Apr 26, 2025
OC meme tag! Thanks for tagging me, @dogueteeth-fhr!
God… it’s been a while! Thanks for waiting! 🥺💕 Passing this game onto anyone who wants to do it!
Markus Deavor
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Türkiye
seen from Malaysia
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Yemen
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from Türkiye
seen from Algeria
seen from Ukraine
seen from Germany
seen from Malaysia
seen from Paraguay
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Yemen
seen from Malaysia
OC meme tag! Thanks for tagging me, @dogueteeth-fhr!
God… it’s been a while! Thanks for waiting! 🥺💕 Passing this game onto anyone who wants to do it!
Markus Deavor
(If Male!Step)
I can't believe Wei Chen, Marshal Steel, decorated soldier and intelligent tactician, has a type.
Charming, clever men who are hard to befriend much less romance on a deeper, meaningful level. Cagey, funny, elusive little L I A R S who have commitment issues, parental issues, and refuse to open up and be vulnerable.
Steel. Chen. Please get better taste. These men will steal your heart and your wallet if they wanted to.
💥🌙 🔮❤️ for your step? perhaps?
Heya Lovelies! Of course! I love talking about Markus!!
💥 Are there any emotions your OC doesn’t know how to deal with, doesn’t understand or hates having to feel? Any reason behind this?
Markus despises his own vulnerability and hurt. He has been betrayed, abandoned, sold out- used. Played for a fool by people he loved. He has his masks and facades to cover up his wounds by default, but on the inside, he has no shortage of self-hatred for his perceived weaknesses.
He doesn’t know how to deal with people who genuinely loving him for who he is. Even back as Sidestep, there were a lot of crucial key info that he kept hidden for good reasons. Someone like Chen knowing who he is, and liking him- trusting him even, has him believing he unconsciously used his telepathy on Chen to get that result.
Even in the best case scenario where his loved ones know he’s a Re-Gene and a reformed villain, the fact that they know about sensitive info on him has him alert and uncomfortably aware of this. Like knowing your lover is scrolling and exploring your phone with your consent. You may have allowed them to do so, but you’re still very aware of what they’re doing, and how things had lead up to that moment.
I think that unless he goes to therapy to address this, Markus will always unconsciously dismiss the feelings his loved ones have for him. Years of hiding your complete authentic self away leaves its own wounds, and Markus finds it easier to emotionally distance himself in his relationships until they look like the ones that he’s had before as Sidestep: being a confidant to many, but not trusting anyone else the same way with his own scars and vulnerabilities.
🌙 What are some of your OC’s favourites? Favourite food, colour, season, stuff like that! Give some general simple facts that tend to get overlooked!
Markus LOVES monochromatic scales, especially black. The colours are neutral, and can be paired with almost any other colour, or be just as good by themselves.
He loves loves LOVES sweets! But he is especially partial to those that have an equal icing-to-cake ratio. He can enjoy and appreciate sweets that don’t fall under this rule, but he wouldn’t personally go for them. (E.g. Mooncakes, cheesecakes, cupcakes, etc.)
Outside of that, he’s pretty partial to seafood. Especially eel and octopus. Fish is a staple, and a cheaper favourite of his as well.
He has a pretty sweet love for winter as a season. The delicious seasonal treats aside, the season holds many fond memories for him. Christmas is one of the few times that Markus would let himself get sentimental and softer for. Many Christmas parties were had among friends, and it was most likely one of the few ways people could actually draw him out to socialise for once. It’s a special occasion with lots of food, so he lets himself go for that if nothing else.
He loves the night. He loves the full moon. The latter was the first real beautiful thing he had seen after living a deceptive life as a spy, surrounded by people whose lives were dominated by artifice and manipulation.
It was under the full moon that he christened himself his new name. He had his own private ceremony for it.
As Sidestep, his mindscape was a deep blue night, stars in the sky with the full moon a glowing celestial body in the sky. As Knight, the sky is fractured like the shards of a broken mirror.
And the moon is nowhere to be seen.
🔮 What does your OC think is their best trait. What is actually their best trait? What about their flaws? Are they one to admit these flaws or do they like to pretend they’re perfect?
