#iswm theory crew

[thermodynamic-comedian]

I'd like to hear about your headcanons for the iswm characters!!

YIPPEE im so glad you asked, let me just set up my powerpoint presentation-

iswm headcanons!

captain - queer, agender, they/them. since the captain's pretty much just the viewer, this is just my own interpretation of who i feel like i'm playing as in iswm.

mark - pansexual, guyflux, they/he. i just feel like he's a guy, but not a man. masculine in some ways, definently not in others. pansexual because they genuinely do not care about your gender, he's just helpessly attracted to you no matter what.

celci - bisexual, transfem, she/her. literally blue hair and pronouns and i love her. definently realized she was bi when watching pirates of the caribbean.

gunther - polysexual, transmasc, he/him. completing the holy trinity of m-spec invincible II members. you've heard of be gay, do crime, now get ready for be trans, throw hands.

burt - aroace, male, any pronouns. i feel like burt genuinely does not care what you refer to him as.

mack/theory crew - questioning, libramasc, he/him. closer to male than other genders, but still slightly different. the only invincible II crew member to not really be open about his sexuality, mostly because he's still figuring it out (the captain had to give him a whole 'it's totally fine if no existing label fits you, and you shouldn't feel rushed to figure out your own identity' talk)

lady/allu minium - sapphic, non-binary, they/she/xe. found out about gender when researching human culture, and was both excited that some of the labels fit them, but also mildly confused. "wait, humans have specific words for all of those things? but they're just normal personal stuff, why do you need words for those things?" (mark had to teach her why labels for different gender identities and sexualities exist. xe was less than charmed to find out queerphobia is a thing.)

bandit - bisexual, demigirl, she/they. believe it or not, she's actually had to pretend to be a human quite a few times when on the run, so the way humans identify is nothing new to them.

wug - unlabeled, pangender, all pronouns. there are multiple wugs, and it's shown that they can have preferred pronouns (e.g. that one wug who goes by she/her), but i think the wug we interact with the most feels perfectly fine being seen as any and all human genders.

[lexusinsannus]

BLUE MACK BLUE MACK BLUE MACK OMGGGGGGGGGGGG

[imasimpcentral]

Burack Rant

"FUCK IT SO MUUUUUCH" here's my burack ship thread post cause I need to ramble about them feel free to not read this I just need to let my silly little thoughts out 😁

Burack is a ship that consists of Burt and Mack from In Space with Markiplier (ISWM) They have three ships names ship name number one is burack; which is just their names joint together

Now before I get to the other two ship names I have to say Mack has two variations Crew Member Mack (pictured on the left) and Dictator/Head Engineer Mack (pictured on the right) and Burt is a reactor specialist so his title is featured in both ship names

It should also be said that these are both Mack but in different universes, in crew member Mack's universe he isn't head engineer (though we can assume he is an engineer) and in the universe where he is Head engineer he basically takes over the role of engineer mark (pictured)

(cont.) who is basically the captain's (/y/n's) right hand man but in a universe where Mack is head engineer we see that he takes on a lot more of a dictator role if you allow him to take control of the ship, if you don't allow him to do this he essentially has an identity crisis and becomes mark (don't ask)

So thus their other two ship names are born with their second ship name being theoryreactor: it's a mix of Mack's crew self (seeing as he's simply deemed theory crew in the credits) and Burt's title of reactor specialist

It is likely Mack is deemed "theory crew" in this universe due to being played by matpat (creator of game, film, food, and style theory) that leads us to our third ship name corruptreactor: which is a combination of dictator mack and burt's reactor specialist title

Corrupt refers to how Mack is a very corrupt leader who takes advantage of those he rules over. Generally speaking I usually alternate their ship names but if I wanna get more specific these are the ships names I use.

Burack; all Burt and Mack variants

Theoryreactor; crew member Mack/all Macks [This is pretty much their default name that I lean to] - I also think theoryreactor is funny because someone can react to a theory and be a theory reactor.. idk

Corruptreactor; dictator Mack

Corrupttheory; evil/dictator Burt (very rare variation that is usually only based on au/HC)

No real distinction between ships names but if only one of them is evil or dictatory it's likely one sided (and angsty!)

Okay now that we got all their general info out of the way here are my headcanons for them!

Burt is trans guy but he doesn't really care what pronouns you use on them, they're just here. He's also panromantic and asexual. I give him a lot of angst but I swear I love him!

For example Burt had a husband and 2 children on earth but his husband died a year prior to him going on the space ship and he had to leave his children on the dying planet earth knowing they would die. ( I am evil ) Burt now feels guilty pursuing relationships. Due to how recent his husband's death was (or maybe it's been decades at this point who knows) he still feels bad and just pushes his feelings for Mack aside. That's all for Burt but now let's talk about Mack...

