Wanted to make something for Marvin Appreciation Week, so here’s some of my favorite moments from his power hour. We love you Marv!
@markired @therealjacksepticeye
Marvin and Dark have been fighting a lot, and in defiance recently, he's been letting his hair grow out. Somewhat of a delayed teenage rebellious stage. He's doing it because he knows Dark hates his long hair and he's honestly really fucking pissed at Dark.
So- I drew (my version!) of Marvin as he'd probably draw himself!
Since my Marvin is pretty old-school, I imagined he'd probably draw a portrait using Charcoals on paper, so I tried to replicate that digitally!
I also figured Marvin wouldn't draw himself with his scars, he'd draw himself with his mask on since he's self-conscious about them :0
... Buuuut- I wanted to draw them sooo- I made two!
Age progression of Marvin the Magnificent: a young magician eager to begin his training to bringing a demon of anitmatter into reality // possessed to being outcasted to protecting those he cares about from said demon.
Honestly it’s odd drawing Marvin without his longer hair
A/N - Sixth and final part of the Anti and Marvin origins rewrite
...Nearly Three Years Later...
Marvin was in a bar and had been drinking a little too much for definitely not the first time that week. After all this time, his anxiety had honed itself into an early warning system for his brother’s presence and it had really been ramping up the last few days. It was a shame. This was a really nice community and it sickened him to think of what he’d drawn to their doorstep. Yet more blood on his hands. Still, even after all this time, Marvin had no better plan and so here he was sat for one last drink.
Tipsy may be the right word for his state when the tall, dark, stranger came over to say hello. The man’s grey skin didn’t even strike him as odd while they spoke. Gentle chatting, a playful flirt; it’s a peaceful moment until Marvin felt that horrid chill run down his spine. The TV turned to static, the lights flickered, the sound system blew. People were confused while Marvin panicked, standing to run stopping only when the stranger’s arm caught him. He told the stranger to get out before tearing himself free and rushing for the door, pulling the fire alarm as he went.
After the evacuation, when the patrons returned to the very-not-on-fire building, everything was trashed. Glasses were shattered, tables and chairs were flipped and thrown about, one had been split in two and thrown to opposite ends of the room. A lone chair was hanging from a ceiling fan. Nobody knew what had happened and Marvin was long gone.
He’d been careless, left it too late before checking out of town. He couldn’t do that again. From then on, he swore, as soon as Marvin could feel Anti closing in, he would leave. No final drinks. No last moments. Just get out of there before he could get caught, which usually only gave him a day or two in each place.
In the last six months, Anti had been speeding up, and his attacks were only getting more violent. Marvin’s insomnia was back, bringing its friends with it which gave him all the more time to see all the people around him that he was putting at risk. Still he ran.
It was in a coffee shop about two towns over when Marvin saw Mr tall, dark, and grey again. The stranger, who looked a bit more striking in the brighter lights away from the bar, walked right up to him. Marvin’s brain was halfway through short circuiting as he tried to remember where he knew this guy from while the grey stranger insisted he wasn’t with the police or the fire department.
“In fact,” he commented, pushing a bottle of water towards Marvin while subtly moving the coffee to another table, “I believe I may be able to help you.”
He introduced himself as Dark. Explained that he knew of somewhere safe where Marvin could rest for as long as he needed. Somewhere he would be protected. Whatever it was that had attacked the bar, that was chasing him, would never find him there.
Marvin downed the water, not having realised how thirsty he was, having lived off cheap pizza, alcohol, and coffee since this had all begun. He thanked Dark but insisted that he could handle this. There was already a list a mile long of people he’d hurt. No need to bring in anyone else.
As Marvin moved to stand, Dark’s hand took a firm grip of his wrist and held him in place. Dark knew it was all a lie. Marvin was scruffy at best, visibly exhausted, and obviously malnourished. So he made another offer.
One night. A good meal and a decent sleep in an actual bed. No running, no panic, no being alone. Just one night.
“And maybe that dance you promised back at the bar.” Dark smirked.
A vague memory of having talked dancing floats past the back of Marvin’s mind and his cheeks flared red. Oh lord.
In the end, Marvin caved, the promise of simple human comforts just too tempting to ignore. Though honestly he didn’t believe he would be safe from Anti for long. Still, he could live as a king for just one night right?
It was a glorious evening. A full roast dinner, Marvin eating every morsel he could scrape off the plate; a decent shower that had actual warm water; and a bed that was pristine, as though it’d never been slept in. Apparently it was Dark’s though he rarely used it, and when Marvin laid down on it it felt sooooo comfortable.
