#people crawl out of the woodwork to tell me my experiences are not actually unique | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

fingerboardrhapsodist · 3 years

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Okay. As much as I can remember, stuck in one spot. Gonna do the one thing to keep length short. Unsure if that works for every variation of connection, but...y'know.

OKAY. So Hojo goes off to his meeting. Me and Aerith sit and chat for a bit. EVENTUALLY Hojo runs by to his shitty perch to watch whatever chaos is going on elsewhere in his lab, which turns out to be Cloud and the others coming to bail Aerith out. They all seem pretty surprised to see me there too, apparently they thought I'd died in the plate falling. Which was terrible and I am not going to think on it ever again after this if I can help it.

So anyways, Hojo dumps some shit on everybody outside the tank while we're stuck watching from the inside, talking shit about how Aerith definitely chose to come here blah blah or are you saying you own her, Cloud and Zack had some colorful shit to say to him that I shall not repeat here for politeness' sake, they straight up wipe the floor with whatever Hojo tosses their way. Looking good while they do it. Hojo starts some monologue shit at Cloud after Cloud threatens to gut him and Hojo gets blasted by something or another in the middle of it and gets basically yote out the door. So Barret breaks the tank's door open which shorts out something but we didn't exactly realize until a few minutes later. Cloud looked like he was having a bit of head trouble after Hojo started his shit, but he recovered fast enough, so nobody really commented on it.

Some dingdongs in armor show up and get their asses beat quite soundly by literally every other person in the room. I get greeted pretty warmly by Zack and Tifa, which is nice. Cloud kinda looks me over a little like he's doing a damage assessment, but otherwise doesn't do much but nod. Aerith and Zack are excited to see each other. Aerith and Cloud and Tifa are excited to see each other. Barret is glad to get to thank Aerith for getting Marlene to safety and pointedly ignores anything going on in my direction. It's nice to see everybody all together and reasonably happy to have survived all of this bullshit of the last...has it only been three days? REALLY three days??

We get started moving. And then there's this pattering of paws and clacking of claws, that I'm the first to notice because I have amazing hearing apparently. And we meet Red! For like fifteen seconds before he tears ass off to try and find Hojo to wreak more havoc on his nads probably. Pops through some of that fucking bulletproof glass like it's NOTHING. Everyone's kinda startled and reminded that we're in the middle of the weasel bastard's lab, Aerith takes off after Red while Barret's just kinda wondering what the fuck is going on.

Follow after Aerith with zero hesitation, get that weird tingly feeling of materia magic healing and I STILL have no fucking clue who cast it because nobody will own up to doing it. It was somebody behind me. Apparently my leg that I broke that Aerith healed up as much as she could was causing a bit of a limp and that was Noted. Anyways, we get up to where Red's trying to give Hojo some nice facial decorations with his claws, Red doesn't get to Hojo in time for it and then turns to look at us because we got him backed into a fucking corner now like some fucking geniuses we are.

Basically everyone else worries we're gonna have to fight the poor bastard, but Aerith just walks up and pats him on the head like she's telling him he's a good boy and Red just goes from 'fuck Hojo and fuck you too if you're in a 30 foot radius around me or him right now' to zen as fuck. Hackles go down, ears relax, shakes stress and anger out of his bones and fur like he's shaking water off him, kinda finds a comfortable way to hold himself for a bit...and Barret goes 'what the hell is that,' like, to everyone else. And Red just goes 'FASCINATING QUESTION' which just. Fucking floors Barret I swear. Little discussion is had, we get his Hojo designation, he dodges questions about another name...

Cloud has some trouble for a bit there. Kind of looked like flash migraines or something? Basically kinda just...passes out. Like one second he's shuffling and everyone's kinda hesitating like 'should we go offer help orrr' and then he's tipping over and everybody scrambles after him like 'SHIT SHIT FUCK' trying to keep him from clonking his head on something. I'm the first one there, because fuck you I'm Sheikah, Zack is second because fuck you he's SOLDIER, Aerith directs us someplace relatively safe for a bit for Cloud to recover. Set him down and get him comfortable there.

