What part of "I joined the army at fourteen" makes for a good childhood?
[ it's a joke! it's a fun joke. he's so funny. anyway ]
I'm at one and you're at two. Wouldn't do for me to quit before you did. [ he cracks his neck. don't be competitive over this. you IDIOTS. ] Ready when you are.
[CAN HE GO HALF AN HOUR WITHOUT BRINGING UP THE FACT HE HAS DIED?
No. It’s too late. They are now making this a competition because he isn’t giving up until Cloud gives up.] Right this way! [He starts down the hall to the next door in line.] We’ll see what’s behind door…number three!
[ cloud has nothing to say to dead guy jokes. unfortunate, because for all intents and purpose, legally, cloud WAS dead. he just does not remember.
rng gave me #14, so i guess we are going into a hall of mirrors. here they are. in the carnival section of the horror movie. ]
Yeah, this isn't going to end well. [ one half of the room is clouds! the other is jasons! which evil doppleganger will attempt to kill the other FIRST. ] See the door anywhere?
[WHY IS IT THE MIRROR ROOM!!! He's cool as long as he doesn't see a fucking clown behind him anywhere. (The joke is he is a fucking clown.)
At first, he doesn't really move. He's going to have to make sure he doesn't run into the mirrors.] No, I can't see anything but multiples of your damn blonde head. [He reaches out, despising how uncoordinated this makes him feel.
He touches the glass, feels down along it as he moves so he doesn't smash his face.]
I'm not kidding. I'm giving this hotel the worst possible review.
Gotta have to agree with you there. One Jason Todd is bad enough.
[ this is cloud agreeing that he hates seeing so many reflections. he is even willing to let the joke about his blond head slide. jason is reaching out with his hand and cloud is kicking at the floor slightly before making steps.
so that he can have one hand on the buster sword's handle, even if he can't actually take it out without potentially skewering jason. sorry the sword is too big again!! woops!!! ]
Forget the review. I'm not leaving this place standing if this is how things start.
[ lightly kicks a mirror that goes BONK, so he has to try and. veer? god this sucks. he is being triggered and he doesn't even know why. ]
... You feeling watched, too?
[ he is aware that sounds stupid in a mirror room. but. look. ]
[He makes an annoyed and exasperated grunt-huff at the joke. Both of their fucking jokes are horrendous.]
I mean, I'm in a funhouse full of mirrors with about twenty mes and twenty yous. It's hard not to feel watched.
[He runs into a mirrored section with his hands and has to re-adjust for a second. It... He can. Now. The hair on the back of his neck stands up on its own. Reluctantly:]
[Frustrated, he sounds a bit snippy when he answers this time:] I can't tell when there's twelve of you in my face, but your voice doesn't sound close. [He glances--at the Clouds. He's trying to figure out which one is the fucking real one, not a reflection.
He's there, too. His reflections, seeming like he's standing near Cloud. But his head turns slowly, and it startles him so bad out of reflex, he hisses,] Shit! [and throws himself backward.
He hits the corner edge of a few mirrors before bouncing off and directly into actual Cloud.]
That's not great, because I'm pretty sure your reflection--
[ well, Jason finds out and promptly drops into Cloud, which, like. Dudes heavy and he is not expecting it, so they both go tumbling back into a mirror.
Where clouds reflection is slowly leaning over them to reach, which cloud can't do much about because he is covered in Jason. ]
Shit-- break the damn thing, I don't wanna know what happens if it touches us!
[ WHY ARE ALL THE REFLECTIONS MOVING ACTUALLY THIS IS A NIGHTMARE ]
[HELLO? Why are they moving on their own?! Why are their reflections doing that?!]
I really fucking hate this place! [They aren't tangled, but he has to twist a bit to be able to have enough room to maneuver his leg.] Just--give me--a second! Damn!
[The reflections hit the mirrors from the other side with enough force to rattle them, warble everything. They hit it again, and cracks start splintering.]
Alright, enough!
[He kicks the mirror as hard as he can closest to them, shattering it, leaving behind a wall of blackness. He kicks the next one, too, for good measure, shattering it. The shards rain down on top of them as they are suddenly
just dumped right back out into the hallway again on the ground exactly as they are.]
