Hear me out. Savior Saeran x reader dynamic where mc doesn't have to become Rika 2.0 and this horrible dynamic isn't in play at all. Instead consider:
1. Unknown who finally snaps under all of the abuse, broken promises, and lies, and takes the place of the Savior on his own, as his own!! A reader who comes to ME afterwards, becomes a Believer, and falls for him as the Savior. Or-
2. A already existing Unknown assistant who worships him and would do anything to protect him, helping him realize what Rika is doing to him and helping him fight against her to take that power for himself!!! Or-
3. A already existing Believer who was also suffering under Rika's hand seeing Unknown take the throne and yearing to be by his side, fighting to earn his praise and approval amongst the other Believers who are terrified of him...♡
There are so many other ways to write this than those three examples, but those are the main ones that play in my head on repeat. I want so desperately for a Savior Saeran x reader that isn't based on how you get that ending in the game. Maybe one day I'll have to sit and write it myself or get a commission.
I'm so sorry I'm just here to ramble about the brainrot. Anyways. Unknown in Savior robes with power and confidence that isn't constrained to being used as a tool by Rika & MC is so chefs kiss!!!!
See, I've actually written that second option with my MC before in a Bad Ending. She helps him undermine Rika's leadership, they work to undo everything she's done and place Unknown in charge. The RFA's no match for the two of them, and after my MC convinces Jihyun to give his undeniable support, it causes Rika to lose control and that's the end of the Savior.
She's tucked away in the basement, Saeyoung's captured, and the rest of the RFA enjoy a cult that no longer has cleanings or drugs. It's merely a place for the betterment of others, unless your name is Saeyoung Choi.
Arguably, that's not a Good Ending because Mint Eye isn't going to make Saeran happy and no amount of changes to the horrible thing that hurt him are going to bring him what he wants. Hurting his twin won't bring him peace, but the denial might last for a while. I think it's an interesting concept to explore though, and that's why I wrote that Bad Ending. So, I totally understand the appeal of exploring that one.
I see the appeal of the first and third options as well. Though, I don't know how well things would be under the leadership of the first one. Unknown is made of apathy. Something bad would have to hit him in tandem with a cataclysmic event. If he learned something about his brother that shattered him and Rika confessed she wanted Saeyoung instead of him back to back? Yeah, I could see him destroying every little thing in his path.
I don't know if he would become the Savior willingly. When he runs into obstacles, he tends to... get rid of himself. He doesn't want to be the Savior. You would have to find a reason to make him the Savior in the first place. There has to be something pushing him to become a Savior in the first place, and even then, you have to find a goal to give him that drives him forward.
The original plan was to get rid of his big brother and then himself.
What's the plan now?
Where is Saeyoung?
What can he do to use the cult to take down his brother?
Those are important to understand if you're going to place him in charge of Mint Eye. If you can work out what's driving him, and what he'll do when he catches Jihyun because he's not just going to let the guy run around like Rika did. Rika knew he was there, she just let his ass get away with it. Oh, yeah, that's another thing. What does he do to Jihyun? What did he do to Rika to get power? These are important. They help us understand what drove him to this point. If Rika's in the dungeons, will Jihyun try to save her?
Is Jihyun in the dungeons with her because he tried to do that? Is he trying to take down Unknown now? What's guiding Jihyun? Like, the idea of Savior Unknown is compelling, but we have to think long and hard about all of these pieces, I'm afraid. Unknown can't just be the Savior for no reason.
MC is usually what drives him in these AUs. But, if the MC was someone who didn't know him until after he came into power, I cannot imaginable how they get there. What is he new Mint Eye? What's the goal? What charmed MC? What made them want to believe in him? I bet removing the elixir would make everyone in that place want to follow him, but what would be offered in its place? Is he not afraid of his father finding him? What's going to happen with that in his future?
I can't deny that I don't love the idea of exploring an MC worshiping him but I would need to sit down and figure out the logistics. There's ways to make this work but God, there's a lot more factors than just Unknown being the Savior and MC being his favorite believer.
Been thinking about Saviour Unknown lately... I wanna cry about our boy finding himself on the edge of breaking down entirely and deciding to just burn it all. Was getting rid of Rika his tipping point? Did he do it knowingly or was it a sporadic decision he made under all these overwhelming emotions clouding his mind? What did he feel when the deed was done and he was met with nothing but deafening silence? Was he horrified for a brief fleeting moment by what he's just done? Did he break down completely? Did he convince himself that he did what has to be done? Do the nightmares of blood covering his hands follow him whenever he manages to fall asleep?
The Savior did what had to be done.