Mack is trans? (I really don't know I just know they're not cis...) they use they/he/it pronouns. He's also aromantic and gay. Crew Member Mack often finds himself unintentionally competing with Mark often feeling unworthy and like he doesn't deserve his job as crew member. Burt and him have a good relationship and Burt continues to tell them they're worthy, but Mack isn't able to take the praise as truth as he doesn't have a lot of friends or people who like them on the crew, they believe Burt's only friends with them out of pity. Hence why they often end up pushing her away.

Dictator Mack has a lot of identity issues as he knows he's not supposed to be here and he knows Mark's supposed to exist in his place ( but he'll never tell anyone this ) Burt and him have a generally okay relationship but it can be toxic... Mack will use Burt for his own selfish needs often times dismissing Burt entirely. He doesn't hate Burt he more so thinks very little of them. Burt tries to help Mack as best he can due to his respect for him but it can difficult. Burt feels some responsibility to help Mack as they're the only one Mack has opened up to. ( Mack seriously needs therapy ).

that's all for now friends if you read all the way here you get a cookie! 🍪

[faecaribou]

the scene where the Captain is supposed to give a speech but I literally have eyes for ONE CHARACTER and that is MATPAT

[riverstyxandsolidago]

Have been watching ISWM so have some screenshots with what I assume to be no big plot spoilers

My favorite is Matpat looking menacing

[captain-neutrino]

Pspspsps + crewmate Mack. I feel like he would be really confused but would come anyway

[tally-vi]

OK I may be overthinking BUT I rewatched A Heist With Markiplier recently and

Has anyone else noticed how the little gem on the box looks a lot like the warp crystal thing that the bandit gives you in ISWM? Could be coincidence but considering how the box behaves and the fact they look so similar makes me think it’s intentional 👀

[captainsaltypear]

PLEASE give me drawing requests for the Invincible polycule I'M DESPERATE

[riverstyxandsolidago]

Okay okay okay- but what about getting attached to ☀️both☀️

Mistakes were made when choosing which one to get attached to

[ironwoman359]

Who is Dorene Whitacre?

(Image: Dorene Whitacre is standing in a darkened room, illuminated by a pale blue  light. Black specks that resemble dirt or ash float through the air  around her.)

part 1 of this theory is here

Someone who in the first few videos of the run I thought was just a joke character might in fact be the key to unraveling the entire mystery. Even in her first few appearances, you realize very quickly that this is a character who knows more than she should.

(Image: Dorene is leaning towards you in the cryo room, next to a frozen Mark. She’s looking at you intently, saying “Makes you feel like you’ve been through all of this before.)

And then by the end, you know that she is somehow far more connected to the whole situation than you previously thought.

(Image: The credits of ISWM scroll on the right side of the screen as Dorene addresses you from the void: “Do you know who you are?”)

(Image: Dorene stands in the same dark void, asking “Do you feel like you’ve been here before?”)

(Image: Dorene says “Or is this just history repeating itself over and over?”)

Something about the lighting and particle effects in this ending reminded me of something, and when I went back to check, sure enough, in one of the very first videos, when the captain is experiencing oxygen deprivation, we see the very same lighting and effects used.

(Image: the bridge of the Invincible in a pale blue light with black particles floating around. There are signs in scrawled handwriting posted all over the walls. Most are covered in tally marks, but one reads “Don’t Open the Door” and another reads “Stop, Don’t Wake the Captain”)

(Image: the cryo pod on the bridge is covered in similar signs, reading “The Captain Needs their Sleep” and “Sleepy Head” and “Shhh Don’t Wake the Captain” along with more signs with tally marks.)

(Image: The inside of the cryo pod is lit up bright blue by two pricks of blue light that resemble eyes staring out at you. The silhouette of a hand can be seen pressing up against the class of the cryo pod.)

Now, I when I watched Heist for the first time, I tried to separate it as much as I could from WKM, because while there were definitely nods to the lore in a few of the runs, it was clear that Mark wanted Heist to be its own creation, and most of the routes had nothing to do with the plot and characters from WKM. But this time...this time it feels harder to separate them. First of all there’s the appearance of Wilford in one of the endings, and Actor Mark in another. 

(Image: Wilford standing in the Invincible’s warp corridor, holding up two fingers  towards the viewer, saying “Our meeting is in part two, which is not now.”)

(Image: A view through the door of a backstage area where a version of Mark wearing a red robe sits in a chair being attended to by hair and makeup crew.)

Not only is it Wilford and Actor Mark, but it’s Wilford as he appears in Wilford Motherlovin’ Warfstache, before he’s completely transformed into the pink mustached television host that we know, and it’s Actor Mark wearing the red robe and cravat that Mark wore in WKM, confirming in my eyes the theory that Actor Mark from Date and Mark from WKM (who is technically possessing Damien’s body right now) are the same person.

Then, you have this little detail:

(Image: the post it notes on the door of Mark’s locker on the Noir version of the Invincible. One sticky note reads “Captain Call Me:  555-2702,″ one says “Warfstache was here!” with a drawing of a  cartoon mustache, and the last one reads “Dorine? Celci? Connection?”)

