#mkplr

OH BOY!!! buckle up friend, it’s backstory time~

let me begin by saying that Wilford started out innocent. he’s always been bizarre, ballsy, and ambitious, but not evil. his story is one of a descent into madness.

(bear with me, it’s long, but I have F E E L I N G S)

take his first appearance in The Fall of Slender Man. despite mainly being a gag (he’s definitely not just Mark in a pink mustache with a goofy voice commenting on how handsome Mark is, nope), we learn a few things: he’s a hard-hitting journalist for the AFC News, he admires Mark, he’s v impulsive, and he “don’t take no shit from nobody.” not even freakin’ Slender Man.

his next two appearances (here and here) continue his goofy shtick. in the music video, he flies in out of nowhere and punches Slenderman in the balls so hard he kills him. again, bizarre, but not a bad dude.

next, The Warfstache Affair. Wilford is gaining popularity. he has fans now. I suspect the woman he’s in bed with is one of them, given her pink mustache headband. when her husband comes home unexpectedly, Wilford freaks out and kills every witness (the husband, the wife, the neighbour, the dog, and allegedly the baby) and burns the house down for good measure. look at him, though. he’s hesitant, panicked. he’s obviously messed up about it, but he just… keeps shooting.

this is the day a part of Wilford Warfstache died.

by the time we get to The Ned Affair, he’s much more unhinged and much richer, wildly dancing his problems away. he doesn’t hesitate to shoot the first cop, and his attitude (a smug “it was an accident, I swear~”) is very different from his previous video. but BOY IS HE SADDLED WITH FEAR AND REGRET!! 

“I know what you’re thinking. it’s the same thing I think every day. where did it all go so wrong?”

Wilford continues to pop up, now in a sharper outfit, with a larger audience, and more eccentric (and dangerous) than ever. still a reporter, he’s clearly made enough money to run his own gig now, and he’s receiving the admiration he’s always wanted. but the descent into madness rolls on. he now harms people just to shut them up. he also seems to have lost his grasp on the concept that killing is bad, or even to understand death. this is seen in the interview where he stabs Mark repeatedly with a knife and then acts indignant when he stops responding.

(may I also point out how he accuses Mark of murdering a fan’s entire family? kind of, like. you know. that thing Wilford did that one time?? I think u might be projecting a little there buddy)

and that brings us to Markiplier TV. let’s break this down:

he kills Tyler (“he asked me to do it!”). seems v confused when everyone panics, and almost… a teeny bit unsure of himself, for once?

Wilford “no shit from nobody” Warfstache gets absolutely chewed out by Kathryn (u go girl)

cut to Jim, who reports that “global warming” has killed Santa and his reindeer. note the suspiciously bloody background

cut to Wilford, walking through a suspiciously icy habitat

he tries to swat his name away, as though annoyed and disgusted by it. kinda strange for someone who supposedly loves himself

cut to Wil blowing bubbles:

“are you constantly haunted by the ghosts of everyone that you killed and maybe you think that it was YOU that was the problem and it wasn’t just a misunderstanding where you were trying to tickle ‘em with a knife??”

cut to Wilford again, singing:

“lap bap beeba do, I killed Santa Claus” 

“slept with your wife, yeah I’m talking to you, Jerry” (if this isn’t a reference to The Warfstache Affair I’ll eat my hat)

this Wilford is not the one we started with. he started as an up-and-coming journalist, a fan of Mark who wanted to be loved like Mark. now, he’s unraveled. he’s carrying the trauma of what he’s done but has developed some incredible denial skills to cope with it.

in Markiplier TV, he’s finally brushing up against consequences. he cycles rapidly through confusion, regret, and denial: it’s not wrong, it’s a game, it was an accident, they asked for it, did they ask for it? oh shit what have I done– nevermind that, Santa’s dead and I’m making a TV show, haha!!

by the end it looks like he’s completely snapped and embraced his murderous self. but I’m still convinced he doesn’t want to be evil so much as he wants to have fun and be liked. even if it means denying the shit out of everything.

Hey! Wow, this is kind of a big question, ahah. Mark and Jack have quite a lot of ‘egos’ and some of them have a longer history than others.

I’ll attempt to give a brief summary of the most prominent / well-known egos. At the bottom, I’ve linked to a really helpful masterpost with every video where each character has appeared!

