app - mask or menace

[delegation]

〈 PLAYER INFO 〉
NAME: Jansen.
AGE: 24.
JOURNAL: touchstoned
IM / EMAIL: ga11imaufry / jamiemckrimmon at gmail
PLURK: midcirclenine.
RETURNING: Nope.

〈 CHARACTER INFO 〉
CHARACTER NAME: Owen.
CHARACTER AGE: About forty.
SERIES: The Way Way Back.
CHRONOLOGY: The end of the film.
CLASS: Eh, he's a lazy sort of hero.
HOUSING: Opt-in, open to wherever.

BACKGROUND: General summary of the film's plot.

The film takes place entirely in a realistic, everyday universe, somewhere in coastal-vacation-beachside New York state, because when people think about the beach, they think about New York. It's a lovely coming-of-age tale about a boy named Duncan and the perils and pitfalls of being the most introverted, stuck-in-your-own-head fourteen year old in the world.

Naturally, I'm more interested in Owen, the personable, Pac-Man-failure of a water park manager who charismatically and accidentally fulfils the pivotal father-figure role Duncan so sorely needs, while remaining an impressively immature-yet-somewhat-responsible adult at the same time.

Not much is even given by way of backstory for the film's central main characters, but what is clear about Owen is that he more or less fell into the role of manager rather than earned it or applied for it specifically, which indicates that he grew up in the town and what started off as a summer job wound up being just. What he did for the next ten years. His comments to Duncan later about "settling" for working in a water park his whole life, about how much fun painting houses in the cold off-season, bartending here and there in dives, &c. were clearly something to look forward to, show that he knows it's a pretty mediocre existence and even he isn't entirely okay with it, and yet. Owen says that his dad was a strict, by-the-numbers type of person, in relation to Duncan telling him about his mother's boyfriend calling him a three on a scale of one-to-ten, so in much the same way that Duncan used the water park as a safe place and a refuge from emotional abuse, Owen likely did the same. His personality and interaction with other individuals throughout the film play to a particular sort of person who actually can handle things, but definitely prefers both to not, and to appear like he can't if you try and make him.

So, from at least 2003 to 2013, he's been working at the waterpark, and as a painter and bartender. Fun times in ambiguously-coastal-vacation-spot-in-New-York. During the course of the summer over which the film takes place, he doesn't actually develop very much – his character arc could be more of one of the Greek columns that slightly bulges in the middle than anything else – serving instead as Duncan's mentor-type person, but by the end of it he has been at least nudged by his two main relationships into a somewhat more balanced, less 'all fun all the time' individual.

PERSONALITY:

Those two main relationships are with Duncan and Caitlyn, and they're honestly the only important ones that he has throughout the course of the film.

Duncan fulfils the 'you remind me of myself when I was your age' archetype for Owen, to a degree, as well as pushes him into a position of responsibility. Owen likes to act however nets him personally the most amusement, but in most interactions at the same time and with Duncan in particular, he also needles people (sort of) into at least what he thinks is a better course of action for them at the time. Lewis, a dour employee at the park who has similarly remained there for at least ten years despite constantly insisting he's going to leave for something better, he constantly prods at, accusing him at one point of not actually wanting to leave and making him say three things he'd rather do instead. He throws Lewis a going-away party when he does say he's finally leaving, and the impression is that while he doesn't actually think Lewis will leave (he doesn't), he'd be totally happy for the guy if he did. Peter, a kid with a lazy-eye whose mom is always trying to make wear an eye-patch because of it, he totally encourages to embrace that aspect of himself, telling him that he's actually jealous because he could do so many jokes with one. (Like "Daring people to look me right in the eye.")

For Duncan specifically, Owen is similarly encouraging. He places trust in Duncan from the get-go, both expecting and boosting him into more than Duncan expects from himself, and ultimately that's what gives Duncan some self-confidence and comfort in his own skin. At the same time, Owen doesn't ever forget that Duncan is actually still a kid, which prevents his expectations and status bars from being unattainable in the way that mentor-types can occasionally do. During an incident where Owen technically fixed a problem, but in a decidedly unprofessional way, Duncan attempts to take the blame for it since he was there when it started, but Owen doesn't let him. He's pretty consistent with that sort of thing throughout the story, being a realistic if very low-achieving guy.

Caitlyn, in turn, is a clear love-interest who is drawn to him for his strengths but pushed back by his behaviour. She intended to just work there for a summer, but by the time the movie starts she's been there for three years, and says that's mostly because of him. However, since he's clearly not going anywhere, she doesn't want to "look back and regret that it should have only been one summer." It's mostly for her that he changes, or, more accurately indicates that he will, given that the only example of his actually changing in the context of the film is that he starts to do the job he was already supposed to be doing in the first place. Poorly. In a waterpark he's worked at for the last decade, he doesn't know how the chairs are set up (and Duncan does), and he makes a point of actually putting on an employee shirt only to have it pointed out that he's wearing it inside-out.

Which is sort of the way Owen does things. His main goal is to make the people around him happy, or if not that, then to at least laugh despite themselves. He is constantly telling ridiculous stories and making jokes and comments the entire duration of the movie, but usually nothing particularly pointed or mean about anyone in particular. He does once make a comment about having been making out with Lewis' mom the night before and about how she had a forked tongue, but Lewis clearly doesn't care and replies with: "I don't have a mom, I have two dads, in your face." anyway. Actually the fact that he's been working with Lewis for ten years and apparently didn't know that is more telling than the joke itself, since he could have made the joke about someone else's mom just as easily.