Every other bed felt cold. All those motels, they felt empty, hollow and lifeless but there was something in these walls that spoke of the buzz of life between them. For the first time, in a long, long while, as Marvin drifted off, he felt safe.
One night turned into two, turned into a week, until Marvin was basically living there. They never discussed it, Dark just never asked him to leave and Marvin never expressed a wish to go.
Dark suggested that Marvin stay away from the other residents, at least for now. It hadn’t escaped his notice how jumpy the magician was, constantly apologising over every little noise. Everything from taking Dark’s bed, to sleeping ‘too long’, to staying in the building was apologised for, and every time, Dark would calmly reassure him there was no need.
A/N - Fifth part of the Anti and Marvin origins rewrite
Anti was still there. Except he couldn’t be. Because he was dead. Marvin had killed him. Yet there he was. After the initial shock, Marvin excused himself to the bathroom, threw up, and sat on the floor of his shower unit, arms wrapped around his legs.
This wasn’t possible. It couldn’t be. Anti was dead. Although thinking about it, Anti didn’t exactly look...human. God Marvin felt awful even thinking that but Anti didn’t look human. The magician held his head in his hands. He’d been awake less than twenty minutes and already his head felt ready to explode.
But, said a dangerous little voice at the back of his head, what if the universe was giving him a second chance? An opportunity to make things right. He wasn’t entirely sure on the how but if Anti was here then there had to be a reason. Eventually Marvin ventured out the bathroom to find his brother sitting upside down on the bed, his legs going up against the wall and his head hanging off the side. When Anti saw him, he smirked.
Marvin could make this work.
Keeping Anti in check turned out to be easier said than done. There were two main rules to this. One, Anti had to stay out of sight. It was best that no one saw him. Two was no arson. I won’t go into details as to why, just trust me that this was a very necessary rule. Keeping him under control would have been much easier if Anti didn’t keep getting bored within seconds. Leaving him unsupervised usually resulted in property damage if you were lucky, so eventually, he had to go wherever Marvin did.
While not too thrilled about everything, Anti learned to live with it, taking personal delight in shocking those he felt were taking too much of Marvin’s attention. Not that he gave a shit. Idiot magic man could do what the fuck he wanted. Just don’t forget about your poor scrambled brother, forever cursed because of your actions.
Gradually Marvin stopped talking to other people unless it was absolutely necessary. More than one person wound up in the hospital with bad nerve damage from Anti’s ‘harmless’ shocks. Either he was purposefully hurting them and he didn’t care, or Anti had no idea just how strong he was. Marvin wasn’t sure which he hoped was the truth.
So it came to be that the magician only really left for work, stacking shelves at a nearby grocery store, or for occasional walks around the block. No human interaction, no friends, no real anything, but he was protecting his brother and that was….that was what was important.
It was a Thursday, about three days since Marvin had last gone outside and Anti was restless, growling and glitching around the room, knocking things from the shelves, throwing clothes around, anything to counter act the mind-numbing boredom that constantly plagued him. Marvin did his best to ignore it with his nose buried in a book, but he couldn’t read more than a few more lines for the constant background crashes.
Eventually Anti tired of being ignored, like the giant toddler he had seemingly grown to be, and he stood beside the bed, bright green eyes glinting in the low light as he leant in to Marvin’s ear.
“What̀'̶s t̛he ma͞tt̡e͜r?̛“ the twisted grin on his face was sickening as he spoke softly, “A͝s̀h̡a̸m̶e̢d ҉o͜f͜ me?”
There was a crackle-flash and Anti was gone. He did that sometimes, when he got bored of terrorising his brother. He would disappear somewhere else and do...well Marvin didn’t like to think too much about that.
There was nothing all that different about this particular Thursday. Anti had been no more or less destructive than usual, but something about the glitch’s cruel taunt dug deep. Marvin looked around the devastation of his small room and the tatters of his ‘life’.
He couldn’t do this. It was all his fault but he couldn’t do it any more. Anti had always been the strong one, the one who had his back, bigged him up, helped him fight. Now he had nothing and no one, and was slowly draining himself dry trying to make up for something that he would never earn forgiveness for.
So Marvin packed his things, luckily there wasn’t a lot, and was gone before Anti came back. He said a silent prayer as he left the building that Anti wouldn’t kill whoever would end up in that room, but the thought only made his steps move faster.
A/N - Third part of the Anti and Marvin origins rewrite
More than once over the coming days, Marvin kept having this strange nightmare of a dark shadow figure stood over him, its dark and wispy hand plunged into his chest and. slowly taking him of what little life he had left. He didn’t fight it, he saw no reason to. There was very little in his life that was worth fighting for these days. Instead he turned his face away and waited for the creature to leave him be.
