"I wanted to bring here everyone that should get on their knees for Saeran. Me, that woman, and V..."
Saeyoung Choi is not a man of mercy. He is a hellbound force of retribution with nothing left to lose. Those who hurt his brother will pay for it in blood.
What if Saeyoung had brought V to the cabin too?
Warnings: Major character death, murder, suicide, arson, death by fire, unhinged Saeyoung.
Read on AO3
A/N: "Hey Luc, didn't you post this already?" Yes. And then I edited the post fifty times and added an AO3 link, so I wanted to make a neater post.
Anyway, I wrote this at midnight because the thought wouldn't leave me alone. I wonder what Saeyoung's plan was if he'd gotten all three of them to the cabin like he'd wanted in VAE. Whatever it was, it wouldn't be pretty. And I think seeing both of the people he blamed Saeran's death in front of him... the thought that Saeran wouldn't want revenge wouldn't stop him. Not this time. The world needs more unhinged Saeyoung. Let him be angry and terrifying.
I'm normally not a fan of unhappy endings, so maybe a miracle happens. Maybe Saeyoung ends up with a cool scar to match his brother's. Maybe not. Who knows.
There is an old clock in the cabin. Saeyoung isn't sure how it still works--it's not like anyone who comes out here is about to change the batteries or anything. Yet it works, filling the tiny wooden building with a steady tick, tick, tick as the seconds go by.
It's fitting, really. It's as if the universe is counting down the minutes. How many more does he have? Maybe it's only a few. Perhaps as much as an hour. Certainly not much more than that.
Tick, tick, tick.
He had already sent Vanderwood outside. Well, forced them out might be more accurate--they could tell something was wrong with Saeyoung. Of course, they knew about his brother by this point; they knew he was going to grieve, and grieving people do weird shit to cope. And Saeyoung is a weird guy to begin with. But something was just... off. It was a feeling in their gut. Something snapped in that kid's brain and Vanderwood wasn't keen on leaving him to his own devices.
"I'm not leaving you by yourself so you can do something stupid," Vanderwood had said.
"I know exactly what I'm doing, Vanderwood." Saeyoung did not shift his gaze away from the cabin's other two occupants. "It's in everyone's best interest if you wait outside."
"I told you I'm--"
"Get the fuck out!" Saeyoung snapped, briefly looking away to shoot a glare at the other agent.
Vanderwood had been momentarily stunned into silence. They yelled at Saeyoung on a regular basis--the kid had caused them so many headaches over the years--but never had Saeyoung snapped back like that. He would make smartass remarks, god knows he was full of them, but he never yelled. If he had ever been truly angry with Vanderwood, he had never shown it.
There was a long silence, broken only by the ever-present tick, tick, tick of the old clock. Then, Vanderwood had sighed and stood from their chair. "Fine. But if I think you're about to do something that will endanger both our lives, I'm coming back."
"You don't have to worry about that. Just wait outside, Agent."
Something about the way he said that sent a chill down their spine. Maybe it was his tone, now constantly laced with barely-restrained rage. Maybe it was the fact that he called them Agent. Maybe it was instinct. But after another moment's pause, they stepped outside the cabin. They reached into their pocket for their cigarettes, only to find them gone, along with their lighter. Must have left them in the cabin. By the time they turned around to check, Saeyoung had already latched the door behind them.
So now it's just the three of them, three people tied together by one unbreakable thread. Three people who weren't human anymore. Three monsters. Three killers with blood on their hands. The worst kind of scum, all responsible for taking the life of an innocent--someone too kind and pure for this world.
Saeran may have been the one to detonate the bomb that destroyed Magenta, but the three who sit in the cabin--Saeyoung Choi, Jihyun Kim, Rika Kim--are the ones responsible. They all killed Saeran. Saeran's blood coats their hands and would never, could never, be washed away.
Tick, tick, tick.
V, ever the mediator, is the first to break the silence. "Luciel--"
"Why?" The word tears itself from Saeyoung's throat, finally pushing past the lump of rage and guilt that threatens to strangle him.
"I'm sorry, Saeyoung," Rika says. "I'm so sorry for everything that happened. If I could go back, if I could trade my life for his--"
"You have no right to say that." Saeyoung spits, standing abruptly. "You have no! Right!"
