Season 3 / Vincent Churchwell - "Mirror Mirror” [Third Trial Projection]

Bow-wow

Luca feels like he desperately needs to be useful and stop moping around…

He drifts toward the sticky notes, and begins examining them.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Kaoru Naito He digs through the make-up bag next.

There’s a makeup kit open on the counter of the bathroom in front of the mirror, which strangely doesn’t seem to show any of your reflections in it, just the reflection of the room itself. That’s not the only odd thing, though, as upon a closer inspection, it seems like this bag of makeup supplies also includes basic first aid materials tucked away inside it. Just simple things, like bandaids and disinfectant, but still not what you’d expect to me mixed in with full coverage concealers and eye shadows. Beside the kit, on the counter, there’s a small hexagonal hole.

When you bring the Dog figurine closer to the hole, the makeup supplies turn more towards the gothic side of things, with dark eye shadow palettes and the like. When you bring the Cat figurine closer to the hole, the makeup supplies turn more towards the pastel side of things, with light pink eye shadow palettes and the lipsticks. Which one goes here, though?

Bow-wow He drifts toward the sticky notes, and begins examining them.

The sticky notes on the wall hold different reminders on them, mostly positive, though some seem to lean a little more towards worries. There’s more piled up than you can actually read here, with them being layered on top of each other from presumably being built up over time and not taken down. The ones on top you can read say the following, though:

“I love you, good luck today!”
“Make sure you don’t forget to take a moment breath if you need to”
“It’s always okay to quit <3”
“Are you sure you want to keep doing [design/medical] school?”
“I’m worried, are you sure you can handle this?”

And of course, in the wall itself, there’s a small hexagonal hole next to the notes. When you bring the Dog figurine closer to it, the ink becomes black, the handwriting more blocky, and the changing word becomes “design.” When you bring the Cat figurine closer to it, the ink becomes pink, the handwriting more curly, and the changing word becomes “medical”. Which is the right one, though?

Kaoru Naito

And what about the bathroom’s wastebasket? He leans over to look in it.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Kaoru Naito And what about the bathroom’s wastebasket? He leans over to look in it.

The bathroom’s wastebasket seems to be full of dozens upon dozens of used pregnancy tests and their boxes. Probably for the best you can’t touch anything here. What you can see with just your eyes, though, is that every single one of them is a negative result. That’s a lot of them either way.

Emmy | Akemi

Akemi drifts in behind the others, sneaking a peek at the letter within the drawer first.

“I believe this may Vincent’s, mostly because he had implied he was not keeping in touch with his grandparents very much. There is another letter from them by the door. That said, I don’t know very much about Gracie’s family situation enough to say if she had reason to fall out of contact…whereas it seems more plausible for Vincent. Gracie’s social life at least seems far busier than his given those photos of her friends and the party invitation she has in the mail.”

She glances at the sticky notes, sighing.

“As for the notes, I am almost positive those are from Gracie. Vincent and I spoke of how Gracie pressured him to quit medical school and otherwise voiced numerous doubts.”

She looks to the makeup bag, hesitating. Is it implying what she thinks it’s implying?

“…this could be either of them, but the medical supplies make me lean toward Vincent, as well, knowing how he prefers to keep such things on hand.”

As for the pregnancy tests, she has nothing more to say that hasn’t already been said. They were trying, and it wasn’t happening.

Chula - Suzune

Suzune nodded along to Akemi. “I can verify both of those, actually, I’ve heard that from Churchwell, too.” She sighs.

Bow-wow

“I ain’t got a problem with that.” Luca inputs, before moving a dog into the empty slot beside the makeup bag, and a cat into the one beside the sticky notes.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Bow-wow Luca inputs, before moving a dog into the empty slot beside the makeup bag

When the Dog figurine is placed in and the makeup colors are set, suddenly the mirror seems to work again, except it isn’t you that it shows. Instead, you see the reflection of Vincent staring back at you, looking exhausted as he presumably stares back at himself in the mirror, though it’s hard to tell if it’s physical exhaustion or mental. On his cheek near the eye seems to be a freshly blooming bruise, though there’s no emotion to be seen, though there’s no emotion to be seen on his face, just the usual numbness of something routine to be done. After a moment of staring, he picks up a sponge and resumes covering it up in foundation.

