slight canon-divergence: marcus runs immediately after the botched adler mission, leaving the LSPD to think he died (+ he seeks refuge in the vanilla unicorn maybe. not important)
adler/marcus parallelisms in my head...
adler:
criminal turned cop. under contract to do good. she seeks to be a good police officer because it is her job at the moment. wants to make her mom proud, even if her mom is also a criminal.
believes in humanity's growth, even if she doesn't inherently trust or love humans. it's just an objective fact: humans will grow, and learn, and change, and places such as the city will change as a result.
she expresses belief of the city almost like a child, you have to lead it by the hand to let it grow in the right direction.
she seems stoic/stern at first glance also, being a cyborg/android and all, but is actually quite playful, a good conversationalist, speaking earnestly and honestly in juxtaposition to marcus, Man Of One-Two Word Replies And Very Cryptically At That.
marcus:
"it's a 9-5." 'it's my job." he keeps repeating these phrases but it's clear he harbors an almost naive, childish, idealistic belief in humanity's good - he tells this to nana, and orly, over and over... that he believes orly can still chase her dreams in this city, that he believes the LSPD, despite multiple failures in catching the criminals at large, are still good people...
he seems a stoic, hard-headed, and stern individual, but is very empathetic despite his police livelihood being "just a job." i.e. in the adler case, even though cortado/crocus/blanks see adler's empty bike and decide to turn tail, marcus decides to go further north and hunt blindly for clues
very individualistic - introverted, almost to a fault
claude describes marcus as someone who would be the same no matter if he was EMS, gang, or police
he's sort of a living weapon - an extension of his job. an ends to a means. i do wonder if he would harbor that same idealism no matter what: that people CAN change, that the city CAN improve, that people CAN chase their dreams... in any case, though, i think adler/marcus are both people extremely dedicated to their jobs (both are "built for it," both literally (android) and not-so-literally (will not allow himself to do anything else))
^ in the same vein, adler WAS a criminal. she can and was a GOOD one. in the same way, marcus could just as easily turn to that side: and succeed. so what's the reason he didn't?
(for the record, adler says that if she wasn't under contract, she would turn to the criminals' side. it would be "more interesting", and "the straight and narrow" wasn't built for her.)
funnily enough, adler doesn't seem to have the same grievances as marcus, despite committing more (and worse!) crimes (<- probably.) she gets along with people just fine and finds joy in it
ok notes time
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yea of course marcus can only speak plainly to adler like this in a dream. COWARD!!!
ofc the first thing he suggests is splitting up - 1, he doesn't want to speak with adler due to the ensuing guilt/shame, and also his lone wolf nature
i made the entire city empty just so he can talk plainly to her LOL. i feel like he would somehow be too self-conscious otherwise. if there was any chance of anyone hearing or seeing, the guilt/humiliation would be crazy for him i think. only when they're the only people in the world that he can truly admit his defeat, his shortcomings, his most vulnerable fears, to the person he failed
yeah i imagine they sat in complete silence in the car while patrolling for like. at least 4 hrs
he brings them to the beach in an attempt to see nana or orly, who he usually meets by the water. yeah no dice (very hopeful color scheme w very bright warms and teal-turquoise cool colors)
ADLER BACKSTORY WUUUEHH I throw up and die.
marcus being vulnerable. I throw up and die also
adler finally bringing up The Topic. AWESOME! (i inverted the warm/cool colors to Show the mood change. Heh)
marcus apologizing FINALLY. AWESOME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yeah. haha
(its sort of a recurring thing that i use neon blue to express marcus/claude's deepest darkest thoughts/secrets). in this case, that he desperately wants salvation: for adler to forgive him. that maybe he can move on. and not add it to his list of sins. but even this wouldn't absolve him: after all, orly had told him not to worry so much: that it wasn't his fault. however, that guilt still weighed on him like a sack of bricks so
ironically enough, the day after marcus's disappearance, adler did speak with nana and express that although she's mad/disappointed, this can be a learning opportunity for everyone. so maybe if marcus did come back, he would have the opportunity for that forgiveness...
i imagine he camps out in a portable or the corner of a warehouse or something wallowing in despair for like a week or two before he drags himself to the vanilla unicorn in desperation
"it's what i want to hear, but far from what i deserve."
edit: She forgave him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! let it be known i started sketching this morning so like 10 hrs ago So this was before everything.
original clip - Omfg this was so serious for me this was the closest i got to crying duringthe whole server. For reasons i shall explain (clearing throat)
clip breakdown:
Cortado is returning back to PD from somewhere (i dont rember Hehe) and as he gets out of his car he hears the familiar sound of a chopper overhead, so he looks up.