[ cloud kind of covered his face from all the glass shards because he was STUCK under JASON'S DUMB ASS. he is still there when he removes the arm from his face except there are no more mirrors. and they're right back in the hall.
he's staring around trying to figure out if he was hallucinating again, raising a hand to stare at his arm blankly. well, there's cuts all over them from the mirrors, so probably? it was real?
this is bad for his already frayed sense of reality maybe. ]
[Hallway to Hell is the worst place he has ever been in his life, and he has been dead twice.
Gritting his teeth, he shifts and rolls off Cloud, but—using his hands sting? He has gloves?! He hisses and raises his arms so he can jerk one of the gloves off.
GREAT, CUTS?!]
God dammit, what’s the point of gloves if Henry’s House of Hotel Horrors just doesn’t play by any logical rules?
[Ow.]
…I’m good. You? What the fuck was that? I almost want my completely normal game of hunted purgatory murder back.
[ cloud's taking off one of his his own gloves to check, because. yeah, actually, it does hurt, but there's no way...
hmmm nope he still has cuts. he didn't even break the mirror? this is unfair ]
You say that, and that's the next door we're going into. [ he flexes his hand and gives up, putting the glove back on. extremely sanitary. it's fine. he sits up now that he is Free of jason's heavy body ] I'm alright. ... Kind of glad there were two of us in there. Easier to notice when they started moving wrong.
[ again, his frayed sense of reality etc. he is not sure he would've caught on as fast if it wasn't for the jason reflections. ]
I think these doors might be trying to freak us out.
[There isn’t anything he can do with his hands or arms, so he just… shoves the hand back into the glove. God.]
I can’t stand psychological warfare unless I’m the one doing it.
[In one fluid motion, he picks himself up to his feet. He hesitates—then offers out a hand to help Cloud up. Which he probably grimaces about because THEIR HANDS!]
Going through another one? I wonder if they’re the same or worse because it’s more than one person.
[ cloud takes the hand by reflex. this is a mistake because it hurts like heck on the little cuts and would've been better to just pull himself up alone, but no one said either of them were smart. ]
Dunno. Sounds to me like psychological warfare number one was the worst one for you. [ this isn't even a quip or judgment, it's just a fact going by how Jason reacted then VS now? ] And I told you, I'll tap out when you do.
[ they are going to do the entire fucking hallway at this rate ]
[them, using their hurt hands: ow why is this happening
He sort of frowns bitterly about what Cloud says. Not at Cloud, just at the circumstance of this place immediately kind of tossing him into his own funeral? It's fucked up.]
Yeah, well. [He doesn't explain.] Maybe nothing can be as bad as that one then.
[He glances down the hallway, then to the door near them.] Actually... I want to try something. Preferably with a not so bad door. [He turns to the door they just went in and came out of, opening it up so they can go inside. If it's the mirrors again, they'll know what to watch out for and what to do to get out. It won't be so bad.
But he wants to see if...
They are greeted by an art gallery full of paintings. It's very Layers of Fear in here. The paintings wrap around the walls of the room and disappear down a little hallway adjacently.] So the doors aren't in any order. [I am godmoding the mods here.
Anyhow, look at these images of people they know from home and other games! Dick is here! And a very elegant looking white woman with brown hair; that's Ivan. There's a man with cat ears and a tail with a shit-eating smirk; that's Auger. Jason audibly sucks his teeth under his breath at this one as he walks.]
Bastard.
[What's funny is about three or so paintings down is Sephiroth. It's a young Sephiroth, about twenty, so it is probably Jason's Sephiroth, but who knows? Considering they both are familiar with this Sephiroth anyway. The psychological horror is that neither of them know who this Sephiroth belongs to actually. Spooky.]
Edited (wait i forgot my other part) 2022-06-08 15:33 (UTC)
There's no telling if there's not an infinite amount of possibilities to them either, then.