(FYI, the ship roster on your tablet spells her name Dorene Whitacare, while the sticky note says Dorine and the subtitles Mrs. Whitacre. I don’t personally think the spelling differences matter, but I wanted to still point them out).

Not to be too tinfoil hat, but the names Dorine plus Celci could....possibly.... equal Celine? Celine who has...let’s say similar taste in style to our dear Mrs. Whitacre...sorry, Miss Whitacre, she’s not....married....anymore. Huh. Sounds familiar.

(Image: Celine from WKM, standing in the doorway to the manor. She has short black hair, is wearing a black dress with a star pattern and a shawl, and is played by the same actress who plays Celci in ISWM)

But for a moment, let’s say that the connection isn’t Celine (unlikely in my mind, but let’s say it). There’s still something going on with Dorene and Celci beyond just this sticky note. What? Well, that blue lighting and particle effects only appear two times, once with Dorene at the end and once in the “hallucination.” And what else do we see in the hallucination that we see one other time in the story? Glowing blue eyes...

(Image: the silhouette of Celci behind a frozen wall in cryo. Her eyes are glowing blue through the glass, possibly from her cryo goggles. She says “Sometimes the best decision is for things to end.”)

Both Celci and Dorene have some kind of connection to whatever the “hallucination” was at the beginning...and what do you know, the effects in said hallucination and the ending void kind of remind me of the visions from Who Killed Markiplier...

(Image: Damien from Who Killed Markiplier in a flashback vision. The scene is filtered through a blue light similar to the filter over the oxygen hallucination from ISWM, and there are white particle effects across the screen.)

(Image: Damien from Who Killed Markiplier with the same visual effects.)

And you know what else reminds me of Who Killed Markiplier?

(Image: Celine and Damien from WKM are trapped in a black void. Damien stands on the right and is illuminated in blue, while Celine stands on the left, illuminated in red. She is telling the player to “Just relax” before sending them back into their previously dead body.)

(Image: Celci from ISWM telling the player to “Just take a deep breath and relax” before sending them into cryosleep.)

(Image: Celine, in the void with Damien, tells the player “I won’t force this on you. You have a choice here.”

(Image: Dorene stands in her void at the end of ISWM with credits rolling. She tells the player “You always did have a choice.”)

I’m not willing to call the lighting similarities between flashbacks in WKM and hallucinations (or whatever that scene was) definitive proof, but it certainly is interesting. But the dialogue similarities between Celine and the Space characters, especially Dorene....there may be something to that. Not to mention the fact that I don’t think many people would have made a connection between Dorene and Celci without that post it note. The fact that Pam plays Celci is not enough in my mind to make that character suspicious, since we saw with Mick in Heist that actors in Mark’s projects are capable of playing characters totally unrelated to previous roles. But all these similarities and callbacks, plus character parallels between Celine and Celci (being strong willed, having animosity towards Mark, insisting to the player that her way is the correct way to handle things, etc) make me think that it’s not too big a leap or a red herring, there’s really something to this.

And this whole talk about choices is bothering me...because when Celine sends the player back into their body, she says that we have a choice...but we don’t really, do we? WKM isn’t choose your own adventure, it’s a short film that’s in first person. And with Dorene, she says we always had a choice, but this is the only choose your own adventure series Mark has ever put out where no matter what you do, things always cycle back to the same ending.

It doesn’t matter what you do in the beginning, eventually, you will die, and when you die, you return to the ship and the warp core gives you its crystal. And save for refusing to go into the portal or sleeping in cryo forever (both choices that are directly related to either Celci or Dorene, by the way), there’s nothing you can do after you get the crystal to avoid going into the warp core and having Mark- who presumably has been living on the ship alone for years, waiting for you to reappear so he can trap you outside the known universe in a misguided attempt to save it- accidentally destroy everything.

Everyone keeps berating you for your choices, but like the Bandit says, do they even matter? On my first run of this, I made a vow that I was going to be the absolute best captain I could be, I was going to make the decisions that I thought would save the most people, I didn’t open any doors, didn’t blow anything up unnecessarily, I tried every time to do the right thing, to find the right answer, but it didn’t matter. Things always end the same way, it’s less like Heist and more like WKM. Dorene said at the beginning that we just have to find the right answer. Well, I’m convinced that, at least in this version of the universe, the right answer didn’t exist. Maybe when we find whoever is responsible for all this, we’ll be able to fix it, but until then, all we can do is wait for one more month...

(Image: Actor Mark sitting backstage, telling his makeup artist “Yeah. I have one month of parole left.”)

.....oh boy.

And trust me, I have more to say about Dorene, and Celine, and Will and Damien and Mark and Dark and all of them...but it’s almost 2am and a girl has to sleep sometime. So for now, I’ll just leave you with this to chew on, and we can start things fresh tomorrow. Until then....sweet dreams.