In the conversation with Caitlyn where she mentions not wanting to regret her choice to stay at the park, he starts with an apology about how he's sorry he's "developmentally challenged, like bad", which is more a figure of speech than him actually being so. It's clear from his form of humour that he isn't not a stupid guy, but in reaction to so strongly eschewing the patterns and rules of his father, he's swung way too far in the other direction in the attempt to seek out the spontaneous and funny. Owen reacts – that's it. He does things without thinking about them, and can obviously recognise when something was a mistake, he just doesn't employ the critical thinking necessary to not always make them in the first place. He's got fair instincts, but when those are all you use you tend to fail for a number of different kinds of variables.

The only development he has, again, is slight, and it's in that particular regard. By the time the film ends, he's at least making an effort to include a step or two of considering-the-consequences – although when Duncan finds him for the last day of his stay there, he's already back to not wearing an employee shirt, so. It's likely that'll be a change that takes some time in coming; either that, or Owen's just decided to implement a different sort of scale in terms of what necessitates that kind of consideration and what doesn't.

POWER: Canonically none.

Water manipulation: He works for a waterpark if he doesn't have water manipulation he is a useless human being. Probably about as reliable as he is, which is to say it works best when he's either playing a joke on someone or it's actually a good reason to be using it.

Aura reading: He has an odd ability to be able to read other people canonically, aside from Duncan's total lack of abstract thought, and growing up in an emotionally charged environment would lend to that. He can't influence auras at all, and he has to either consciously be doing it or the emotion has to be strong enough to spot without trying. Additionally just trying to do it all the time would result in headaches, bc no.

Superhuman dancing: I'm sorry, that one is just because it's Sam Rockwell. He's really really good at dancing. He can out-dance anyone due to agility and grace and style.

〈 CHARACTER SAMPLES 〉
COMMUNITY POST (VOICE) SAMPLE:

Well this is fun – here I am, just hanging out back home, the king of my own kingdom, ruler of my imminent domain, and now I get to be - [ He squints at his wrist again for a second there. ] - some kind of hero. [ Back properly to the video, because this is definitely a video, you can't make nearly as strong an impression otherwise. ] I didn't ask to be anything more than what I was already, okay, being the domineering yet humble god of my own small country was all I wanted out of life, not this kind of responsibility, no, it's just too much. Take me back to Eightch-two-oh-pia.

[ It's actually unclear as to whether or not he's sincere on that front, in regards to actually being angry or if he's faking in the sort of oh you shouldn't have type of way. Or if he's bullshitting altogether. (Spoilers: it's the last one.) But if there's anything he knows, it's that if Anne Hathaway is believable as the princess of a small European country no one knew anything about, then he could totally pull off being some kind of lesser known deity.

Also he's completely kidding, so. There's that. ]

Alternately, I could probably be convinced to stick around a little longer if someone told me that Katy Perry wasn't currently leading the music charts here, because that's the kind of world I could get behind.

LOGS POST (PROSE) SAMPLE:

The video had been fun, but in all honesty he was looking forward to getting some more concrete answers out of the place. Owen didn't precisely have a lot going on for him back home, but he was kind of attached to it – as he'd said before about specific things in his life, it was just the right amount of shitty. Granted, the park might run a little bit better with a manager who actually remembered how the deck chairs were put out, or whether or not they sold coffee, but he liked to think he was that sort of esoteric institution that added the special flair to the place.

It was just another story, but it worked out well enough. Most of them didn't tend to have a normal middle anyway.

And in all honesty, who didn't want to be a superhero? Or, okay, a registered hero – still. You point him to a six year old who doesn't think about what it would like to be Spider-Man or Darkwing Duck or one half of the Wonder Twins or even Superman's pet dog and he will point you to a six year old without hopes and aspirations, which needs to be rectified immediately. Not having aspirations? That'll fuck somebody up even faster than trying to achieve the things and failing. What was that one chemistry thing? Something, something else, transformation. You had to work for it, that was the point, anyway. But then again, like people were kind of fond of pointing out, you typically have to work for most of the things that really matter. It was one of those pervasive, really annoying parts of life that no matter how hard or good you were at ignoring, always came back to bite you in the ass, and not in the potentially fun, adult kind of way.

Speaking of adults. At least one person would definitely see his absence as a bad thing, so there was that. He hoped at least that his behavior recently would be enough to indicate that he wouldn't actually just literally not be there when she wanted him to be, instead of the more abstract, metaphorical kind of not being there that he'd been more or less perfecting over the last several years. Then again, his total lack of any forward momentum or indication of any other form of personal inertia would probably work just as well in his favor in that respect. Either way – and hopefully-times-two they wouldn't just cancel each other out, because how much would that blow – he figured there was a decent chance of this not being held against him when he got back. Because getting back was a given. He always wound up at the same place, always had, every time he'd tried to leave it. It was really just the reception that he was concerned about.

Now, something he hadn't been actually thinking about when he had made the video post – and this is just one of them, because he hadn't been thinking about a lot of things at the time – was that if he was brought from some random place, to here, which was some other random place, then everybody else who was also brought here was probably also from some different random place.

I.e.: nobody else who was here actually knew for sure that he wasn't exactly what he'd said he was.

Long live Owen, the mighty water god of the peaceful land of H₂O-pia.

FINAL NOTES: If he can come in with his rad sunglasses and snappy hat, just nod and don't say anything.