Name: Francis “Fran” Markovich
Birthday:December 2nd, 2000
Age: 21
Appearance:
Standing tall at 6’3 even without his boots, Francis cuts a lanky, slender figure—what muscle he has is lean, the product of a once regimental but now very on again-off again exercise routine.
From his unusual style, one could easily mistake Francis for a newcomer to Sanctuary: His eclectic style of variously coloured denim jackets, chunky combat boots and all manner of flashy graphic t-shirts—most often accompanied by a pair of plain jeans, for some mundanity—conveys a distinct inability to properly assimilate, rather jarringly melding traditional Coloradoan attire with urban street fashion.
Occupation: Begrudging bartender at the Bandits’ Bar: it’s money, and that’s all Francis really cares about—something he reminds himself of whenever the local rabble get so drunk they start calling him a girl and stop actually aiming the spout of their beer bottles at their mouths.
Short Bio:The illegitimate son of a Jewish German man and a Protestant Georgian woman, raised secular in a Colorado household, it should be of little surprise that Francis has struggled with identity since he was old enough to comprehend it.
His childhood was a troubled one: Despite his booksmarts, he was reckless and immature and often ended up in trouble with teachers for tardiness or missing homework. Like his mother when she was young, he showed a great aptitude for mathematics and science—however he rarely, if ever, applied these skills in class.
Spending much of his time in detention to make up on work incompleted, Fran had little time to connect with his peers and make friends: There were a few distant acquaintances in class, but he was seldom afforded the time to socialise further during recess. In an attempt to compensate for this, Francis quickly became the ‘class clown’, often butting heads with those in authority simply to be contrarian—and though it succeeded in garnering him attention from his peers, it simply meant he was punished more often, and ultimately kept further away from them.
At home, his relationship with his parents was strained: His mother was frequently tired and emotionally fraught for seemingly no reason, and often withdrew herself away from her husband and child. On the opposite end, Fran’s father was a constant presence in his life—though very rarely a positive one. He pressured Francis into more traditional masculinity, shunning his interests in technology and music pushing sports and working with his hands.
This, of course, had the opposite effect that Fran’s father had hoped for: The child became further atomised from his family, distrusting them and withdrawing into introversion. Alone, and bearing witness to the far more functional families of his peers, a resentment stewed in Francis: For his parents moving away from the bright lights of the city to some dying hick town and shutting him out, and for himself—after all, no one just decides to block a person out like that. What if it was his fault? The flames of misanthropy scorched his self-esteem, further damaging his ability to socialise: It was difficult to make friends when he thought so lowly of himself, and expected others to strike for his perceived imperfections.
Now a young teenager, Fran frequently snuck out of the house to entertain himself—and not always through legal means, as his parents would learn when he was escorted home by a police officer after being suspected of shoplifting. He had been hanging around with local gangs of rabble, from home more broken than his own—sons and daughters of ex-convicts reluctant to change. In the moment, he didn’t care what they were doing: He just belonged somewhere, for once, and that was enough.
Until he was caught, and they sold him out to save their own skin.
Many regrettable things were said that night, and many breaking points reached—chiefly among them was Francis learning that his father was, in reality, his stepfather: He was conceived illegitimately by his mother and another man who abandoned her. Coming from a locally famous conservative Christian household in Georgia, she had no choice but to flee when her parents found out—running off with someone she could trust—that being Fran’s stepfather—to a quiet town where she wouldn’t be recognised.
The morning after, Francis’ parents realised their mistake: Over the coming weeks, they attempted to mend their relationships with him, and over the coming months, they realised they had been neglecting his emotional needs. Their efforts were first in vain, though showed some tenuous success as he got older—but Fran had made his decision: He was going to stop sitting around and wasting his potential, and start learning. He was going to seize the opportunity his parents never could, and get the hell out of Colorado—a city, he thought, like California or Minneapolis, or even New York—the city his parents had left behind.
Part of it was anger at them. Part of it was an inability to face the guilt being a burden on them brought, ruining their lives over his mere existence—but Francis chose not to think about that, and began working.
Now in his early 20’s, Fran (barely) holds down a job to make some money on the side while he pursues his passions—computer science and engineering—at home, hoping to break out of Sanctuary and head off to university. But something’s holding him back: A part of him is missing, and though he longs for it, he can’t quite bring himself to leave the town that has been his home for so long.
Despite appearances, or preconceived notions those in Sanctuary might have of the ruffian Francis was (and, in little ways, is), he is surprisingly affable: Residents around his age may remember him being particularly easy to talk to in school, and that certainly hasn’t changed. Ever the charmer, he revels in entertaining and making others laugh, but can also prove an excellent listener when someone—usually a customer at Bandits’—needs to vent or complain.
Beyond simple social interactions, however, it can be difficult to get Francis to trust you: Though he may not be open about it, he tends to prepare for the worst and thus struggles with unintentionally putting up walls around himself. Paradoxically, he simultaneously craves attention yet retreats when too much is applied in the wrong places: A gentle, slow moving relationship is the best way to reach past Fran’s barriers, though the process of gaining his trust can be expedited through common experience or shared interests and hobbies.