Until he was up again, nobody really said anything, just sorta sat there contemplating life choices and wondering if you can die from migraines. A bit of chatter happens when he wakes up, about if Cloud was okay or if he should keep resting, but then we get on the topic of Aerith because Cloud changes subjects with the stealth and smoothness of a handful of gravel to the face. Uh yeah no I'm good no really I'm fine hey Aerith uhhhhh you gotta talk to us some here what aren't you telling us.

Some questions about what she...is, gets asked, and answered to the best of her ability. Entire conversation gets derailed by Barret deciding he's going to start some shit, which everybody has been trying to prevent the entire way up the building. Also apparently we're near the top floor of the massive stupid fucking building. Wondered if I could gravity walk my entire way down the side of the fucker or if I would run out of magic halfway and fucking die by falling the rest.

Basically everybody talks Barret down from the shit and then whatever yote Hojo earlier showed up again apparently. Everyone was talking about them, and they were apparently bothering Aerith, but I could not see shit besides the fact that it looked like there was a breeze from shit circling around her like a tornado and it was whipping her hair and clothes around a little bit.

Barret asked questions and was accidentally rude. Red showed he has an amazing sense of humor while explaining what the fuck was happening in a way that made zero sense to me and I may have to ask for clarification later. The things on the wall flipped on like a slate, and Wedge was in the thing like a video talking to us. Could apparently see and hear and respond to us like in person, though. Was really cool and something I am going to have to weasel out of Purah if I can when I get back home. If I get back.

Anyhow, Wedge apparently had everyone else worried, which made me kind of think maybe he got caught in the plate falling and survived like I did. Which is great odds, by the way, I like Wedge. Guy's a sweetheart. Dude ranks high on the 'people I would kill and/or die for' list. Anyhow, apparently he's in the building, and got there just in time to almost warn us about the building suddenly shaking which very nearly made me shit my pants in fear by the way.

So like...we're talking to him, there's a guy with an absolutely excellent beard and mustache talking, and I am at that unique intersection of exhausted, hungry, amped up on adrenaline, and shocked by the shit I've seen in the last 24 hours that all I hear is the noise of my ears ringing. I could not tell you what he sounded like or give a hint on what he said. I was a thousand paces away in another world staring at the grass or some shit.

Everyone seems ready to head out, so I go ahead and just follow suit because honestly, I have no idea what's been planned or what's going on. I am just...I'm so out of it. We go down and around and everywhere in between to get out, apparently, I don't even fucking know, and while everybody is trying to move something, I hear this weird soft pattering that's just uneven and out of place enough that my brain registers it. So I move my head around about the same time as Zack and Cloud do, because fuck you I am Sheikah and they are SOLDIER, and there's these monster things that are kind of people shaped but wow shit they are fucked up that just crawl out of the woodwork like a nest of mice unearthed because you picked up the board their burrow is placed under.

Beat the shit out of them, went in the tank elevator behind Hojo's close monitoring station. Around this thing. Pretty uneventful. Then good view of the thing in the middle, and just...I know that the thing is important, but absolutely none of what is said registers beyond a few fragments. Cloud starts having problems again, there is just. I get that there was someone there. I know that the others responded somehow, and Cloud was responding in a worrying way. But a lot of that is just...it's like a watercolor painting that hasn't been cured and you just upended a cup of water over it. Everything is blurry, hard for me to parse or find clear detail, but also unevenly so. I can remember some bits of colors, and that they're important. Sounds were...mostly distorted? I have no fucking clue what happened, but the last clear thing I remember for a while is movement, a lot of loud at once, and then just...falling. And then things go dark REAL fast.

No idea how long it took me to wake up, but realized I was laying on the floor and got up all confused for a bit and then realized the place we were earlier is like, several floors up from where I am. I think, anyways, a little hard to figure when there are no actual floors at reasonable height just a bunch of shit on the walls. Can hear combat all over the fucking place, it sounds like everybody got scattered all over the joint and everyone is beating the shit out of SOMETHING.

First person I run into is Tifa. Second is Aerith. Find the others all dealing with a bunch of asshole experiment things and while the girls rain junk down on them, I nail a few with arrows. Almost meet up with em, but there's some fuckshit in the way. Some talking shit happens with another of those two way video things. Hojo starts some shit and we end up having to jump through hoops and murder shit and work some other shit and most of it is boring repeating of 'flipped a switch bigger than we are, fought a thing, got stuck, had to have somebody else go do the thing so find another of those two way video stations and explain we're stuck so it's on you now, wait, repeat.'

