#samin

[aseplant]

White doesn’t feel any particular way about Sayeon, but Boss clearly cares a lot for her. His impression of her is mostly that she’s… sheltered. Which is fine. It’s not like he would want her to get hurt or anything, because Boss wouldn’t want that, and if Boss wouldn’t like it then he won’t ask for it either. But he can see the way Boss gets when she talks about her. And that’s how he realizes, at last, that no matter what Boss says he’s never truly going to be loved.

samin & white.

‧⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙

The Crimson Society’s home base is an inconspicuous high-rise deep in the heart of the city, just a brief thirty-minute run from the Corps’ third HQ. White takes the elevator straight to the boss’s office on the highest floor, pulling his hair free from his ponytail and giving it a rough comb with his fingers as he travels up.

Boss is working at her desk when he arrives, door propped open. She glances up when he knocks politely at the entryway. “White! I wasn’t expecting you for another week or two. Come in, come in!”

She gets up from her desk and makes her way over to the couch, gesturing toward the one across from her with a lazy wave of an unlit cigarette. “Sit, sit.”

He does. Across from him, Boss clicks a lighter to life, inhaling deeply as she lights her cigarette. Her exhale comes out in a cloud of smoke, shoulders relaxing as she goes.

“Alright,” Boss says. “Now, tell me. What brings you here, White? You’re still in uniform. I assume the Corps haven’t ferreted you out yet. Did Sayeon catch on to something she shouldn’t have?”

“If she has, she hasn’t said anything,” White replies. “The rest of our team got wasted at an old lady’s house, and she went to go see someone. I thought I’d come chat for a bit. She said she’d be back by morning, so I probably should be, too.”

“Went to go see someone, huh.” The boss blows out another cloud of smoke. “Must be that delinquent kid. That might get ugly. Well… it’s about time she got a taste of what the Suits are really like.”

Min. What do you think? Do the Corps really kill off weaker aberrants?

…yeah, he can see how that could get messy. Boss already knew, then.

“Well, no matter,” Boss says, a wide grin returning to her face. “I’m glad you had the chance to come home for a bit! Tell me all about what Sayeon’s been up to these past two weeks! I feel like I haven’t seen her in forever.”

She leans forward expectantly.

White scratches his cheek. He’s not really used to Boss getting this invested in things. Which parts does she even want to hear? “Just training, mostly. I also practice with her after hours. She gets along fine with the others, but she keeps picking fights with the other girl on our team. I don’t know why. She got knocked out for it the other day.”

“That little bookworm,” Boss sighs fondly. “I don’t think she ever really figured out how to make friends, when she’s spent her whole life with her nose buried in the books. I wonder what’s got her so interested. Who’s the other girl?”

“Ryujin Kang. She’s a prison recruit with red essence.”

“Oh, the one she went to the warehouses with,” Boss says. “They’re close?”

White… wouldn’t describe it like that. Ryujin does seem to be looking out for Sayeon in her own way, but—“No?”

Boss claps her hands together brightly. “Great! And the last member of your team?”

“Iseul Kim. His father was in the Suits. They’re friendly, but that’s all.”

“Good, good.” Another drag of the cigarette. “I’ll have Jungwoo look into him. What else? Has she just been keeping her head down, then? She always was a bit timid.”

“No, she’s very… passionate.”

“‘Passionate?’” Boss laughs. “You can just call her a bootlicker, you know! You don’t have to beat around the bush, White, I know my own sister.”

“…she’s very passionate about the Suits’ mission,” White repeats diplomatically. “And towards climbing the ranks. She asked me to disable another trainee during a cross-team game the other day.”

Boss’s eyes light up. “Did she really? Awwww! I knew she had it in her. That’s so cute! My baby sister, finally growing up…”

Boss makes a strange expression that he’s never seen before, eyes all melty as her smile softens around the corner. White doesn’t know what to make of it. It’s so alien.

Something strange clenches in the pit of his stomach.

“I’m so happy to hear that things have been going well for her!” Boss continues, still sparkling with joy. “Has she figured out her gift yet? You know, she was so in denial about being an aberrant that she never actually used any of her essence before joining the Suits?”

He’s aware. What a waste. “…she says it’s Super Instinct.”

“Oh?” Boss raises an eyebrow. “What’s this? You don’t believe her. White, since when did you learn to distrust people!”

He… gets the distinct feeling he’s being made fun of. But it’s always kind of hard to tell with the boss.

“She says it’s just something like a gut feeling,” he says. “Not precognition, or anything. But I would’ve expected it to be more like yours.”

