The 67th Floor Chapter 3
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Chapter 3.) - in which you did WHAT?
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*
*
Sephiroth glared death at his rather remiss father.
Lian Hua: I hate the days when I'm feeling rather remiss. My thesaurus won't speak to me then.
"I thought you had agreed to help me. So far you've yet to prove it." His voice held a deadly, unspoken threat, emerging from his throat as a feral growl.
Iscariot: I think this is the second time Sephiroth has tried threatening Hojo. Really, what good does it do? Hojo appears to be the ONLY PERSON who can find Julia so Sephiroth cannot actually follow through on his threats.
Pain- racked, with the promise of a slow death to the one who had so displeased him. To the one who had lied to him.
Lian Hua: Yesterday, he was worried that staining Hojo's papers with blood would annoy him and that he would not help him anymore. Ten minutes ago, he saw the silence floating around the labs as a good sign. He was worried about not jinxing it! He has been tiptoeing around his father because he's apparently the only one who can help him, and now he's suddenly turned deadly and threatening? Riiight.
Now Hojo looked up from the monitor. "Oh dear boy, I did not lie to you! That much is an imagined slight. However," Now his innocent grin turned evil. "I do know exactly where the gil is. It took Julia a long time to get that much money, her G-string was full to bursting, but she did it.
Lian Hua: She works haaaard for the money~!
Indeed, I've known her whereabouts for indeed, ages!"
Iscariot: Indeed, you don't indeed say, Hojo, indeed?
He laughed at the outraged look on his son's face. "Ah, well, I suppose you'll never learn. If you'd come to me when she was first noticed missing, perhaps you would have been spared all this suffering. Don't you agree?"
Lian Hua: How did she go missing, anyway?
Iscariot: He brings up a good point. We know nothing about her or the circumstances of her disappearance. Just what has Sephiroth been doing for two weeks? Who did he go to before Hojo? How did he get clued in that Hojo would know something?
Lian Hua: It would help if we at least knew where she disappeared from. For example, if they were living in Rocket Town, then maybe Sephiroth looked around the area first and when that failed, decided to ask Hojo for help, because of... reasons. Or maybe he got home one day after an absence and found out from a neighbor that Julia had been gone for two weeks. We haven't been told anything about her disappearance.
"Why didn't you tell me flat out that you knew where she was?" His voice cracked slightly.
*Lian Hua: Does he really need to ask that? He knows Hojo, he knows the man is unhinged, he's used to being toyed with by him and yet he asks him why he would miss an opportunity to do what he does best, namely screw with his emotional state!
Iscariot: That's not a question you ask your lifelong abuser.
He stared, near speechless at Hojo, and then a thought struck him. "You haven't hurt her, have you?" His hand flew out, and wrapped the scrawny scientist's neck.
"My dear, dear boy, I have not hurt her in the least. She came to me." His voice, raspy due to the pressure on his jugular, trailed off, as though he knew more but did not wish to share it.
Iscariot: You know, this is starting out like a bad porn flick.
Lian Hua: Do not go there.
"What do you mean?" He loosened his grip enough that his father could talk freely.
"She came to me for help, of sorts, which I gave her only too gladly." He laughed. "I was merely testing you when I said that she'd perhaps run off with another man. But, alas, to see your confidence in her wavered so slightly by one whom you so distrust,"
Iscariot: Aw SNAP, Hojo called him out on that.
He is voice trailed off to nothing again, than then grew louder. "Perhaps she deserves better. I almost feel sorry for the wretched creature, what she underwent for you. Only to have you think that she had left you, based on nothing but the whimsy of a crackpot old fool."
Iscariot: Oh Hojo. You're still the only awesome thing in these fics.
Lian Hua: Observe the beauty of the Hairy Stu in his natural habitat. Hairy Stus and their female counterparts, Scary Sues, have the uncanny ability of pointing out and verbalizing exactly what is wrong with the main characters. They call them out on their hypocrisy, point out their glaring flaws and often seem like the only non-brainwashed people in the story. The author intended them to be disconsidered and seen as liars and slanderers, but their little creations backfired on them. They're the reader's ultimate insider, someone who knows their pain, who is aware that he or she is living in a Mary Sue fantasy. And boy, do they hate it!