Markiplier:

Wilford Warfstache is a bizarre, trigger-happy reporter/journalist who tends to leave a trail of bodies wherever he goes. His signature pink mustache has been part of Mark’s logo and brand for a long time. He first appeared in 2012 in some comedy sketches where he was interviewing Slenderman. He has since interviewed the Phone Guy from FNAF and Markiplier (who he killed mid-interview but seemed not to comprehend that he did so). There are also two sketches centered around his character, “The Warfstache Affair” and “The Ned Affair,” which could be seen as a backstory.

Darkiplier actually began as a fan theory / fandom-created character after Mark made some uncharacteristically creepy videos (’don’t blink’, ‘don’t move,’ etc). Since then, fans would speculate and add to his fanon anytime Mark seemed to act darker than usual. He has always been seen as Mark’s evil alter-ego, though specific theories varied wildly. Over time, Mark himself became aware of the character and disliked him at first, even making a video mocking the idea of Dark as just an edgy emo. After that, though, he decided to seriously take the character into his own hands, and he produced “A Date With Markiplier,” which includes a Darkiplier route. To sum him up, he’s Mark’s opposite in every way: 100% manipulative, controlling, terrifying, angry, and pretty much the worst asshole you’d ever have the misfortune of meeting. It should also be noted that he doesn’t control Mark, but is his own being. He’s merely taken his shape because he envies the influence and audience Mark has and wants that kind of power for himself. (All of this has been confirmed by Mark during a livestream.)

Googleplier / GoogleIRL is essentially a Google device in humanoid robot form, with an insatiable hunger to destroy mankind. He was originally Matthias’ idea. “Google IRL” and “Google Gets an Upgrade” are the vids you’ll want to watch.

The Author was the main villain in a two-part Cyndago series titled “Danger in Fiction.” Whatever The Author wrote or narrated would happen, and he used his powers to control real, living people until his characters fought back.

The Host was the Author, but he is now blind and softly narrates to himself. Mark said in one comment that the Author changed his name when he realized he was only a spectator to the events around him. Almost nothing is known about him or how he became this way. Any ideas you see going around about him are pure speculation / fanon.

Bim Trimmer, Dr. Iplier, Ed Edgar, and Silver Shepherd are all “minor” egos that each have their own origin sketch. These, along with the four “big” personalities mentioned above, all appeared in Markiplier TV a few months ago. This is the first time we’ve seen multiple egos interact with each other in a big way, and Mark has said there is more to come. As with the Host, much of what you see on tumblr is fanon since we don’t have a whole lot to go on.

Jacksepticeye:

Antisepticeye is to Jack what Darkiplier is to Mark, an evil alter-ego. He also originated in the fandom, because one evil Youtuber wasn’t enough I guess :P It wasn’t until last year that Jack started to own the character himself. In October, he started adding strange glitches/edits in videos and dropping hints on social media with more and more frequency until Anti made a full appearance on Halloween in “SAY GOODBYE”. He is chaotic and corrosive; I don’t think he has a body of his own but is more like a virus who exists only online. There are some more popularly accepted headcanons, some of which Jack has confirmed, but there’s much we still don’t know about this character. (I have a feeling Jack scrolls the tags and reads through theories until he goes “ooh, I’mma use that!” haha) Recently, Jack’s been hinting more and more at Anti returning (or that he has already returned in some way), much to the terrified excitement of the fandom.

Henrik von Shcneeplestein / Dr. Schneeple is a surgeon who is really bad at his job tbh (’: it’s been theorized recently that Anti has controlled or corrupted him in some way.

Chase Brody was originally a satire of youtubers like Dude Perfect (see “Teabag Edition | Bro Average”), but he and Dr. Schneeple have recently been at the center of some very concerning Anti theories. here is an amazing post summing up what’s been going on with both of them, though it’s 3 weeks old and more has happened since. 

And finally, here is the amazing masterpost with links to all pertinent videos (including those of minor egos I haven’t mentioned here): https://them1nd-fantheories.tumblr.com/post/163062751375/i-have-gathered-all-the-ego-videos-i-am-aware-of

tfw you can’t take Dark seriously bc you noticed the Mouth Thing and now can’t unsee it

Wilford: Do you think he likes being suspended from the ceiling against his will?

bang bang [a warfstache mini-mix]

“wilford knows what’s best” ✨

1. living in the sunlight / tiny tim 2. trigger happy / weird al 3. bang bang / jessie j, ariana grande, nicki minaj 4. let’s face it i’m cute / 11 acorn lane 5. kiss my ass / alice francis 6. wonderland / caravan palace 7. a little party never killed nobody (all we got) / fergie 8. bust your kneecaps / pomplamoose 9. sugar lies / kimbra 10. i’m forever blowing bubbles / burr & campbell

cover art: @paigeisfanatic (x)