“Hm.” Boss considers it for a moment. “You never really know with teal essences… but yeah, she’s probably lying. Clever girl. Well! Whatever it is, it probably suits her little brainiac tendencies. How is she doing on the fighting front, anyway?”

…White thinks this would be a good place to keep his mouth shut.

“That bad, huh.” The boss barks out a laugh. “Man! I can’t say I never tried to warn her. She must still think she can get away with pushing papers once she’s high enough up the ranks.”

White wouldn’t put it past her. “Why didn’t you ever teach her to fight?”

Boss glances at him, a wry smile on her lips. “You think she would’ve been receptive to learning that? You must have seen how she is by now. All morals and ethics and philosophical crap.”

Hm. She is kind of self-righteous.

“And, I guess it was a bit sentimental of me,” Red adds, smoke leaking from her lips with every word, “but I was hoping she’d never need it.”

White cocks his head. He—

—can’t even imagine a life that doesn’t need violence. Before he was aware enough to fight back, all that ever awaited him was a sluggish haze of pain. Before he was strong enough to wield a baseball bat, all he’d ever been good for was powering other people’s violence. Before he was powerful enough to use violence in the Crimson Society’s name, he didn’t even have a name of his own.

White wouldn’t even be a person if he couldn’t fight. He wonders what it must be like to have a sister who would protect you from all that, without asking a single thing from you in return, and still having the gall to be ungrateful for it all.

Red watches him closely, a calculating look on her face. “What’re you thinking about, White?”

“…nothing, Boss.”

“Oh, sure.” She grins at him knowingly. “If you say so. Well, in any case! You came at a good time. I actually have a new task for you.”

She pulls out a purple flash drive. Waves it around a bit, just to show it off. Tells him about the Begonia Group, about godlings and storms; says: “You are no longer to simply observe Sayeon. You are now to protect her. Is that understood?”

Something ugly is simmering on low in the back of his throat. White doesn’t know what it is. He’s not going to examine it. “Yes, Boss.”

The boss tilts her head, studying him carefully. She folds her hands over her knees. “Something bothering you?”

“No, Boss.”

“Really, now.” Charcoal eyes glint with the reflection of the city skyline. “And since when did you start lying to me, White?”

He…

…

…stays silent.

Red sighs.

She takes a long drag of her cigarette, exhaling slowly. Smoke drifts in hazy spirals around her. “You’re lucky you’re a terrible liar, you know. Now. Go on. Be honest with me, White. What do you think of Sayeon?”

He stares down at his hands, clenched too tightly to his side. He subtly tries to relax them. The movement doesn’t go unnoticed.

Red takes another puff of her cigarette and waits patiently as White tries to gather his thoughts.

The thing is, for the most part, White doesn’t really think about Sayeon Lee. He’s pretty sure he wouldn’t feel any way in particular about her at all, if not for the fact that she’s so important to the boss, but. The boss is asking. So what does he think of Sayeon Lee?

She’s smart, clearly. On her own she’s not much of a threat, but she’s been very successful at directing the rest of them in team exercises. Naïve, though. Unbelievably naïve. She’s clearly led a very different life than White.

He remembers the way illegal aberrants rolled off her tongue. An irrational stab of irritation runs through him. Yeah—very different lives, indeed. The words tumble out before he’s fully thought them through: “I don’t know what you see in her.”

Red raises an eyebrow. She seems bemused by this response, so he adds, a little more quietly: “She doesn’t like you.”

A blank stare.

And then understanding dawns, and a too-wide grin splits across Red’s face. “Ohhhhhh. Is that what’s bothering you? White. Do you know why anyone does anything?”

…survival, right? Or avoiding pain, maybe. Is that too obvious?

Red doesn’t wait for an answer. She wraps her arms around herself cheerily. “For love.”

Love…?

“Everything you do, you do because you love others—or yourself,” Red continues, some weird expression on her face that White doesn’t normally see unless she’s fucking with a rival gang. But Red doesn’t usually play with him like that. “Imagine losing all your love!”

White tries. He finds he can’t imagine losing something he’s unsure he ever had in the first place.

On the upside, Red seems happy to keep rambling even without his input. “That’s what my sister is to me. All my love, manifest—the one thing that’s kept me going.”

It’s—strange. White’s aware that he’s not exactly emotionally intelligent. But he gets friendship pretty easily. Friendship is when you like someone because they make your life better in some way. Sayeon is definitely not Red’s friend, though.

