This has been a top priority post since I made this blog believe it or not. This will also be specifically a female Playa/Boss character because I personally headcanon Lin as a lesbian
This post also goes out to @syndicateau because wlw Lin rights
Lin had pretty low expectations of The Playa when they first met, she shared Johnny’s opinion of the new girl. Doesn’t look like much and a little bummed out she got stuck babysitting the new girl instead of working with a more experienced Saint
That being said, Lin was however relieved that the new kid was a girl. There’s not many in the Saints at the time and Lin was getting real sick of some of these asshole dudes and their gross comments so The Playa is a breath of fresh air, even though they’re pretty quiet most of the time
Lin was pretty quickly impressed with The Playa. She was efficient, skilled, and followed Lin’s plans, never tried to outshine her or do her own thing because she thinks her plan is better than Lin’s or some crap
And even when The Playa went off the plan, it actually helped the plan instead of just derailing it and putting them back at square one
Not to mention she was also pretty cute and Lin certainly wasn’t going to complain about working with someone easy on the eyes
Lin was also one of the first people in the Saints to hear The Playa talk
She made some witty comment when they were scoping out Donnie’s garage and it took Lin a moment to process it was The Playa who said something next to her
Lin tried to coax more out of the girl be joking how she didn’t know she could even talk but she’s met with more silence and a shrug
She doesn’t have an explanation for replaying that dumb joke The Playa made in her head and ruining her focus after that
It wasn’t even that funny, what the hell
After that, Lin tries to get The Playa to talk more in various different ways. She says it’s just to prove she’s not crazy and that the girl definitely can talk, but in actuality she just liked their voice and wants to hear it more. And the fact that she could in theory have Actual Conversations with her and make excuses to talk to her more was a Big plus for Lin
Her “plans” to get The Playa to talk consist of just leaving extended pauses between certain sentences when she’s talking about her plans to leave her a chance to speak up. And also of directly asking her random questions when they’re hanging out that aren’t as simple as yes or no
The questions plan works a few times. Asking why she’s in the Saints or trying to ask anything about her past really will usually coax a comment about how it’s “not worth the time” or how it’s “in the past so what does it matter?”
The Playa also starts chiming in with more witty comments as time goes on, all of them about as funny as a piece of wet cardboard usually but Lin laughs anyways
She doesn’t have an excuse for that and Johnny makes fun of her for it relentlessly because “Damn, Lin. I didn’t know you had such a shitty sense of humor.” And other wise comments
Speaking of Johnny: He and Aisha both act as (albeit shitty) wingmen for Lin and The Playa because they know Damn Well what’s going on between them even if neither Lin or The Playa will admit it
Johnny gets a rise out of The Playa by always making random comments about how “Hey, you seen Lin today? She’s lookin’ pretty hot—“ and then continues to describe Lin in literally just whatever clothes he thinks of first because he really doesn’t pay attention to Lin like that ever but The Playa does
She always corrects him with an added comment about how weird it is that he was looking because she’s kind of gullible and she doesn’t catch on that he’s just messing with her
Aisha and Johnny both repeatedly try asking Lin about The Playa like “The Playa’s kind of attractive, and you work with her a lot, you thinkin’ about making any moves?”
Lin always responds with the same eyeroll and dodging the question. “I don’t really have the time, Eesh, I’m busy” or “You work with her a lot too, Johnny, you sure you don’t wanna try anything?”
That’s not a no, Lin
Lin starts taking The Playa to Freckle Bitch’s and to street races she’s competing in when she doesn’t need to be hiding or undercover from Rollerz
She says it’s just because she wants to talk business with her or that she wants The Playa there “just in case any Rollerz show up to ruin the fun”
But we all know she just wants excuses to spend time with her and maybe show off a little
Girls totally dig street racers right?
She also starts taking the time to help The Playa learn how to race better and offers to help her fix up her cars for racing
Lin’s actually pretty private about her work when she’s working on her voxel, but she never minds The Playa hanging around when she’s busy with the car
It’s another chance to show off for her of course she’s totally okay with The Playa’s presence
The Playa literally couldn’t understand less about what the fuck Lin is saying when she’s talking technical about all the guts of mechanic work but she listens intently nonetheless
If Lin cares about it then shit so does she
Not to mention Lin’s kind of hot when she’s working on the car and gets all passionate and into it
The Playa is reasonably a little touchy and jealous about Lin stringing Donnie along even for the mission
Lin actually seems to enjoy the time she spends with Donnie and starts mentioning unrelated pieces of information from their time like shitty jokes Donnie made or Donnie being a klutz
The Playa is starting to think she had Lin pegged all wrong and misunderstood all the signals because it’s starting to look like Lin is actually into Donnie and even if she had a chance before she probably missed it now
Johnny and Aisha think that’s absolutely ridiculous because They Know Lin doesn’t swing that way but they aren’t about to be the assholes who out her, even though Johnny comes close one time when The Playa is trying his patience with all this “woe is me” crap
When Mr.Sharp has Lin in the pool hall, it takes him a painstaking anount of time to get Lin to comply and lure The Playa there
She was not about to get her stuck in this situation with her. It’s her problem and whether she’d ever admit it out loud or not, she doesn’t want her to get hurt. Especially not because of her own mistake
Eventually she only complies because she thinks that if anyone could end this with Sharp dead and neither of them severely injured, it’s The Playa
Jokes on her, I guess, huh?