I got to help out some with getting across wide gaps, which was cool. Red got dropped onto our level at one point, so we had to go help him. Ran around a lot, killed monsters and monsters and monsters and monsters a lot, flipped switches a lot. More running, more monsters, more switches. The Drum is a lot less interesting than mine is. Thunder Drum could kick that thing's ass anyday.

Apparently Red NEARLY got Hojo's head off his shoulders during all of that. I wish so, so badly that it had. I got new scars after all the shit in the place. Nice long slice down my back, few scratch scars on my right hip, multiple bite marks basically everywhere except vital spots, basically. SOMEHOW managed to keep teeth away from super important areas. I have nO idea how.

There is a lot more to unpack but I don't want to unpack right now so I will file that way for the next breakdown I have because I am a useless piece of shit that is dead weight except when I am awesome or whatever the fuck my brain likes to dunk me into when my emotions take a nosedive. Point I will make is, shit was fucked, and though I may eventually go 'lol fun' at a part or two, I think it will take a long, long time before I can do so. Honestly, anyways. Dishonestly I will do the moment I finish this thing and hit post. Don't you judge me.

Big monster! Beat it up. SO MANY FUCKING MONSTERS. I know I keep saying it and it is probably annoying but holy SHIT. WHY do you NEED SO MANY FUCKING MONSTERS, SIR? The supply was NEVER ENDING. Just when I thought we were going to have enough monster corpses to fill up the whole fucking joint with them, we ran across one BIG fucker at the end. Who I think was actually mostly mechanical instead of some horrible flesh sculpture. Then everybody got reunited after Aerith nearly crushed Cloud, Zack and Barret with a big round door. Lots of cheerfulness after that, I said, sarcastically, to indicate the opposite in fact: things were kinda awkward for two seconds and then there was two seconds of okay lol cool and then back to business we went to get the fuck out of Hojo's Happy Nightmare Land.

We finally. FINALLY got to the top. Back to where The Thing In The Tank I Should Know Words About But Don't was. And the tank was popped and the thinger is gone. Lots of mess spattered about. Everyone is weirded the FUCK out and cautious. Get out the door. And shit is just...dead fucking silent for a while. Only thing we hear besides our own heartbeats and panicked breathing is our fucking footsteps, okay?

Go through some doors and kind of up some stairs, and I start hearing something. Faint as fuck to start. Then as everyone else starts to register it, I realize what it is. Somebody yelling for help. Brain kicked into helper mode at that point, but, uh...well. I kind of couldn't really brain well enough to figure out how to help this guy I didn't know up from hanging over what amounts to a two minute free fall. Every option that popped into my head was dismissed because I could see outcomes where I slipped, he slipped, something bad happen very bad do not. Barret just reaches down and grabs this dude to yank his ass up and starts on the most fucking amazing, badass words I have ever heard from somebody who was not my brother. My brother has had lifetimes to come up with this shit and hold on to it for a rainy day. But the line Barret said just slapped me and called me a bitch. It bought me fucking dinner before how fucked my brain got by it, I was SO fucking tickled, okay.

So we get this guy who is apparently the one guy I initially said I would gut for wrecking shit, and we get him AWAY from death. We follow him on his jittery dash into the building again. And the dude just sort of flips a switch somewhere to go from terrified old man who is generally harmless to 'I am going to make your life suck more in the next two seconds than it has the rest of the time you have been or will be alive, mostly because you will not be alive in the next few seconds' type of fuckery looking asshole. Points some shit at Barret, talks some shit, basically calls him a fucking idiot for not just chucking his ass off the top of the building. Which I'm starting to agree with at this point because old man what the fuck is wrong with you.

And then just....I don't remember. So much here. I remember that the old man bitch was just....suddenly dead, and Barret got dropped, and then I just sort of woke up on the floor later. Everyone was more tired, Barret looked pretty bad but was still around, we made our way out the door again and one of those metal things was gonna land and it just fucking...it almost hit me, I swear to fuck. It exploded.