Hojo here is of course, completely right in his assessment of his son's relationship. Sephiroth trusts Julia so little that even the ramblings of a nutjob thrust him into an ocean of doubt.
He tsked, and rolled his eyes. "Such a pity." There was enough sarcasm in his voice that it could have easily been cut clean through with a butter knife.
"That is not true. I, truly love her.
Lian Hua: Poor stray comma. I'm thinking of opening a foster house for them.
Please, if she is indeed here, call her. I want to see her." He carefully considered his next words. "Wait. What did you mean "what she underwent for me" What did you do to her?"
His laughter took on a hysterical pitch. "She-she came to me-wishing- to be more like-like you!"
Iscariot: What, totally flacid and ineffective with serious trust issues? A SEPHIROTH CLONE?
Lian Hua: Noo, this:
Hojo was in danger of toppling out of his swiveling computer chair as the rocking motion convulsing his body, from the force of his disbelieving laughter, was rocking the chair violently.
Lian Hua: As the rocking motion was rocking the chair?
Iscariot: Everything about Hojo rocks.
Sephiroth frowned, more or less ignoring his father for the time being. "Wishing to be like me? I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
"A sex change, my little silver petri dish." Hojo laughed harder, if that were possible. "Why don't you ask the little shit yourself? I believe, unless my senses are far off, that she's right in the doorway. In the shadows, watching you." He smirked. "If the therapy went well, you should be able to see her eyes from the darkness."
"Therapy?" He questioned Hojo, while at the same time whirling to face the doorway. There, in the darkness, he saw a pair of glowing, makou- filled eyes, royal blue in color, sad, even from a distance.
*"Julia, is that you?" With effort he kept all form of doubt from his voice, and he crossed over to the pair of eyes, drawing forth from the shadows a girl, no older than 20. She came out of the shadows willingly at his entreaty, sadness gone from her eyes.
It was obvious that Hojo had lied to her now, as she thought back, remembering that Hojo had told her that Sephiroth didn't care about her.
Lian Hua: Sephiroth appears to be equally matched in his distrust of his partner, because Julia believed Hojo's ramblings as well! The man has managed to make both of them have doubts about each other with only a few simple sentences. He did not even have to be imaginative or anything!
What does that say about their relationship?
Julia willingly underwent something as major as mako therapy for him, knowing it would be painful and traumatic, but it only took a few words from Hojo to make her fear that Sephiroth, the man she did it for, did not care about her.
She walked towards him now, her long mass of golden hair framing her face, blowing around her as she moved, ending below her waist.
Lian Hua: Somebody turn off the fans in the room, the wind is getting out of control.
Her complexion was pale, her expression strained, tired.
Hojo laughed coldly. "Do you understand now, fool? Do you understand what she wanted of me?"
Iscariot: I like the fact that Julia ran off with no word to Sephiroth so she could get an Expansion Pack Past Implant from Hojo.
Julia: I WANNA BE TRAGIC TOOOOOO! But alas, my background is priviledged and happy so I cannot whine without seeming like an ungrateful bitch! Help me, professor Hojo, I beg of you! Beat the snot out of me like you did to Sephiroth, use me as your guinea pig!
Hojo: "Oh my God, is it Christmas already? Never thought I'd have another version of Julia Nakahamou begging me for this. Well, hop into that uncomfortable chair and let's get started!"
Sephiroth shook his head, more in disbelief than in not knowing what Julia had done.
"You still don't understand? She came to me, begged me on bended knees to let her
Lian Hua: *bites sleeve*
Iscariot: Must. Resist.
understand what you went through, the pain you endured in Makou-Therapy Treatment. I granted her wish, and told her of your past.
Lian Hua: The text implies that she knew of his past because she was aware that he has been abused and experimented upon. What else did Hojo tell her? Did she want all the details? WHY?
I gave her the treatment, in the same doses that I used on you, though obviously for a much shorter period of time."
Iscariot: So in this version, Julia has just underwent SOLDIER treatments. That's good to know, because we know close to nothing about the place, timing and circumstances of the story.