Oh Boy here’s where it gets fun. I’m gonna split the rest into 2 different versions. One where Lin lives and one where she dies.
Lin Dies
The Playa doesn’t even think for a second that Lin needs her to get her out of the water
Lin’s too fucking badass, she doesn’t need help, she can handle herself
The Playa was too blindsighted by her anger at Donnie and Sharp to think twice about it. She gets out of the water and fucking bolts for the first car she can grab and races off because she’s going to fucking kill Sharp and she’s really going to teach Donnie a fucking lesson for betraying Lin’s trust like that
Lin loved him and he just left her and The Playa to fucking drown? Oh, he’s going to fuckin’ get it
She doesn’t find out until the next day that Lin drowned...she drowned because she didn’t help her
She was so caught up in killing Sharp and how Donnie betrayed Lin that she didn’t think for a second that she was ultimately the one who put the last nail in Lin’s coffin. She is the one who betrayed Lin the worst
Johnny and Eesh do their beat to keep The Playa’s spirits up but Johnny is Johnny and isn’t much comfort or help and she’s not the most comfortable with confiding in Aisha at the time
They do take her to tag along on some of their smaller dates though and Johnny starts putting time into trying to find where Donnie ran off to because “revenge is the best medicine”
Donnie and The Boss really get into it in SR2 when she finds him throwing the flowers into Lin’s watery grave
Donnie’s really fucking confused at first when she’s yelling at him for betraying Lin’s trust and love like he did. He manages to get in a few words that makes The Boss pause for a moment because Donnie definitely just established that he thought Lin and her were together
“You what? What the fuck made you think that?”
“I-I don’t know! She really liked you a-and I just kind of assumed—“
The Boss originally was just interested in revenge but now she’s going to get Donnie to rig some Brotherhood trucks so she isn’t just wasting time while she interrogates him about Lin
Whomp whomp whomp, turns out he and Lin talked about cars, her, and Joseph and there was never anything romantic there
“I can’t believe you thought me and Lin— We were both gay, what the hell, man. I thought you knew about her.”
The Boss also decides then and there that she’s not done with Donnie yet though, she wants him to hurt like she hurt for so long
Lin Lives
When Lin wakes up in a fucking ambulance she’s really fucking confused because she should be dead
She used what breath she had left to get The Playa out, what the fuck is she doing alive and on her way to the hospital?
Lin absolutely cannot believe for a second that The Playa wasted precious time to save her. She didn’t think they cared about others that much, let alone her
She hates being cooped up in the hospital and hates Julius’ babysitters waiting with her while the Rollerz are still around, but honestly she doesn’t mind when The Playa shows up between missions to tell her in detail how she killed Sharp and later Joseph
And after the Rollerz are out, while The Playa still doesn’t have a ton of free time, she still visits as much as she can just to talk
She talks a lot now
Jokes about how much money she’s being forced to dosh out on mechanics while Lin is out of commision
Talks about that one time Mr.Wong hired her to kill a hot dog mascot and about how she fucked up bad enough that it took her $500 at Forgive & Forget to get the cops off of her ass
Tells Lin about how Johnny is ever the classy guy and got his knee blown out with a shotgun from Big Tony because he couldn’t help from making a sex joke about Tanya and how Dex and Troy are constantly at each others’ throats with The Carnales
It’s like the new girl just doesn’t shut up ever now
And funny enough, Lin finds that she really doesn’t mind. She really likes talking to this girl
Oh no, Johnny was right
Lin thinks for a while about date ideas she can ask The Playa on after she gets discharged but they all sound annoying, lame, and way too cushy for her tastes
Ultimately she invites The Playa to her place because “Fuck it, after all the shit we’ve done I don’t care. I almost died and I’m not about to miss my chance again because I can’t think of something like a date idea.”
The Playa is very confused at all the increasingly obvious passes Lin is making towards her when they’re at her crib because they’re still pretty sure she was into Donnie and not her
Lin has the patience of a rock and gets frustrated and gives up within the first hour or two, “How are you this stupid?! How am I still attracted to you?! I’m trying to get into your fucking pants, do you wanna fuck or not?”
In SR2, it turns out Lin had the same idea as The Boss and they ran into each other at the courthouse both trying to break Johnny out.
They work as well together as they always have, it’s like almost no time has passed at all
“You get Johnny, babe. I’ll meet you two outside. Same old voxel but it’s purple because fuck the Rollerz.”
“Meet us up front, no point in going the long way if they already know we’re here.”
