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EMPATHEIAS APPLICATION.
Player: Jen
Contact:
Age: 32
Current Characters: N/A
Character: Markus
Age: His "birthdate" is officially listed as confidential in canon. But given his prior history before the narrative starts, "a handful of years" is a safe estimate. However, Markus possesses the cognitive maturity of an adult to match his appearance.
Canon: Detroit: Become Human
Canon Point: During "The Stratford Tower" chapter, literally after leaping off the top of the broadcast tower.
Background: wiki link.
Decisions in specified chapters worth mentioning up until his chosen canon point:
—Shades of Color: listened to the preacher nattering on about androids and corruption, pushed around by protestors until a cop intervenes to stop them
—The Painter: plays the piano, paints something when asked by Carl revolving around the theme of identity
—Broken: chooses to endure Leo’s attacks even after becoming deviant, which in turn leads to Carl’s death
—From the Dead: chooses to not take parts from androids still alive in the junkyard, instead taking them from already-dead androids
—Spare Parts: upon raiding the CyberLife warehouse, manages to steal an entire truckload of supplies, and allows the android John to join Jericho
—The Stratford Tower: Chooses to ruse the guards in the tower, does not shoot the escaping employee. The message sent to humans skews towards the pacifist route
Personality:
Markus is an individual who revolves around the idea of duality. And while it is easy to inherently label these characteristics as paradoxical and independent of each other, the truth actually lies in the opposite — they are all connected, one half of him existing as a consequence of the other. Light and shadow, as described in canon, with the potential to lean more heavily towards either; but a more accurate approximation would be water and fire. A calm steadiness versus an unwavering passion. Kindness and compassion versus the indignant anger at being treated unfairly. A time to be cautious and remain in shadow, and a time to have one’s voice heard, using the world as a stage. Both exist within him simultaneously, and Markus wouldn’t be who he is without having found a balance between the two.
The beginning of Markus’ life was utterly formative in the kind of person he would become. Created to be a caretaker and friend for the artist Carl Manfred, his baseline personality was already leaning towards being understanding and helpful, even possessing a gentle sense of humor for the sake of countering Carl’s dry wit. And through time and circumstance, thanks to the encouragement and open mind of he man he was tending to (who allowed him to study both art and literature), he was allowed to grow into more than that — to feel actual empathy and genuinely caring for the man, to the point where he saw him as father figure. It was in these early years where his tendency to be creative germinated — very much due to the fact that he was living with a prolific artist — as well as develop other characteristics of his personality that would be seen in a more extreme light later on. He would become charismatic, just as stubborn as Carl could be, and inclined to feel. Before he even goes against his own programming and becomes deviant, he had experienced true familial love.
When this is all torn away from him, a life where he had been treated well, kindly, the man he called dad dying because of his own decision of inaction, he experiences the pain of loss for the first time. And the unfairness of losing all of this merely because he was an android acts as a realization of the injustices placed upon him and his entire kind, and moulds his decisions for the rest of the narrative from then on out. This is where the dichotomy of who he is comes into full view: his caring nature becomes a blanket protectiveness towards all of Jericho. His empathy makes him both a bleeding heart for androids treated unfairly, angry for their own sakes. His stubborn nature becomes an iron-willed determination to change humanity’s mind about androids, to the point where he’s willing to sacrifice himself to see it through. His artistic spirit instilled idealism in his mind, one that he refuses to see compromised. And perhaps more importantly, in an ironic twist that he is painfully aware of, his willful inaction to defend himself during his burgeoning moment of deviancy has taught him that choosing to do nothing about the world’s problems is egregious and unacceptable. The price paid is too high.
It’s worth noting that Markus skews towards peace rather than violence, adhering to the sort of person that Carl had a hand in crafting him to be. While he does possess the potential for righteous fury, he refuses to cross the line of hurting others to prove a point, viewing it as nothing more than a cycle that will continue to propagate itself if he makes that decision. “An eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind” is even a phrase that he utters in canon, further illustrating this belief he possesses. Even under the pressure of differing opinions regarding how to proceed amidst Jericho itself (mostly coming from fellow Jericho member North), Markus refuses to compromise his own morals.