Hojo grinned sadistically at the shock now clearly written in his son's expression. "Now you understand."
Sephiroth ignored Hojo, still watching Julia. "Julia, why the hell did you do this to yourself?" Sephiroth's expression was stern. He took the remaining steps between them quickly and crushed her against him.
The End.
Lian Hua: *sigh*
"I wanted to-to be able to understand the pain you went through as a child-so I could help you-I wanted to know-and-and I didn't want you to go through the pain alone." Her voice cracked, and the tears she'd held back for so long now flowed freely down her cheeks. I know now-and I don't regret it."
*
Iscariot: What, in the span of two weeks you wanted Hojo to recreate all the trauma and developmental disorders that come with regular childhood abuse?
Lian Hua: Where, oh where do I begin?
First of all, willingly subjecting oneself to the same trauma suffered by one's partner for the purposes enumerated by Julia is like saying "Oh you got raped? I'm going to get raped as well so I can better understand and help you!" which is completely nuts.
Iscariot: "Hey, you lost your arm in a tragic accident? Let me get a machete and chop off mine."
Lian Hua: I cannot even estimate how high it is on the twisted and disturbed scala because IT BROKE MY SCOUTER.
Second of all, going through the same trauma won't make you understand someone better because everybody experiences life in general (and not just trauma) in different ways. Going through the same trauma might give you some clues on how to encourage a person to deal with theirs but the probability is uncertain and what's more, it would have had a chance of working only if Sephiroth's trauma had been recent and Julia's had been old. Julia is the one who needs help now, who has to deal with it at the moment. A person who just lost their arm will not be able to comfort or help a person who has lost theirs twenty years ago. If anything, it's the other way around.
She just turned into a huge burden for him, not to mention the stress she put him under by running off like that.
Iscariot: Completely inconsiderate. Not only that, by going to Hojo she forced Sephiroth into a situation where he has to deal with the man who caused all his trauma.
Lian Hua: She willingly went to his abuser, knowing that he is who he is, the person responsible for Sephiroth's emotional damage, and begged him to do the same to her. It's such an incredibly selfish and destructive action, because she never takes Sephiroth's feelings into account. He is not only sick with worry during her unexplained absence, but he is understandably horrified when he finds out what she did. To this, add the guilt that Julia's action will bring onto Sephiroth's head. Think about it, folks: he knows that he was the catalyst for her insane action.
I want you to think a bit about the worst experience in your life. How would you feel if your partner or your friend would willingly go through the same thing to better understand and help you? Horrible, right? This is how Sephiroth should feel right now, because Julia forfeited whatever normal there was in her, whatever emotional stability and replaced it with trauma.
Iscariot: Perhaps Sephiroth needed someone who was normal and emotionally stable in his life to be his rock. And Julia went and ruined that.
Lian Hua: If Sephiroth had been normal, he would have realized in this very moment that Julia is deranged and that having a relationship with her was a huge mistake.
*
*
I just... can't get over how crazy this is. So the only way she could understand and help Sephiroth was by doing this insane thing to herself? That sounds more like a desperate attempt at forcing some connection. It is the act of a very unhinged young woman.
*"Then why are you crying? Oh God, Julia, you didn't have to do this to yourself."
Lian Hua: But how else could she understand you? Going about it the normal way obviously did not pay results!
"He treated me-so terribly. He threatened me and beat me" She lowered her gaze, so Sephiroth couldn't see the pain reflected brightly in her eyes. "He was awful, constantly reminding me of my debt to him."
Lian Hua: What is this fuckery? She knew Sephiroth was abused by Hojo, what did she expect? She willingly went to Sephiroth's abuser and asked her to get the same treatment! What on Earth did she expect when she put herself into the hands of an abuser??
He told me what he did to you, when you were young, the Hell hell you went through as an adolescent. I never realized," Her voice faded and then became stronger. "I-I hate him!" Her expression was dark, her eyes gleaming with hatred.
Iscariot: I imagine Hojo is just watching them, sipping coffee. "Yeah, hi bitch, STILL HERE. You have no one to blame but yourself anyway, you asked for it. Literally."
