lewispullmanfanblog

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I made a meme to cope with the ending of the sandman 🥲

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~An Analysis on Parker Robbins and the Found-Family Trope ~

One of the things I think makes Parker Robbins so interesting as a villain is how he seems to crave family and friendships, and seems to really value it--up to a point, anyway.

I mean, bro created an entire found family that, yes, are his employees, but they also seem comfortable around him up until the truth about Stuart comes out, with multiple scenes of everyone hanging out before and after jobs at his apartment and seeming comfortable doing so, and he genuinely seems to enjoy their presence and company. He compliments them, protects them, saves their lives even if it could endanger him or his goals, such as when Slug and Jeri were dying and he breaks in to rescue them from the greenhouse as soon as he is finished dispatching the guards.

The scene where he saves Riri from the security guard also comes to mind.

Another scene where Clown steals his cloak is a standout proof of this. Instead of getting angry with her for stealing something he is shown to be hugely possessive over, he stops John from hurting her further, and even protects Riri from John in that same scene. Clown demands an apology, and Parker waits for John to do so rather than dismissing her feelings. Parker is a peacekeeper, when possible. He wants everyone to get along.

Hell, even with Zeke, who fights him tooth and nail--Parker brings him into his new "home", and they have a bizarrely domestic (and amusing as heck) scene at the dinner table together in which you can see that Parker is striving for some sense of normalcy. You could even argue him making Zeke eat is a messed up way of Parker trying to care for Zeke. Parker doesn't really need protection, but keeps Zeke close to him anyway. He's lost everyone else, and so he finds the nearest viable person to bring into his circle that same day that the others leave.

Parker doesn't like or want to be alone, and needs some form of validation that he exists, that he matters, even if it's by trapping someone that hates him and is forcing them to stay with him, such as he does with Zeke. Any attention is good attention for Parker, I feel. This is a common trauma response that can begin in childhood and follow someone into adulthood if you have been abandoned or neglected by a parent, which we know Parker was.

On top of everything else, I think he is so angry with Riri not just for inadvertently killing John, but taking away his found family by revealing the truth to them about Stuart. He feels betrayed by her, even though Riri is just trying to keep her family safe by dividing Parker's people with the truth. His way of thinking is extremely black and white--you're either with him or against him, and other people's reasoning isn't something I think he considers deeply, especially when it gets in the way of his own goals. He's great at reading people at face value, but he seems to place them in the mental boxes that suit him best, rather than accepting they are their own people with their own hopes and lives. As soon as they defy him to a point, he tosses them aside, such as he does with Slug, Jeri, Roz and Clown, even though all they are asking for is the truth. To him, it's an act of defiance he believes he cannot allow. Trust being broken once is all it takes, even if it's not fair to anyone else.

And in the last scene, what's he doing? Not lurking in some underground lair alone, plotting and cackling wildly. He's covered up, he's moving through a crowd that doesn't see him, and he goes straight to someone who he thinks can help him. He's seeking a new ally in Zelma's shop, maybe from Zelma herself. He's looking for help even after losing everyone, after feeling undoubtedly betrayed and broken by all of it, and instead of hiding and growing bitter, he's going to try and do this all over again with someone new.

And that's kind of beautifully tragic.

(Feel free to disagree with any of this but please don't be mean, I literally wrote this to distract myself from the tornado warning we just got so if none of it makes sense, that's why 🙃, it's just my interpretation of it all lol)

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Almost died today. Like my entire family almost died.

But I got the old hypothetical question answered for me--would you run into a burning building to save your family?

And I did.

I got my little sister out, my cats, my tortoise, leopard gecko, budgie and both fish.

And that might be the thing that heals my lifelong feeling of being a selfish cowardly piece of shit. Because there was this moment when I was looking for the older cat, who was of course hiding, and I felt the smoke keep coming in my lungs and was getting lightheaded, and there was a voice that calmly, matter of factly told me that I was going to die if I didn't get out soon.

And my subconscious answered back, "I'm not leaving until I find him, and I'd rather die trying than live and know he didn't get out and I gave up."

It didn't feel brave. It certainly didn't feel heroic. It wasn't even a choice.