He did what had to be done because if he didn't do it, there would be no salvation, paradise, or pleasure for those who were crawling in the filthy mud to find enlightenment. He wasn't a Savior born by the light and Grace of God. No, he was born out of necessity. He wasn't born to be a Savior but he became the Savior they needed in a moment of clarity and desperation.
Panicked breath, hasty hands, and animosity at the words uttered in betrayal lead him to the pulpit. No true Savior chosen by God would look at one of her followers, no, her most loyal follower who had been by her side since the moment she had saved him from the dirt would dare think the words she had said to him. Her emerald eyes looked at him as if he were the devil himself instead of a fallen soul meant to be saved by her grace.
She was no Savior.
She was the Devil.
His begotten name fell from her lips in malice. She hit him with the force of her arm and sent him onto his knees, looking down with the ring of God's brightest light haloing her face from the skylight as her true demon revealed itself to him in the shadows of the sun. He was nothing to this Devil.
He was a substitute for what she truly wanted.
The truth was written in her blood. The boy that she had once called her son wasn't her son at all. She had wanted to take in his brother to use for her goals and aspirations from the start. He was leftover and nothing more than that.
A true Savior wouldn't think about him in such contempt and misery if she wanted to save him. She would've meant it when she said that it was God that told her to save him. She wouldn't have been lying to him for years if she was everything she claimed to be. But, in all those ugly words she shouted down at him, he saw the truth between every lie.
She was a false prophet... a false Savior... and his blood boiled deep inside of him from a place that he couldn't even locate. The air felt so hot in his lungs that every second that passed was like hellfire inside his body. She wasn't the Savior and she wasn't Salvation. She was a liar just like those she had whispered had abandoned him to the dirt and dust to save themselves.
He couldn't believe in this false prophet any longer. He couldn't stand the sight of the devil looking into his soul. The anger that burned hot inside of his chest could no longer take listening to her words, orders, and desires for a second longer.
His mind went increasingly blank the more she shouted down at him and at some point.... in the midst of realizing the truth of her words to him, his angered, bruised, and trembling hand lifted from the dirt and grabbed ahold of her blonde curls with a vice grip.
No more Lies.
No more Devil.
No more False Savior.
Where did that leave him? Where did that leave Mint Eye? Where did that leave his goals and revenge? Where did that leave anything that the false Savior had caused in the first place? Unknown didn't know what came over him but he donned the robes that had been left and stormed the halls of Magenta with thick red trailing behind him in his wake.
Nobody questioned him. Nobody denied him. Nobody looked at him with the intent of stopping him from claiming the seat of Mint Eye's true Savior and Salvation. He had nothing more to care for in his life after he'd been manipulated time and time again by those whom he'd placed all his trust as an innocent child. So, what else was left for him in this life if he had nothing to count on?
Unknown might have had nothing to his name.. but the Savior had everything. If he became the Savior and Salvation of those that had clung to this place, he could truly have everything and anything he needed. All it took was a firm hand who wasn't afraid to destroy the outside world and with his bloody hands, he wasn't afraid to do the dirty work necessary to save lives.
In his anger, spite, and malice, he couldn't bring himself to care that he had destroyed or become the very person he hated most. All that mattered in his eyes was revenge and nothing was standing there in his way to keep him away from his desires.
Even if his fingers started to twitch or burn with sin, or every time he fell asleep and his nightmares were filled with thick memories that he could never remember all the details of... just the memory of screams and blood.
Why would that stop him?
His life was bathed in screams of mercy and blood that belonged to him or someone else.
A Savior saves lives in need without question, and he was a Savior that would save without looking over his shoulder in a cold sweat from any nightmares that kept haunting him. What did that matter, anyway? It wasn't any different from before his hands became the ones that belonged to the Bloody Savior without a name.
Coming back here with the saviour Unknown concept again 🤚🏻
'Poor George' by James Supercave gives me HUGE saviour Unknown vibes and I'm crying over it. I got it accentually in my Spotify mix but omg it fits so well, I'm loosing my mind. It's such an intense and tragic song. Like an inevitable downfall of someone, while we can just sit back and watch it happens helplessly and hhhh it makes me very emotional overall
Like, I can see the whole storyline played out along with the song: particularly, Unknown's 'removal' of Rika during second chorus of the song and him taking over the cult from behind the scenes. It feels all over the place and intense after that point, just like his desperation and rage towards the world that wronged him. I imagine he does a lot of... very wrong things, cause he just does not care at this point. It feels horrifying and heartbreaking all at the same time, seeing him like that. The way the song ends, I imagine he gets defeated after all, but it is certainly not pretty. Like, the image of Saeyoung and/or mc begging him to stop all this senseless violence and having to turn to forceful means is just PAINFUL
Honestly, this idea really intrigues me, as you can perfectly see lol
There's a lot to play around with!