Then on comes this other fucking metal flying thing. Out steps somebody whose name was probably said but my memory is still kinda fuzzy and I did not have a lot of time to parse anything. All I got was after a bit, it's time for everyone to run, we get a distance away and I register kind of off in the distance somehow that Cloud and Zack aren't there. And then Tifa just fucking vanishes after my brain makes that connection. So it's like...where the fuck are half of us. I promised I would keep some folks among the living, I am going to catch hands if I let some shit happen to them now.

And of course, before I can do much on that track, the ground under me starts moving because wait shit we were in an elevator, we are suddenly getting shot at, and I have to somehow focus enough to murder some shit and not die and maybe keep these others from dying too. And then falling. And then more oh shit oh fuck the shooting is back.

And then the funniest exchange I have ever had a part in. I don't know why I can remember this so well but it fucking tickles me, okay. This fucking bitch standing there like he's important starts with his superior 'lol who are these losers' shit. Barret, all serious, says he's from AVALANCHE, then around the time Aerith pipes up literally a quarter second later my brain goes 'time to be a bastard man' and it's already working on what mine will be, but Aerith goes 'local florist!' and I can tell Red is powering the FUCK up to just floor me so I get my 'mute asshole with magic' shit in while I still can, RIGHT before he opens his mouth to go 'LAB RAT DOG' and I CAN NOT even take this shit seriously with like thirty weapons pointed at us I just fucking start wheezing so hard it sounds like a pelican choking on a coconut.

I don't have time to recompose myself before Tifa pops in with the truck, Cloud and Zack absolutely blow me away with their motorcycles, and I get shoved into the back of the truck next to Barret and Red before they take off because I am so out of it anymore I just can't do some of this shit on my own anymore.

I get a little break at the start when we take off out of the place and finally get on the high road and can clear my head enough to actually start processing shit like a normal people again. Can finally see what the fuck is circling the building, whatever they are called, and just...I don't know what they are, the words for them, any of that. I just know those are the things that abducted Hojo and did the weird 'something invisible hit me and I fell down' shit before.

So like...there's a lot of other motorcycles with dillweeds on them so Barret and I snipe a few when we can safely do so. It's pretty rare because Cloud and Zack are all over the place on their motorcycles, but we do get a few great shots in, including mine where my arrow hit right in front of this guy on the seat and would have hit him if it was like half an inch further and he fucking pissed himself and crashed.

And then that big.....robot fucker. Who I couldn't reliably hit without endangering Cloud or Zack or the rest of us because of the chance of rebounding scrap or arrow fragments, much less a miss. Got to thunder it once we got to the end of the line, though. Lightning spell to the eyes always seems to work with tech.

I...remember there being something after this and before the next part. But it's just...a lot of it is a blur, or missing like someone tore pages out of a book I haven't read before but left a few little scraps here and there, fragments with a name and a snippet of information that I can't quite piece into a whole picture. I remember that afterwards it started to feel like the inside of my skull was scraped and raw, the backs of my eyes aching and so, so bad. And then we were just...back by the truck and motorcycles. It was like I had a big sheet of heavy cloth hung over me that muffled everything and blocked it out, and then suddenly it got yanked back and everything was too bright, too intense, and then it slowly just backed down to tolerable. To where I could see again, hear again. Things made sense again.

And then...it was time to go down. Start moving forward. Cloud and Tifa refused to break the truck or motorcycle by driving it off the high road, but Zack just went 'haha watch this' and jumped it down and I swear everyone else had a mini heart attack but it made it down okay. I have no fucking clue how. I can't replicate it. I don't want to try.

And then...we walked. Until it got to a point it was safe to stop, they felt. And then I got the pot down and food started, and I just...I thought I was going to close my eyes for a second, and then I woke up to Tifa saying she wasn't sure how to do what was needed for the food because it's not her setup and whatnot, so I showed her, and then dozed off again, and woke up again and just...food. And then more sleep. And now I'm here, writing all of this out for you to read, while I struggle to keep everything in generally the correct order and figure out how the fuck to handle the things that I can't explain or name happening.

And I am exhausted. We have a few hours before it's time to get moving again, and I am not on watch, so I am going to crash for a bit longer. I will respond later if anybody has questions or whatever.

#long post #ask to tag

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