Making a part 2 to this post since people on twitter really didn't understand the post and I'm feeling petty
(I have to emphasise I am not saying you can't refer to earlier cOwen as maze Owen to explain cOwen at different periods of his life. I'm saying when we really look at it, maze Owen doesn't exist since they're the same person)
'maze' Owen doesn't exist bc it's a way that cOwen has come up with to justifying to himself how he could have cared for demons without shattering his ideals.
This is confused with cOwen have distinct personalities and missing how his character hasn't changed from the start with his idea of protecting everyone.
In his final moments he says a few important things to note. The first being "I was a tool. I was trained. Should I have... I should have." And then right after "I can't think in my head it's split in two"
It seems some takes this as 'maze' Owen coming back and fighting with cOwen on should he have killed cApo and the others. However rather than 'maze' Owen coming back it's this internal conflict he has with himself and his ideals.
Before he says this he's getting flashbacks to the early maze days where he showed kindness to demons. Something he would never let himself do in the past outside the maze. And something he would never do after remember it all.
Then he says to the voices "Is that who people trust? Old Owen" while those memories are playing. The voices respond saying they miss that Owen and he replies "Yes? That wasn't me" this is possibly where it further adds to the whole 'maze' Owen is a different person thing.
But what people miss is he's trying to seperate those memories as a different person. Rather than facing the fact his ideals fall apart as soon as he accepts that demons are not these creatures that betray and kill you at any moment.
His thinking comes from the manipulation and propaganda he's been feed. In his final episode we get these quotes which show just how much his thinking revolves around protection and also showing what years of training did to him.
He understands he was a tool that was used. He's well aware everything he is doing may not have a purpose and get he still plays this part. He can't break away from that thinking because if he lets himself he has to face the fact that his whole life had no true meaning and he was as he realised a tool. This is where we get these lines from him though.
"I did what I had to do I served my country and this is the thanks I get"
"I don't understand I was meant to..."
"I can't think... They trusted him but not me"
They're such interesting lines from him because he still feels like he has this duty to protect everyone. And then he can't understand why they would trust the Owen that was so easily fooled and trusted than himself right now who is still trying to protect them and has seen the dangers as what they really are.
While he has this internal conflict with himself the main reason we have this 'maze' Owen thing is from the scene when cMagic comes to see him.
And I think when you have this much context it doesn't make sense that this is a seperate persona? Identity? He has.
Right before it we are shown how conflicted he feels about a part of himself he'd rather seperate than accept is him. So he tells cMagic "I hurt my best friends please" and "it wasn't me I'm sorry"
He's still seperating his own actions to two people because he can only accept he did these things if it wasn't him. The idea that has to be a different Owen who cared for a demon because it really does make him face everything he's done.
So when people seperate cOwen into these two parts it's just falling for the lies he tells himself because this maze owen never existed.
Who he is after the reunion is still the same person as before. But what changes is this dramatic shift in those ideals we've seen from him since the start. Because now demons are not included and since the beginning of the series cOwen has been close to a lot demons, it triggers memories and he enjoys their company. So when he starts killing the people closest to him automatically we believe he has changed a lot. And yes he has! But you can't miss that he does these things to protect everyone else in the clearing.
When he remembers everything in his mind he doesn't need to protect demons. Since they are a threat. There are moments people try to argue where 'maze' Owen peaks through such as his hesitation before chasing after cApo in the reunion. But it's really cOwen understanding his hatred towards demons may have been nothing. Was he really going to throw away everything for the past? And so he doesn't change. He continues this path he can never return from.
Everything he has worked for doesn't matter anymore. And cOwen cannot accept that so he once again he plays the role to exterminate them. But by doing so he has to seperate his old self so it doesn't conflict with what he desperately wants to be true.
Which is his whole life had a purpose.