(Image: your cryo pod is completely covered in ice. Subtitles indicated Illinois’s voice as he walks away, leaving you to sleep in cryo forever: “Sweet dreams. Sweet dreams.”)

[thermodynamic-comedian]

Here's your ask :) Gender and sexuality headcanons for ISWM

aagh u guys are too nice, i already got another ask and answered that one, but since that one got a little long, here's a quick run down of all my headcanons:

captain - queer, agender, they/them

mark - pansexual, guyflux, they/he

celci - bisexual, tranfem, she/her

gunther - polysexual, transmasc, he/him

burt - aroace, male, any pronouns

mack/theory crew - questioning, libramasc, he/they

lady/allu minium - sapphic, non-binary, they/she/xe

bandit - bisexual, demigirl, she/they

wug - unlabeled, pangender, all pronouns

[connorsok]

{OUT-DATED} Disproving some points in Game Theory’s In Space with Markiplier theory video

To set some ground rules:

The character the audience assumes in WKM, ADWM, AHWM and ISWM will be referred to as Y/N, DA (District Attorney), the Captain and also with the ‘we’, ‘us’ pronouns occasionally.

WKM makes it fairly obvious that Celine and Damien kicked the DA out of their body, trapping us in the mirror.

 We also learn that Damien represents the blue in Dark’s signature glitches and Celine, the red.

The Head Engineer is Actor Mark.

 The audience's role has always been the District Attorney (Y/N):

  In WKM, we give Actor Mark’s butler an invitation with our name and occupation on it: Y/N District Attorney  on it. We can safely assume that, here, we are the District Attorney in this story. 

 In ADWM we meet Darkiplier, the combination of Celine and Damien in our old body, which you can tell via his glitches. Red and blue. In the ending where we reject Mark’s proposal, it’s shown that he’s changed our last name to his already. We see the documents state that our name is ‘Y/N Fischbach’. 

 The same thing with AHWM, however the red is much more prominent here. When being registered into the prison, the person taking the register says ‘and one Your...’ its pretty obvious this is supposed to be Y/N (Your name).

 DAMIEN is about Celine finally letting herself take the backseat to revenge and letting Damien assume control (or majority control) over the body. Damien, by the end of DAMIEN, fully accepts the role of villain.

 So… why then.. Would ISWM be about that exact same thing? Why would Mark break away from the established fact that the audience is the DA to tell a story he’s already told before? He would be abandoning a character that’s arguably kinda integral to the Markiplier Cinematic Universe in lieu of telling a story he’s already told before.

 The whole friend thing:

 With Damien now being the villain in Actor Mark’s eyes, he now has a role in his story that nobody is playing: the best friend. I propose that Mark befriended the DA sometime after the whole body snatching thing and makes them assume Damien’s old role as his ‘best friend’. He wants someone to have fun with, someone to go on Heists or in Space with.

 We can safely assume that Y/N and Mark have been going on adventures for a while. After all, WKM is set sometime in the 1920s and stuff like the van vlogs are set in 2017, when they were filmed. Old Mark in the true ending could literally just be referring to that; their almost 100 years long companionship. Y/N and Mark have had a literal century to get close and become besties. Y/N is also presumably the only person Actor Mark really interacts with meaningfully. With this context, it makes complete sense that Mark would call the Captain his ‘close confidant’ and other such things.

 Also, in WKM, during the speech, Actor gestures to Y/N when saying ‘trusted friends’:

  ‘[...] So good to be surrounded by such close and trusted friends.’

 So if we do supposedly go way back even then, it really isn’t all the odd that Mark would describe us in close terms with him.

Why don’t we hate Mark after what he’s done?

Dorene trying to jog our memory in the third ‘Wake the Crew’ path on the ‘Extinguish the Fire’ route could very simply be her trying to jog the DA’s memory, example: ‘Makes you feel like you’ve gone through all this before. Do you understand, dearie?’ , ‘Seems too good to be true, right dearie?’

  Why would Celine try and remind Damien of the events of WKM? Isn’t she trying to do the opposite thing in DAMIEN? With the whole ‘Go to sleep.’ stuff. She doesn’t need to remind Damien of WKM anyway, because he remembers in DAMIEN without any help from her.

 Damien gets reminded fairly easily of the events in WKM by Actor Mark’s recounting of it in DAMIEN (10:45), Dark seems to be trying to use the same tactics on us:

 In Ending 31 of Heist we begin going down this dark hallway with framed pictures of the characters in WKM. We don’t particularly react to any portrait, not even Wilford’s which is odd. You think maybe Y/N would recoil in some way to being reminded of the cause of their death but nothing.

 Dark’s been trying to remind Y/N of the events of WKM for a while now. It seems they must’ve forgotten what happened at some point after Damien and Celine body snatch ‘em and before they started going on adventures with Mark.

