Thinking about Seo Dongjae’s arc and how Lee Changjoon factors into it.
Spoilers for both seasons of Stranger under the cut.
Both came from similar backgrounds in that they were ‘disadvantaged’ compared to their peers. Lee Changjoon didn’t come from a family as wealthy as the chaebols and Lee Yeonjae is explicitly said to have married ‘down’ when she married him instead of Kim Byunghyun. Seo Dongjae meanwhile wasn’t an alumni of a prestigious university and so doesn’t have the same connections as many of his colleagues. This pushes them both in different ways. Dongjae towards latching onto the nearest person he thinks he can use to give him a leg up. Changjoon towards the murky business of Hanjo and his father-in-law.
As season 1 progresses, Dongjae and Changjoon become more distant. We’re told that they used to be closer and have been growing apart over the course of the early episodes as Dongjae’s suspicion of his boss grows. Dongjae is still an opportunist though and so he returns back under Changjoon when given the chance. Ultimately, survival is what matters most for him and if it’s playing all sides that keeps him from being arrested that’s just what he’ll do.
Changjoon took Dongjae on to be his employee on the condition he stay away from Hanjo and his father-in-law. In retrospect, I’m inclined to believe this was his way of protecting Dongjae from their influence rather than because of worries Dongjae could ‘expose’ him. After all, Changjoon intended to expose Hanjo himself and so keeping Dongjae away from them doesn’t particularly help with this. If anything, he’s limiting potential information Dongjae can obtain to only the pieces more relevant to himself.
And, of course, Changjoon told Dongjae to not follow his path with his dying breaths. He could see the direction Dongjae was heading (and was already far enough down to have an arrest warrant out in his name) and knew where it had ended for him. Changjoon knew how how hard it is to extricate yourself once you’ve started down the corrupt route. But he also knew it wasn’t too late for Dongjae. Eunsoo proved that Dongjae couldn’t stomach being a killer.
Season two Dongjae, for all he’s still trying to make inroads and build connections in dubious ways, does show signs of growth. The fact he looked further into the Choi Bit and Park Gwangsu when Woo Taeha tried to draw him away from them is evidence of that. Looking further in this case would not endear him to the very person he wants to gain a promotion from. Also, it does seem like he was genuinely invested in his role in juvenile crimes, in even ‘simple’ bullying cases. And that in of itself helped him unlock the beach case. There was also how didn’t particularly socialise with others at his current office and mainly kept to himself which is a far cry from his early season 1 behaviour. Of course, the last point is somewhat weakened by the way he was most definitely networking outside of his station, but it adds to the sense of isolation and desperation present in everyone this season. His motivation skews increasingly towards his family and dissatisfaction with the whole system (though as a prosecutor he aims most of his ire at the police force).
There’s a part in the second season where Dongjae says something about how looking too deeply into places regardless of what everyone else wants can get you in trouble. And at the time the most obvious person it applies to is Simok (and also Eunsoo, but that stays silent) but in a number of ways it applies to Dongjae himself in this season. He’s probably lucky he was taken out by the culprit he was when you look at the other potential suspects. He has a lot of new powerful enemies. And those enemies are still future threats to him (as Lee Yeonjae demonstrates aptly). For a character so focused on survival historically, his choice should be clear when it comes to whether he speaks up or whether he chooses to stay silent. And yet, he’s shown enough growth that it isn’t clear anymore.
In the dream sequence in season 2, the subtext is pretty clear as to why each person appears. They’re all people who quite literally ‘lost their way or lost their life’. Changjoon (life/way - self-explanatory), Kang (strayed his way but chose to leave), Eunsoo (life, and also her way - though not in the corrupt sense, more how her revenge consumed her and she made self-destructive choices), Yoon (way, though importantly *not* his life). And Dongjae being there is partly to raise the potential he won’t make it, but most of all, it’s there to say that Dongjae hasn’t yet chosen his own path.
As of the season two finale, we don’t know which direction he’ll choose to go.
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WIP GAME
Tagged by @cupofteaandstars for whom I would do anything, even work on my fic 😉
Rules: In a new post, show the last line you wrote and tag as many people as there are words.
And so, I present to you Han Yeo-Jin's opinion of Hwang Is-Mok's Section Chief
Section Chief Oh stood proudly in front of a bank of cameras, swelling as he introduced his least favorite prosecutor as if he were a beloved son. Yeo-Jin restrained the urge to roll her eyes.