Markus would think his best trait is diligence. In truth, his best trait is tenacity.
Whether it’s Sidestep or Knight, Markus is relentless. He was a workaholic as Sidestep, one that never gave up. He never stopped working on himself, his skills, his missions- and he brought up people with him. Sidestep was a confidant for Anathema, Ashfall, and Ortega. He gave them advice on how to be better, acted as their anchor when they started to doubt.
He was completely devoted to what he was doing- and reused his skills as a spy- and his new skills as a hero- to hunt and destroy villainous groups and organisations by himself.
That same trait still holds true even as he became a villain. He was tortured for years, and in his eyes, was abandoned to die by his friends through their failure to come look for him. Save him even. Between them having ‘forgotten’ and abandoned him, the Farm always hunting for him- shadowed faces hidden in the woodwork where he’d never find them all, and his fate as a Re-Gene to never be safe or free,
Markus could’ve killed himself right then and there.
The only reason why he didn’t is because of his rage. The determination to at least kill his tormentors for what they’ve done- before he kills himself.
This has been his greatest virtue ever since he was born.
Markus had always lived with the odds constantly stacked against him: when you’re born weak, born with nothing, born with issues that give you every reason to give up- it’s only through sheer determination that makes you survive and even thrive from all the problems life as thrown at you.
It may not have been created from a devotion to himself (rather, out of love for a mother who never loved him), but it stayed with him for the rest of his life.
In the same vein, Markus would say his greatest flaw is paranoia. His actual greatest flaw is his wrath.
It’s true his paranoia is a pretty big flaw, but the difference is that he could exploit it to become something good. Making plans, contingencies, double checking- trusting his gut and preparing for the worst. Using it to protect the things and people he values, to destroy his enemies.
His wrath only serves to blind him.
It’s not a surprise. Markus has never lived a happy life. One of the closest he’s ever got was a life before Sidestep- and even that is gone because he had to leave. The life he’d built, the people he’d love back then: they weren’t safe with him around.
Another was his life as Sidestep. But even then, it was rife with lies and secrets.
He forced himself to calm down when confronting Argent, reminding himself of the situation she’s in. He’s argumentative with Steel. He punched Herald and forced himself to calm down- again- by reminding himself that he didn’t mean any harm.
He wanted to kill Ortega on that hospital bed. He bitterly cut things off at the beach, too sick with rage and nausea at Ricardo to think straight if he even heard his name, let alone be around him.
Markus is far more aggressive than who he used to be as Sidestep. There’s a part of him that genuinely enjoys hurting people: one that he pointedly ignores and pushes down because it’s detrimental to the mission. He laughs over Chen’s genuine desire and offer to help him, because the Marshal had nearly gotten assassinated just for trying to investigate what happened. Part of him is pissed off that Chen would try to offer when he can barely keep himself and his team together: even when he knows the truth of who he is. Part of him lashes out because of how hurt he feels over Chen apparently trying to romance him when he still has Ricardo in his mind.
His aggression makes him more reckless. More brutal. Not necessarily in fights, but what he does. He doesn’t see anything wrong with taking a comatose body and using it as a puppet. He has silent grudges born from years of resentment. He wants to hurt, wants to be hurt. In his darkest days, he dreams of living a life rife with violence and fear. He reaches a boiling point in his rage when people genuinely love him and expresses it. His flaw is driving him to become more ruthless and manipulative. His flaw is enabling him to abandon all the good things that makes Markus a person of his own merits outside of being a hero/villain.
His flaw is stopping him from accepting help.
(He hasn’t written in a long time. He doesn’t sing anymore. He only really visits the bakery for convenient top-ups when he’s in the area, getting the rest of his sweets from stores to be bought in bulk for his telepathy, eaten with the same enthusiasm as he would for pills. He only does tech work for his mission. He’s getting to the point where even Tia Elena wouldn’t be able to emotionally reach him: the same woman who saw him as family, something that he also reciprocated. In time, his own love and enthusiasm for sweets will vanish.)
And if certain truths come to light, things will get more volatile in the face of his most sensitive info being known…
He hates everyone. He hates himself.
