#and then i want to draw her and Jake using that one malelivingspaces post about the bed frames. Parker loves her horrible awful shitty bed

[bluejaybytes]

Woe, OC post upon ye! Another longass post about my sploon OCs under the cut, including art <3 This time it's Parker, who blorbo-ified at RECORD speeds and is probably like 90% of why I've been going absolutely insane lately

(This ones 2.9k words this time. I will never write short Ever)

These two pieces never got posted, at least not individually, the first being because it's both "unfinished" as I didn't render it like the other busts I did in the same style, and because I ended up giving her a lot bigger of an art piece that I posted here after, so it felt a bit redundant to post the smaller, unrendered drawing here right after. But now it's an excuse to post more! The icon got included in the compilation however, so that ones not new to my blog, but hey now you can see it in a better resolution!

Parker is probably one of the fastest OCs of mine to go from idea to fully realized character, as the idea for a companion for Jake happened while I was working on his bust, and then by the end of that same drawing she had... practically everything major figured out about her.

Parker's from a more rural part of the domes when compared to the majority of the other important Octolings, and while she's not particularly attached to the domes as her home, she's also not really passionately against them either. She had a pretty shitty childhood, and found her outlet, like a lot of Octolings, in the military, having left home the moment she could to instead be a soldier.

She never really strived for excellence or anything, happily accepting being just a mid-ranked soldier, and positioned... basically out in the middle of nowhere. Unlike Scarlet's "positioned in the middle of nowhere" however, Parker's positioned deep within the domes, in a near labyrinthine abandoned sewer system, which is being purposed as supply lines between military camps. It's quite far away from any civilizations, being at least a weeks walk to and from, but honestly, Parker likes that sort of isolated feeling.

She stays positioned out there for a solid four years or so, serving as the squads sniper and lookout, a talent she highly prides herself on. But, just as with Scarlet, ultimately the job weighs on her. She's stationed out in the middle of nowhere, keeping careful watch over her camp and her fellow soldiers, and... for what? Basically all of the problems she's had to deal with have been deserters and runaways that happen to stumble onto their camp, and maybe the occasional report of an Inkling being spotted nearby, but never any that actually make it far enough to where she's stationed. Yet she still has to conform to military expectations, their standards, and she's just reminded of life back at home. She at least feels some modicum of respect here rather than at home, but it's still this lingering feeling of having no control over here life and being forced into this position under threat.

It's a few months after the reported desertion by Scarlet, who's a much higher ranked soldier than Parker, that she decides she just can't do it anymore. She figures if someone in a much more important position than she is can run off and make it work for her, so can she. She plots for a while before she actually leaves however, and, out on a patrol, she manages to spot a door behind what was previously assumed to be a dead end based on the structure of the other sewer systems, which holds a small, long since abandoned and forgotten about maintenance closet and her plan fully realizes.

In the middle of the night, Parker grabs her trusted Splat Charger, some rations, a set of spare clothes, and an old book they had laying around camp, and runs off. Given that the night she ran off was one of her shifts as lookout, her absence isn't noticed until the morning, giving her enough time to successfully cover her tracks, and make her way to the old maintenance closet, which she ever so lovingly declares her "apartment".

However, once she actually is realized as missing, the other members of her squad realize she ran off on purpose rather than anything happening, given how all of her stuff is gone with her, and set out trying to find her. Parker, however, anticipates this, and manages to find her way into some old scaffolding, and just waits. She's great with her charger, and she loves using it, but she also knows the truth, which is that if she ever got caught off guard, she'd never be able to win a fight with her charger close range. So, when one of her old squadmates comes down where she's hiding looking for her, she gets a snipe on them, and kills them. She'd rather not pick fights in the first place, but she knew that anyone after her would be carrying an Octo Shot on them, and a short range, quick kill weapon like that is exactly what she needs, so she rationalizes this as being a necessary act for her own survival.

Once the manhunt calms down, Parker gets herself into a strict routine. Despite having now left the military, she still holds herself to a lot of the same standards, waking up and going to bed on a very tight schedule, always making sure to stay up to date on her skills with her weapons, and a varied daily workout. That said... she actually likes hiding out in her tiny little "apartment". She doesn't feel like a cog in the machine anymore, and while her strict schedule is, just as it says on the tin, strict, it's also hers, and her choice to enforce it, rather than blindly following someone elses schedule for her.