Still, she knew that including this blow hard would likely score Si-Mok some points with his irritated superior. She smiled a bit to herself, thinking about how he’d balked at the idea of including the Section Chief in this. He still had much to learn about diplomacy.
Not that this was normally the sort of man that she would normally put on the nation’s stage. He’d come in, confident that no one could see the stain on his tie from his hastily consumed coffee. It was incredibly early, he’d complained, considering he’d had to put on some makeup so that he didn’t look too washed out in the lights. Yeo-Jin had held her tongue from pointing out that Si-Mok was wearing no makeup.
The flash of the photographer’s cameras glared off the man’s smarmy smile and greasy glasses.
Tagging @jessalrynn @theaggresivepacifist, @mangobone, @kdramas-ruined-my-life, and any other mutuals I have missed, show me your WIPs!
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Twenty Questions
Thank you @cupofteaandstars for the tag!
1. How many works do you have on AO3? 16, plus a Spanish translation a friend did of one of my works.
2. What's your total AO3 word count? 73,165, for now.
What fandoms do you write for? Exclusively Stranger/Secret Forest and related crossovers, although there was that one Andor one that I just had to put out there to cope with the intensity of my feelings about the cliffhanger season ending.
What are your top 5 fics by kudos?
It's a close race among some of these, but:
gamsa
chilyo
chib
heonsin
haengbok (with maengse only one behind at the moment)
Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?
I do, always! I'm honestly always so astounded and delighted to think of someone reading my work while I'm just out here having a normal Monday or Tuesday, and want to express that delight.
What is a fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?
Oh boy, just you wait.
What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?
Since all things Si-mok and Yeo-jin related (or Stranger-in-general-related) are usually bittersweet, probably inyeon, a relatively recent one. However, the one that leaves me with the warmest feeling at the end is actually pyeongsaeng.
Do you get hate on fics?
Fortunately not! I've gotten a few weird comments once or twice but nothing mean-spirited.
Do you write smut? If so, what kind?
I do not, and the few times I've been tempted I have realized swiftly that I'm not cut out for it.
Do you write crossovers? What's the craziest one you've written?
Only within the Stranger/SF multiverse so far - in other words, AUs for Stranger/SF that are based on Bae Doona and CSW's other works, which I think of as other lives of Si-mok and Yeo-jin.
Have you ever had a fic stolen?
Ditto Cup, not that I know of. I would go absolutely off-the-charts feral in order to get the copycat fic taken down.
Have you ever had a fic translated?
I have! My IRL best friend of many years graciously wrote me a Spanish translation of chib.
What's your all-time favorite ship?
Eh, I'm not really a shipper...? HOWEVER, @ohyangchon has given me massive Changjae feelings and I love their relationship so much.
What's a wip you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?
Scenes just sort of seem to come to me, and once they're there I don't stop until they eventually coalesce into a complete story, no matter how long that takes to find its shape. I do have an extensively Yeo-jin and Si-mok inspired novel (low-key sci-fi? space opera?) that has been nagging at me for years, but I don't think that one will ever amount to anything.
What are your writing strengths?
I'd like to think I inhabit the voices of the characters well.
What are your writing weaknesses?
Pacing, probably?
Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?
Similar to Cup's thoughts, this is difficult because I feel like sometimes names, titles, and terms of address in particular just don't have the same nuance and feeling translated from Korean into English-- especially the terms of address that Si-mok and Yeo-jin and others use for each other. Therefore, sometimes I do transliterate. Also, as I become a little bit more comfortable IRL speaking Korean, where practical I sometimes find myself wanting to mimic the Korean clause order/speech patterns of sentences even while writing in English.
First fandom you wrote for?
I think it must have been a gift fic in the Redwall fandom (never made it to AO3, but a cozy and comforting thing to work on)
Favorite fic you've written?
I love all my children equally!!! But I do think I did some really great character work in bohoja, one of my works on a more underrated duo (Si-mok and Mr. Kang). I usually am pretty self-critical, but there are a few lines in there that I always read and think "damn, who wrote that???" XD
Who hasn't been spoken for? Tagging @gottagobuycheese, @inkingtwice, and @michyeosseo as well as anyone else who's interested!
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