A Heist with Markiplier - TV Tropes (2024)

The protagonist, working with Mark to steal a mysterious box.

• Almighty Janitor: Although Mark is nominally in charge of the operation, he leaves all the major decisions to you.
• Featureless Protagonist: Exaggerated; their gender, age, and skin color change every time we see their hands. This often happens within the same scene. Mark and the other characters also refer to the player as "they" rather than "he" or "she".
• Glasses Pull: In "Guns Blazing", upon realizing you and Mark are standing in a room full of ancient gunpowder.
• Heroic Mime: Never speaks throughout the story. Lampshaded by Yancy.
• The Many Deaths of You: There are quite a few ways for them to die in the story.
• No Name Given: The closest we get to finding out the player's name is when one of the prison guards starts to read it off her papers, but is interrupted by the Warden.
• Zombie Infectee: In the Zombie Apocalypse path, you get bitten by a zombie-Tyler. In endings 4, 5, and 9, you succumb to the infection; in endings 6 and 8, you're cured before it takes hold.

The player's partner in crime.

• Cut the Safety Rope: Played straight in Ending 29, where he unlocks a pair of handcuffs and lets himself fall into a bottomless pit to save the player.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: He tends to throw up his fists whenever danger approaches.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He Cuts the Safety Rope to save the player in ending 29, and takes a laser blast intended for the player in ending 6.
• Horrible Judge of Character: If the player opts to trust the Hermit, Mark will immediately drop any concerns about the guy and happily follow him into his dark, viscera-filled cave, even letting the Hermit tie him to a chair and put a bag over his head. Subverted in that the Hermit really is friendly. Maybe.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: His prison uniform apparently has enough room to store a hammer, an electronic screwdriver, and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher simultaneously. Not to mention him lugging the box everywhere in his "back pocket".
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the intro, he threatens to abandon the player if they fail to stick to The Plan. In practice, though, he remains loyal to the player and honors their decisions even if they don't make much sense to him.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: In the Dark Tunnel section of the "All Sneaky Like" path, Mark advocates splitting up at every opportunity. It never ends well when you split up. Your character eventually handcuffs themselves to him.
• The Many Deaths of You: He ends up dying in quite a few paths.
• Pretentious Pronunciation: Insists his last name is pronounced "Ip-LEE-air".
• The Resenter: If you direct him into the sewers and then down the dark tunnel, both against his wishes, he grows increasingly irritable with you and takes on a sudden desire to split up.
• Taking the Bullet: In Ending 6, he blocks a laser pulse meant for the player with his own body, becoming an Almost Dead Guy as a result. It's a Senseless Sacrifice since the player was already a Zombie Infectee, but fortunately, both recover following a timeline reset.

So, tell me; do you still wanna be free?

The "leader" of the prisoners at the Happy Trails penitentiary who was put in there for murdering his parents.

• Brooklyn Rage: Sports one of these accents. Subverted, since he's actually from Ohio.
• The Cameo: Appears in Part 2 of In Space with Markiplier if the player picks "Don't Open the Door".
• Character Development: During his cameo in In Space With Markiplier, Yancy mentions that he's applied for parole. Despite his obvious institutionalization and fear of leaving prison seen in his previous appearance, he's since become willing enough to face his fears and try to rejoin the world at large.
• Dance Battler: Will originally have a fist fight with you, but deny his offer to help afterward, and he'll do one of these with you, taking you out in the process.
• Defeat Means Friendship: If you beat him in a fistfight, he'll change his mind and offer to help you escape.
• Desires Prison Life: "I Don't Want To Be Free" is entirely about this. Yancy has no desire to break out of prison and is confused as to why anybody would.
• Disproportionate Retribution: It's implied that he killed his father for questioning why he speaks with a Brooklyn accent despite being from Ohio.
• "I Want" Song: Or rather, an "I don't want" song; I Don't Want To Be Free is Yancy's musical number describing in detail how much he enjoys living in Happy Trails Penitentiary and doesn't ever want to leave it.
• Mythology Gag: He has "DARK MARK" tattooed across his fists, which should be a familiar phrase for A Date with Markiplier viewers.
• Not Used to Freedom: Why Yancy doesn't want to leave prison.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: His Brooklyn accent is mostly absent during the "I Don't Want to Be Free" musical number.
• Self-Made Orphan: His theatrics while in prison indicate, at various points, remembering killing his mother as one of the bright points of remaining in prison and yelling at his now-departed father over what may have been a dispute over what accent is expected from a citizen of Ohio.
• Self-Restraint: Yancy knows how to escape from the prison, he just doesn't want to.
• Tattooed Crook: Yancy is covered in tattoos, including Tiny Box Tim and the series timeline on his arm.

So nice of y'all to join us here at Happy Trails Penitentiary.

Mr. Murder-Slaughter, the Warden of Happy Trails Penitentiary.

• Faux Affably Evil: He presents himself as the "firm but fair" type, but when someone gets under his skin, he won't hesitate to chew them out and toss them in solitary confinement.
• Killed Offscreen: In Ending 12, Yancy mentions that he stopped by the Warden's office to "have a little chat", and left with the Box he'd been obsessed with. In hindsight, telling a Self-Made Orphan that he's "Like a Son to Me" may not have been a good idea.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Mr. Murder-Slaughter.
• Wardens Are Evil: If his name didn't give it away, he's not exactly the nicest to you or the rest of the prisoners, and won't hesitate to mock or berate them.

Exactly. Exactly. None of this makes sense.

Dr. Beauregard, a scientist studying the Zombie Apocalypse and its potential cause.