Love… has always been a little harder for him to get. He thought that’s what the bond between the Crimson Society members was supposed to be called, just a special type of fondness that people put an extra name to. But if Red loves them, then Sayeon is special to her in a way even beyond ‘love.’ Because—

“She can hate me all she wants,” Red says. “Doesn’t change a thing.”

Her gaze flicks up to meet his, at last. “This... isn’t making much sense to you, hm?”

Actually—he thinks he might get it, sort of.

See, here’s the thing: White’s well aware that the boss is fond of him in the way that people are fond of a pair of oven mitts that have done their job for a decade. He’s always called that love because the others called it love, and he’s okay with becoming whatever the boss wants him to be. If Boss tells him to die, he will; if Red wants to kick him, that’s fine; if he is of use to her, then at least he will retain a place by her side.

And maybe that’s what the difference is. Sayeon doesn’t like Boss, but Boss still wants to be of use to her, because Boss loves her in the way that people love other people. And as long as White’s of use to her and Sayeon, she’ll keep loving him too—in the way people love their tools.

Which is perfectly fine. It’s fine if Boss never loves him the way she loves family; White will be grateful for any kind of love that she deigns to give him, and anyway, he can’t miss what he’s never had.

(It’s just… wasn’t the Crimson Society supposed to be family?)

‧⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙⁺˚•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙˚⁺‧͙

notes:

this is actually a 2k excerpt from what is... currently... a 6.5k rewrite of season 1 from min's point of view. (ugly sobbing. it's not even done.) i'm not gonna have computer access for a few days and had wanted to post the initial draft of the fic but uhhh for various reasons that did not end up happening and also knowing me i'll lowkey either scrap 80% of the fic or lose motivation to write for like 5 months, so. ✩ta-daaa✩?

(that was a very long way of saying "i will eventually post a cleaner version to ao3, possibly as part of a longer fic, possibly as is, but that may or may not take another half year so please enjoy this in the meantime")

anyway thanks for reading all the way down here!!! i love you comments regrow my skin but please don't point out any typos it is 2am and i'll admit that i don't actually believe in spellcheck <3

[postcard-from-the-past]

Wind mills, Samin Villa and railway in Cassel, French Flanders region of northern France

French vintage postcard

[wally-b-feed]

Anthony Fineran (B 1981), DJ Samin Tasty, 2023

[dinahlaurellancesource]

[thesternest]

So I finished a reread of hand jumper a few days ago

And I find it really cute that Samin gives herself res glasses like sayeon when she goes smart mode on the godling

[pabypu]

Have a very rough Samin and Yesol doodle :D

Referencing Hand Jumper ep25’s panel

[il3x]

Family, Samin Lee, and Arcane.

[peasantpizza]

[zoetropist]

okay so like i know this isn’t. a big issue. but my favorite thing is making mountains out of molehills so.

we know that minyeon isn’t incest… right? we know this? it’s important to me that we know this.

like yeah ofc samin is “technically” min’s adoptive mother or sister or whatever. but, it’s more of a manipulation tactic rather than an objective truth. take a traumatized 9 year old and love bomb them with promises of family to make them your child soldier, hey, it works out great. but isn’t the point of 78 that samin doesn’t actually see him as a son? he’s just her tool. “samin calls them a family” but yall ship samin and pink just fine ? lmfao. it’s not a family she’s just a manipulator <3

there’s no one in this world samin loves more than sayeon, and i think the hidden part of that statement is there’s no one samin loves other than sayeon. the crimson society are nowhere near her family. we see how she actually treats people she considers her family. that’s not them. samin doesn’t see min as a relative in any form, point blank period.

min on the other hand, seems to love samin in some way. lovebombing does wonders on the prepubescent mind! it’s not entirely clear, but if min still has the capacity to love, he would love samin. she’s his savior and he would do anything for her, even babysit her ungrateful kid sister. but that love doesn’t extend to sayeon?? at all??

once again, not entirely clear how he feels for sayeon but he holds a lot of resentment towards her. he doesn’t even like her, why would he ever see her as a sister? his love for samin is only for samin, the person who gave him a life. sayeon is the antithesis of that love. she has what he wants and she throws it away like it’s easy to take for granted. in what world does that translate to “he sees sayeon as a sister”. lol, what.

and sayeon is, sayeon. she has zero idea about any of the dynamics going in between min and samin. like hello??:?/)$:/ she knows nothing, min is not her adopted brother, step brother, god brother, found brother, idk man. whatever you want to call it, that’s not how she sees him. using min as a tool seems to run in the family lmfaooo that is the extent of any familial relation between min and sayeon

so for the last time, it’s not incest?:)/),&: i should know what incest is i’ve sadly suffered through oshi no ko. the only way it could ever be “incest” is if min considered sayeon his sister. he doesn’t. he literally just stopped seeing sayeon as his opp; she is NOT the homie, let alone familial.

i dont ship minyeon in the slightest but i get really irked when people label ships as problematic just as an excuse not to like it. you can just. not like it. and you can just say that you don’t like it. no one is gonna jump you bro!