 It would explain why we don’t have much, if any, dislike for either Wilford or Dark, we simply don’t remember what happened.

‘Hero Vs the Villain’ is just Actor Mark being a theatre kid:

‘A villain. Every good story needs a villain.’ In order to make ISWM Part I ‘good’ in Actor Mark’s eyes, it’s to have someone, anyone, be the villain. The Captain is an easy option after all, nobody else other than Actor Mark himself has been this involved with the wormhole. In Actor’s mind, he can’t ever be the villain (Mark said this himself in one of the lore streams) so he defers the role onto the Captain, even if they seem to be friends.

 In DAMIEN: ‘You really think that you're the hero in all of this?’, ‘Well, of course I am! Who else could I possibly be?’.

 Actor Mark is, well… an actor. He’s theatrical. It makes sense that he would amp stuff up for a dramatic ending to the story. He makes you the villain for that moment because there aren’t really any other viable candidates. It’s also possibly why he forgives the Captain so easily, because they’re friends and it’s not all that serious to him anyway. He is simply acting out a story with you and that’s how that one went. You can’t honestly watch the scene where Old Mark is trying to kill you and think it’s serious-serious, it’s all just fun and games to Actor.

 He also does this in DAMIEN, where he doesn’t really treat the events of WKM like it was anything serious. He wants people to forgive and forget easily so he can jump to the next adventure where he has the starring role (‘That’s all in the past, what matters is moving forward.’). Which brings me to…

The apology:

 Actor Mark apologises to the Captain just before resetting the universe, ‘I’m sorry about a lot of things.’

 This one honestly stumped me for a bit. My current belief is that he’s not apologising for anything that he’s done, it doesn’t really fit into his character to do something like that. See this bit from DAMIEN:

‘I wanted to apologise [...] Mistakes were made. Plans weren’t exactly properly executed. The right people started pointing fingers at the wrong people and a good night with some good friends may have taken a wrong turn at some point.’ This is a very embellished telling of WKM, entirely from Actor Mark’s perspective. He didn’t intend for all this drama to happen. He executed his part perfectly, it’s everyone else that messed stuff up. It’s not a true apology.

 I think that bit in the ending of Part I wasn’t apologising for anything he did in particular but just expressing that he feels sorry that Y/N was involved in WKM at all. I sincerely doubt we were supposed to be anything other than a witness at the party.

 He feels genuinely sorry because he hadn’t intended for ANY of this to happen to the DA. He believes it’s entirely Wilford, Damien and Celine’s fault for screwing with his plan.

 But I can’t say that everything he said was weird. He does bring up some good points like the whole Dorene calling us ‘stubborn’ and those notes in the Upside-Down world saying that we, the Captain, need to go to sleep. I’m not sure if I can explain those ones away. Maybe someone smarter than me can.

But hey... those are my two cents. Agree and disagree as you wish :D This is all just fun!

[crackedegotheories]

Is This All Meaningless?

(I was going to save this theory for the next time Mark started making everyone feel bad for our choices or the “consequences of our actions”, but then he just said the trigger words in his FNAF Custom Night revisited stream and here we are instead. Spoilers for ISWM ahead! Also, with Part 2 just 2 days away (!), this is going to be the last theory from this blog for a while. Take care, Captain!)

Okay, so if you’ve been paying attention to Mark’s videos since ISWM Part 1 came out, you might have noticed some recurring themes when it comes to teasing Part 2. Mainly guilt and doubt.

We see it in Ë̸̼R̴̢̼̂R̵̡̙̚͜Ǫ̸͙͚̈R̶̦̮̝͗ , which starts with echoing words of praise and trust from our crew before, around the halfway point, taking a turn in tone. What seems like us being begged to shut down the wormhole, criticism of our leadership style, and then Dorene’s, "Been a long day, Captain. I bet you're wondering if you made the right choice."

In an unexpected return from Bim Trimmer in a show called “Life is Ours to Choose,” we’re treated to multiple hypothetical scenarios where there is clearly a wrong choice and a right one (or at least one that’s good enough) before the tone finally shifts for the final “hypothetical scenario.” Suddenly serious, Bim’s final question for us is, “Captain, was our trust in you misplaced?"

If these questions are enough to make us start doubting ourselves, then it’s the repeat of Lady’s dire words “The universe is littered with the corpses of your failures” hidden in an animation for Go! My Favorite Sports Team of all things that seems to answer both, not helped by the next video, P̴̮̌̓A̵̧͌͜R̶̰̀A̶D̶O̵X̴͓̟̖̭̠̜̣̪̹́͗͗͊̆̀͝ ̵͙̈̚D̴̖̍E̷T̷E̵̩͑͜ͅC̵̻͊T̸̺͎̾̾È̷͕Ḓ̴̵̛̥̫̰̊͗̔̃̌̅̀̓̂̕͝ͅ , which literally starts with listing off multiple universes that have been affected by the events of ISWM. The description even suggests that EVERY universe has been affected, backed up by the trailer for Part 2: The Multiverse Is Littered With the Corpses of Your Failures.