His body. (He can’t get surgery. How ugly he is.) His actions. (He was a stupid kid, and his trust in someone nearly killed him.) His trust. (He should’ve never forgotten. Everyone is subject to change, failure, and betrayal- but not him. Not to himself.)
There isn’t anything that Markus doesn’t hate about himself. Even his virtues are dismissed- only accepted if they’re useful as a villain.
(In one of my previous posts, he wants Chen to abuse and rape him. There are reasons for this, talked about with @allens-chocolate-dreams in chat, so maybe I’ll share one day if they’re cool with me sharing screenshots of our conversation.)
His morality- his identity, is slowly but surely decaying with the influence of his flaw. He gets more violent and brutal as time elapses and there isn’t anything to interrupt the process to test his conscience.
(Marconi’s place convinced Steel that there’s some part of Markus that can still be saved. Markus on the other hand, is seething with frustration over his slip up. No more hero.)
He’ll become more beast than man one day if he keeps going like this, and he won’t have the shame to recognise what’s happened. To mourn who he used to be.
❤️ What inspired you to make this OC? How long have you had them? How have they changed in the time you’ve been developing them?
The first ever drafts of Markus was initially made as a character for a Choices story named ‘Hero.’ He initially went by the name Leonard Wolfric! This was around the time the new story came out, so 2017.
I wanted to create an OC inspired by the story, especially as it branched out into its sequel, but it never came. And I lost interest.
Some couple of years and several months later I discovered FHR. I imported that same character into the game but he didn’t quite fit. So I made augmentations here and there. Sidestep was the perfect base for creating a whole new character, and the fundamentals of the character (escaped slave/fugitive, trauma, paranoia, mistrust) had solidified the character you now see as Markus today!
Initially, he just started out as a competent, serious, and diligent hero as Leonard. Fighting the good fight, determined to be one of the best. But as he became Markus, he gradually became more cynical, mistrusting, and haunted. Paired with the events in FHR from Rebirth to Retribution, he adopted some serious anger issues and became far more stand-offish, intimidating, and sometimes even outright hostile.
This let me play with his morality a little bit- until he finally became a man who straddles the line between hero and villain. He’s done and thought too much bad to be the former, and similarly done and thought too much good to be completely the latter. Normally I’d settle a character neatly into ‘more x than y’ but with Markus, I’m not sure.
I’m genuinely not sure if he’s going to become a villain or a hero at the end of his journey.
I don’t even know if he’d even be alive at the end. If he’d even be ‘Markus’ anymore. What he’ll turn into.
Markus is like poison. A deadly weapon, or a much needed medicine. It all depends on which side of the spectrum he tips himself to, and what for.
UNUSUAL MUSE ASSOCIATIONS
Tagged by @achilleanwizard!
I’m super sleep stupid right now so I might be retagging people but SCREW IT
Tagging @allens-chocolate-dreams @amlovelies @plotbunny-bundle @chaniters @karschfiu-nanai and anyone else who wants to do this!
This is for my Sidestep Markus!
SEASONINGS: Salt
WEATHER: Hailstorm and rain on a windy night.
COLOR: Gold and Black
SKY: Night Sky, with a full moon and stars. The canvas is the colour where you can’t tell if it’s a deep midnight blue or a pleasing black.
MAGICAL POWER: Telepathy, or Telekinesis!
HOUSE PLANT: Snake Plant.
WEAPON: Martial Arts.
SUBJECT: Security Tech.
SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter. (Surprisingly.)
MAKE-UP PRODUCT: Concealers.
CANDY: Dark Chocolate with Caramel filling.
FEAR: Being brainwashed and enslaved.
ICE CUBE SHAPE: Spheres
METHOD OF LONG DISTANCE TRAVEL: Train
ART STYLE: Minimalist
MYTHOLOGICAL CREATURE: Kitsune
PIECE OF STATIONERY: Eraser
THREE EMOJIS: 👁🗨🎭💭
CELESTIAL BODY: Moon
Tell me some of the eccentric parts of your Sidestep(s)!
Tagged: @lilyoffandoms @plotbunny-bundle @allens-chocolate-dreams @amlovelies Anyone who wants to rant about their Step!
I’ll start off with mine.