I've always been a tiny grain of sand, pushed to and fro by storms, by waves, by hurricanes. Weak and useless. But in that moment it felt like I became a sheer black cliff face. A force of nature. Something somehow stronger than a storm, the waves, a hurricane.

For the first time in my life I felt stronger than the unseen forces around me.

I've been suicidal all my life. But hearing death whispering to you, feeling it fill your mouth and nose and lungs, it's different than you might imagine.

I've been afraid all my life, but for once, I wasn't. I was okay with it grabbing me, but it couldn't have anyone I loved, not if I could stop it.

I saved all of them. It was messy, and stressful, and I looked like I'd been drug through a dirty pile of charcoal afterwards. I'm still coughing up black soot. I cried and hyperventilated and did something I never thought, in all my arrogance and pride, would, and asked for an ambulance once everything was taken care of in the house and my family was safe.

It wasn't just me who got them out. It was the love of everyone I've lost giving me determination. It was the grief and rage I've held for three years made manifest into something implacable and unbreakable. It was the realization that my story is not over, like I thought it was.

I think it actually began today.

Pic of Bear and Boots ❤️

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Parker's not supposed to have favorites.

He does, anyway.

.

.

.

-you haven't worked here for more than a few months, but parker knew you were the most good-hearted, loyal, intelligent, and brave person amongst his little band of misfits

-you were a criminal, yes, but you had your reasons, and they were good ones

-he tries to ignore how he feels at first, but it's a losing game

-the first time he knows he's failed utterly in remaining stoic towards you is when it's the first cold day of the year and you show up for work without your usual coat

-he can't give you his cloak, obviously

-but he does toss you one of his hoodies...casually

-he doesn't want to seem like he has a preference for anyone here, including you

-especially you

-he doesn't tell you about his past, but he wants to

-he knows you wouldn't judge him for it

-but still, he can't bring himself to open up

-he's learned the hard way what a danger doing so can be.

-he doesn't let John be a dick to you, even if John is just joking around

-parker doesn't make a big show of that, though

-he'll just tell john to knock it off or ask him to go do a task for him all without ever sparing you a glance

-he doesn't want to let on that he feels protective over you

-not only would it be something for his enemies to exploit but he also knows you crave independence and don't want to be treated different from the rest of the gang

-you don't often go out with the rest to drink or party, but when you do he can't help but feel impatient for the night to end so that he knows your home safe

-and he always knows that, thanks to the tracker on your phone he'd put there

-that didn't make you special, of course, he had trackers on everyone's phones

-although he might check yours more than was strictly necessary

-at first he could use the excuse that you were new and he didn't know if he could trust you or not

-but once you'd been with the gang for a few months and shown your loyalty, he could admit to himself that it was more than that

-he needed to keep track of you, there was too much danger in the world and you were too kind, and sometimes far too trusting

-not that you couldn't keep yourself safe--he'd seen you in action before--but he was just...better at it

-he may have asked slug to install an alarm system on your door to alert to any comings and goings, such as potential intruders, but again, that could be waved away by him just being paranoid about his employee's safety and if slug thought it was weird, they didn't say anything

-if he asked roz and jeri to go with you when you went on errands for the work you did for him, it wasn't that unusual--why not send backup with you just in case?

-if he asked clown to rig traps in your apartment that would stun and subdue anyone whose heat signature did not match yours, it was totally fine....even if clown gave him that knowing look when he asked her to

-ok, maybe everyone knew he had a favorite

-but who could blame him?

-all he'd ever wanted was to be rich and powerful

-but now, he wanted all of that....

-and you, of course

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Where are the Ironheart fics??? Where are the edits? Where are the long essays on Tumblr going into detail about the psychology of such and such? Where are the YouTube videos on everything I might have missed per episode?? Wtf?? This show is fucking awesome, why isn't it blowing up??

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actually so funny that booker just. died. like for no reason at all. no impact. he died as he lived, absolutely selfish and useless

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Me watching the Old Guard 2

Because seriously, wtf did they do to Nicky and Joe (and like...everyone else???)