Ouch.

But as if that’s not bad enough, there’s more than one suggestion that our choices in all of this don’t even matter. Paradox Detected switches over to a PSA regarding wormholes that all but says we were screwed the moment we first entered the wormhole and began experiencing a “destabilizing paradoxical event.” The right choice would have been to backpedal(PEDL?) away from a wormhole, exactly the opposite of what we did. "If only they would have remembered PEDL, then your other self might have avoided an eternity in spiraling chaos, doomed to choices already made, and perpetually obligated to choices never even known."

And then there’s the story of the Lady of the Fountain.

A hidden page on the Universal Stability Agency website (literally titled YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE, with the link saying captain why are you doing this to me) has an unlisted YouTube video with Morse code in it. (Warning: the video contains flashing lights and loud sounds.) Thankfully, other people found this page and have provided a translation in the comments of the video already, so I would suggest reading the entire thing there if you’re interested.

In short, the “man in the machine” offers to tell a story, the “nonsensical ramblings of a mad man,” a story that we are outright told is meaningless. The story is about a fountain that appears one day, in which there is a “divine angel of the universe,” sent to grant knowledge to a single question asked by the one who is worthy. In the story there is only one villager who does not ask a question, the “one who was once known as Captain”, until they are dying. Their question, “What does all of this mean?” is answered “It means nothing, how have you not got that by now.” And that’s it, end of story.

It’s not the first time the viewer has been mocked for trying to find something more. ISWM Part 1 has the Narrator giving us an Easter egg while mocking us when we try to venture off of the path he has written out, and Wilford himself calls us out for poking around, telling us that we’re too early (back to that in a bit).

In fact, all of Part 1 would seem to suggest that our choices don’t matter. We have so many choices, so many possible routes that all end up in one of three places, two of which are the universe rebooting. There’s even a point where the Bandit asks us if our choices even matter, just before we’re presented with a choice that literally does not matter: either option leads to the same outcome before we’re shepherded toward the warp core.

Lady outright tells us that every choice we have made has cost us the lives of people who depended on us. No matter how we try to save the Invincible II when we first wake up, we will lose someone--either one of the crew or colonists, or our own self to the whole jumping out of an airlock thing, which doesn’t exactly help the people still on the ship. Even if we do free the ship from the wormhole, we eventually die and have no choice but to go into the light and right back to the beginning of it all. We were trapped in the effects of the wormhole even before we were offered the false choice of jumping in or doing a cannonball into the thing.

So the question is, do our choices even matter? Is there no way out, or are we doomed to fail again and again and again? With every failure costing the lives of more and more people? Do we just give up?

Let’s go back to that meaningless story, the Lady of the Fountain. In it, the one who was once known as captain is, obviously, no longer the Captain. They abandoned all of their responsibility, hiding in the shadows and the story says “fear of failing like all before them kept them trapped in the dark for nearly their entire life.” In the end they die, being told this all is meaningless before no doubt finding themselves back on that ship again, inside their cryopod in a new universe with the same problems.

We’ve already seen in the fakeout endings before going towards the light that not dealing with the wormhole doesn’t fix anything, not in the long run. And not doing anything for fear of failing isn’t going to change that, just like how Celci putting the ship in cryo doesn’t fix anything--it’s the third ending, but one without a resolution or even a sign that anything can change, like with the reboot endings.

There’s also the whisper we hear after the rush of voices the first time we enter the wormhole, the only words that make it into the subtitles.

A voice telling us, “Don’t give up.”

The narrator of the Lady of the Fountain story tells the person translating the Morse code, the ones searching for answers or some deeper meaning that it all means nothing but “you can’t help yourself, can you? Even if it’s only a one percent chance that something of value is here.”

And I am 100% behind that spite in the face of what feels like everyone and everything telling you to give up, that failure is the only option. And that’s kind of what we see ourselves doing in ISWM, both in and outside the story: trying every single choice possible see if there’s that one chance we can get things right. But there is a downside to this, in that we risk falling into a loop of trying to do the same things over and over again expecting a different result, like when Mark keeps suggesting we jump into the wormhole. Throwing ourselves at the problem again and again doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll get it right.

So new question: is it better to do nothing and leave things like they are, like Celci suggests, or to keep trying even at the risk of failure, if there's even just one percent, or even less than one percent, chance of success?

Or maybe we're still not asking the right question.

Are these really the only two options we have? To stop trying and live in fear of failure, or constantly throwing yourself at the problem in the hopes that maybe this time it will work, no matter how many bodies you leave in your wake?