Chapter 3.) - in which you did WHAT?
*
*
*
Sephiroth glared death at his rather remiss father.
Lian Hua: I hate the days when I'm feeling rather remiss. My thesaurus won't speak to me then.
"I thought you had agreed to help me. So far you've yet to prove it." His voice held a deadly, unspoken threat, emerging from his throat as a feral growl.
Iscariot: I think this is the second time Sephiroth has tried threatening Hojo. Really, what good does it do? Hojo appears to be the ONLY PERSON who can find Julia so Sephiroth cannot actually follow through on his threats.
Pain- racked, with the promise of a slow death to the one who had so displeased him. To the one who had lied to him.
Lian Hua: Yesterday, he was worried that staining Hojo's papers with blood would annoy him and that he would not help him anymore. Ten minutes ago, he saw the silence floating around the labs as a good sign. He was worried about not jinxing it! He has been tiptoeing around his father because he's apparently the only one who can help him, and now he's suddenly turned deadly and threatening? Riiight.
Now Hojo looked up from the monitor. "Oh dear boy, I did not lie to you! That much is an imagined slight. However," Now his innocent grin turned evil. "I do know exactly where the gil is. It took Julia a long time to get that much money, her G-string was full to bursting, but she did it.
Lian Hua: She works haaaard for the money~!
Click to viewIndeed, I've known her whereabouts for indeed, ages!"
Iscariot: Indeed, you don't indeed say, Hojo, indeed?
He laughed at the outraged look on his son's face. "Ah, well, I suppose you'll never learn. If you'd come to me when she was first noticed missing, perhaps you would have been spared all this suffering. Don't you agree?"
Lian Hua: How did she go missing, anyway?
Iscariot: He brings up a good point. We know nothing about her or the circumstances of her disappearance. Just what has Sephiroth been doing for two weeks? Who did he go to before Hojo? How did he get clued in that Hojo would know something?
Lian Hua: It would help if we at least knew where she disappeared from. For example, if they were living in Rocket Town, then maybe Sephiroth looked around the area first and when that failed, decided to ask Hojo for help, because of... reasons. Or maybe he got home one day after an absence and found out from a neighbor that Julia had been gone for two weeks. We haven't been told anything about her disappearance.
"Why didn't you tell me flat out that you knew where she was?" His voice cracked slightly.
*Lian Hua: Does he really need to ask that? He knows Hojo, he knows the man is unhinged, he's used to being toyed with by him and yet he asks him why he would miss an opportunity to do what he does best, namely screw with his emotional state!
Iscariot: That's not a question you ask your lifelong abuser.
He stared, near speechless at Hojo, and then a thought struck him. "You haven't hurt her, have you?" His hand flew out, and wrapped the scrawny scientist's neck.
"My dear, dear boy, I have not hurt her in the least. She came to me." His voice, raspy due to the pressure on his jugular, trailed off, as though he knew more but did not wish to share it.
Iscariot: You know, this is starting out like a bad porn flick.
Lian Hua: Do not go there.
"What do you mean?" He loosened his grip enough that his father could talk freely.
"She came to me for help, of sorts, which I gave her only too gladly." He laughed. "I was merely testing you when I said that she'd perhaps run off with another man. But, alas, to see your confidence in her wavered so slightly by one whom you so distrust,"
Iscariot: Aw SNAP, Hojo called him out on that.
He is voice trailed off to nothing again, than then grew louder. "Perhaps she deserves better. I almost feel sorry for the wretched creature, what she underwent for you. Only to have you think that she had left you, based on nothing but the whimsy of a crackpot old fool."
Iscariot: Oh Hojo. You're still the only awesome thing in these fics.
Lian Hua: Observe the beauty of the Hairy Stu in his natural habitat. Hairy Stus and their female counterparts, Scary Sues, have the uncanny ability of pointing out and verbalizing exactly what is wrong with the main characters. They call them out on their hypocrisy, point out their glaring flaws and often seem like the only non-brainwashed people in the story. The author intended them to be disconsidered and seen as liars and slanderers, but their little creations backfired on them. They're the reader's ultimate insider, someone who knows their pain, who is aware that he or she is living in a Mary Sue fantasy. And boy, do they hate it!
