Stranger/Secret Forest Ask Meme because I want to get to know people in this awesome fandom!
Thanks for the tag, @theaggresivepacifist! I'm new here, so I don't actually know anybody else to tag. :(
If you’re a member of the fandom and are inclined to fill this out, copy and paste the below with your own responses:
Favorite character:
Most underrated character:
Favorite prosecution employee (not Si-Mok):
Favorite police employee (not Yeo-Jin):
Favorite Si-Mok & Yeo-Jin moment:
Favorite Yeo-Jin drawing:
Favorite Yeo-Jin outfit:
Favorite of Si-Mok’s Unofficial Dads TM:
Favorite quote from the show:
A headcanon of yours:
Favorite character:
Han Yeo-jin is a very close second, especially after season 2: but I am a sucker for character development, and you really can’t find more potential for that than someone maxing out the charts on IQ but starting at close to ground zero on EQ. Add in a semi-tragic backstory, a mono-focused moral code that completely ignores social niceties and self-preservation, the ability to diagnose anybody’s motives but his own, and some subtle but truly hilarious sass, and. Well. Where do I sign.
Also, you know, he’s pretty easy on the eyes.
Most underrated character:
Mainly these two, who ran interference for Hwang Si-mok for two years without going out of their minds, kept him occasionally fed, and apparently don’t have personal lives that get in the way of cases. But let’s have a moment of appreciation for every investigator/assisting officer duo who had to pull warrants out of thin air without tipping off shady higher-ups, take ridiculously detailed notes, come in on weekends because justice doesn’t care about your day off, apologize to the people he pissed off, and hide under the desk when the shouting started.
Favorite prosecution employee (not Si-Mok):
Definitely this guy. Kang Won-chul seems to straddle the morality line more than once, and eventually this tendency shipwrecks him—but it’s a wreck he chooses, because under the power-plays, self-interest, and plenty of pride is a guy who went head-to-head with Hanjo twice knowing both times that it could do worse than mess up his career. He takes his responsibility to his profession and to his juniors very seriously, and when he realizes that he’s screwed up beyond repair, and that it was his temporizing that got him to that point, he refuses to let it define him: he resigns rather than be used or become more compromised.
Favorite police employee (not Yeo-Jin):
Sort of a tie between Choi Bit and Jang Geon. Choi Bit is complex and commanding, and Jang Geon is sort of the opposite, competent and happy to follow a good leader, and they anchor her in different ways.
Favorite Si-Mok & Yeo-Jin moment:
I mean, those dinners. Kind of the obvious choice, since in both seasons they’re used to lock in the elements of a relationship dynamic that’s taken the whole season to build.
Moving on from the obvious, though, is lunch: that moment in S2E12 when their partnership has been reaffirmed by mutual choice and they’re hiding out from their bosses (and hey, Si-mok finally gets to eat a full meal, which is definitely not a coincidence: food is used so interestingly in this show). They’re combing through the evidence and Si-mok puts together exactly what’s been bothering him about Dong-jae’s junior prosecutor—she reminds him of Eun-soo, the junior he couldn’t keep safe—and then shares it with Yeo-jin, who just feels it with him for a moment. There were so many moments in this season that showed the progression of their relationship, but this one felt like the most significant to me.
Favorite Yeo-Jin drawing:
This will not be a surprise to anybody who’s read my Stranger fics, but it’s probably her brain map, which feels like a physical manifestation of the foundation of their partnership, at least in season 1.
Favorite Yeo-Jin outfit:
I’m a big fan of that billowy white jacket.
Favorite of Si-Mok’s Unofficial Dads TM:
Ima have to go back to Kang Won-cheol for this one. Lee Chang-jun and Young Il-jae both qualify, and they definitely all have that Tired Dad energy when it comes to Si-mok, but Kang Won-cheol brings this blend of exasperation and patience to it that is sort of touching and also truly hilarious at times. That moment in S2 when he warns Si-mok that working on the council is likely to harm both the council’s agenda and him, and Si-mok plows right ahead and accuses him of special treatment, and he just says “Are you done saying hello?”
*dies*
Favorite quote from the show:
“No. Your duty is to serve justice. You should never hide behind the word ‘anyone’.”
[Si-mok drops the mic and saunters out]
I mean, so many to choose from: but I do love it when he gets judgey.
Second fav, because I cannot help myself:
"Do that again and I'll arrest you for obstruction of justice. You're his sunbae, not mine."
[Yeo-jin pitches the mic at the audience and peels out]
Mmnh. She's a glorious badass most of the time, but she's a shining beacon of badass when she's furious.
A headcanon of yours:
Si-mok really, really doesn’t like Lee Yeon-jae.
Not sure if this is really a headcanon, since it seemed pretty obvious to me in the scenes that put them together in S2. But in S1 there was a certain degree of sympathy, at least in the final scene they had together: yes, she was the reason his sunbae fell off the path and the whole chain of events started, but it was never stated that she knew what her dad had done, and she was pretty clearly blindsided by her husband’s suicide. But in S2 it’s clear she’s learned from her father’s tactics: she could carry on Chang-joon’s legacy, but so far, she’s not. She’s an active part of the problem now. By their second scene together he’s already put together that Chief Kang is in Hanjo’s crosshairs, and yet another of his colleagues may be dead, and Hanjo is involved somehow, and Dr. Park is definitely lying to his face to cover for her. (Also she is the reason his sunbae fell of the path and then off a building, and I suspect he has more in common with Kang Won-cheol than he realizes: they both see and mourn for what could have been.)
The way he snatched up his backpack and marched out of her office when she tried to turn the tables and make his effort to find Dong-jae an order from her wasn’t exactly subtle.