Rika falls silent, her hollow-eyed gaze dropping to the floor. Saeyoung hates it. Her demeanor only angers him further. How dare she play the victim? Maybe the 'it's all my fault, I'm the worst, I deserve retribution' thing would garner sympathy from other people, but not Saeyoung. He, in fact, wholeheartedly agrees. It is all her fault. She is the worst person in the world. She does deserve retribution. The same goes for V and himself.
"Luciel--" V tries again.
"And neither do you!" Saeyoung's venom now turns to him. "Don't you dare say anything about sacrifice. It means nothing. It won't bring him back. It won't change what you did to him."
Tick, tick, tick.
"I trusted you," Saeyoung says. "I. Trusted. You. You promised me--you swore to me that you would protect him! How could you--" his voice cracks. "How could you do that to him? Saeran was good. Saeran was innocent. Saeran was kind, and gentle, and he deserved to be loved. But you--you--"
He lets out a frustrated noise, unable to turn his thoughts into words. His mind is nothing but a loop of rage, rage, rage. Rage and vengeance and shame and guilt.
"You killed him," he finally growls. "Both of you killed him. And... so did I. Every one of us is responsible for what happened to him."
"Luciel," V tries again. "We--" he sighs. "Please, Luciel... if anything, do not blame yourself--"
"How?" He snaps. "How?! I trusted you both to look after him. To care for him. To treasure him. And instead, you manipulated and brainwashed him. You tortured him just like our mother did." He feels a twisted sense of satisfaction at the pained gasp Rika lets out, as if she's been stabbed through the heart.
Saeyoung decides to twist the knife further. "Actually, you were even worse than our mother. At least she never lied to us. We knew from the beginning that she only wanted us to get money from our father, that she never loved either of us. But you? You lied. You promised to protect us, to help us. But in the end you were just the same. You gave us hope only for your own selfish needs.
"Saeran spent every day of his life living in fear while you beat all the kindness and gentleness out of him.
"And you--" Now he speaks directly to V. "You did nothing to stop her. Fuck all your excuses. I don't care about your sacrifice. You were only ever concerned with her. You were only ever protecting her. If you had really wanted to protect Saeran then you would have saved him from her. You can martyr yourself all you want, it won't make you any better than her."
Tick, tick, tick.
The air in the room shifts abruptly. It's charged, thrumming like a livewire. The explosive anger evaporates in an instant; it's replaced by something far more terrifying.
"All of Saeran's killers must be held responsible for what happened," Saeyoung says. His anger is no longer a raging inferno. Now, his anger is like ice. It's calm, now. No less intense, but calm. As if he had long ago decided a course of action.
Tick, tick, tick.
Saeyoung crosses the room and reaches for something behind one of the chairs. He wonders, briefly, what his brother's last moments were like. How did the bomb detonate? Had Saeran simply pressed a button and ended it, or was he forced to sit there and listen as a timer counted down his last minutes on Earth?
Tick, tick, tick.
Rika does not react, but V's eyes widen when Saeyoung lifts a large, red plastic canister from behind the chair. "Luciel, what are you--"
Saeyoung unceremoniously upends the container in the middle of the cabin's main room. The liquid quickly soaks into the carpet and the wood flooring, and the heavy smell of gasoline fills the room.
Tick, tick, tick.
"Luciel! Wait, let's talk about this--" V has risen to his feet, but freezes when Saeyoung pulls a beat-up zippo from his pocket.
"Talk?" Saeyoung says, laughing. "Talk?! You had years to talk, V, but you stayed silent and let Saeran suffer. The time for talking has long since passed."
Tick, tick, tick.
He flicks the lighter open with a small metallic clink.
"Saeran wouldn't want this," V tries. His half-blind, once-honest eyes are wide and desperate.
"Don't you dare speak his name!" Saeyoung shouts. "You don't deserve to say his name."
"Please--"
"It doesn't matter anymore what he would have wanted."
It's then that V notices the tears running down Saeyoung's cheeks, the tremble in his voice. Had he ever seen Saeyoung cry before?
"He's gone. And he's never coming back. And those responsible need to pay for it.
"Heh... you know, this is the first time I wished I could get into Heaven," Saeyoung continues, voice breaking. "Just for a few minutes. Just long enough to apologize to Saeran. For everything. For not being able to protect him. For leaving him. For being a terrible brother. For betraying him. For failing him. Beg for his forgiveness. All of us should."