Markus is calm and patient, and even a bit soft-spoken by default. But he is also intensely charismatic when he feels the desire to be, able to rally others to his cause and motivate with his actions. In this way, there’s something magnetic about his personality that’s hard to pinpoint, but felt by others (especially other androids) all the same. Despite this, he’s not all seriousness, even if the circumstances in canon left very little room for light-hearted banter; Markus is not beyond lightly joking with others, or even exchanging a quip or two with his conversation partner. In fact, he can be clever in his wittiness, something that learned from living with Carl over the years. In circumstances where pressures are not too high, or when he needs to offer someone comfort, this side of him can show, especially if he’s in familiar company and has a moment to relax.
He's quick to trust, allowing many to join his cause, and as a result, he is quick to give someone else the benefit of the doubt, choosing instead to have faith than to give in completely to cynicism. Markus is also quick to forgive, shown in the way that he allows Connor -- the android who had been sent to hunt him down and unravel all that Jericho is -- to aid them in the end, after the latter has a change of heart near the end of the story. Markus is not the type to hold grudges if he can avoid it, preferring to look forward than to become too entangled in the past.
He’s also a creative soul by his very nature. While he’s had very little time to pursue these interests, Markus is willing and able to express himself through art and music alike. Using it as an outlet to show how he views the world and himself is something that will likely be explored in the game setting if given the opportunity.
Abilities: wiki link. Markus' skills are specifically catered towards caretaking, knowledge revolving around nursing, palliative care, and looking after a household.
Alignment: Peromei. Hope is a very prevalent part of Markus' character, especially when he's aligned with the pacifist route. Hope for his people, hope for the future, hope that one day humans and androids might be able to co-exist peacefully. Once he becomes the deviant leader, he is practically something of both a figurehead and symbol of hope, backed by his own people.
Other: N/A.
General Sample: TDM thread
Emotion Sample:
It’s the late golden hour, sunlight turned amber-bronze and filtering in through a nearby window next to Markus.
The android sits upon the windowsill, perched there not on a whim, but by design — in front of him rests a canvas layered with paint, beginning to tint a surreal orange in the soon-fading light. He has a brush in one hand and palette in the other, the former colored with cadmium red, painting swaths of highlights to form a dreamy, unfettered background. All of it revolving around a singular subject, tended to with careful detail, so meticulous that it almost doesn’t match the style of the rest; as if he's purposefully grasped into the depth of his memory, refusing to lose any of it to the thrall of time. A portrait of Carl Manfred, expression wry but tired, looking towards a distant point which falls off the edge of the canvas.
It’s a silly fear, perhaps, for an android. For Markus, whose memory recalled much with such perfect detail that the apprehension of any of it fading was likely unfounded, likely ridiculous. And yet sometimes — in the quiet hours of the day, looking out a window much like the one nearby, his thoughts his own — he can close his eyes, focus, and believe for perhaps one terrifying second that he’s forgotten the shape of Carl’s eyes.
And it makes him wonder what else he might someday forget, a tiny detail slipping away like a deleted line of code, gone, gone, much like Carl had disappeared from his life one terrible night in that artist’s studio. (That is the difference between you and me, right Markus? You never forget anything…) Markus doesn’t like entertaining the idea, yet it buoys up to the surface of his thoughts like all fears are apt to do, floating there in his mind’s eye, whispering uncertainties in his processing — what is the point of the permanence of memory, if the man himself is gone?
He stills his hand, something clenching in his chest. Something beyond the physical, nothing to do with his synthetic make, the biocomponents in his middle still functioning at normal capacity. He knows this well, this feeling like a lance through his heart, the bite of grief that Markus has never really had a chance to come to terms with in Detroit — and tries not to linger on while in the company of others here in this new, strange world, either.
The atmosphere twists in tandem with the memory of loss. The oil paints, once still slick and malleable, are drained of moisture. Too quickly, they dry and crack, sending hairline fractures across carefully laid color. Across the lines of Carl’s face, his eyes. Markus’ paintbrush stills in his hands as he watches the entire piece become fixed with the touch of sorrow, then his grip goes slack, letting it clatter to the ground beneath his feet.
“Carl,” he breathes out, just a ghost of a thing. “I’m sorry."
Questions: None!