She knows the habits and routines of the soldiers in the area, and also knows when best to raid their camps. She tries not to rely on them for food supplies, as while it's a good backup, she feels that learning to scavenge on her own is much more reliable, as if active combat ever does start, these routines might change unpredictably. That said, she still tends to grab rations whenever she does decide to raid soldiers camps, along with a few other items, such as her prized possession, a deck of playing cards in decent condition, and after a solid two days of planning, even managing to steal an entire mattress and drag it back to her room so that she can sleep a little better.

It's through her knowledge of the soldiers routines that she knows when there's something wrong, and when there's someone where they shouldn't be. She's out on one of her food scavenging outings when she spots Jake, wandering around aimlessly. She sneaks up on him, holds him at gunpoint, and demands to know his rank and why he's out here. She suspects he isn't a soldier, given his outfit being very old, yet casual clothing, the fact he's not carrying a weapon, and how he's wandering around outside of the known soldiers schedules, but she knows for sure he isn't one when he lies about his rank... and answers with something that doesn't even make sense. While Parker had dealt with her fair share of runaways and deserters in the military, she'd yet to see any this deep in the sewers, and certainly not any ballsy enough to lie to someone with a gun to their back.

She drops her guard a little, knowing Jake is blatantly lying about being a soldier, and lets him in on the fact she knows that. Jake asks what she's doing out here, what sort of soldier would lower their guard learning that someone they don't recognize out alone isn't associated with them and is willing to lie about it, and Parker's upfront about it! She's a military deserter, and while it's clear Jake isn't a military deserter, she can tell he's a runaway and in a similar situation that she is. The two end up talking for a while, as while Parker definitely enjoys her weird little life she lives nowadays, she definitely does miss talking to others, and Jake hasn't spoken to anyone, period, in well over a year.

At the end of their conversation, Parker tells Jake that, for at least the next week, she'd like to meet back up here, and that if he wants to agree to that, she'll bring some food with her and they can eat lunch together, or, at least, whatever the closest to "lunch" is that they can get. Jake immedeietly agrees, and the two meet up every day at the same time for a week. However, what Jake didn't know was that this was all a test, Parker wanted to know if she actually could trust him, and after the minimum amount of time she felt like she needed to be able to tell if she could, she invites him to come live with her. While she enjoys relying solely on herself for survival, it's tiring, and she feels that having a roommate would really help and give her some company, and hopefully some more free time as well! Jake doesn't even hesitate, he's been miserable and barely surviving, while Parker's clearly doing well for herself, so he jumps at the chance to even just have a safe place to sleep, having someone around to help scavenge for food, supplies, and just someone to be around who doesn't want to turn him in the cops is a massive bonus.

So, they move in together. It's definitely a tough adjustment, as firstly, there's only a single mattress, and even if Parker could steal another, there's not even room for one, as their "apartment" would then be fully used up in terms of space, so instead Jake sleeps on whatever clothes they're not actively using, and gets to sleep on the mattress whenever Parker's out on her daily chores. Secondly, even if they did have a second mattress, their sleep schedules drastically conflict, with Parker ending up routinely kicking Jake in the chest at 5am, having forgotten she shares her room now. But, luckily for them, they actually find themselves getting along surprisingly well. Parker found the other soldiers always too stiff and miserable, but Jake is anything but, he's funny and there's no expectation on him to treat her like a soldier, she's just... someone he knows! Jake also quite likes her in return, they're both decently competitive people, but Jake has no skills to back it up, and Parker is absolutely willing to poke fun at him for it, and he enjoys the banter she brings to the conversation, it's something he's been sorely missing in his year of isolation.

Once they get over the adjustment period of getting used to living with each other, they end both end up getting into a good routine, sharing the various tasks they need done between each other, and Parker even gets Jake to come out and work out with her a bit, as well as making him spar with her a bit so that he doesn't completely flounder around with weaponry like he did before. That said, Parker isn't just having him do target practice just for the sake of poking fun when he misses shots, she wants to make sure he's prepared in case anything ever happens. She's very confident with both her beloved Splat Charger as well as her Octo Shot, but Jake, while he can somewhat work the Octo Shot competently, can't aim to save his life... of which might be very literal, should anything ever happen. Whenever just one of them leaves their apartment, they take the Octo Shot for protection, and Parker wants Jake to be able to handle himself should anything happen to her, and the Octo Shot be unavailable to him. Jake adapts surprisingly well to life like this, though his aim is always subpar, but he still doesn't want it to be forever. His entire reason for being a runaway was because he wanted to make it to the surface, but in his run from the cops after getting outed, only managed to get deeper into the domes, rather than closer to the surface.

