#if the cop had any scars they'd likely be from that event. ill think about it lmao

[isaacathom]

theres not a whole lot to the cop to develop, i guess. she’s a cop. she has a wife and probably a kid. which of them had the kid? dude. idk. shes like..... 30? so shes the oldest person there, yea, but thats not meaning a lot when its just a bunch of 25 year old criminals. seniority in age isnt exactly the issue here.

at my best guess, part of what inspired her to be a cop would stem from her being an elf. while the north are rather friendly towards elves, particularly in comparison to the south, its impossible for there no hostility, no stereotyping. as an elf who only speaks basic elven, she’s got a disconnect between her culture and that of her environment. as an elf, she’s a poor one. as an elf, she’s isolated in a predominantly human city. its a sort of lose lose.

so you get treated like shit a lot. and you grow to idolise those who have power. in part, that explains her loyalty to the royals, despite the kings utter fucking incompetence. she’s not blindly loyal, which is why she usually talks to Crown if she must talk to one of them, but she’s got that streak. and the guard, obviously, and all the associated groups. it makes sense to want to be in that untouchable position, where noone can hurt you, when you’re being hurt.

so she becomes a cop, because royalty isnt gonna happen. it takes time. it takes years. she falls in love with and marries in the time between starting training and being formally inducted into the guard. she feels absolutely unstoppable now. that she’s going to protect those who are wronged.

then, yknow... the law? and the letter of it? oof, baby, honey, no. she comes to see how those in power can abuse it, with her rose tinted glasses removed. she sees how its the letter and not the spirit that is enforced. how those that are hurt can be kept hurt. and it fucks her up. and theres the fact that now she’s a cop, and actively trying to curb the power of the major criminal players, that they have their eyes on her. that there is likely an incident where her wife could have died. maybe their first child even dies, i dont know. and it sucks! it absolutely sucks! that she has to both arrest people who she knows are good, and good people, and that she has to watch those she loves most be hurt because of her choice of profession. it sucks!!!! she and her wife have to live separately, and it sucks!!! she likely has to arrest someone she knows after they get attacked and fight back, and it sucks!!!

she’s probably a little disillusioned with the whole thing. the guard aren’t untouchable, aren’t infallible, and are often wrong. it sucks

the criminals fighting crime initiative wasn’t her idea. it was Crown’s idea. but the cop is a champion for it. she firmly believes that it could be a way to save some of the people who were imprisoned unjustly, but who the law couldnt save. she volunteers - volunteers - to be in charge of the first batch. but she’s not in charge of the full op, is she? so of course its someone above her picking the participants.

she’s a little miffed about the selection. Koci she’s glad is getting a chance to reduce her sentence, since Koci is one of the cases the cop has been fighting hardest for. since, well... its not exactly subtle the signs that koci was badly injured before joining the pact. its obvious that she was almost killed (or actually killed, they dont knw) before she lashed out and killed hundreds. she was possessed, it wasnt her. but she did the crime. she does the time. and the cop hates it.

Rien is a mixed bag. the cop has met them before, and they seemed a good person. they were suspicious off the bat for being a westerner, and due to the existing migrated western gang, but they were nice, and Amali trusted them, so they seemed good. they were well liked among the farmers and the market. but then, yknow, they come in confessing to being a bandit who had robbed dozens and carted goods illegally across the southern border and who had also gotten Amali killed in a bandit attack. ok. we’ve got issues. are they a good person, or a bad person? do they deserve a chance to redeem themself? the cop sort of manages by justifying it as Rien proving that they aren’t a liar, and that they meant what they said. which would prove them as a mostly - mostly - good person, in the end, right????? sure.

Warzens a flat ‘fuck no’ from the cop. Warzen is an unapologetic necromancer. unapologetic. unabashed. mans a proud fucking necromancer. he’s weird. he’s an asshole, he’s a criminal with no remorse. the only thing tha seems to go in his favour, aside from his skillset being potentially useful in the field, is that he seemed genuinely distressed when they destroyed his workshop home when hey arrested him. like... that was some from the soul pain. not the pain of someone mildly inconvenienced. he lost something in that fire, and it... it tugs at the strings, a little. a little. he’s still kind of an asshole, and the cop is POSITIVE he doesnt fuckin deserve the chance. but fine. fuck it. he’ll be under lock and key the entire fucking time, planar magically speaking. it should be fine.

Saval is...... a very mixed bag. they have the same issue as Warzen - an unabashed and unashamed criminal. A shit one, sure, considering she knocked herself out trying to rob a place, but a criminal nevertheless. she regrets none of it, beyond the consequences it held. That would place her in the Warzen camp. But. But but but. her information has resulted in the arrests of dozens of criminals. her in conjunction with a few of them captured have basically destroyed most of the western gang. she has been valuable. so her position on the crim gang is basically a sort of thanks, since the law provides no other way to reduce her sentence, really. but that doesn’t mean the cop likes it. does saval genuinely deserve the chance to get out of jail earlier, considering she’ll likely go right back to crime when she’s free? the cop doesn’t know. how far can kindness extend?

but the cop championed the initiative. she has to stick by it, regardless of her distaste for the group that was picked. on the inside, she knows its a form of sabotage. she knows that there are higher ups who dont want the initiative to work and are going to scapegoat the fuck out of her when it fails due to their shit selection of people. but she’s gonna fight tooth and nail to make it successful, god fucking dammit. 

she’s basically trying her damn hardest to keep the entire group from falling apart. its the only reason she breaks up arguments - not because she really, personally cares too much, but because the less fighting, the better. like when koci starts angrily ranting at Rien for no other reason than that Rien seems like an easy target, the cop doesn’t.... personally care? but knows that breaking it up early is better than potentially making Rien angry, and having Rien sabotage the whole thing. especially since Rien seems to be on board with the whole thing.

its a bit higher stakes when it comes to warzen and saval due to their uhhhh unreliability, we’ll say. HARD fuck no. the less those two get pissed off, the better. its a cfucking relief to the cop when warzen/rien and saval/koci become friends. because now theres a sort of ‘back up’. theres a fall back. they can be caught before exiting. the concern is that warzen might drag rien outwards rather than rien dragging him inwards, buuuut she’ll cross that bridge when it comes up.

tl;dr the cop wanted to be untouchable and protect people, kind of got neither by becoming a cop and essentially the king’s fucking lackey, and is reaaaaalllllllyyy fucking hoping that this criminals-fighting-crime thing works out and she is completely fucked. both in terms of having a job (and potentially being alive, depending on outcome) and in terms of like. mentality. :)