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"what's the worst thing you can do as an artist" is not "shade with black" or "not use references" or whatever the worst thing you can do as an artist is hate yourself. and that includes the person you used to be

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According to the canon of Twilight, the souls wouldn't actually be able to take the vampires over at all since the venom inside their bodies is said to disintegrate anything that isn't vampire flesh--this is what happens to Bella's contacts when they are in her eyes. So any Souls would disintegrate even if they managed to break through vampire skin.

Your blog is very funny, but it also genuinely forced me to read better and more closely. It points out the difference between what the author's cultural biases imply and what's actually being said.

On that note ... What do you think would happen if the Souls (from Host) had the technology to open the Vampires (from Host) and posses them? How would the takeover work?

Also, separately...if bella were possessed by a soul edward would not notice until it was time to turn her.

Dang, this is high praise anon, I'm very very flattered.

And that's an interesting question, let's dive in.

The Sorry Tale of the Fire Eater Planet

Early on in the story, when Wanda is still in Soulsville and lecturing at a university about various planets, we learn about the world of the fire eaters.

Here we get a fascinating first glance at the arrogance and hubris of souls, as well as how they're affected by the biases and prejudices of the worlds they colonize.

The souls successfully colonized planet with little trouble (certainly compared to Earth/or even the Seaweed world), they judged the dominant/only intelligent life forms to be the fiery creatures which subsisted on floral substances and all was well.

However, they had a horrible realization later, turns out those flowers were sentient and it was just... you know... the fire eaters were a little... they were... um...

WELL, THE POINT IS THE SOULS HAVE NOW SWITCHED THE FIRE EATERS' DIETS AND SOULS CAN BECOME THE FLOWERS AND THEY ALL LIVE IN HARMONY AND OH GOD THE SOULS HAVE BEEN EATING SENTIENT CREATURES FOR YEARS, CAUSING THEM INORDINATE AMOUNT OF PAIN AND HORRIFYING DEATHS, OH GOD.

It's a story that makes Wanda as our narrator, as well as the other souls, deeply uncomfortable. Her students are aghast that anyone would live on the fire eater planet, even now that this has been sorted out, and Wanderer is too (for all she tries to pretend she isn't).

There's a lot of takeaways from this story, but the big one is this: souls tend to only observe the most obviously dominant intelligent species.

On our planet, and given how soul psychology is not unsimilar to ours at the end of the day, humans on Earth are hopping. We've spread across the globe to conditions which should be unsurvivable for our species, we're apex predators to the point where, as a group in our ideal environment, we face very few threats from other species, we make extensive use of technology, we've left our own planet, stupid large brain to body ratio--it mirrors a lot of what souls look for in host species/their first species.

The spiders were a technological species with space faring technology, per Wanda at least they seem to have a good relationship with the souls as a species and seem to voluntarily allow parasitic behavior, and in turn the souls view them as extraordinarily reliable and use them to build their technology. For all souls clearly want to experience different things, they want more than just being spiders forever, they clearly really really really like technology. Oh, they'll dabble in other things, but make crystal ice cities and you have their attention.

Which means that it makes sense that the souls didn't decide they should become humpback whales.

But it also means they're unlikely to realize vampires even exist.

Why Not?

First, the initial study of Earth was primarily sampling. We learn that there were crop circles/alien abductions. The souls observed the Earth for a while, they would suck up humans to study their physiology and make sure they developed the technology to keep them healthy and safe, and it wasn't until probably years after that that they began slowly infiltrating society--an operation which was hyperfixated on human society and how to best colonize the planet as swiftly, seamlessly, and non-violently as possible (not a shock that Wanda's mentor/therapist posed as a highly educated and presumably relatively wealthy couple as one of the people on the front lines).

The problem is where vampires come in.

The vampire population in the world of Twilight is likely very very very small. Estimated less than a thousand here.

That's not even a needle in a haystack, you aren't finding that needle.

Then these vampires tend to dwell in remote areas, away from humans except for feeding.

Then, add onto that, they have self-enforcement that they should be as subtle and unnoticeable to the human population as possible.