The nightmares were draining and Marvin often woke up just as tired as when he went to sleep, but honestly a few nightmares causing him restless nights? When all was said and done, he’d gotten off lightly. Eventually the shadow above him started to take shape looking more and more solid each time he saw it, even as it glitched and distorted above him. Then the inevitable happened, it started to look like Anti.
Tousled green hair (they’d both dyed their hair since they were 15), slight frame - slighter than usual actually, ripped black shirt, ripped black jeans, black gauges, and a scowling glare that could stop a man dead in his tracks. No hand was plunged into Marvin’s chest this time, but a hand with clawed fingers was raised. Anti seemed to be deciding whether or not he wanted to kill him.
It’s a nightmare. It has to be. Anti’s gone, he destroyed him. Marvin’s eyes were wide as he looked up, but eventually he just turned away, purposefully exposing his throat. Let it kill him. It’s no less than he deserved. The air was buzzing low as Marvin waited for the strike, but it didn’t come. Instead he felt the bed shift beside him, some weight pushing it down.
A cold shiver travelled down his back, his whole spine tingling like pins and needles as Anti laid down on the bedside him, leant up against his twin brother. Marvin didn’t dare to look, silently crying as he slowly felt the figure start to fall asleep.
He cried again when he woke up and Anti was still there.
A/N - Second part of the Anti and Marvin origins rewrite
Marvin woke up in the hospital alone. The sun shone through the nearby window, falling across his legs but there was no warmth to it. Broken bones, bruises, pulled muscles; every part of him was aching. Mom fussed over him, going on about how worried they’d been while Dad stood in the doorway watching with a disapproving look. When Marvin asked where Anti was they shared a glance but said nothing. They didn’t have to.
There was a memorial service, laying a stone in the local churchyard. Marvin doesn’t really remember it or much of the rest of his senior year. Maybe a flash or two of the weird looks everyone would give him. The town they lived in wasn’t all that small but scandal travelled fast. Everyone knew some version of what had happened, and while some were blown and twisted way out of proportion, plenty of people knew enough of the truth.
Mom did her best to put a brave face on things. She tried to smile and keep a positive outlook but whenever she fell silent, Marvin would only hear her tears at the service. The desperate gulping sobs of a mother in agony. She smiled on the outside, but on the inside she was in despair.
Dad hardly spoke to him. One or two word answers if necessary, otherwise it was ‘ask your mother’. He never looked Marvin in the eye again, always a cross between disappointed and disgusted.
Less than two weeks after he graduated, Marvin packed a bag and left. It was better for everyone this way.
He secured a place at some shelter, a simple solution but only temporary until he figured out more of a plan. It was alone in his room that a cold dead emptiness slowly started to settle into Marvin’s bones. The night was black, the stars didn’t shine. Tears slowly dripped down Marvin’s cheeks.
He’d lost everything. All that was left was a dumb, stupid, magical idiot who shouldn’t have been such an asshole. Who should have hidden his magic! Who should have had better control on it! God this was all his fault!
The cold soulless sun had started to rise outside the window before Marvin finally managed to fall into a fitful sleep. When he woke the room was in chaos. Furniture, clothes, books, everything was thrown around like a small hurricane had blown through.
A/N - First part of the Anti and Marvin origins rewrite
Marvin had a brother. A twin actually. Anthony “Anti” Blake. The nickname started when they were really little and the boys couldn’t quite say ‘Anthony’, and it stuck.
Anti was always more confident than Marvin. Loud, rowdy, and stubborn as a mule. He was that child who would deliberately not do something just because you told him to do it. Marvin was less so. He was still stubborn if you pushed him, but mostly he was quiet, and kept to himself.
Though they were different and ran with different friend groups, they could always count on each other to be there. Marvin never thought twice about swearing on his life that Anti was with him whenever a teacher came sniffing around, and he never had to ask Anti to have his back when some dicks tried to pick fights with him.
It didn’t last.
Once they hit their teens, Marvin started having magical ‘accidents’. He refuses to explain any further but insists that no one suffered any permanent damage. It was a hundred percent an accident and everyone was made whole in the end. Everyone waited nervously for Anti’s powers to manifest, the two of them being twins and all it was kind of expected, but they never did.
Anti grew into a typical troubled teen. His grades weren’t great, his attitude stunk, and more than once he was brought home by the police. It’s a miracle he was never charged with anything. Their parents meanwhile were more than a little preoccupied by the whole magical issue. It’s not exactly easy to control, but with a good teacher it was their hope that Marvin would not cause any major incidents again. The trouble was most of them were ridiculously superstitious.