65 notes
·
View notes
yo dude i was really curious and i just read yr primal fear fic, just wanted to say that your writing is genuinely so impressive.. not a lot of people could take a prompt like this and actually give it so much substance, your stuff shows such a deep level of understanding of the media ur working with +intuitiveness.. like characterizing shit well from 90s movies is crazy hard and u like immediately got how to write an in-character martin vail so if u can do that u can do any thing im like blown away 🙈 cant wait to see what u do in the future with yr original stuff, youre a beast with the pen ✍️✍️
sobbing for real dude.... this is so kind... "shows such a deep understanding of the media youre working with" truly there is few better compliments 😭 the 'from 90s movies' part is hard as hell sometimes yeah... I feel like I understand the psyche pretty well but there's so much just general milieu that's easy to just... not even realize is relevant. Of course it helps that most of my readers are also not particularly familiar with the 90s lmao but. Idk I try to keep that post-fall of the soviet union pre-9/11 immense nihilism in mind. Fortunately I have some friends who have a pretty strong lock on the vibe for one reason or another who help too— I assume they'd tell me if it was a 'he would not fucking say that' situation haha. It's funny wrt Martin Vail because I do think I did him pretty passably.. I don't always mesh into characters well per se; like for Tyler, I think I understand him pretty well but it's still tricky to figure out how to actually word what he says — I'm tempted to outsource to @a-forsteri who has a goddamn LOCK on it... we should collab, bestie... but regardless yeah Vail was an interesting one for sure. You only get so much characterization of him in the movie, really. Thanks for reading and I'm really glad you enjoyed it, comments like this are what keep me going fr :')
18 notes
·
View notes
the absolute terror of wanting to attempt to try out using Twitter for a bit but also Twitter seems to be getting more and more horribly toxic by the day and I don’t know if my little emotional baby self could deal with it,,,,, euuugh I know it’s great for making connections n stuff + a lot of artists who aren’t on tumblr that I like are on it but EUUUUGH,,, the people on their are so mean and I don’t wanna get relentlessly bullied for some random thing,,,,
20 notes
·
View notes
no because imagine once nancy and robin get together and go out on a date and kiss in public the headlines are like 'ROCK STAR ROBIN BUCKLEY SEEN KISSING HER GIRL BEST FRIEND. FANS HAPPY SHE HAS A CLOSE FRIENDSHIP WITH ANOTHER GIRL' or like 'ROBIN BUCKLEY, RISING STAR, SEEN KISSING ANOTHER GIRL. WHAT WILL HER LONGTIME PARTNER STEVE HARRINGTON SAY?'
NOOOOOO AND THE GROWL ROBIN WOULD LET OUT ONCE SHE SEES THE HEADLINES 😭😭😭😭😭
nancy trying to reassure her, thinking the problem is that they took pictures of them kissing cause nancy is not a public person or anything but then robin's instinctively opening twitter to qrt one of the posts that mentions steve with a "FOR THE LAST TIME, I AM A LESBI–" and nancy rushes to stop her from roasting someone on the internet
and then people start asking her questions like "are you and harrington in an open relationship?" and "when did your friendship with ms wheeler become so close?" and her manager has to stop her from punching whoever's closest to her
next time people see robin and nancy publicly, they're walking holding hands on the street, nancy looking as pretty as ever — and robin's wearing a shirt with a HUGE "I ❤️ MY GIRLFRIEND ---->" plastered on it
(headlines: BEST FRIENDS FOREVER! ARTIST ROBIN BUCKLEY SHOWS HER APPRECIATION FOR GIRL FRIEND NANCY WHEELER IN AN ADORABLE ACT OF FRIENDSHIP)
(robin screaming in the background)
151 notes
·
View notes
When I approach Yelan (or anyone else I've written), I don't just look directly at her character, but I also look at her surroundings. Both the ones that she knows by some semblance of necessity, but also those that she chooses. Like here, I talked about the Chasm, and what being 'okay' with existing down there needs to mean for a character, because it's not normal. Someone's surroundings, room, or home say a lot bout who they are and what their mindset, or specifically, their perspective is of the world. And sometimes, I think it says more about people than even the characters realize.