It's the trademark appearance of the Annihilator, which means only one person can (most likely) be its pilot...
(as an aside, adler is one of the only pilots in the server and definitely the most skillful. i like the concept that the sky is her domain, and the idea that when you hear a chopper overhead, it's most likely her. and, adding on, i like the idea that when cortado hears this helicopter sound, he somewhat expects it to be her at this point: maybe subconsciously hoping that it is)
As the helicopter descends slowly, he can't help but chuckle, realizing that it's her, eyes glued to the sky. He speaks, "Well hello, Captain," into the radio. It's Shelby who answers, Adler stays silent, the helicopter continuing to descend. and god damn the silence is heavy
(i think it's at this moment that it sunk in for Me, The viewer, like oh the server's ending. yeah it's all coming to a close. this is probably a farewell. because i feel in most situations adler would say something back but she's generally quiet for this entire sequence)
i also think it's so poignant that the camera remains trained on her the entire time the helicopter descends.......... because, of course, cortado is restrained to the ground, while adler owns the sky. maybe if he looked away for a second she could disappear... that's what this moment feels like to me. there's nowhere for him to look but up at her, waiting for her to greet him.
theres a sort of childish wonder in this scene too, playing back to cortado's general "naivete" and generally more playful personality around adler specifically.
When the helicopter touches ground, he laughs again while walking up to take the shotgun seat.
OMFGGGG it's just so melancholic and poignant its such a good scene like i blew up everythign it was so serious 4 me
Okay now i gotta be crazy:
holy projection/delusion alert coming up OMFGGGG
he's still rather naive, "green", rather new to policework/the world of crime/ while adler, in comparison, is a seasoned "ex"-criminal, and throughout the course of the server she often tells/teaches cortado various things.
i think in this way cortado does feel at adler's mercy most of the time -- at the very least, in the symbolic way that she has seen and done and experienced so many things in comparison to cortado's sheltered lifestyle growing up. Of course he can still handle his own for sure: and he's shown it time and time again: but he does keep coming back to her, and for good reason. she shows him a new perspective of the "criminal" lifestyle that he had so deeply abhorred his entire life due to his family, and gives him a perspective on the "gray" middle-ground in his black-and-white thinking up til now.
and i think the more he learns about her, and vice versa, it becomes more and more obvious of the stark differences between their histories, their families, their lifestyles. practically everything. their paths will diverge: they're already diverging.
i think there is also an inherent romanticism (in the fond, poetic sense) in never talking to someone again for the rest of your life LMFAOOOO and letting them live in your memory. the safest place to keep someone is in your heart. at this point it's obvious to cortado that they must go their separate ways, their own paths, and it's the end of the line, and there's nothing left to cling to.
(but the memories will be "good enough", i think, and that's what he wants to convince himself. At Least There's This. At Least I Have This. and again adler is the "kickstart" for a change in his thinking since growing up under his criminal family. reconsidering his police occupation, for starters.)
again, he's at her mercy: she made the choice to land her helicopter next to him and pick him up tonight: but she didn't have to. she could have just left. (and later on she did. but it's meaningful to me that she stopped to tell him, specifically, that she would be leaving.) i think parts of them will always live in the spaces of the other: you'll look up in the sky searching for her, you'll hold a cup of coffee searching for him.
you can kind of feel the emotion in these pieces.. (At least. I tried. Heh)
the alternate caption for ^ that post was "is it okay to miss you" <- or something Because i get the "i don't know anything about you, not really, and i can't really begin to know/understand, but i want to, and there's not enough time, but i already know that i'll miss you when you go, and i can't ask you to stay nor can i go with you and
Just thought about how they both briefly exchanged the idea of taking the same flight out of los santos knowing full well they're not doing all that. sickening really
their final conversation is also rather brief, not too deep - cautious, careful somehow. their friendship feels tenuous, but not necessarily in a tense way: it's like they made it to the midway ground but not one way or another. comrades, partners, friends, but how far is too far, and how much is enough? when i was watching this scene, there is this lingering idea that you always have to say goodbye eventually, and this is the final day, and they both know full well they have to say goodbye. so there's no use in trying to go deeper. they just have to leave it here. and hope that, if they get to meet again, they can simply pick up where they left off.
and i Do think that every time he hears a chopper overhead he'll always look up and try to see if it's her.