MARKUS DEAVOR
1. He honestly finds printers adorable. The same way most people find puppies/babies/etc adorable. (He privately, mentally jokes about the reason why being his Re-Gene status, being a technical android because of his microchip brain.) To be fair, he does generally find most baby animals to be cute, but he has the fantasy of eating baby rabbits when he sees them. Raw.
Mother? Who is Markus’s mother? What happened with his first lover?
‘Mother’ was his creator back at the Farm. He genuinely loved her, but his naivety allowed her to take advantage of him. She created him from a man who ruined her life, an individual whose genetics proved a slightly better chance of survival.
It’s theorised that emotional extremes, especially those relating to pain, fear, and life-or-death scenarios would make your Boost powers stronger.
Of course, since there’s only so much he can take before his sanity starts taking hits… she pretended to love him so she could milk him for all he was worth. All the while making personalised schedules for torture; both for bolstering his telepathy’s power, and for his training as a spy. Some might speculate it’s also from her personal wishes for revenge: the man she despises is dead, and Markus was the closest thing to him.
An excerpt from his private journal about who they were to each other:
“One minute, you’d scream obscenities at me for how I’d ruin your life. The next, you’d hold me close in apologetic love, saying the wrong name.
You were always on your knees when you hugged me, apologising for losing control. If I even cared that you were made a laughingstock among your peers when I was born.
Some weak little girl who couldn’t even leave her own bed. ‘Worthless shit.’
You made me a girl so I didn’t look like him. You dressed me up as your daughter so you wouldn’t go too far.
And for some reason, I loved you anyway. I wouldn’t have left if you just had the stomach to say it back.”
—
Markus had a very conflicted relationship with his mother. To put it succinctly, in his own words: ‘you can love someone and still want them dead.’ During his last years at the Farm, he was fully aware that their relationship of mother and daughter was purely a sham. Even so, he knew that her ‘love’ was genuine.
Even if it wasn’t for him.
—
His first lover was a fellow Re-Gene he thought he could trust his life with. Though he often worked alone, this was one of the select few Re-Genes the Farm allowed him to get close with.
The details are [REDACTED], but in short, he drugged and betrayed Markus and essentially left him to die for the chance to rise up in the ranks.
These two combined, he has some serious trust issues. He may have been a close confidant of Anathema, of Ricardo, and even Chen in Retribution, but there isn’t anyone he’d confide in for the same way.
9, 13, and 35 from the Sidestep ask game for Markus, please?
9. How honest are they?
13. Do they want to be well-known, or do they prefer to remain obscure?
Ooohh….
To oversimplify it, Markus would want [hero/villain] persona to be well-known, but have his actual secret identity be kept secret.
Markus takes some pride in his skills, and it showed with his previous Sidestep Hero reputation. He likes taking on the big missions, working to solve the biggest threats, and is pretty ambitious under the right circumstances.
However, he also values his privacy and despises playing to the crowd more than what’s necessary. He’s had enough of that back when he was working as a spy. Markus does understand the importance of PR, and will work together with a PR team to make an arrangement that suits the both of them, but he’s not going to be a slave to it.
Markus is fully aware that he’d have to pick one or the other, so if he had to choose, it’s obscurity. Being well-known means getting invited and called on for the big things, but Markus can seek out his own missions just fine.
Fame is its own curse. Markus has enough of them.
35. If they could have any other superpower, what would they choose?
Ooohh… tough call. Markus does love his telepathy, and if given the option, would most likely stay with it, but hmm…
Telekinesis would be one. It follows a similar vein to telepathy: psychic power, not flashy, and discreet. Above all, it can be very versatile.
At its weaker levels, Markus can simply use it to lift objects during a fight to harass and pressure his enemy to where he needs them to be. Moderate has him able to manipulate the environment around him. Higher levels can allow for even rocks to be turned into bullets if they’re shot at high enough speeds.
He can also fly, use it as a psychic restraint on enemies, and (with practice) can possibly help him manipulate things on a finer level: being able to perform delicate actions such as separating graphite from paper and the like.
And depending on the telekinesis, he can cloak himself in a thin telekinetic barrier so that fluid attacks (e.g. Acid) can slide off of him.
All of this, and we haven’t even gotten into the mundane applications of this power!