Hojo here is of course, completely right in his assessment of his son's relationship. Sephiroth trusts Julia so little that even the ramblings of a nutjob thrust him into an ocean of doubt.
He tsked, and rolled his eyes. "Such a pity." There was enough sarcasm in his voice that it could have easily been cut clean through with a butter knife.
"That is not true. I, truly love her.
Lian Hua: Poor stray comma. I'm thinking of opening a foster house for them.
Please, if she is indeed here, call her. I want to see her." He carefully considered his next words. "Wait. What did you mean "what she underwent for me" What did you do to her?"
His laughter took on a hysterical pitch. "She-she came to me-wishing- to be more like-like you!"
Iscariot: What, totally flacid and ineffective with serious trust issues? A SEPHIROTH CLONE?
Lian Hua: Noo, this:
Hojo was in danger of toppling out of his swiveling computer chair as the rocking motion convulsing his body, from the force of his disbelieving laughter, was rocking the chair violently.
Lian Hua: As the rocking motion was rocking the chair?
Iscariot: Everything about Hojo rocks.
Sephiroth frowned, more or less ignoring his father for the time being. "Wishing to be like me? I'm not sure I understand what you mean."
"A sex change, my little silver petri dish." Hojo laughed harder, if that were possible. "Why don't you ask the little shit yourself? I believe, unless my senses are far off, that she's right in the doorway. In the shadows, watching you." He smirked. "If the therapy went well, you should be able to see her eyes from the darkness."
"Therapy?" He questioned Hojo, while at the same time whirling to face the doorway. There, in the darkness, he saw a pair of glowing, makou- filled eyes, royal blue in color, sad, even from a distance.
*"Julia, is that you?" With effort he kept all form of doubt from his voice, and he crossed over to the pair of eyes, drawing forth from the shadows a girl, no older than 20. She came out of the shadows willingly at his entreaty, sadness gone from her eyes.
It was obvious that Hojo had lied to her now, as she thought back, remembering that Hojo had told her that Sephiroth didn't care about her.
Lian Hua: Sephiroth appears to be equally matched in his distrust of his partner, because Julia believed Hojo's ramblings as well! The man has managed to make both of them have doubts about each other with only a few simple sentences. He did not even have to be imaginative or anything!
What does that say about their relationship?
Julia willingly underwent something as major as mako therapy for him, knowing it would be painful and traumatic, but it only took a few words from Hojo to make her fear that Sephiroth, the man she did it for, did not care about her.
She walked towards him now, her long mass of golden hair framing her face, blowing around her as she moved, ending below her waist.
Lian Hua: Somebody turn off the fans in the room, the wind is getting out of control.
Her complexion was pale, her expression strained, tired.
Hojo laughed coldly. "Do you understand now, fool? Do you understand what she wanted of me?"
Iscariot: I like the fact that Julia ran off with no word to Sephiroth so she could get an Expansion Pack Past Implant from Hojo.
Julia: I WANNA BE TRAGIC TOOOOOO! But alas, my background is priviledged and happy so I cannot whine without seeming like an ungrateful bitch! Help me, professor Hojo, I beg of you! Beat the snot out of me like you did to Sephiroth, use me as your guinea pig!
Hojo: "Oh my God, is it Christmas already? Never thought I'd have another version of Julia Nakahamou begging me for this. Well, hop into that uncomfortable chair and let's get started!"
Sephiroth shook his head, more in disbelief than in not knowing what Julia had done.
"You still don't understand? She came to me, begged me on bended knees to let her
Lian Hua: *bites sleeve*
Iscariot: Must. Resist.
understand what you went through, the pain you endured in Makou-Therapy Treatment. I granted her wish, and told her of your past.
Lian Hua: The text implies that she knew of his past because she was aware that he has been abused and experimented upon. What else did Hojo tell her? Did she want all the details? WHY?
I gave her the treatment, in the same doses that I used on you, though obviously for a much shorter period of time."
Iscariot: So in this version, Julia has just underwent SOLDIER treatments. That's good to know, because we know close to nothing about the place, timing and circumstances of the story.