[ he'll point it out. he'll be the pessimist again. i hate that i understood the layehrs of fear reference. anyway, cloud follows and looks at the paintings with a kind of frown because he is learning so much about jason today and he is not sure he wanted to, and also because he is keeping an eye out for his own paintings.
he knew sephiroth when he was younger from the news and also from joining the stupid army at fourteen. unfortunately he has one reflex when he sees sephiroth whether it's in a painting, a hallucination, real or any combination of the above. it could be anything. his mental health ain't doing great right now. ]
You--! [ he has a hand on his sword before he realizes it's a painting. he got absolutely jumpscared by a painting and he kind of relaxes, looking stiff and annoyed. he is filled with anger. he is not noticing the painting of emet in the background. i know i have to pick people from the game but i am still too lazy to remember so it starts with emet because that's my running gag ]
[He isn't walking fast through the gallery, but he is also not exactly trying to look very hard at all these damn paintings of people he has met, or people he cares about. Out of the corner of his eye, some of them seem like they've melted, or they have a ghastly face.
But when he turns to look at them head-on, they are as normal as they had been before.
Cloud gets spooked by the Sephiroth paintings, and Jason gets jumpscared by Cloud being spooked. All of the muscles in his body tense in preparation, and he whips around--oh. Emet is just Norted Sephiroth, idk. Same difference.]
[ cloud isn't even looking at the emet painting still, he is too busy having a staring contest with painting sephiroth. a completely sane and normal thing to do ]
[Hm. He looks from Cloud to the painting of Sephiroth. His hamster wheel is turning. He is kind of making a bit of a leap here, but things are adding up. It's--the eyes probably.]
S'that your guy? [The confessional one.] Sephiroth. [Surprise, Jason knows a name.]
Jason looks again at the Sephiroth painting. He really feels like he's missing something here, but after the confessional, he thinks he understands what's happened. Maybe.]
Uh. He... actually... wasn't so bad of a guy. [But Jason immediately holds up both hands in surrender and defense.] You said he was a war hero, right? I think it might have been... before the, you know.
[He twirls a finger by his head.]
He was my age. He was actually our second execution, and he was innocent. We fucked up. Everyone thought he sounded guilty because he was trying to persuade us to look more closely at someone else since their story sounded suspicious.
[ cloud, IMMEDIATELY bristling, but... the explanation makes sense. he's seen for himself some of the weird time junk in places. or even alternate universes (sora kingdom hearts, hi?). so he just looks away with a scoff.
he is bitter though; ]
Too bad it didn't stick. Would've saved me a lot of trouble. [ it's probably not how that works! but also! FUCK sephiroth. all his homies hate sephiroth. etc. ] So he died the second day there?
[HOLD ON, CHILL OUT. Damn. Jason gets taken out for stanning pre-psychotic Sephiroth (no).]
Yeah, he did. Actually, kind of glad he did after our little heart-to-heart in the box. Maybe he would have went off the rails there if he had stayed alive.
[He glances at Cloud. Okay, he feels a little bad for the guy. But he's not sure saying "sorry, buddy, for your trauma" will help in any way. So instead:]
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[He gets Cloud would never have the chance for that because they come from different worlds, but it’s fine. HIS JOKE!
And Cloud’s joke…]
Boo. [He glances down the hallway.] Up for another one, or are you calling it quits?
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[ it's a joke! it's a fun joke. he's so funny. anyway ]
I'm at one and you're at two. Wouldn't do for me to quit before you did. [ he cracks his neck. don't be competitive over this. you IDIOTS. ] Ready when you are.
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[CAN HE GO HALF AN HOUR WITHOUT BRINGING UP THE FACT HE HAS DIED?
No. It’s too late. They are now making this a competition because he isn’t giving up until Cloud gives up.] Right this way! [He starts down the hall to the next door in line.] We’ll see what’s behind door…number three!
[He opens it.
rng us a door zia hope it’s stupid]
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rng gave me #14, so i guess we are going into a hall of mirrors. here they are. in the carnival section of the horror movie. ]
Yeah, this isn't going to end well. [ one half of the room is clouds! the other is jasons! which evil doppleganger will attempt to kill the other FIRST. ] See the door anywhere?
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[WHY IS IT THE MIRROR ROOM!!! He's cool as long as he doesn't see a fucking clown behind him anywhere. (The joke is he is a fucking clown.)
At first, he doesn't really move. He's going to have to make sure he doesn't run into the mirrors.] No, I can't see anything but multiples of your damn blonde head. [He reaches out, despising how uncoordinated this makes him feel.