Markus has a talent for innovating and using his powers in creative ways. As a tactician, he can see the worth and potential application of the powers he comes across when they’re used in different ways, under different circumstances.
I don’t actually think he’d be that picky in what power he’d want, provided it’s not too disgusting.
🍅, 🍊, 🌸 and 💛 for Markus, maybe? ^-^
Hey Allen!!!! 😍 I’ve missed you!
🍅 How easily is your OC embarassed? What subjects make them flush and why? What event has made your OC the most embarassed they’ve ever been?
Ohohohoho! Being who he is and a telepath at that, Markus doesn’t get flustered easily. He’s (unwillingly) seen many dirty fantasies, and has had his share of people coming onto him and flirting with him back when he was Sidestep. Compliments and flattery slide off his skin.
The most embarrassed he’s consistently gotten is from Steel. He did not expect for Chen to be as open and soft as he was during the dog park, nor did he expect Steel’s smile to come as easily as it did.
It didn’t get any better in the future. Chen was too soft, too open. His crush on Markus, compacted with actually knowing who he is now, flustered him to the point of alarm and half-baked logical jumps that rationalise what’s happening.
Markus: I’m a spy. A telepath. Just lean back as a dare, Deavor. He’ll come to his senses. He’s cautious and an over-thinker. We never had a good relationship with each other. Once he sees the dare, he’ll come to his senses and-
Chen backed him up against the wall and kissed him.
And all the thoughts in Markus’s head shrivelled up and died quietly.
(God forbid Steel tries to have sex with him. Things will definitely get interesting there…)
🍊 Does your OC have any triggers? Why do these things trigger them? What are they like when triggered and how do they calm down after?
Carnivorous bugs. When he was recaptured, the Staff wanted to punish him, but couldn’t do much considering how injured he was (physical) and how out of it he was mentally with Heartbreak’s attack (emotional.)
Instead, they opted to use maggot therapy for some of his injuries. If not properly dressed, the sensation is ticklish. Markus was too injured to even move, so he felt… paralysed in his own body while they ate away at him.
It’s a very obscure trigger, and while the sight of them won’t yank his newfound trauma to life, a telepathic attack exploiting this in a fight is a good way to not only get Markus to stop attacking his opponent, but to also rip himself open to try and get the maggots out.
Another trigger is heights. Herald got off easy: if it weren’t for Markus’s first instinct to immediately disengage himself from the situation, he would’ve beaten the shit out of him.
Markus usually walks off to isolate himself a bit as his default for calming down. If it’s night and he’s alone, he’ll seek out the moon and just sit, letting the open air of his surroundings comfort him.
(I may be missing some more triggers, but this is just off the top of my head!)
When he’s triggered, he’s usually a lot more paranoid and outright hostile, and would most likely attack whoever triggered him in the first place.
If it was an accident, Markus blanks into a neutral, emotionless expression. He doesn’t talk for some time if he doesn’t get the chance to seclude himself, and emotionally distances himself from everything. His actions during this state is oddly methodical, if detached.
🌸 What’s a sentence that would make your OC’s day better? One that would make them laugh? One that would make their day worse? Why? What words would you have to say to them to completely ruin their day?
Better: “There’s a dessert festival going on downtown! Eating competitions with marvellous prizes for the enthusiasts- earn amazing deals to bakeries and buffets if you win!”
Laugh: ??? This man is not happy or content enough to genuinely laugh. 😓
Worse: “Markus Deavor, you’re under arrest.”
Completely Ruin: “Come quietly, 28. We have you surrounded.”
💛 What is your personal opinion of this OC? Do you love them or are they your trash child? Are they your baby?
Interesting man… but if I ever met him in real life, I’d realistically bolt out of there as fast as possible.
Markus is not completely stable or sane as of Rebirth/Retribution. And considering what he’s capable of in Retribution, I would not want to be affiliated with him. That’s more than enough to get me sucked into darker territory;; 😥
I love him and want the best for him, but I would not want to be anywhere near him if and when he loses it. Telepathy or no, Markus is a frightening man who, at this point, has a growing proclivity for violence.
Would definitely chip in for his therapy fees though. He needs it.