This brings me to the topic of the city of Fontaine. Now, I personally think it's rather obvious that a lot of the nation takes from historical France, and so when looking at it, I think it really adds to remember its monarchy, the view that the 'common folk' had of it, and its inevitable demise to non-existence today in terms of importance as a result. So my first question is, who constructed or decided on its layout? Was it Furina, Neuvillette, Egeria? Whoever it was, there's a lot that can be said about their view of the world and their placement in it when you look at locations of buildings. Look at where Palais Mermonia, its governing body, is located within the city; it sits at a rather astounding elevation in comparison to, well, everything and everyone else in the city. This frequently represents the concept of 'distance' between groups in one way or another, and seeing the consistency in other nations, this is something that is rather intriguing to me, especially keeping Fontaine's characters in mind (and considering this is the nation of 'justice'). Mondstadt has everything almost entirely uniform, with arguably the church on the highest level (but it isn't greatly elevated in comparison to all else), but it's joined with the plaza and statue which are a common gathering site for all people in the city. Liyue had the gods and adepti visibly living among the humans back in the days of the Guili Assembly for reasons of 'integration' (my apologies to numerous from our dear Guizhong!) The fact that numerous adepti now live far outside of the harbor is a different matter entirely, and the one who seems to function within a semblance of separation of sorts is Ningguang with the Jade Chamber (but I'm not one to speak on behalf of her character as I don't bear the knowledge). Inazuma also has the Tenshukaku at a higher elevation in comparison to the rest of Inazuma City. Sumeru is interesting, but ultimately Nahida was kept at the very peak of the city, far out of reach of humanity— but that's exactly the common denominator that has my interest, the distance between the 'governing body' and humanity for one reason or another.
But Fontaine really takes separation to a different level in my opinion (and again, think of this when you think of the person having designed the whole city), not only because of the above which I'll elaborate more on in a moment, but also its separation from the outside world. Now, this is interesting to think about if you keep in mind that it was perhaps done in eventual protection of the city's inhabitants in terms of the prophecy (which means that this would have been constructed anywhere during or after Egeria's reign), but then why is only Palais Mermonia far above the water's reach? If the walls surrounding the city were ever breached during said prophecy, all its inhabitants are pretty much immediately caught in the flood and would drown, which tells me nothing positive of the city's 'architect' or whoever signed off on the designs. But if not done for the prophecy, then why? Stand in the middle of the Court of Fontaine and really look around you, the only sights you really have of the outside world are the sky, and it's obstructed by a fair bit of the waterways and gardens that hang overhead, which you can only properly enjoy when you take the ages long elevator to the upper level where the palace is located (which, credit due, seems freely accessible to everyone in present-time). But if you don't venture up, how much of the outside world do you get to see? It feels very secluded, very much under lock and key. On some level (and this is one of the many reasons why I think that the Meropide is so excessively important in Fontaine and it's likely why we spent so much time there; it's all to show the ever, ever important contrast and nuance between this 'autonomous nation within Fontaine' and, well, 'Fontaine'), it almost feels like a prison, regardless of how pretty it may look or come across (and despite not 'lacking rights'). And considering how people in the Meropide speak of not always wanting to return back to the 'overworld' following their sentence, I think that there's definitely quite a bit of truth in that. But again, stand there and look around for yourself.
Now to return to the original topic, but keeping the last one in mind as well, look at one other thing that I'm unsure how many have really kept an eye on: the massive effect Palais Mermonia's level has on the rest of the area (inside and outside of its walls). Have you ever walked through the city of Fontaine at any given time of day or night, north to south, east to west, clockwise or counter-clockwise circling through it; have you ever seen how it overshadows an immense part of the streets below it either entirely on its own (which to me signifies a very domineering presence), or together with those outer walls that surround the city? I know how I've spoken thoroughly with people before about how much I enjoy Fontaine and how dark it is in its storytelling, but despite how gorgeous this region with its water- and landscapes are; its city bears quite a heavy weight to me. I don't know who designed it, or ordered it to be constructed in this way, but nothing about the city itself truly, rationally, shows a healthy perspective versus its citizens.
Me: /continues on to ramble in tags because I'm me and I'm a nuisance with always more to say than I know how to coherently put into these posts.
10 notes
·
View notes