curl up slightly as he continues to talk in the background, voice growing increasingly broken.

“I built the warp core?” His voice sounds so small. “I sent it back?” He takes a step toward you, and you sense the movement, pressing against the wall with a flinch. He pauses.

“I… Captain…” He takes another step and you tense up from your spot on the ground, all but curled up in a ball. Your hands don’t leave your face, trying to stop the blood leaking from your nose, but you tuck your head between your legs to try and stop any more damage to it if he decides to hit you again.

“No, Captain… I…” He crouches down. Fingers gently poke the back of your head and you flinch again. “Wait. Captain, you’re bleeding!” He sounds concerned, and that tone gives you the strength to lift your head up a bit.

“I’mb aware,” You say, hands still around your nose. Mark winces when he sees your face.

“I mean from your head,” He looks devastated. “I did this…”

The room shuddered, and dust rained from the ceiling.

“Ad least I don’t hafe to deal with it much longer,” You croak out. “Assumink that we reset after this death.” Mark makes a guilty sound and places a hand on your shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says, looking stricken, and despite the fact that he hurt you, you feel relief again. You saved the multiverse. He feels bad for hurting you. He still cares. Your mission is accomplished and maybe you guys can be friends again after this. He moves to sit down against the wall next to you and you rest your head on his shoulder.

“I’m tired, Captain,” He whimpers. “I don’t remember the last time I slept. I don’t know if I’ve slept at all. Have you?” You both fall silent for a moment.

“I don’t know,” you whisper, and Mark’s shoulders shake as everything blows up around you.

       Software Update Complete.

“Initializing Wakey-Wakey Protocol. Current ship status is nominal.” You lift your undamaged head to find yourself back in your cryo tube, and you step out into the room to find your crew already awake and working, the blast shields down. You poke a crew member carefully, but they’re real. Alive.

“Morning, Captain!” Mark greets you with a cup of coffee, something dark and remorseful in his eyes even as he acts like none of the time loops happened. You think he might remember but you’re not entirely sure. You take the coffee with a hopeful smile.

[captain-solemn-titty]

its really more of the opposite- a!mark is the one who trapped dark and everyone else in this superhell and now he has to face the consequences of his actions. thats part of the reason dark wants revenge in the first place.

a!mark creates these stories to live out in which he is the “perfect hero.” as an actor, every scenario he’s a part of in adwm, ahwm, and iswm is another part of his story. he’s the one with the control, or at least most of it. the giewer obviously has choices to make and the reoccurring egos like wilford and dark seem to have free will, but dark, in particular, plays into his role as the villain in seeking revenge on mark for literally taking everything from him and forcing him into a world where “death doesnt mean the same thing”

at least thats my understanding

ISWM theory time!

In Space With Markiplier! I’m super excited and that trailer is beautiful I keep watching it over and over, I cannot WAIT for it to come out!

But there was something that caught my interest and now suddenly I’m theorizing abt the lore and stuff (I’ve been watching fnaf videos a lot I think that’s affecting me a little bit).

In the trailer Mark repeats the words, “I always come back and I always come back,” over and over, getting increasingly more distraught and angry. My immediate thoughts went to how Mark technically comes back in all the different timelines/routes even when he dies in one. And we remember all of them, but what if Mark does too? Darkiplier certainly does, as he basically confirms in AHWM.

So maybe Mark remembers every timeline, including the ones he dies in. And expanding on that, I think he’s Actor!Mark (from WKM) which is a popular theory supported by how arrogant he acts in a couple routes in ADWM and AHWM (i think ending 30 in AHWM?)

Since he’s Actor!Mark (yknow, an actor) he is forced to act like he doesn’t remember each timeline, but maybe he starts to break in ISWM after dying a bunch of times. But then that begs the question: why is he here at all? Why is he in this loop and remembering everything?

The answer is obvious: Darkiplier clearly wants revenge on Actor!Mark for ruining his life. So, he created a world (possibly through Celine, since it’s been shown she can create pocket universes like the one in DAMIEN) and trapped Mark in there, forcing him to relive his deaths over and over and then reviving because of the effect of The WKM House.

I don’t think Wilford was involved because he doesn’t seem to care about revenge or anything really. Personally I think he infiltrated/hacked his way into the time looping worlds of ADWM, AHWM, and probably ISWM (if IRL Mark decides to continue to tradition of including Wil and Dark…) just like he accidentally infiltrated Damien’s world with the pink flowers.

TLDR: Darkiplier trapped Actor!Mark in superhell as the ultimate revenge (FNAF Ultimate Custom Night style) and forces him to relive his deaths through the different routes in ADWM, AHWM, and now ISWM.

[groven4]

Markiplier Egos LGBTQ+ Headcanons pt.2

a/n: Figured I'd share some more of these while we're still in June.

[part 1]

DR. IPLIER

(he/him)

Cis-male

Queer

THE HOST

(he/they)

Agender

Demiromantic Asexual / Pan

BIM TRIMMER

(he/him)

Cis-male

Gay

ERIC DEREKSON

(he/him)

Transmasc

Pansexual

YANDEREPLIER

(any pronouns)

Transfem / Non-binary

Pansexual [maybe demi-aroace??]

THE JIMS

(are individuals with their own separate and equally valid identit- just kidding, it's a hive mind.)

(no pronouns - jim/jim)

Jimgender

Jimsexual [unlabeled]

DAMIEN

(he/him)

Cis-male

Biromantic Demisexual

THE COLONEL

(he/him)

Cis-male

Pansexual

THIEFIPLIER (HEIST MARK)

(he/him)

Cis-male

Bisexual

ACTION HERO MARK

(he/him)

Cis-male

Pansexual

[purple-star-eyes]

Okay so about MatPats Theory,

-Spoiler warning-

I think he got most details correct. After all most of us did get the hint that Ms. Whitacare has a striking similarity to Celine.

I believe he did get a few tiny things wrong that I will point out here:

It isn't just the old Mark that is Actor Mark. (After all there is an ending that shows Actor "behind the scenes") Which seems to show us that he really is every Mark... he is an actor after all.

In Who killed Markiplier at the very end when Darkiplier looks in the mirror there is still the key detail that... when he walks away... we are still there. We dont move. He does. Which yes could suggest that we are playing as him, but it gets pointed out again and again not just in universe but also on Mark's explanation streams, that we are a character. "Y/N" is a character in universe.

So while I think the Hero-Villain dynamic he pointed out is interesting, And that the "We were Dark all along" could be a possible plot twist, I dont think this is the only way this could go...

After all ISWM is a direct continuation to Adwm and Ahwm. Where Dark and Will show up SEPERATE from us.

But considering the code MatPat did read out (with the 7 Gods) I think this does mean we are straight on the ramp to a showdown of sorts.

Personally I'd love to see Actor have to face the consequences of his actions and come to terms with the fact that he DID hurt people... I do wonder if the regret he shows is just an act tho.

That does lead me to wonder what Celine's Ms. Whitacare's line was about then...

"Do you even know who you are?"

Could it be... are we possessed by the evil house entity?! Is that why Mark thinks we're the villain? IS THAT WHY DARK WANTS OUR SOUL?!

but then where does Damien fit into all of this. Especially since Mark has been teasing his phrase of "Life is ours to choose" from "Hunie Pop" to "Try not to crash simulator"

.....Aaaargh we will have to wait and see I guess.....

@projectwkm @ragingstinkingrottengay @chelseareferenced @trashbunnysblog @falseroar @theawesomeraccoon