Tick, tick, tick.
Saeyoung lets out a low chuckle. "Knowing Saeran... he would probably forgive us. Not that any of us deserve it. So perhaps it's better this way."
Tick, tick, tick.
"Take your revenge, Saeyoung." Rika's voice is hardly above a whisper, yet it seems so loud in such a small space.
Tick, tick, tick.
Saeyoung lowers himself to the ground, thumb on the wheel of the zippo. The gasoline soaks into the legs of his jeans. His head feels light, and he's not sure if it's from the fumes or if it's a weight lifting off his shoulders.
Tick, tick, tick.
"You wanted us all to be a family, right?" He says.
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actually hate that the bodys response to anything is nausea. ate too much? nauseous. ate too little? nauseous. an imaginary threat got you scared? be nauseous. on your period? you guessed it. sawed into your hand and need to go to the emergency room? perhaps throwing up into your open wound will be of help
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I've said it before and I'll say it again. We need a "This is absolutely NOT mature content" feedback button on posts. You can report a post as missing a community label. We should also be able to report posts as having a comminity label when they dont fucking need one.
I think one of the funniest abortion stances I've heard was from my parents neighbor. He's a like, hard-core libertarian viking larper guy who is very tall and very fat and very bald.
He believes a fetus is human with a soul, but also its "basically attacking the woman's body" so if she wants to get rid of it, that's "basically self-defense". He compared it to shooting a home invader. So he supports abortion not as healthcare, but as killing a baby in self-defense
Y'know I'm so glad someone reminded me of this. Because this was also discussed.
My stepmother did NOT like the way her Libertarian Viking Neighbor framed pregnancy as the fetus "attacking the woman". She incredulously told him this was extremely disrespectful to expectant mothers to portray pregnancy as so violent and negative.
Libertarian Viking Neighbor's response was that people consensually hurt each other all the time, and "there's like a whole community about that, with the acronym the one that starts with a B" And his reasoning was that if the mother was consenting to bring attacked by the baby, it in fact wasn't violent and negative because there was consent.
He brought up people consensually hurting each other, didn't go for one of the obvious answers like boxing or body mods or something, no he went STRAIGHT TO BDSM and he DIDN'T EVEN REMEMBER THE ACRONYM
apparently youre supposed to perform. they love it when you perform. but it has to be authentic. they hate it when it's not authentic. but you have to perform.
so this guy right he makes ancient egyptian themed furry costumes. he makes all kinds but mostly he specializes in Horus heads. it's his passion really. he loves to make the beautiful falcon head of the Sun God. anyway so he's at a con one day and he sees this whole bunch of people in middle kingdom dress with these indistinguishable animal heads. he's like. oh man these folks could really use a new source, i can hardly tell what animal those are! so he goes over and he says "hey guys! i see you are into ancient egyptian mythological themed furry costumes--if any of you are interested in being the radiant Son of Ra, I am the BEST in the business!"
and the group of people look at each other, then at him. awkward. finally one of them says: "uh. no thanks. we're all Set."
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Just watched Adam Conover (of Adam Ruins Everything) make such a solid point that I think we should spread far and wide. Yes, having AI write your emails is lazy, sure, but people love being lazy. We need to really emphasize that sending AI emails (or using AI responses on social media, or publishing AI flyers, or or or) is rude.
It's rude. You're making someone take their time to read something you couldn't bother to write. You're telling them they were so unimportant you couldn't be bothered to actually take the time to say something yourself. And frankly, you're lying about it while you're at it.
The above is doubly true if the content of the email is something that will be important to the person receiving - especially something that affects them negatively. They see that this thing that affected them so much didn't matter enough to you to write it yourself. I was a bystander to such a thing not long ago and it was just awful.
If I may offer the lecturer's perspective on this idea:
Currently, it's marking season for us in the UK. I have an exam board in four hours, in fact, which is where we all go over every profile of every student on our courses, see what results they've achieved, and work out their "decision" - if all is well, the decision is to let them continue the course, or the final degree grade calculated if they're in final year. If it hasn't gone well, the decision is about whether they get to rework the pieces that failed, resit exams, repeat the whole year, or be required to withdraw.