Hojo grinned sadistically at the shock now clearly written in his son's expression. "Now you understand."
Sephiroth ignored Hojo, still watching Julia. "Julia, why the hell did you do this to yourself?" Sephiroth's expression was stern. He took the remaining steps between them quickly and crushed her against him.
The End.
Lian Hua: *sigh*
"I wanted to-to be able to understand the pain you went through as a child-so I could help you-I wanted to know-and-and I didn't want you to go through the pain alone." Her voice cracked, and the tears she'd held back for so long now flowed freely down her cheeks. I know now-and I don't regret it."
*
Iscariot: What, in the span of two weeks you wanted Hojo to recreate all the trauma and developmental disorders that come with regular childhood abuse?
Lian Hua: Where, oh where do I begin?
First of all, willingly subjecting oneself to the same trauma suffered by one's partner for the purposes enumerated by Julia is like saying "Oh you got raped? I'm going to get raped as well so I can better understand and help you!" which is completely nuts.
Iscariot: "Hey, you lost your arm in a tragic accident? Let me get a machete and chop off mine."
Lian Hua: I cannot even estimate how high it is on the twisted and disturbed scala because IT BROKE MY SCOUTER.
Second of all, going through the same trauma won't make you understand someone better because everybody experiences life in general (and not just trauma) in different ways. Going through the same trauma might give you some clues on how to encourage a person to deal with theirs but the probability is uncertain and what's more, it would have had a chance of working only if Sephiroth's trauma had been recent and Julia's had been old. Julia is the one who needs help now, who has to deal with it at the moment. A person who just lost their arm will not be able to comfort or help a person who has lost theirs twenty years ago. If anything, it's the other way around.
She just turned into a huge burden for him, not to mention the stress she put him under by running off like that.
Iscariot: Completely inconsiderate. Not only that, by going to Hojo she forced Sephiroth into a situation where he has to deal with the man who caused all his trauma.
Lian Hua: She willingly went to his abuser, knowing that he is who he is, the person responsible for Sephiroth's emotional damage, and begged him to do the same to her. It's such an incredibly selfish and destructive action, because she never takes Sephiroth's feelings into account. He is not only sick with worry during her unexplained absence, but he is understandably horrified when he finds out what she did. To this, add the guilt that Julia's action will bring onto Sephiroth's head. Think about it, folks: he knows that he was the catalyst for her insane action.
I want you to think a bit about the worst experience in your life. How would you feel if your partner or your friend would willingly go through the same thing to better understand and help you? Horrible, right? This is how Sephiroth should feel right now, because Julia forfeited whatever normal there was in her, whatever emotional stability and replaced it with trauma.
Iscariot: Perhaps Sephiroth needed someone who was normal and emotionally stable in his life to be his rock. And Julia went and ruined that.
Lian Hua: If Sephiroth had been normal, he would have realized in this very moment that Julia is deranged and that having a relationship with her was a huge mistake.
*
*
I just... can't get over how crazy this is. So the only way she could understand and help Sephiroth was by doing this insane thing to herself? That sounds more like a desperate attempt at forcing some connection. It is the act of a very unhinged young woman.
*"Then why are you crying? Oh God, Julia, you didn't have to do this to yourself."
Lian Hua: But how else could she understand you? Going about it the normal way obviously did not pay results!
"He treated me-so terribly. He threatened me and beat me" She lowered her gaze, so Sephiroth couldn't see the pain reflected brightly in her eyes. "He was awful, constantly reminding me of my debt to him."
Lian Hua: What is this fuckery? She knew Sephiroth was abused by Hojo, what did she expect? She willingly went to Sephiroth's abuser and asked her to get the same treatment! What on Earth did she expect when she put herself into the hands of an abuser??
He told me what he did to you, when you were young, the Hell hell you went through as an adolescent. I never realized," Her voice faded and then became stronger. "I-I hate him!" Her expression was dark, her eyes gleaming with hatred.
Iscariot: I imagine Hojo is just watching them, sipping coffee. "Yeah, hi bitch, STILL HERE. You have no one to blame but yourself anyway, you asked for it. Literally."