Momma told him right from wrong
How to love and how to talk
Poor George, poor George
Never learned how to stop
When you're a star, they let you do it
Don't ask me how
It's quiet in the dressing room
The women all got loud
It's definitely a painful situation. It's the darkest situation I can imagine because it winds up with a lot of people getting killed. There are far too many casualties to go over here, and everyone winds up in a state of desperation where nothing goes right. Unknown is a force that cannot be stopped. That is a reality where I imagine him to have completely given up on everything. The only thing on his mind is a bloodbath and nothing can stop him from making it happen... Rika is the first one. His second “mother” falls because she taught him how to become the man he is today.
I think that this song is a really good representation of the downward spiral that you can create with this. Since there’s no right or wrong way you can imagine Unknown becoming the Savior, you can create so many outcomes with this. I know this is the darkest timeline, but God. Sometimes... you need to think about this to vent through your feelings. I don’t want to see Unknown and Seven on a fight to the death... but this reality... oooh, boy. You get it. It can make you have so many ideas.
Tumblr ate the ask when I was trying to paste my answer in, so I guess I’ll write this as a text post. @natasha-in-space I got you! You want to know more about the concept of Savior Unknown. Now, Savior Unknown is a concept that I don’t see explored by people often because we have Savior Saeran in Ray Route and that’s typically what most people write.
However, it is a shame because Savior Saeran is a puppet king and has no power. But, if we were to consider Savior Unknown, that’s a different question entirely. I always come from the angle that in this situation it would have happened because he would have undermined Rika’s authority and taken over Mint Eye. It isn't a stretch of the imagination for me given how unstable Unknown can be and how unruly he is whenever somebody questions his poor grip on reality.
When Rika tells him that she was tired of his tantrums that she was the cause of and that she should’ve taken Saeyoung? Yeah, that’s the energy we need to think about. We saw his reaction in that situation was to spiral. He lost control of himself in the Secret Endings because of what happened to his reality. Everything that he was told was suddenly Up In Smoke.
Rika let V do things in front of him instead of crushing him, Rika ignored his desires and wants and shoved him aside, and then she went back on her word to him multiple times. She was going to force Saeyoung to join Mint Eye after years of telling Unknown that he could have revenge instead.
It is that reality that would cause Unknown to lash out. I don't know where I would position it in the timeline, it would definitely have to be before he was kidnapped but it could be after the situation in Seven’s Route if you want to imagine it that way. With that in mind, he has the ability to get rid of her he wants.
That isn't to say that it wouldn't be difficult for him to get past the rest of the members of the cult, but as the person who is closest to her, he has the ability to see her when nobody is around. This would 100% be a bad ending because… I don’t see Rika surviving. V didn’t at the end... and Rika wouldn’t, either. That’s a harsh reality but it’s plausible.
Unknown would have to be pushed… hard. Rika would have to start lying to him and going back on her word in a way that he cannot ignore. If you push his buttons too much, it isn't unlikely to say that he would try to fix the problem. In his mind, he's already been abandoned by two people that mattered to him… so, what’s a third? Even if Rika was there for him, he has weak trust in her.
That’s a theme for all the Saeran’s. They listen to Rika but there’s always a sense of distrust, even when they are devoted. It isn't easy to see all of the time, but if you look close enough you can definitely tell that they are wary.
So, Unknown is abandoned in his mind by everyone. He removes Rika and takes over for himself to get back at the RFA. It's likely that he could manage to do this by manipulating everyone around him to believe that he is Rika in Mint Eye. She's already a figurehead, all he had to do to make that work out properly would be to always send out “her messages” through other people.
He would transform that place to work out in his favor. He would use his plans to launch a full-scale assault on them. It would be like open war. At that point, he would have no common regard for his life, only the Revenge that he wants. So, anything that he does would be out of control.
He would be elusive, vindictive, and cruel. He has nothing left to lose and he has nothing left to gain. He's only doing this because he knows that it's going to get him what he wants in the end. He doesn't have any goal but the one to get him what he wants. He isn't afraid to sacrifice people and he isn't going to stop. He's going to unleash all of his anger onto everyone and it's not going to be a pretty sight. He is going to lose himself to his anger. I can't say that I know what the RFP will do, but I can say this is not someone you want to fuck with.
It's definitely one of my favorite concepts to explore because it can be so dark. But if you have more questions about it, don't hesitate to ask cuz I don't get to talk about it a lot.