And, as has been the case for the last two years, the profiles are now littered with plagiarism investigations. Every one of those - every single one - will have come in as an assignment that the lecturer received, and started reading, and then with a sinking feeling thought "This isn't your work." Every one had to go to an academic misconduct hearing. Every one is an enormous draw on time and resources, including the emotional reserves of the lecturer.
And I know that's not the main issue! I know in the grand scheme of things, our feelings aren't the most important part of this equation! But as we're talking about rudeness, let me explain:
Firstly, the work itself. You begin reading, you see it's AI. Contractually, we have to read it anyway, and give feedback on why it's shit, and what makes it bad, and that is absolutely fucking soul destroying. Most students who use AI are doing so because they've managed to train their brains to find reading something boring abhorrent, and they want to skip that part; but a ChatGPT-generated report is bland, vague, and utterly devoid of any passion, insight or personality. In short, it's boring. You simply passed your boredom on to us.
Secondly, regardless of your personal feelings about the assignment, it at least had a purpose. It was there to stretch you, and make you think about the topic so you could learn about it, and to test that learning so we can all make sure you have actually learned what you need to. But the slop you handed in, that I now have to mark? What's the point? Literally what is the fucking point of me marking it? You didn't even write it. None of the feedback I'm obligated to give means anything to you. I'm marking ChatGPT, and it can't read.
Which means, not only is it fucking boring, it's actively pointless. Ask anyone in the world what a boring but pointless obligatory task does to your mood. Imagine that.
Thirdly, the misconduct hearing. Because listen, again, the lecturer's feelings here are, once again, not the main point. Students who cheat like this aren't doing so because life is hunky dory. They're stressed and overwhelmed and struggling, and they think they've found a magic way out, and so being pulled into a misconduct hearing - where the best they can hope for is to have to redo the whole piece for a capped mark, on top of all the rest of the work they have (functionally, a bonus assignment), and the worst is expulsion - is a mental breakdown-inducing experience. That, obviously, is the biggest issue.
But, the lecturers know all that, which means we know what we're triggering if we do report it. I cannot tell you how upsetting it is to receive a slop assignment, realise what it is, and then have to make the call to report it. I know damn well how upsetting that's going to be for you. I know how stressful and painful that's going to be. I know this might mean you're going to be thrown out of university. In some cases, I know it means you will be.
I know I could look the other way to spare you that
And oh, that gets tempting. When things are really bad for you, and I see you struggling, and this is your third strike; fuck me but it's tempting to pretend that I can't tell.
I cannot do that.
Which brings me to number four: the soul-bleachingly fucking horrible ordeal that is the misconduct hearing itself. Most people are non-confrontational; I'm no exception. I also simply do not enjoy a sobbing, panicking student sitting in front of me, telling me about how stressed and scared they are and how they're terrified they're going to fail. But that's how these things go.
Our most recent example is an international Masters student. I don't know the particulars for him; but I do know it's not uncommon in his part of the world for families to go into obscene debt, often to loan sharks, to send their kids to UK universities. Failure means more than just academia for him. Having to sit through him turning white and quietly begging us to give him another chance before he left in tears he tried to hide from us was, obviously, much worse for him than us; but it was honestly traumatic. Even now, two weeks later, I can't get it out of my head. There's nothing we can do; but, I feel guilty anyway. I could have looked the other way.
(It wouldn't have passed anyway. It was terrible. But at least he'd probably be allowed a resit - we're still waiting on the outcome of this one, but he may well be withdrawn)
To bring this back to the point of the post:
I know my feelings aren't really the ones that matter here. I do know that. But, every time a student chooses to use AI to write an assignment, all that is what happens behind the scenes. My job nosedives into being shit. Whether it's reading the boring slop, having to write pointless feedback, or making the upsetting decisions to report it when I know what the consequences will be and then having to deal with the guilt, my job that I love suddenly becomes shit. And that, actually, among the many other things it is, is fucking rude.
People are using AI to fire employees too. Do you know how dehumanizing it is to receive a document that affects your literal survival, and it's meaningless AI slop dressed up in good grammar?
I wrote a really nice letter thanking my condo board for their communications lately because they have been making an effort to improve that aspect of things and I wanted to encourage that growth... and I got a slop-ass reply in return and was just like "welp, egg on my face I guess..."
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