But... even with his desire to get to the surface, it's only a year or so after moving in with her, that Jake ends up putting that want to the side. Parker doesn't really want to go the surface, she's happy in her routine and her life here, and Jake's happy with her, so while he still wants to see the surface, he realizes that the odds of them ever successfully making it out are slim, and he'd honestly rather stay with her and live in hiding than risk everything just for the surface.

At some point, one that neither of them are really able to pin down exactly, their dynamic shifts from platonic to romantic, but ultimately it stays largely the same, as there's not much change to be had when they live in a tiny maintenance closet hidden deep within an abandoned sewer system, other than Jake actually getting to sleep on their shared mattress now... though it's so awful that really it's more just a symbolic matter that they sleep on it together now, it's only a tiny bit better than just the pile of clothes and hard concrete flooring from before.

They live like this for a good chunk of years together, with everything staying mostly the same, they know the routines of the soldiers, and the routines of themselves, and as long as it stays relatively the same, they'll be okay. Of course, it won't stay the same. While the sewers were used relatively frequently by the soldiers in the area, patrols and supply routes only went out once a week, twice depending on the month, but without much warning, sudden upticks in soldier patrols happen. Unbeknownst to both Parker and Jake, the sewer system is actually a direct line between supply routes and the Deepsea Metro, which is suddenly rising in activity. Neither know what to make of it, with patrols of soldiers happening on unpredictable schedules now, and with more and more of them in each patrol. They both resolve to keep a better eye out, but it's not like they can stop leaving, they rely on scavenging for food, so they still have to go out.

It's while she's out rinsing out some of their clothes in a broken water line they use for washing and drinking that Parker finally slips up. She's spotted by a patrol of sanitized Octoling soldiers, and swiftly ambushed. While she puts up a good fight, she's outnumbered, and caught off guard, and ends up very severely beaten. Her injuries are to the extent that she couldn't be salvaged as a test subject for Kamobo, and is instead just sanitized. If she can't be a subject, she can at least serve some purpose to the metro as one of their soldiers. It takes a while for the sanitization to really set in, but after around two weeks, she's sent out on a patrol to ferry more supplies. However, since she's so freshly sanitized, she ends up wandering off from her patrol, going off of base instinct, and wanders back home.

At this point, Jake's long since noticed her absence. He doesn't know what happened to her, or why, but he's spent every moment he possibly can desperately looking for her, in spite of the risks of it all. When he spots a soldier lingering in the hallways near the entrance to their apartment, he grabs Parker's trusty charger, and takes aim. However, once he gets a good look, he realizes exactly who it is, and runs out, yelling for Parker, asking where she's been and saying how glad he is that she's home! And then she beats him half to death.

He's so caught up in the joy of seeing her again that he fails to properly notice the sanitization before it's already too late, and she attacks him. He actually does manage to use her charger to physically block her attack, but she ends up using her old Octo Shot to ram into her charger that he's using to block with enough force to physically snap it in half, and from there, Jake can barely put up a fight.

However, it's not as bad for him as it was for her. Parker had an entire patrols worth of soldiers ambushing her, while Jake only had Parker, so when she brings him back to the metro, he is in good enough condition for Kamobo to use him as a test subject, so the process of wiping his memories begins, while Parker's assigned to menial soldiers duties again. Jake ends up being saved, however, as Kamobo is destroyed before he's ready to be properly used as a test subject, meaning that the majority of his memories are untouched, and he's able to be rescued and hospitalized in the aftermath. What he doesn't realize, though, is that the memories that did get affected, are the most recent ones... meaning that everything in the aftermath of his initial escape from the cops is completely gone, including his years with Parker. To him, he's basically been reset to the person he was at 17, all the while, a still sanitized Parker aimlessly wanders the metro.

...and then, just like how I ended the last Mega Autism Post(tm), Parker gets the same treatment. There's still more to be done with her, but the part of the plot where she becomes relevant again is actually a lot more heavily tied to May, and especially portions of the plot for May that haven't been properly delved into, so all of that gets saved for another day <3

Also, just for fun, here's the alt version of the headshot above, with her sanitized colors <3