Fifth Series - Mark Route

Mark has been friends with Jack Pinnacle for as long as he can remember, with the two of them never being far apart. Also being deaf for as long he can remember, Jack acts as a convenient translator, seeing as he’s the only person beyond Mark’s parents, who can perform sign language. Mark only needs help explaining himself, seeing as he is an excellent lip-reader, so long as he can see the people speaking, he’s never left out of a conversation.

Passive as he is, joining the fight for humanity isn’t his idea of fun. Certainly, if Jack wasn’t involved and hadn’t roped him into it, Mark wouldn’t be there. As a minor pessimist, he would always be ready to remind everyone that their plans are full of holes and likely to fail.

A naturally thoughtful and reserved person, Mark is often the one who has to reign in the more extroverted Jack, or occasionally sign to him that: ‘It’s not worth it.’ Though that’s not to say he’s a coward, or he’d run from danger. Moreover, should harm come to the people he cares about, Mark will be one of the first to react and fight back.

I always look to Mark as an interesting character. The decision to make him deaf was two sided. On the one hand, it was something I had never worked with before and thought it would be a new challenge. Also, at the time that I conceived the Fifth Series, I had garnered an interest in learning sign language. I was going to implement this into the Fifth Series, giving it some authenticity and give Mark a way to communicate universally as they travelled the world.

But to my dismay, I discovered that sign language is not a universal language, and varies from country to country. As of this moment, I am still undecided as to whether I should invent my own version of sign language, or attempt to learn British sign language again, and implement that.