One tutor refused to teach on any day with an ‘s’; another took one look at Marvin and simply called him a hopeless case; the majority though refused the moment they found out about the magic-free twin. A grave omen, they called it. A sign of things to come.
Self-teaching was Marvin’s only real option, which honestly was kind of useless. Magic’s a difficult skill that takes more than time and practice. It requires specialist knowledge passed down through generations of magic practitioners. It really isn’t a skill you can just learn from a book, but the family had run out of options at this point. It was the book, or nothing, and they couldn’t afford another incident.
One day, one awful hideous day in their final year of school, Anti came into the living room while Marvin was studying. The two of them had grown further and further apart since the magic shit started. Not only was Anti considered lesser, Marvin’s magic consumed a large portion of their parents time and it was almost like he wasn’t even there. Anti hated that Marvin had magic. He never said it, but he didn’t have to. Marvin knew.
They’d started arguing. Marvin doesn’t remember what about, but at this point, does it really even matter? All that really matters is the argument got heated. Anti shouted, Marvin shouted. Anti grabbed the spell book from Marvin’s hands and threw it against the wall, screaming at him, and Marvin screamed back.
All he really remembers of the moment is an intense flash of blue and excruciating pain, as though he were sliced through by a white hot knife. A great ripping and tearing at the very edges of his soul.
A/N - Decided to rewrite Marvin and Anti’s origins and so there are a few updates coming that will rewrite, starting with this one.
They stalk in silence through the halls to the Google’s lab.
Silver stands in the clear plastic walled prison, his hands pressed firmly against the pane as he glares at everybody on the other side. Bim stands nearby nervously glancing at the prison while Oliver tries to reassure him. Mare is stood further back, over in the corner. Google and Green are making sure that the prison is set up properly, neither of them honestly sure if this will even work. Red stands right next to the prison, ready to intervene in the worst case scenario. When Marvin walks into the room, Silver catches sight of him and slams his fists against the wall and yells.
A hand on Marvin’s shoulder reminds him he's not alone.
“You don’t have to do this.” Dark tells him. Marvin glances back at him for a moment but brushes the hand away. Yeah. He kinda does.
His heart is beating in his ears as he moves closer.
“I’m sorry.” Confusion ripples across the room. Silver’s anger dampens and he glitches. Clearly he's still pissed but he's listening. “Let him go.”
Silver tilts his head. “N̸o̧̧.̵͝”
“You don’t need him anymore." Marvin holds his hands to the side. "You've got me. I’m right here.” No more running. No more hiding. “Let him go.”
Silver gives out a demented giggle and holds his stomach as he glitches again. Bim turns away.
Marvin winces but steps closer again. Dark calls for him to stop, and Wilford places a firm hand on his shoulder to hold him back. Give him a chance.
The laughter stops as Silver pins him with a fierce glares as he scowls.
“Y̸o̴u̕ ̸l̷eft̵. It ͘hùrt”
“I'm sorry.”
“Yo̧u̕ ̴k͢e͢ep͝ do͠in̕g ͡t͟h́a̢t͢.”
“I know.” he takes a shaky breath. “But I had to.” He manages to swallow the tears burning at his eyes as he glances to the side, avoiding eye contact.
“YOU ̧HAD͟ TO?!̴”
Silver roars, throwing his entire body weight at the wall of his cell. It shakes violently but manages to hold. The words become incoherent as his voice crackles and pops, words disappearing in a mess of static as he glitches around the cell. desperate to find a way out but finding none.
Marvin squeezes his eyes shut, tears slipping out as he hears the chaos he caused, faced once again with the consequences of his actions. Yet another innocent party suffering for his failing.
Before anyone has a chance to stop him, Marvin strides to the cell and presses his hand against the wall, shaking beneath his fingertips as Silver continues to rage.
“Anti!” he shouts, cutting through the noise enough to make Silver pause and turn. “Let him go.”
They stare at each other, everyone watching with bated breath. With a deep breath, Silver's eyes close, slumping to the floor with a loud thud. In his place stands a young man, almost Marvin's double. Bright green eyes shine beneath scruffy green hair, longer than Marvin’s, but other than that they look practically identical. His form is broken, glitchy, barely there, and as he glares through the wall, casting his eyes over his gathered audience, a shiver runs down everyone's spine.
“W͜ha̷t́?” his voice is distorted, "Never̶ ̀s͝een҉ a ͢gli̡t̀ch be̢f͞o͢r̢e?"
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