He touches the glass, feels down along it as he moves so he doesn't smash his face.]
I'm not kidding. I'm giving this hotel the worst possible review.
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[ this is cloud agreeing that he hates seeing so many reflections. he is even willing to let the joke about his blond head slide. jason is reaching out with his hand and cloud is kicking at the floor slightly before making steps.
so that he can have one hand on the buster sword's handle, even if he can't actually take it out without potentially skewering jason. sorry the sword is too big again!! woops!!! ]
Forget the review. I'm not leaving this place standing if this is how things start.
[ lightly kicks a mirror that goes BONK, so he has to try and. veer? god this sucks. he is being triggered and he doesn't even know why. ]
... You feeling watched, too?
[ he is aware that sounds stupid in a mirror room. but. look. ]
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I mean, I'm in a funhouse full of mirrors with about twenty mes and twenty yous. It's hard not to feel watched.
[He runs into a mirrored section with his hands and has to re-adjust for a second. It... He can. Now. The hair on the back of his neck stands up on its own. Reluctantly:]
...I feel it. Watch your back.
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or just of two idiots. cloud grunts in acknowledgement, looking at all the reflections warily. he's walked far enough that when he turns he. hm. ]
... You anywhere near me right now?
[ he does not explain this question ]
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He's there, too. His reflections, seeming like he's standing near Cloud. But his head turns slowly, and it startles him so bad out of reflex, he hisses,] Shit! [and throws himself backward.
He hits the corner edge of a few mirrors before bouncing off and directly into actual Cloud.]
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[ well, Jason finds out and promptly drops into Cloud, which, like. Dudes heavy and he is not expecting it, so they both go tumbling back into a mirror.
Where clouds reflection is slowly leaning over them to reach, which cloud can't do much about because he is covered in Jason. ]
Shit-- break the damn thing, I don't wanna know what happens if it touches us!
[ WHY ARE ALL THE REFLECTIONS MOVING ACTUALLY THIS IS A NIGHTMARE ]
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I really fucking hate this place! [They aren't tangled, but he has to twist a bit to be able to have enough room to maneuver his leg.] Just--give me--a second! Damn!
[The reflections hit the mirrors from the other side with enough force to rattle them, warble everything. They hit it again, and cracks start splintering.]
Alright, enough!
[He kicks the mirror as hard as he can closest to them, shattering it, leaving behind a wall of blackness. He kicks the next one, too, for good measure, shattering it. The shards rain down on top of them as they are suddenly
just dumped right back out into the hallway again on the ground exactly as they are.]
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he's staring around trying to figure out if he was hallucinating again, raising a hand to stare at his arm blankly. well, there's cuts all over them from the mirrors, so probably? it was real?
this is bad for his already frayed sense of reality maybe. ]
... ... You good?
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Gritting his teeth, he shifts and rolls off Cloud, but—using his hands sting? He has gloves?! He hisses and raises his arms so he can jerk one of the gloves off.
GREAT, CUTS?!]
God dammit, what’s the point of gloves if Henry’s House of Hotel Horrors just doesn’t play by any logical rules?
[Ow.]
…I’m good. You? What the fuck was that? I almost want my completely normal game of hunted purgatory murder back.
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hmmm nope he still has cuts. he didn't even break the mirror? this is unfair ]
You say that, and that's the next door we're going into. [ he flexes his hand and gives up, putting the glove back on. extremely sanitary. it's fine. he sits up now that he is Free of jason's heavy body ] I'm alright. ... Kind of glad there were two of us in there. Easier to notice when they started moving wrong.
[ again, his frayed sense of reality etc. he is not sure he would've caught on as fast if it wasn't for the jason reflections. ]
I think these doors might be trying to freak us out.
[ NO KIDDING? ]
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[There isn’t anything he can do with his hands or arms, so he just… shoves the hand back into the glove. God.]
I can’t stand psychological warfare unless I’m the one doing it.
[In one fluid motion, he picks himself up to his feet. He hesitates—then offers out a hand to help Cloud up. Which he probably grimaces about because THEIR HANDS!]