Played by: Rosanna Pansino

• Apologetic Attacker: To the protagonist.
• BFG: She has a huge laser gun that she uses to kill zombies and raiders attacking her lab.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Her name is briefly visible on the signs leading to her lab.
• Genki Girl: Has a very bubbly personality.
• Good Is Not Soft: She's perfectly willing to kill the protagonist to end the Zombie Apocalypse, albeit reluctantly.
• Motor Mouth: Talks really fast.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: She seems to be knowledgeable about energy weapons, temporal anomalies, and zombies.

Good old trusted Ed. Left alive to clean up the mess.

Ed, a soldier stationed at Fort Brannagan, the last stronghold against the Zombie Apocalypse.

Played by: Chance Morris

• Artistic License – Gun Safety: He waves his gun around a lot. He's pretty unhinged, so this is probably an intentional use of the trope.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: If you expose him as a Zombie Infectee, he'll blow himself up rather than let himself turn.
• Boom, Headshot!: Kills the player if they fess up about their zombie bite.
• Et Tu, Brute?: He's crushed that his best friend lied about being a Zombie Infectee and got everyone else killed.
• Killed Mid-Sentence: "I'm not very good with numbers. For all I know, there could be about maybe—"
• Overly Narrow Superlative: Claims that Fort Brannagan is "the friendliest military installation this side of the diner!"
• Properly Paranoid: After what happened to the camp, his request that new arrivals strip naked to prove they haven't been bitten is entirely reasonable. Especially since the player was, in fact, bitten.

  "I guess you could call me 'cautious Ed' now!"

• Reactive Continuous Scream: He initiates one with Mark when the latter refuses to be strip-searched.
• Sanity Slippage: Watching everyone at Fort Brannagan die hasn't done much for his mental health.
• Sole Survivor: His best friend turned into a zombie in the middle of the night and wiped out his camp, leaving him as the last person alive.
• Stripped to the Bone: After blowing up Fort Brannagan, all that's left of him is a skeleton and his T-shirt.
• Zombie Infectee: He has a bite on his left leg.

Mayhaps the truest treasured gold is about the friendships you make along the way.

A pirate captain on a search for treasure.

• All There in the Manual: His name is never mentioned in the entire adventure. It was revealed by Mark on Twitter.
• A Pirate 400 Years Too Late: You meet him not too long after escaping a modern museum, with pirate stuff apparently on display. He's even still using a cannon. "The Scientist" suggests this may be the result of Timey-Wimey Ball.
• Dressed to Plunder: You can tell he's a pirate just from his outfit alone, right down to the hat.
• He Knows Too Much: Reveal you know about the treasure map from the Box, and he'll escort you from his ship...with a cannon!
• In a Single Bound: He's so strong and good at jumping that he can carry you from one point to another by grabbing you and leaping high into the air. Not bad for someone with two Seadog Peg Legs.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: If he allows you to join his crew, he casually remarks you won't last long, then fast forward a little bit and he's willing to consider you a child to him.
• Large and in Charge: Easily the biggest pirate there and the captain of the ship.
• Seadog Peg Leg: Exaggerated; both of his feet are massive logs.

I'm so sorry about the state of my cave. I didn't realize that I would be having some guests... for dinner.

An eccentric man with a penchant for meat who lives in a cave on a deserted island.

• I'm a Humanitarian: And in Ending 25, you and Mark become that, too.
• Laughing Mad: Has random laughing fits every so often to complement his loony nature.
• Loon with a Heart of Gold: He might be a nutcase and a cannibal, but he keeps up on his promise and genuinely serves you and Mark a grand buffet of food.
• Messy Hair: It rivals Chuck Noland's.
• Obviously Evil: Downplayed in that while he's a nut and a cannibal, he genuinely wants to serve you and Mark food and has no ill intent toward either of you.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: Being alone on an island makes finding clothing rather difficult.

You will always be remembered, Um Wait, just not by you!

An alien with two heads, briefly encountered in Ending 23.

• Alien Non-Interference Clause: Subverted — they were going to help Earth advance in both technology and culture, but you and Mark unwittingly signal that humanity wants to figure things out by itself, leading them to decide to adopt this trope.
• Aliens Speaking English: Played straight. It's unclear if Translator Microbes are in play.
• Centrifugal Gravity: Their ship, seen briefly from the outside in Ending 30, has a rotating section on the front.
• The Greys: One Grey, with two heads.
• Mind Hive: Both heads seem to have their own distinct personalities, even though they share a body.

The name's Illinois. Pleasure to meet me. And I know what you're thinking; Yes, I am single.

A daring, confident adventurer.

• Affectionate Parody: Of Indiana Jones.
• The Cameo: Appears in In Space with Markiplier in the "Celci! Think of the Colonists!" ending.
• Chick Magnet: Remarks offhand that the player will likely fall in love with him (regardless of their sexual orientation) before the adventure's over, because "they always do".
• Nonchalant Dodge: He barely acknowledges the death traps in the cave while walking through it, remarking that from his experience, they're only a threat if you panic.
• Seen It All: His reaction to discovering Monkey Heaven is pretty chill. He's already visited Lion Heaven, Dog Heaven, and Bee Heaven, after all.
• Wink "Ding!": Whenever he winks, there's the sound of a bullwhip.
• Worthless Yellow Rocks: If you go with him to Monkey Heaven, they offer you a banana and him a rock. Afterward, he nonchalantly hands you the rock and walks off, just before you sneeze the dust away, revealing the rock to be a diamond, with the supposed banana also full of gold.

Darkiplier, who makes a return in Ending 31.

For tropes related to Darkiplier, see this page.

Wilford Warfstache, who makes a return in Ending 16.

For tropes related to Wilford Warfstache, see this page.