See, In Space isn’t the first time we can get caught in a loop. Way back in A Date With Markiplier, following the Don’t Pay route and escaping from the Chef leads to an Exit, or at least the EXIT video. A video where you and Mark seemingly walk out into freedom--only for a glitch to appear courtesy of Darkiplier before you’re both back in the cell. Your choices there can lead to you and Mark stuck in that cell, seemingly with no hope of getting out before the murderous Chef returns, Mark getting wasted dying, or right back to the Exit option. It’s only when you wait, when you turn down the offered choice, that another one appears offering MORE? and the True End.

There’s another opportunity to turn down a choice in A Heist. Once again in a prison cell, if you investigate the opening in the wall and think twice about going into the hole currently occupied by a skeleton, you seemingly go back to the second choice provided where Mark digs a way out. Only, things are just slightly different here: a pink fairy instead of blue, a kitten plushie instead of a dog...and a device that takes you a little further back in time than expected, if not out of it completely before we have our interview that is tragically and thankfully cut short.

Sometimes, deviating even just a little bit from the path laid out for you can have unexpected consequences. And sometimes, to get out of a loop, you need to find an exit besides the obvious one.

I think there’s a reason we’ve seen Wilford’s fingerprints all over the place, same as he promised we’d meet him in Part 2. I think that, knowing what we know now about the consequences of our choices, the reboot is going to be about finding a third option, one that breaks the narrative we've found ourselves in. And from the glimpses we’ve seen in the glitches in Dorene’s route of things similar but not quite the same as what we’ve seen before (like with Mark offering the choice between Romance and Horror), or how Mark glitched out into other versions of himself early in ISWM, I think the narrative is going to break hard.

It’s going to feel like we've been here before, that we’ve remembered things that haven't happened yet--which is impossible, of course. Depending on whether anyone else notices, it might even feel like we’re going crazy, or seem to them like we’re not treating these choices seriously enough or caring enough about all the bodies we’re leaving behind us as we start taking a...less than expected approach to the wormhole issue.

But maybe there's a beauty to that: to taking a step back, relaxing, and having some fun.

Life needs a bit of madness, after all.

[fanatic866]

what is the floaty bits (ISWM THEORIES)

Sorry if this has been talked about before but I wanted to know what the weird floaty bits were in parts of ISWM. First time it shows up is when we die one time in the first part of ISWM and we see the papers and the thing in our cyropod. Its as almost as if it is another dimension.

We also see it in the warp core after jumping in the wormhole the first time and get the crystal (which is very highly likely from the heist box but that another theory).

Also floaty bits in the main two endings.

But there is one other spot that we have floaty bits, although it looks more like dust or somethin; when we wake up to a dead ship at the end of the first half of part 1. Nothing is working and everyone is long dead. Everything just...stopped. And there is bits in the air.

So I was thinkin was there ever anything like this in another part of the Markiplier universe and there is. In the final part of Who Killed Markiplier.

Effects are a lil different, but hey, smaller budget. It's the floaty bits just before we find the detective's office. But what could the weird floaty bits be? What other weird effects happen in this video? At the end, there is the mirror that cracks and shows the static when Dark is created.

But whats another name for static that shows up on TV?

SNOW

Could we be here?

also static snow shows up in a few other places.

Hello static snow that shows up when we do the wonky "Wake the Crew" route with Dorene.

And now all over the place on The universal stability agency site.

Just my thoughts, but the snow is everywhere.

[emilyrox]

Do you have any of your own weird/probably wrong theories about the media you like?

If you do I’d love to hear one.

I have a theory about In Space With Markiplier (and possibly the Markiplier Cinematic Universe as a whole).

This gets LONG (when does it not?)

What spawned my theory is a quote from Mark during his ISWM explanation stream (which only explained like...half of what we wanted explained): "Engineer is not Actor, but Actor may very well be Engineer."

This confused literally everyone. The main theory before Part 2 came out was that Actor Mark (the character, not Markiplier himself) was Engineer Mark, and that he was the cause of the wormhole/paradox, and that this whole show was related to the events of "Who Killed Markiplier?"

But that quote from Mark killed that theory. But there is still a lot that can be taken from it.

In ISWM, we end up in many different alternate/parallel universes. A Noir universe, a universe where everything is narrated by Arin Hansen, a Pokemon universe, a universe where we're puppets, a universe where we're an agent/detective hunting down Heist Mark from "A Heist with Markiplier", and so, so, so many more.

But one universe that we can stumble upon is a universe where the events of ISWM are part of a show. And, yeah, ISWM is a show, but I mean in the show's universe, there is a universe where it is a show. We end up on the set, and see green screens, props used in multiple encounters we've been in, etc. We also see a dressing room with Actor Mark in it, where he's being his usual egotistical, bitchy self towards the rest of the show's crew.

This is what made people believe that Engineer was Actor, and that this was all a performance run by Actor, who has been forcing the viewer, who was the District Attorney in WKM, on many of his fantasy adventures where he's the "hero," even though he tried killed his friends and is anything but a "hero" at this point. "A Date with Markiplier" and AHWM are theorized to be such fantasies/performances the viewer is forced into by Actor. And with this scene in ISWM, people began to believe that it was the same for that.