Going through another one? I wonder if they’re the same or worse because it’s more than one person.
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Dunno. Sounds to me like psychological warfare number one was the worst one for you. [ this isn't even a quip or judgment, it's just a fact going by how Jason reacted then VS now? ] And I told you, I'll tap out when you do.
[ they are going to do the entire fucking hallway at this rate ]
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He sort of frowns bitterly about what Cloud says. Not at Cloud, just at the circumstance of this place immediately kind of tossing him into his own funeral? It's fucked up.]
Yeah, well. [He doesn't explain.] Maybe nothing can be as bad as that one then.
[He glances down the hallway, then to the door near them.] Actually... I want to try something. Preferably with a not so bad door. [He turns to the door they just went in and came out of, opening it up so they can go inside. If it's the mirrors again, they'll know what to watch out for and what to do to get out. It won't be so bad.
But he wants to see if...
They are greeted by an art gallery full of paintings. It's very Layers of Fear in here. The paintings wrap around the walls of the room and disappear down a little hallway adjacently.] So the doors aren't in any order. [I am godmoding the mods here.
Anyhow, look at these images of people they know from home and other games! Dick is here! And a very elegant looking white woman with brown hair; that's Ivan. There's a man with cat ears and a tail with a shit-eating smirk; that's Auger. Jason audibly sucks his teeth under his breath at this one as he walks.]
Bastard.
[What's funny is about three or so paintings down is Sephiroth. It's a young Sephiroth, about twenty, so it is probably Jason's Sephiroth, but who knows? Considering they both are familiar with this Sephiroth anyway. The psychological horror is that neither of them know who this Sephiroth belongs to actually. Spooky.]
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[ he'll point it out. he'll be the pessimist again. i hate that i understood the layehrs of fear reference. anyway, cloud follows and looks at the paintings with a kind of frown because he is learning so much about jason today and he is not sure he wanted to, and also because he is keeping an eye out for his own paintings.
he knew sephiroth when he was younger from the news and also from joining the stupid army at fourteen. unfortunately he has one reflex when he sees sephiroth whether it's in a painting, a hallucination, real or any combination of the above. it could be anything. his mental health ain't doing great right now. ]
You--! [ he has a hand on his sword before he realizes it's a painting. he got absolutely jumpscared by a painting and he kind of relaxes, looking stiff and annoyed. he is filled with anger. he is not noticing the painting of emet in the background. i know i have to pick people from the game but i am still too lazy to remember so it starts with emet because that's my running gag ]
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But when he turns to look at them head-on, they are as normal as they had been before.
Cloud gets spooked by the Sephiroth paintings, and Jason gets jumpscared by Cloud being spooked. All of the muscles in his body tense in preparation, and he whips around--oh. Emet is just Norted Sephiroth, idk. Same difference.]
...You good? Know that guy?
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Unfortunately.
[ cloud explain! no. ]
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S'that your guy? [The confessional one.] Sephiroth. [Surprise, Jason knows a name.]
...He was with us on the island.
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Sephiroth? [ yes that's what he said, cloud. ] On your murder purgatory island? And you guys actually made it out?
[ WOW CLOUD ]
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Jason looks again at the Sephiroth painting. He really feels like he's missing something here, but after the confessional, he thinks he understands what's happened. Maybe.]
Uh. He... actually... wasn't so bad of a guy. [But Jason immediately holds up both hands in surrender and defense.] You said he was a war hero, right? I think it might have been... before the, you know.
[He twirls a finger by his head.]
He was my age. He was actually our second execution, and he was innocent. We fucked up. Everyone thought he sounded guilty because he was trying to persuade us to look more closely at someone else since their story sounded suspicious.
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he is bitter though; ]
Too bad it didn't stick. Would've saved me a lot of trouble. [ it's probably not how that works! but also! FUCK sephiroth. all his homies hate sephiroth. etc. ] So he died the second day there?
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Yeah, he did. Actually, kind of glad he did after our little heart-to-heart in the box. Maybe he would have went off the rails there if he had stayed alive.
[He glances at Cloud. Okay, he feels a little bad for the guy. But he's not sure saying "sorry, buddy, for your trauma" will help in any way. So instead:]
...Want to destroy it?
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