mazin

✰ personality/mannerisms

long streak of silence. his presence on the train basically amounts to the control room, and in the rare moments where he departs from his perch, he'll take distant complicated routes throughout the train to avoid having to talk to anyone. this avoidance has kind of reached a point where like... various passengers have never even seen mazin, and only know of him via complaints from others.
in conversation he's extremely fanciful and elaborate, in potentially the most condescending manner possible. he very much thinks of himself as the smartest man ever and often waves off others for being too obtuse, according to him. his intelligence is like, a principle excuse for his isolation... he somehow believes he'll be able to leave the train alone with his own two hands, in spite of the fact he's refused to collaborate with the other passengers and has kept the control room under lock and key without even Doing anything in there.

✰ relationships

tethers to nobody.
was married to his wife, joan, though their relationship kind of just soured over the years. he became excessively avoidant and uncaring in pursuit of his work, further refusing to talk things out and conveniently finding a new thing to investigate whenever joan actually brought up his neglect. to put it briefly they're very divorcecore but the final nail in the coffin was never knocked in prior to mazin's disappearance. to a degree he's glad that whole ordeal's off his hands, even.
mazin was formerly a friend of both erös siblings. he genuinely found míra interesting to talk to, and for a while, felt guilty about causing her death. he thought he could stitch the wound by befriending demeter, but after confessing to the murder and demeter effectively trying to kill him in retaliation, mazin fully retreated from amicable matters.
not to say his lack of trust keeps him away from good oppurtunities. notably he feigns interest in both peixin and dalisay as he believes they both have important ties to the train that could be the key to escaping. he partially sympathises with them both, especially with dalisay as he regards hir as a burdened prodigy like him. it's less genuine... care? so to speak? than just a roundabout way of him bringing justice to his ideals.
he's kept a distant eye on other train matters, though deems most other plans harmless to his own. he knows ulises is stalling return with her experiments, though doesn't quite understand why; he's somewhat wary of freya and isel and over time he's kept a tighter lock on the control room because of them alone; he's actually had some pleasant words with both beatrix and marjolaine, and furthermore, paid compliments to marjolaine's facsimiles. this was done entirely to placate her into focusing on the facsimiles instead of a compromise for return though lol.

✰ misc

✰ when he first came to france he lived in marseille, though later moved to paris as he started his career in journalism.
✰ he is fluent in arabic, english, french, german and latin.

✰ train room

literally like two rooms at most. very cramped and only beholding the essentials - he does spend most of his time in the control room, occasionally even sleeping there.

✰ role

wip

✰ motifs

major one is moths, in particular luna moths. in general it's meant to work with his sun theme to make a kind of icarus metaphor, the 'luna moth' in particular is meant to be ironic and plays on his tendency toward secrecy. moth motif is reflected in míra's dragonfly motif to like, imply similarity i guess, and also works in conjunction with isel and freya's ADJACENT sun motif which overall in ccs represents wisdom and knowledge about fornax. peixin also carries some sun iconography for this reason.
to expand on the sun theme, and this mostly operates around visuals and prose, it's mostly carried in his glasses lens. he frequently pulls down the gold lens when he's lying or being disingeneous, and by the time dalisay enters the control room, the regular lens of his glasses is broken, leaving only the golden one intact. basically just stating he's only lying from that point on lol.
he's got a minor cicada motif, probably relates to his wife having a cicada motif. tribute to them taking a long time to hatch... i initially thought they took 7 years specifically which made it more fitting but on second thought i think i made that up
his blazer kind of has a winged birdlike motif to both contrast against his general moth one and to reel in similarity to isel. wasnt the plan but the buttons on it kind of ended up looking like halos so i guess i ran him into an angelic direction. vaguely. eh. his blazer's mainly worn at the beginning of the story prior to control room stuff so it's meant to be like... him obscuring his presence somewhat. a lot of what this guy's about is just lying TBH

✰ title

saturniid was the very first title i came up with and it stayed fully unchanged. i already had his moth thing set up and i was planning on having him be a villain figure from the very start so i was like. i should give him an ominous epithet or something. and then that got me thinking about everyone on the train having pseudonyms as well. and it comes full circle because after i gave everyone titles i was like. ohh but what if mazin specifically used it to obscure his name instead of it simply being a train construct. and thats where we are now

✰ inspirations

✰ his characterisation was spurred by me wanting to have one of those like. 'evil guys who are awful yet people excuse them because ????' type beats because i thought it would be funny. intentionally subverted it for further amusement - made him even more lame and unlikeable than most of those archetypes are
✰ related to the above, simon laurent and daniil dankovsky. big influences
✰ he's a foil to a lot of characters honestly. dalisay in terms of the whole recognition self-righteousness thing, ulises in the form of the "scientist who is extremely passionate about the train and wants to protect it alongside the people on it vs cold logical journalist who deems it unnatural and dangerous and is directly hostile to everyone" dichotomy (which is another play on the distant scientist/romantic writer trope, which i dislike LOL), demeter in a way i need a whole essay for and faris in...ways i mention on her own page. im not retyping that shit
✰ myriad of everything everything songs inspired his creation namely radiant president heartbeat and undrowned
✰ he's got warrior cats anatagonist influence. can't really express this one beyond 'he would have edgy mspaint amvs and animatics made about him'
✰ mentioned in an old ref of his + playlist but but sun of nothing influences his arc as general like. 'smart guy burdened by his own awareness who resigns himself to the danger instead of doing anything about his sad sad life. and also regrets it last second'
✰ i dont know how i didnt mention it but me listening to the hard sell (also on his playlist) practically gave me like train story visions for a month and he was the first character i had like. a definitive idea about because of it. ill get into the evolution of it some other day lol

✰ external

✰ artfight profile
✰ solo playlist - saturniid

✰ description

hair: black and curly. mostly swept to left.
face: rounded. flat nose. prominent smile lines. glasses are half-moon shaped - they have an excess golden lens attached with a clasp, which can be pulled down or up. off the clasp hangs a chain with a moth charm.
main outfit: green vest resembling the pattern of a luna moth wing. underneath wears a green dress shirt, unbuttoned at the top and with an exagerrated collar. golden belt buckle has a cicada engraving. skirt is brown with moth eye spot patterns arranged in vertical columns. shoes follow similar patterning at the toe, with the tongue fully resembling the silhouette of moths wings. accessorywise wears a choker style necklace connecting at the front with a sun pendant - an additional bigger pendant hangs off of it, in the form of a smaragdine luna moth. various bracelets and rings are worn - mostly constructed out of gold, silver or leather.
general fashion style: sticks to formal office style clothing. likes stuff with exagerrated silhouettes, especially around the collar. goes for earth tones and the most 'patterned' his outfits get are just moth eye style ones. his fashion style is regarded as generic but also extremely pompous.
other: prior to the control room unlocking he wears a dark green blazer with wing iconography. following the control room unlocking, he ties his hair up and unhooks the moth pendant from his necklace. also wears his blazer on his shoulders at first, but eventually discards it.