And if you'd like to talk for hours, just go ahead now

[preybeforemeals]

Character Relationships Meme!



1. Leave a comment listing who you play.

2. Reply to one another, asking for details on CR/what their characters think of yours!

3. tl;dr at will!

Holy crap, it's so easy a Weedle can do it. It's not Magikarp-tier simplicity, but that's just because nothing is Magikarp-tier simplicity.

Have at and enjoy!

Comments

ONE OF SEVERAL

[nostabbing]

Parker on Hagakure

In talking about Hagakure and how Parker tends to relate to him, one of the things I feel like I kind of need to do is sidetrack and talk about Parker in canon a little bit, and in particular about what she actually did experience when she went home for her canon update that affected her in some respects.

When I first picked up Parker, I brought her in from season three, episode three, which was itself a pretty defining Parker episode. However, that pull-point also came with the secondary consideration that it put Parker two episodes before the beginnings of one of the big personal crises she has throughout the third season, which is that she ends up realizing that she's experiencing feelings of jealousy when Hardison is particularly friendly and affectionate towards the Client Of The Week (to the point where she literally crushes beer bottles in her fists without realizing she's done it at the mere mention of the client's name). And in the series, that's really one of the first times that Parker really kind of...has to grapple with figuring out what attraction feels like, and identifying it when it happens, and so on and so forth.

So what's proven to be really interesting as far as Hagakure is concerned is that because of her original canonpoint, Parker initially branched away from that struggle and had it independently during gameplay in Route, but because she'd made so much progress at being socialized through her experiences with the Dangans, it was a much...milder? kind of personal journey in that respect. She had Ishimaru around to talk to about it, for one thing, and she'd had some bonding experiences that helped her towards a smoother transition.

By the end of the season (which is where Parker's updated to now), she's actually kind of come to terms with it with regards to Hardison, too, so it ended up working out that when she got back from her canon update, the thing that was nagging at her wasn't so much whether or not she liked Hagakure, so much as it was she had to kind of deal with the question of whether or not it was okay to like him and Hardison both. And I think that was actually really good for her? I mean, average people sometimes struggle with the concept that it's okay to like more than one person in your life and that you can like people without having to compare them to each other and arbitrarily rank one ahead of the other and whatnot, so seeing Parker achieve that was...just really nice, and it grew organically out of her CR so I'm really glad it happened.

And that is, actually, a pretty good foundation for talking about what Parker thinks of Hagakure — she actually never compares him to Hardison, because he's his own person with his own merits and those merits are what she likes about him. He never calls her crazy or patronizes her, and he's always very patient with her; that patience, in particular, makes a huge impact on her because sometimes things are just hard for her but Hagakure always manages to make her feel like it's okay to just be who she is, and that she's not deficient in any way regardless of how she acts. He never tries to coach her through being more "normal" or acts like she's committed a faux pas even when she totally has; he takes her as she is and that's okay, and she really, really values that.

...Also whether he realizes it or not he's completely hit the jackpot because Parker has so damn much money that she could probably pay off all his debts like five times over and still purchase a small island nation upon which to retire and live comfortably for the rest of her days, but that's not the point.

The point is, Hagakure is great and while he started out as One Of The Dangans, he's really gone a long way towards distinguishing himself in her esteem from the rest of the herd, and she sees him as a lot more of a discrete individual than as merely a part of Ishimaru's class.