[kitsunabi]

Funniest panel on this weeks update of Hand Jumper

[governmentmandatedryujinstan420]

this one gets to escape, you'd already know what the others were atp. [disperses into particles]

[veridiantree]

i want for sayeon to have a breakdown, and cut her hair short.

Like really short

Samin-short

Then look in the mirror, and have the realization that she has always been just like her family.

Then turn back time in denial of course. This is Sayeon we’re talking about. But it keeps tickling at her conscience.

I also think it would be cool if her hair grew out overtime, like her mom, but that’s not as practical, and Sayeon likes to at least look sane.

[unfortunatelyfortunatee]

WHEN DID THEY TALK?????

so im a little late to the party

In this Tumblr post, I will be answering the question literally nobody else has been wondering: When did Samin talk to the Godling?

Let's get this out of the way first; Based off the way the two talked to each other, it's clear that the convo we saw was their first time talking. I say "first time" because I don't think this is the only time they speak to each other.

When talking to Sayeon in the episode "Wishing Well", they tell her "Your sister has always rejected me," which implies that the Godling has tried convincing Samin multiple times and failed every time. (This also disproves the "Samin takes up the Godling's deal for Sayeon's sake" theory")

The line "You don't see it, do you? What your beloved sister is turning into." could mean that this either happens after Sayeon goes to the Corps or before. I originally thought it was after she's sent to the Corps, since that's when the REAL descent begins, but after further investigation I realized that this probably happened before. We already know that Sayeon was a little kooky crazy before going to the Corps (as shown by the episode "Old Dogs") so it lines up with what the Godling said.

The main reason I think this is because at the time of the "Wishing Well", Sayeon had only been at the Corps for two days. And circling back to the point I made before, the Godling has tried convincing Samin multiple times before then, and unless Samin's having concussions on a day-to-day basis, they couldn't have met at least more than once within that time. Plus, the way the Godling says "Your sister has always rejected me," makes me think they've been trying to get her as their champion for years.

But GOD DOES THIS RAISE SO MANY QUESTIONS.

If this conversation does happen before Sayeon going to the Corps, then why does the Godling call her inspid and dull? If they were uninterested in her, why did were they considering her as a champion?

Actually, nevermind. I can answer that. They were bluffing. They said that so that they could make Samin their champion via threatening her. They weren't actually going to go through with it until Sayeon's actions in CTF and in the kitchen arc.

This part is pure speculation, but I don't feel like Samin thinks Sayeon will make the deal. Which is understandable, based on how Sayeon acted at the beginning of the series. If the conversation really did happen back while Sayeon still went to school, then she had no reason to think Sayeon would ever want something to the point of giving up her humanity to do so. In fact, had the Godling mention the deal when they originally first appeared, (before Sayeon learned about Jaeil's death and killer) I am 100% sure she would've said no.

Back to the point at hand; Judging by Samin's reaction, it's clear that she doesn't want that to happen, but what would she do if she knew?

Would she just stand by and let Sayeon trade away her humanity because she wants her to "do what she wants" even if it's a very, VERY wrong decision? Would she try and take back control over her?

How far does Samin's unconditional love for Sayeon go? Would she still love her even if she was a more powerful and emotionless shadow of the person she once knew?

Would she still love Sayeon even if she turned out exactly like their mother?

[dinahlaurellancesource]

2.14 || 7.02

[aseplant]

ok there's no way samin has anyone up high enough in the corps to actually purposefully arrange min & sayeon to be in the same team. WHAT WAS THEIR PLAN IF HE WASN'T PUT ON THE SAME TEAM AS HER. on the ground going bald from stress.

[toads-treasures]

I thought I could “trick” my brain into hyperfixating on something helpful, cooking, by like thinking up some AU that heavily featured cooking/baking or maybe even a restaurant AU. But somehow, miraculously, my brain SKIPPED THE BLORBOS and went straight to cooking. I am adding cookbooks to my library waitlist and making a list of dream cookware. What happened to me.