But since Mark confirmed that Engineer is not Actor, that theory is... half-dead. I think what he means by "Engineer is not Actor, but Actor is Engineer" is that there is a singular universe where the events of ISWM are an act and not real. And that is the universe Actor is in. It is simply an alternate universe like the Noir universe, the narrated universe, and so on. And I think, for the most part, this has been accepted by the fandom.

But I can't just let it be that.

I have a more convoluted theory tied into this.

The paradox/wormhole we deal with throughout the entirety of ISWM was thought to be our fault at first. But it was actually Engineer's, as he is said to have built the warp core, although we never get an answer from Markiplier on when Engineer built it. I theorize that we don't get an answer because it wasn't Engineer that built it, but Actor.

I have a theory that when Actor makes these fantasies/performances where he's the hero, he uses his powers given to him by the House Entity, which corrupted him in WKM and what drove him to act on his bad thoughts. This results in ADWM and AHWM, and initially the same for ISWM. However, when making the Space fantasy, he creates the warp core as the Entity urges him to, claiming it will "strengthen his role as the hero." But something goes wrong, and a paradox is made.

This causes his fantasy/performance universe he wanted to create to actually come into existence as a real universe. All of the "characters" in this fantasy are now real as well. Celci, Burt, Gunther, Allu, etc., were all meant to be characters in Actor's fantasy, but now they are real, and their universe is real.

I also theorize that due to this, Engineer Mark is a copy of Actor, but not a perfect copy. He's a copy of the character Actor played in his fantasy, and that's it. He does not have Actor's vendetta towards anyone in WKM, because he does not have that experience. He is Actor's characterized version of himself come to life.

"Then why is the warp core in that universe if Engineer didn't initially build it?" Because the warp core itself got sent to that universe after the paradox was created. And since Engineer is a copy of Actor, he is, in this universe, the one responsible for the warp core.

Final Part of this theory: The viewer in ISWM is not a copy of the viewer in Actor's universe. I think when Actor causes the paradox, the viewer, along with the warp core, is sent to that universe. I also think that this causes their memory to be messed with. I think that they, at least vaguely, remember the events of WKM in ADWM and AHWM, but being sent to this universe somehow causes them to lose the memory of those events, except for a few details. They remember Yancy and Professor Beauregard from AHWM, and they obviously remember Wilford Warfstache, for instance, but for the most part their memory has been messed with. All they now remember is that they were a District Attorney (and whatever life they had before that) and now suddenly they're a space captain. Change in career plans, obviously.

Totally.

(But hey, that's just a theory. A SPACE THEORY.)

[wilfywarfy]

The Captain Magnum Theory

My friend asked me for a detailed explanation of my Captain Magnum theory. So I figured that I’d give a longer explanation here as well.

SPOILERS FOR IN SPACE WITH MARKIPLIER

So in In Space With Markiplier, we play as the Captain of the Invincible II, set to make sure that the colonists find a planet to safely populate. Well my theory goes that we’re not just any captain, but we’re actually a version of Captain Magnum.

Allow me to explain.

EXHIBIT A: THE HAT

When we toss Mark into the Asteroid Defense system and he ‘Dies’, we see this hat. This hat isn’t a beret, the same hat as the other colonists. This hat is black, triangular, made of a leather like material, and has a striped feather in it. Who else has that hat?

Along with this, theres what appears to be a charm on the side, seen in the first gif of this post. 

When we slow down this one scene, what do we see?

The exact same charm.

EXHIBIT B: STRENGTH

Next up is the captains strength. It’s known that Magnum is a VERY strong individual. But how does the ISWM Captain measure up?

We can see that the captain is able to carry Mark around with one hand and toss him into a room with seemingly no problem. 

Multiple sources say that Mark is around 79 kilograms, or 174 pounds.

Throwing 174 pounds is no easy feat. Picking it up with one hand is not any easier. Doing it MULTIPLE TIMES? I think it’s safe to say that the captain of the invincible II is fairly strong.

EXHIBIT C: ENDING

If you’ve gotten the ending of ISWM, you’ve most likely seen this little easter egg before, but I think there’s a bit of a deeper lore behind this.

In the background, you’re able to see Magnum with his crew. But consider who else shows up in the background of that scene. Celci, Guther, and Mark. All of them are characters that show up in part 1.

What’s even more strange is that Wilford isn’t here, even though his shows up for a small cameo to say he’s in part 2. But don’t you think Wilford would’ve been in the background considering he’s one of, if not THE, most popular Egos?

CONCLUSION

I believe that Captain Magnum was in Part 1 this whole time, and that we are simply playing from his point of view. We have the attire, we have the strength, and we have the end credits.

Captain Magnum was once the captain of the Invincible II, and ended up ‘Dying’ so many times that he landed in a universe where he was the captain of a pirate ship version of the Invincible.