(arriving fashionably late with coffee) hiiii i love talking about parky macmilly especially with luis so heres a sparknotes of my parky thoughts >>>
hes kind of like... pre-modern blaseball era i heavily conceptualize him as not fully understanding exactly how fucking horrible his relationship with his parent/s are (the Coin, obviously, but Lootcrates is not innocent of sin) & sort of just internalizing the fact hes continuously a failed son/sun to them. he tries so hard to be The Best player to be a Star to be a beloved player that sells well that everyone bets on and cheers for, that wins games, that clinches championships, that is *profitable* because thats what his mom wants. thats all the Coin cares about.
and hes like... fuzzily, almost conceptually aware that this is awful? that he has no self esteem left because all he does is keep failing, and then the league cursed him for being too good even though all hes being told is hes nowhere near good enough, and suddenly he has a train of literal blood and bodies on his hands that he never asked for and never wanted and has no control over. the price of him existing on your team is the knowledge you have to live a year with a sword of damocles above you, and even the teams that hate him have to contend with the fact hes... sad. hes softspoken and withdrawn and he doesnt connect with his teammates because hes fucking guilty and cant cope with the fact his existance is killing innocent players.
i think, especially pre-firewalker, he put on a very "boy band" esque persona - its what influenced my design for him, very hair metal and 80s rock badboy kind of front-man vibe designed to sell well -; smug, and aloof, just a little bit cocky. he wouldve gotten along with tillman henderson in public kind of image. and he clings to that like, cold distant star player persona after firewalker happens because its now just another defense mechanism and attempt to be continuously profitable so the Coin is proud of him, and meanwhile, the real parker is just... quiet. softspoken. he doesnt have boundries he can establish because the Coin does not take "no" for an answer, the Coin talks around you until you cave anyways, the Coin effortlessly talks you out of any possible self esteem by picking apart all your mistakes and flaws and then going "oopsie! well you know i mean well i just want you to do better you know nobody else cares more than me!" and parker is just like.. yeah. that makes sense. < has no ability anymore to differentiate when his perception of events are true or not
hes withdrawn and tries not to get close to anyone because every team incineration sort of shreds his mental state further, hes too guilty and feels too much like a weapon to cope with it especially because the Coin immediately moved to monetize the Literal Deaths Hes Causing just because. so the force field is like... the first time hes had any reprieve from like, 1 of the myriad of things ruining his fucking life. he isnt roaming and being a living grim reaper anymore, he gets to stay on one team again and sort of awkwardly starts trying to make friends?
i think thats the thing about him and megan. megan pities him, megan sees all of the fixability and how horrible his situation is, megan befriends him even if it isnt really the best of intentions or a healthy friendship, and parker accepts it because he doesnt know what he wants and he hasnt had friends in years and hes trying to settle in a new team, and maybe his roommate insists that he doesnt have to live like this. maybe his roommate insists hes a tool and he should break free. maybe he thinks shes insane, because yes, everything hurts and everything the Coin says makes him feel worse, but thats just how the world is, right?
megan focuses just as much on him as an object but in a different way, and its that level of familiarity yet wrong that makes him especially just... sort of... break down so easily even though he keeps pushing back in his own way. he doesnt want to lose the force field. he doesnt want to acknowledge that the Coin treats him horribly. he doesnt want to acknowledge that the league and Outside Forces cursed him the most terribly of literally any player in the league. he wants to keep it all in a box and shove it under their squeaking too-small bedframe and never touch it ever again. hes got nothing and hes so content because for once having nothing means hes stable again, not causing deaths, the Coin is just fully ignoring him now because hes useless to her and it aches but it somehow is better? he doesnt know how to branch out of the team further and he doesnt have an interest in it anymore. its like disassociation but bass boosted.
i also think his relationship with new megan ito is way, way more complicated and toxic and bitter afterwards because its a mixture of like. Raw Unadulterated Horror And Guilt from being the cause of megan not just dying but essentially getting fucking erased from the universe? but also hes bitter and shocked and upset that she stole the force field. but also hes in fucking agony, because why would she do that? why would she take away the thing protecting everyone? but also hes so fucking guilty, that maybe he shouldve listened to her more, that maybe the few things he put his foot down were the problem. but also, hes so fucking angry, because how dare she rip the one thing he wanted out of his hands and make that choice for him, that he should be a tool to riot against the Coin? but also that makes him more guilty. and so on and so forth its just... a mess.
centennial era parker goes through like every stage of grief speedran after he gets unvaulted and nmegan steals the force field again because now hes reliving literally the worst event of his life AGAIN but also he then has to find out that not only was he not good enough? the Coin then made FOUR REPLICAS of him, all equally not good enough and/or dead. he speedruns the stages of grief about all of this and skips directly to like raw unadulterated hate and anger towards the Coin and towards nmegan and i think like Literally post-release the guy is still trying to work out like a fraction of how he has actually felt about any of this since day X
tldr what if you were disassociating and isolating all the time to cope with an abusive god-who-is-also-your-mother and the fact an entire league hated you enough to make you a weapon of mass murder involuntarily, and then you were given an item that undoes that second part and meet your first and only friend who is a close friend but also sort of superficially a friend just wants to fix you and make choices in your life against a system thats unfair that she hates but youre apathetic to. and then she gets murdered because of you but also because she literally refuses to let you just exist in your bubble, and then you have to put up with someone who looks-and-sounds-like-her-but-isnt-her until youre put in cryostasis for centuries as a "reward" in a Vault and the next time you fully come to and get to be alive again she immediately reenacts the most traumatic day of your life. and then the world is ending. what then
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