#jealous over some abstract heinous serial murder case thats sucking up all of zeni's time or his own gaddang partner

[tacky-optic]

I SAY BEHOLD BEHOLD OUR RAMBLES WITH YOUR PUNY MORTAL EYES, RANDOM INTERNET PEOPLE. IF UR DOWN THIS FAR Y'ALL SIGNED UP FOR THIS A LOOONG TIME AGO!!! but i really do appreciate this btw. its a genuine pleasure having the ceo/phd holder of luzeni go absolutely ham on my silly little post lol

anyway sending u a letter delicately sealed with an exquisite wax stamp pressed with a design of luzeni making out mega nasty style. yes there is carefully concealed old man yaoi inside

_ so many delicious hypotheticals, goddamn. having this mega sad edgelord noir detective zenigata blush a lil when this friggin' gyuhuhu-ass guy wearing an obnoxiously bright jacket crawls into his window is such a fantastic mental image. there's a reason i have this hyper-idealized image of this god forsaken schrodinger's koike zeni movie in my noggin because THATS WHERE YOU'D GET THE REAL NASTY SHIT. they had it right there-- reciting romeo and juliet and wanton declarations of violence via shooting to kill. that got to me man. right here. in my very real heart that i'm pointing to.

there's permanence in their impermanence, i think. same vein as that "stability in instability" take i already blathered about. their refusal to maintain anything concrete is their truce.

_ i personally think zeni cares about his bosses and the people he has to surround himself with (just so he has the resources to get closer to capturing lupin) a little bit. maybe 'flipping off' isnt the most accurate way of putting it but he would get some sensation out of proving them wrong, or just proving something, anything at all. he is SO praise-deprived. dude starts openly full-body bawling the second anyone tells him he did something, like, a little bit okay lmao. very pathetic wet cat behavior. zenigata is too human, he cares too much. every single aspect of him is simply a lot. in those moments where his full-throttle lupin-fixating is on the backburner, any bit of validation that lets him know he isn't wasting his life on this pursuit wracks him right to his goddamn core. stokes the fire, makes him work ten times as hard. as long as all of it circles back into fueling the Chase, its solid :thumbsup:

but maybe that's more of a pt 2/certain specials thing, i dunno. it weaseled its way into my brain somehow s'all i can say lol. either way its in his character dna. like you said there's just so many different versions of him, all with different extremes that somehow manage to maintain his core characterization. but holy shit moments where he does not give even a SINGLE SHIT are some of my favorites. pt 1 finale where he has that big-ass tantrum "I'M NOT GONNA GO ALONG WITH YOUR DUMBASS PLAN" and then the commish is like "DAMN RIGHT YOU FUCKING WON'T, YOU'RE DEMOTED" and then zeni smashes a chair or some shit. i think a golf club was involved?? whatever. "IM DOING THIS MY WAY. IF I FAIL I QUIT. TEA TIME'S OVER MOTHERFUCKER." its peak

_ "Let Lupin rot in jealousy and desire and the anger of not being the focal point of everything". as a chronic jigzeni obsessor this sings to me. i froth at the mouth over this. it really is difficult to concoct jigzeni without lupin peeking his ugly little freaknasty imp head in there because man, he really is so deeply integral to their lives (as he should be! as much as he simultaneously does and doesn't deserve it he is our mc.) but it IS possible. in my heart of hearts it is doable and it freaks all of them the fuck out. what a beautiful subversion-- it's not the guy, but the guy-adjacent. and the guy does not like that because it really is really sexy. sexier than he could've had it, which, wtf. that's not.... that's not right.

i think it boils down to jigen and zenigata just straight up not caring for once. which is all chill for jigen but inherently easier said than done for zenigata. i think that's where most of the hold-up stems from for some ppl. there's this one fic (sry i keep linking fics and i feel like i'm giving out homework waghhh) that i think about a lot where jigen's just perfect. like can we please just forget about him for ten fucking seconds??

unfortunately zeni could not forget in that fic. but if he did? mm. good shit. get bent, lupin. or not i guess. its jigen's turn, oops. better luck next timeline

i have unprompted lupin-esque questions pop into my stream of conscious, interrupting my day-to-day wholesale, and one of them is "damn. does lupin only have three companions because zenigata never caved and joined him". like what kind of question is that??

i think its one of the more recurring ones because the sorta lines in lupin tv/films that're like "kinda surprising you're a cop" or "you'd fit in real well with us" or, the wombo combo of the two, "your skills are wasted on your job" really dig into my brain and won't feckin' leave.

in a lot of iterations, jigen and goemon meet lupin when they're tasked with killing him. fujiko's essentially his other rival. and yet, despite whatever the rest of the gang may be doing or whoever they pledge themselves to or whatever other jobs they might take on they always wind up right next to lupin again. on the same team, even.

and then there's zenigata. the sole obstinate holdout. they truce, they save each other's lives, have an avengers bonus credit scene shawarma lunch, etc etc. yet he isn't *with* them. he dips after they stop some evil billionaire from blowing up a city for some asinine power/profit grab or whatever the fuck, shouting that he'll "get them next week" while comically shaking his fist at the sky, and jigen rolls his eyes for the dozenth time and goes "that guy'll never change, will he". no jigen, he won't. when things calm down he'll sit alone in his office and do paperwork for all the property damage he caused with lupin & co. like he always does.

lupin and zenigata prefer it that way, obviously. they know their roles and how to play them. zenigata's too good to be a cop but he's also too good to be with lupin. lupin will kill in self-defense whereas zenigata will *not* kill, period. a la "life is a much more incredibly significant thing".

and then there's the *other* obviously-- the adversarial aspect. they can only *truly* challenge each other if they're on opposing sides. jigen stuck around after lupin beat him. goemon pledged his allegiance to lupin after he bested him. fujiko cozies up to lupin because it's easier than outright contesting him. but lupin is the best criminal and zenigata is the best cop. of course they'll never swap sides. they have the most fun from where they are.

"but tackyyy, what if he *did* join them?" you may ask. well whether it'd be cathartic for zenigata or not aside, there's some other q's that come up that deserve some consideration.

would the gang finally be "complete" if zenigata finally shed his inspector title? what would that look like, how would it work out? what does that even *mean*? is lupin just collecting people he thinks are neat? if so, if a hypothetical (realllllllly emphasizing that hypothetical btw) fourth-- someone with skills on the right level and surprisingly good chemistry with the gang-- came along, would lupin welcome them? or would lupin look at zenigata and go "nah, i'd rather have *that* guy"? lots of stuff to explore.

but at the end of the day there's one thing that really gets my brain gears turning. i think zenigata's higher-ups imagine him on lupin's side and shudder. i think *zenigata* imagines himself on lupin's side and shudders. i think the only way his full potential can be realized is if he's with lupin *permanently*. those blips of unbridled feral skill wouldn't be blips anymore. they'd be normal. and devastating. and the five of them would be unstoppable. and maybe that'd scare him, finally knowing exactly what he's capable of. maybe it *already* scares him, knowing he's the only one who can decide what happens.