#softbuckybarnes

k first of all sorry if u been waiting a long time; i went to bed a little after i reblogged the thing

oh my god I hate the show but I literally watch every new ep like everyone is awful the clothes are amazing and I am completely addicted

i had to stop bc of a seriously lagging vid but this is exactly how i feel so far

ohhhhhh my god honestly though like. yes we know frustratingly little about parse but what we do know all points to him being a really bad or at least really shady guy?? like within the span of one evening he:

shows up back in jack’s life–not just in his life, but at his school, in his damn house–uninvited even though jack is clearly really really really uncomfortable around him (look at the way jack’s face falls with horror when he sees him in parse i! look at the raw fear in his expression in parse iii! look at how jack’s voice alternates between shouting and tiny, meek stammering! look at the way he literally trembles with anxiety after parse leaves! none of this is the body language or expression of a man who feels safe around kent parson!)

tries to manipulate jack and control his behavior (asks him to promise to join the aces, tells him he’ll get him on the team, says he misses him which would be sweet except jack immediately responds by implying that parse pulls this shit a lot)

overreacts and tries to punish jack (by inducing a fucking anxiety attack!) when he refuses to go along with parse’s plan (calling the samwell team shitty, telling jack he’s worthless and everyone will find that out soon enough)

threatens to tell the team some secret about jack (”stay away from my team.” “why? afraid i’ll tell them something?”), which is never a cool thing to do, but i read a pretty compelling theory that this is actually parse threatening to out jack to the team which, if true, puts parse above pretty much any other fictional character in terms of punchability imho

there’s a reason this is his biggest and most important scene in canon, okay? ngozi didn’t go “hm, parse is supposed to be a bit of a jerk but not really a bad dude and i want people to like him, but oh whoops i accidentally made his first and thus far only primary appearance have him being an awful human being and dagnabbit i just went and wrote+drew jack seeming utterly terrified by parse’s presence in almost every panel and oh gosh darn i had bitty repeatedly imply on twitter that he’s extremely uncomfortable around parse even just as a topic of conversation months after epikegster what a wacky accident”.

if we were supposed to like parse, there would be something significant in the narrative indicating that we’re supposed to like parse. like, when jack was acting like a dick to bitty during year 1, that was still mixed with moments that humanized jack–yes, we saw him yell at bitty, but we also saw him humor his friends’ weirdness, struggle with anxiety, warm up to and befriend bitty over time, and in general be more than just some jerk. with parse, there’s a bit of lip service from other characters (”he remembered my major” isn’t the strongest case in favor of a character), some jokey, dubiously canonical extras, a couple commissions, and a whole lot of redemption headcanons because for some utterly mystifying reason people can’t just accept that some characters don’t get a pass for their behavior.

what really gets me about parse and parse stans is that one line–“you’re scared everyone else is gonna find out you’re worthless, right? oh, don’t worry, just give it a few seasons, jack. trust me.” like, people try to say parse iii was just a fight, but the thing is, i fight with people constantly. i have fought with multiple people in the past 24 hours. i’m kind of an expert on fighting people. and that is not shit you say in a fight. there’s a line between insulting people in the heat of the moment and deliberately driving them to an anxiety attack by capitalizing on their worst fears and telling them that they’re all true, and parse crossed that line so hard that the earth under his feet was poisoned and now nothing can grow there for 100 years.

parse, knowing full well that jack has an anxiety disorder and self-worth issues that put his entire life plan on hold and almost killed him, told jack that everything he feared or thought or hated about himself was true–that he was worthless and too broken for people to care about, and that everyone knows it, even his friends. this is a dick move so monstrously huge it can be seen from space. this is the kind of dick move that little dick moves look up to in school and say they want to be like some day. if this dick move was a kaiju, it’d be at least a category 3. this dick move makes “you’re a virgin who can’t drive” look like an ad for friendship bracelets. it was pretty fuckin’ uncool, is what i’m saying, and it’s what pushed me from “hm, parse is kind of morally ambiguous” to “parse is a terrible person and i can’t imagine the backstory or freudian excuse that would ever make me like him”.

i’ve mentioned before that i overly relate to jack zimmermann because his backstory is so similar to what i’ve been through in the past year (except i didn’t have a substance abuse problem), and if i can get way too real for a minute here, if my ex-best friend showed up in, like, july (i think my mental state in july was most analogous to jack’s current state in canon) and told me i was worthless and everyone knew it? i would never forgive her. period. and unlike parse, i actually know enough about my ex-best friend to have reasons to like her.

I have!! Twice actually. I like can’t link very well because I’m on mobile, but there’s this one: http://i-am-weis.tumblr.com/post/124060787672/gansey-said-and-what-is-it-my-dog-needs