It's highly unlikely the souls would even realize that vampires exist since humans themselves don't. The souls would be fixated on understanding human society, culture, physiology, etc. Humans... don't think demons are real and for the most part there's no evidence to contradict that. And what evidence there is is explained away by other things.

Anything the souls might notice gets stamped out by the Volturi very quickly.

As a result, I think the most likely thing is that souls would have no idea that vampires exist and as a result would certainly not have the technology to deal with them, as they didn't spend any time studying them the way they did humans.

Say They Do

Alright, they notice, first they have to decide if a vampire is at all different from a tiger. Yes, these creatures eat sentient beings, seeming to exclusively subsist on the eucalyptus leaves that is human blood, but are they sentient? They may look similar to humans, but so do great apes, and the souls didn't take them over.

This... probably depends what they witness of vampires. Newborn vampires are noted as very feral acting, for lack of a better word, they also are going to be in ragged clothes, they're not going to have washed properly, and they break whatever tools they try to use.

This is most of the vampire population, shortlived mayflies who last about a year.

Bella's tale biases us in that she meets a WEIRD collection of vampires that are very very very put together. The Volturis, Cullens, Denali, and all the others we meet are much more rare than your newborn army vampire.

But alright, say they figure out this is a second sentient creature... that eats the other one. ("FUCK FIRE EATERS ALL OVER AGAIN" sayeth the souls as they cry, why does this keep happening?)

I imagine they start with much the same methodology as other creatures they take over. First, they observe from a great distance, likely using this to gauge a vampire's strength, behavior, etc. Then they take samples to make sure they can develop medications/painless euthanasia to keep them running properly. And if that all goes well they get the rubber stamp of host species (if it doesn't... well, it's more likely it does if the Spider success rate is to be believed, Wanda notes that there is no problem that they haven't managed to solve/no species they set their eyes on they haven't been able to conquer).

However, if it doesn't, the souls have a choice to make. Do they take over the humans, knowing there's this other sentient species that is much stronger than the humans who they cannot control, or do they call it a wash and go home.

They seem really excited about Earth, so I think they'd still go for it, they'd just make sure to develop whatever technology they need to suitably protect their new human bodies from vampires/develop a nutritious alternative to human blood for vampires to consume.

"HELLO VAMPIRES :D!" the souls sayeth once they've taken over enough of humanity/protected them from vampire consumption, and Aro gets to stare at them in fucking disbelief as the gods have descended from Olympus and they're... this.

And is he out of a job?

(He also cries because the souls are trapped in 1950's Americana entertainment... that is still censored beyond that. What happened to his plays? His books? His cinema?

WHY IS EVEN 'LEAVE IT TO BEAVER' CENSORED?! HOW CAN YOU EVEN CENSOR THAT SHOW?!)

But back to if they can take over vampires. Well, now they need to take over both humans and vampires. Honestly, I imagine they'd target vampires first.

Vampires are a smaller population, they're isolated both from humanity as well as from one another, and if they notice what's happening to the humans they'll wig out and cause violence and havoc >:(. If they take care of the vampires first, on the other hand, the humans won't even notice and the souls will stop vampires from killing humans at all anymore or causing the vampire population to grow out of control.

Hooray!

Who they target first depends on how closely they've been watching and what they learn.

The ideal soul scenario is they'd get to the Volturi first. They have gifts such that the souls would easily, through them, be able to infiltrate every other coven and quickly take over the world. This would be done, I imagine, by having an abducted vampire go to Volterra to say they've witnessed a crime.

It'd be more ideal to get a guard or one of the big three/the wives... but the big three rarely leave their building and the wives are in a tower. If the big three do leave, they're surrounded by many guards and or meeting with enemy covens, that's a lot of vampires who can notice another vampire being abducted.

That's also the problem with the guards. From what we see they're rarely sent alone and they don't spend much time wandering about without meeting other vampires. They're either killing other vampires, meeting with them, or headed back to Volterra.

It's not impossible... but it's a risk and they'd have to implant an entire group of guards at once.

A less risky but better operation would be to abduct members of various covens across the globe, letting them then infect their coven members/covens in the area, and send souls to Volterra until someone manages to get one of them.