Misc:Family Background:Francis was born to what seemed—on the outside—to be an ordinary happy couple, in Sanctuary, Colorado. The reality, however, wasn’t so simple.
Francis’ mother, Lydia Hansen, came from affluence: Her family was heavily involved in big business in Georgia, and so she enjoyed a comfortable home life. Still, she attended public school and was taught humility and gratitude by her father—a candidate for the Georgia state senate, and thus a man who understood the value of appealing to the proles of his fastly urbanising district. Appearance was of the utmost importance to the family: To defy the image of an honest Christian clan with patriotism in their hearts and the holy book in their hands would be to demand disowning. Though the guiding hand of Lydia’s father kept her on the ‘straight and narrow’, it would not be a presence in her life forever.
Lydia showed great promise as a student: Her skill in science and mathematics was unmatched by her classmates, and she managed to keep pace in the arts and languages despite initial difficulties. It was clear she had a bright future ahead of her, and her father was acutely aware of this—and of the good press he’d get among the moderate niche for being a bipartisan believer in both God and science. A few short months after graduation, Lydia was shipped off to Pratt Institute, New York, ready to start her degree in engineering.
It was here that she would be exposed to the world her family had sheltered her from for so long: The real world, a secular world and a working class world. She was young, and initially outraged that she had missed so much—and ultimately, her hastiness to explore all she had been forbidden to in Georgia would lead to her downfall.
Finding the foreign world of a liberal city like New York positively fascinating, Lydia’s inquisitive mind pushed her from her usual social circles and into the beating heart of her college community: She met with artists, feminists, progressive political activists and people from all walks of life—sexual, religious, cultural, ethnic—in her efforts to learn more. The majority of these people were decent, like any other—however, just like any group, there were a few bad apples lurking in the batch.
Among these people were Adrian and Otto, two men who would one day call Francis Markovich their son. He was a descendant of a group of Ashkenazi Jewish families who, in the early 19th century, emigrated from Germany amidst a hostile political climate and whispers of a return to economic normalcy in America. They were working men from working class families; Otto was attending a nearby college while Adrian kept the precise details about himself vague. This was something Lydia found refreshing: Far too often had her father tried to introduce her to some snobby well-to-do trust fund son of his associate. Even more exciting to Lydia was that both men were romantically interested in her—at least, that was what it seemed at first.
It was at a party—without Otto around—that Adrian finally made a move on Lydia, and the two began to date. When Lydia informed Adrian that she had missed her period that month, however, he was quick to vanish.
Lydia was petrified: What was she going to do? The only person she could confide in was Otto—while that may have calmed her for a while, she knew the news would have to be broken eventually. Under great stress, she made a final phone call to her father, informing him of the development: She was pregnant, out of wedlock.
Her father swore and shouted down the receiver, absconding her as a lecher and damning her to hell if she did not immediately return come the end of the semester and repent—lest he cast her out from the family and officially disown her.
It was a difficult few weeks for Lydia, but with Otto’s support, she made good on her father’s threat: If he was going to disown her for not obeying, then she’d cut to the chase and estrange herself. She’d take what money she had been given, pool it with Otto, and leave her life behind—she owed a clean slate to her son. Otto was happy to come: His devoutly Jewish parents would have dropped dead at the thought of him going off with some rich Christian girl, and the insular way of thinking amongst both his family and the community they were a part of was poisoning him, slowly.
Sanctuary, Colorado was the town Lydia and Otto Markovich arrived in: A dying town untouched by the modern world at that time, property was dirt cheap, and being so far from their homes of Georgia and New York was a comfort to them both.
On December 2nd, 2000, Lydia and Otto had a healthy baby boy they named Francis: A name meaning ‘free’, fitting for the child who had—though unexpectedly—freed them from walking a path others had chosen for them.
In the coming years, it would prove itself a very apt title indeed.
Mildly Interesting Facts: -Growing up, Francis was taught German by his father at the behest of his mother—and later completed his education himself, via the internet. Additionally, he also possesses a very rough knowledge of Spanish from school days—about enough to introduce himself and ask where the bathroom is, and a paltry sum of Yiddish phrases passed down from his father—who, like himself, never really got on with his family enough to put much effort into actually learning it.
-To keep him company, Francis owns an energetic little leopard gecko he affectionately dubbed Ike. If the lizard trusts you, Fran trusts you.
-Born left handed, Francis taught—or forced, depending on your perspective—himself into gaining that same dexterity in his right hand. Ultimately, of course, he didn’t achieve a perfect result, but he isn’t entirely hopeless with his right side either.
-Fran can also play the piano/keyboard at a skill level that can be best described as “well, at least he’s having fun”—though his skill with complex melodies and bass lines is impressive, due to the control he exerts with both hands.
-Francis is gay, though no one except for Ike knows. It almost slipped out during his big argument with his parents, but he held his tongue—he was still young and wasn’t sure if it was just confusion or something more. Considering his parents’ backgrounds and previous reception to Fran expressing himself, he isn’t overly keen on letting them know any time soon.
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