"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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Im going to hold your hand when I say this. It is not realistic to expect yourself or your family to be able to survive solely off of food you have foraged or grown in a garden. People with more knowledge and experience have tried and failed. What do you think happened to all of those communes in the 60s? Most of them failed. Famine and malnutrition have been constant companions to humanity until industrialized farming and food supply lines came along.
It feels like a uniquely American capitalist take to assume these traditions will make you completely self sufficient. You need a lot of people, a lot of time, a lot of knowledge across a lot of subjects, and a lot of luck to provide for everyone's nutritional needs.
So should you even bother trying to be more self sufficient with your food? I argue yes. Foraging and gardening are fun and will teach you so much about many things. They are deeply rewarding activities that can supplement your diet. There are herbs I haven't bought in years because I grow my own. There are dishes I can only make with foraged ingredients because I can't get them in stores.
You may not have the power to do everything, but that doesn't mean your efforts are wasted. Getting 5% of your nutritional needs from food you have grown or foraged, even for a season, is a massive accomplishment.
It takes approximately 2,000 calories a day to fuel the average human. A family of four needs roughly three million calories in a year. You're not going to get that from a backyard truck garden and a couple of chickens.
But you can get variety, flavor, and vitamins even if the bulk of your calories are coming from somewhere else. And if you grow more of something than you need, it gives you something to trade or gift to other people.
Imagine saying this to the Robin Hobb who published her first book while financially struggling as a waitress and post lady with 4 children to take care of alone because her husband was an offshore fisherman in Alaska
I wonder how much Elon Musk's trillionaire status is based on dubious accounting, and outright fraud. My guess is "at least 90% of it." Tesla is such a niche car company that it's notable when you spot one on the road... but somehow Tesla shares are worth double Toyota, a company that actually sells a lot of cars. I'm sure SpaceX has some pricey contracts but the costs of anything going into space are astronomically high (lol) so I doubt the profit margins there are particularly good, there's a reason space travel has historically been the domain of governments rather than private companies. Other than that, he owns Twitter which wasn't worth much before he fucked it up and a bunch of random startups no one ever hears about until they start doing something horrible to monkey brains or whatever.
He's certainly a billionaire but there's no way he's sitting on a trillion dollars of assets.
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"Welcome to the RFA! We are a charitable organization that hosts fundraising auctions, parties, and events to help those in need! Would you like to join and help us bring sunshine to those in the darkness?
Or perhaps... you seek a different type of paradise?"
HAPPY MYSTIC MESSENGER 10TH ANNIVERSARY!!!! 💚💛🩶❤️💜🩷🩵 I will forever hold this game and the joyful connections, memories, and experiences it has brought me close to my heart~
i think one of the reasons i dont vibe with a lot of modern "romantic" writing is that there's a notable lack of sweetness or tenderness written between the characters. the most popular tropes for intimacy negotiation between characters in modern romantic novels seem to be based around overcoming their own disdain, distrust, or resentment of the other character. an increasingly lazy, kneejerk "i hate how much i want them" approach to romantic and physical intimacy. true love requires doubt, they tell us. our desires can only be trusted when we douse them in cold hard rationality. no i'm not trying to come for the enemies rivals irritating workplace acquaintances to lovers trope that's so popular (although i'm also deeply bored by that). rather, i think it demonstrates a general jadedness in a genre that's otherwise supposed to be about "wish fulfillment HEA" yet struggles to conceive characters for whom tenderness and all-consuming desire is not a weakness. the irrationality that love can instill in a person is held at arm's length, a toxic impulse that must be adjusted in order to present a "healthy relationship." the overly-emotional lover has been relegated to "dark romance," or their behaviors channeled into specific genre-approved tropes which fit neatly into hetero-dominant relationship expectations. so much of it ends up reading pathos-less to me. in the hands of a talented writer, unhinged tenderness is the most excruciating possible thing to read. we used to have that, you know. we used to be a society.
sorry to be brave on the internet but I think food labels should list every single ingredient and that there should be harsher penalties for mislabeling and deceptive labeling
Hi! so both of these labels actually have the exact problem we're complaining about!
from label 1:
in the US and EU, this is a generic term meaning "something we put in here to make it smell nice" and there is absolutely NO way of knowing if that is a scent you are allergic to or not. some of these can be a mix of up to 200 distinct components.
from label 2:
i think you can probably see the problem here?
the issue isn't that we don't have ingredient lists. the issue is that "trade secrets" are more important than people's lives, so if a company says that listing the actual ingredients might allow people to copy them, it is legal for them to put "it's a secret, tee hee".
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we have dandelions EVERYWHERE, they are basically our State Weed, it is absolutely impossible that my mom has never interacted with a dandelion before, this requires further investigation
So after extensive interrogation I have an update:
my mom is in fact aware that dandelions exist. she temporarily forgot the name and there was some miscommunication.
the truth is actually weirder
she’s aware dandelions look like this
she is familiar with this flower. she knows the name of this flower. she declines to believe, however, that these are also dandelions
she does not believe these are the same plant. I tried to explain, and she thought I was either misinformed or lying. so I asked her what exactly did she think the yellow ones were called?
she answered, with complete confidence: Daffodils.
“buttercups” is a name applied to MANY flowers. in my part of the south it was this one:
imo there’s correct identifications of dandelions, daffodils, easter lilies and marigolds in this thread, but buttercups are simply impossible to agree on and the only solution is for everyone to post pictures of their local buttercups
Working at a sex shop has ruined me because I was checking out a booth at a public market selling bone-shaped collar tags that said shit like “I’m lost” and “pet me” and “spoiled” and it wasn’t until I saw “I pee when I’m excited” and thought damn okay kind of hardcore that it even occurred to me that they could be for like. ACTUAL dog collars 😭😭😭
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