... Though could just be the Volturi, being a ridiculously paranoid operation to begin with who have Renata shielding them from physical harm, one day find themselves in a world of deeply, deeply, deeply fucking weird vampires.

The newborn wars just stop, for now reason, which is good but... what? The number of human deaths due to vampires is tremendously down as well suddenly. It's like the vampires aren't fucking eating anyone at all??? What???

And the visitors to Volterra are getting.... weird....

They refuse to touch Aro's hand (don't want him realizing they're a body snatcher) but are prattling on about peace, and love, and how they've found this amazing new substance that isn't human blood to subsist on. Isn't it amazing?

"Yeah, how bout that" - Aro

And like the humans before them, the Volturi slowly realize that their entire species (and I imagine the humans as well at this point) are not what they were, someone else is driving the bus, and that someone is... this.

The Volturi studiously avoid contact with either for fear of being snatched (as they clearly can and will do this to vampires) and... don't have to enforce the law anymore because the secret's blown anyway and no one's eating humans.

That, or they do get the Volturi, and the only hope for new vampires is if Demetri hasn't met you/the souls didn't get to the Cullens/Bella. Though... they probably get to Bella and the Cullens. All they need is one Cullen, and Bella... somehow would wander off alone with the wrong vampire and walk out a body snatchee.

Though, that said, if the vampires are liable longterm hosts is... dubious. We learn in canon that most humanity was taken over because of the surprise, people weren't expecting it and so they got eaten. However, an adult human who is aware of what is happening is so likely to resist that the hosts no longer allowed transfer into adults at all, adult humans who are caught are immediately euthenized.

Perhaps the initial vampires can be taken off guard the way humans were with little issue, but even then--I imagine it's the newborn vampires that have the highest success rate. Older vampires have lived too long, have too much experience, and to have survived to that age likely too much willpower.

Maybe the souls manage to take out all the old vampires by surprise, in which case they might be good, or they miss some in which case those are getting euthenized and you have to be transferred into a newborn vampire body.

Would Edward Notice if Bella Had Been Souled

Alright, we'll assume this is in the world where the souls didn't notice vampires.

Well, thing is, I doubt Bella would be a first pick/on the front lines for the takeover. Bella Swan is a teenage girl from a lower middle class divorced family. She has very few friends, few family, and moves to a rural town.

She doesn't have enough reach to quickly infect a large population.

So, by the time we get to Bella, probably a lot of people have been souled and the Cullens have likely noticed.

Doc in the book was one of the first to notice because he was in the medical field, and the souls couldn't help themselves and started improving human medical equipment almost immediately.

Carlisle, while in a very rural hospital, has at least heard rumor of this occurring and like Doc is wondering "what the actual fuck?" This is combined with all the other signs that started popping up when the souls got confident.

Forks is so small that it's unclear if it's gotten to right away. It is relatively close to a large city like Seattle, so it's possible it gets hit early (vs. say random person in Australian Outback) but it's also possible they get a bit of time.

There's an aside here to be made that La Push is... having a time again, as this time it's not vampires, but boy it sure looks like people are being possessed by some kind or horrible demons and HM better stick to ourselves as much as we can and prepare for the worst. La Push is used to this bullshit.

But right, back to Bella.

Well, either Forks is entirely souled and the Cullens have had no choice but to flee as people who are... well... not and can't be. Or Bella would be one of the first in the town, but probably not one of the first humans taken over by a long shot, in which case the Cullens are also still likely not in Forks and have sadly gone to the wilderness.

On the off chance they are there, I imagine Bella smells weird and has that weird thing going on with her eyes.

And I just remember you wrote that question as if Edward and Bella had already met and were deeply in love, the answer is sadly yes due to smell and eye color, but Edward probably wouldn't otherwise notice the vast difference in personality.

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reblog and make a wish! this was removed from tumbrl due to “violating one or more of Tumblr’s Community Guidelines”, but since my wish came true the first time, I’m putting it back. :)

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Lovely sweet child of mine

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My sexy cowboy Rhett

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jennifer's body au for the passenger!!!

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LEWIS PULLMAN as CALVIN EVANS Lessons in Chemistry (2023) 1.02

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