You watch the person in the mirror apply basic makeup for a few moments in a mundane way, before the illusion ends, and you can only see the reflection of the room again. Maybe seeing this meant you chose correctly…?

And just after that’s happened…

Bow-wow and a cat into the one beside the sticky notes.

As you place the figurine for the post-its, you suddenly hear one singular voice from just behind each of your heads. There’s no shadow this time, but it’s still obviously Gracie’s voice, whispering quietly in your ear.

“You’re afraid of blood, right? I know you think you can handle it, but I’m just worried…”

“Are you sure you’re up for things today? Don’t worry, if you need to drop out I can still support us even if you don’t become a doctor.”

“Vincent your parents were literally killed right in front of you, don’t you think having to work with blood and death would be too much for you?”

“You’re not good at that kind of thing.”

"Remember that time you freaked out when you cut yourself by accident?'

“Yes it was that bad, and I’m okay with it if you’re okay with it, I’m just worried you might get hurt.”

After awhile, what the voice is actually saying gets less distinct and overlapping. It’s frankly overwhelming for a moment.

“You can’t-”

“You’re afraid of-”

“It’s too much for you”

“Are you SURE you’re-”

“The blood would-”

Eventually, it all stops almost suddenly, and you hear only one more whisper.

“Aww, I knew that would happen eventually… Don’t worry, it’s for the best you’re dropping out. You can still work at like, a medical office or something! I don’t care about the debt, all I want is what’s best for you.”

With that, the voice doesn’t come back. Maybe this means you got it right…?

Kaoru Naito

Much to consider. Much is being considered. He tosses a figurine up and down in his hand, feelings not showing past his blank cat-like stare. Looking.

“What if we flipped th’ script on th’ next one? Pick what we don’t think is expected. I wanna know how it goes.”

Emmy | Akemi

At both of these visions, Akemi’s expression only grows more tense. More angry.

It all matched to what he’d told her– what she’d expected to see based on the vague and evasive way he’d answered her earlier questions. Even so, the way such harsh sentiments hid behind a sweet tone made her feel ill.

She doesn’t even realize her hands are clenching for several moments after the voices cease. She almost doesn’t register Kaoru’s question for a moment, but she does ultimately respond.

“If everyone else would like to, we can. I would prefer to remain accurate to what we know, but…I can be outvoted.”

She looks to Luca and Suzune– Luca it seemed preferred not to get the answers ‘wrong,’ and Suzune had at least agreed with the letter.

So she takes a dog figure from Luca and places it beside the letter.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Emmy | Akemi So she takes a dog figure from Luca and places it beside the letter.

After placing the Dog figurine by the letter, you two hear voices again coming from behind you, and when you turn, you once more see two shadows cast on the bathroom walls, one a full foot taller than the other once again. It’s not hard to tell that it’s Vincent and Gracie’s voices by now.

“Really? You think I hid them from you? Vincent, you KNOW you’re always losing things and putting them in the wrong spot, I’m sure you just put it back there yourself. Honestly, you’re lucky I’m good at organizing things for you half the time.”

“I’m not… accusing you of anything, Gracie, I just didn’t know if you’d been the one to get the mail last month when it came in, or if you’d read-”

Vincent’s voice stops, though, as the shorter shadow steps closer to the other and pulls him down by the tie to plant a kiss on his lips. A hand is placed on the Vincent shadow’s face sweetly, though the grip on his tie remains firm.

“Vincent, seriously, you worry about way too many little things. We still get plenty of mail from your family from time to time, it’s not a surprise you forgot about this one. Honestly, that’s already way more than normal, you know I don’t talk to my family at all. It’s kind of unfair to me how much more you talk to yours even though you cut down on the calls, you know? But I’ll tell you what; I’ll read over it for you just in case there’s anything actually important you missed, and throw it away for you after. Alright?”

The taller shadow seems to hesitate for a moment, before nodding, which is the point where the shorter statue finally lets go. The voices and shadows fade from there back to normal. Maybe seeing this meant you chose correctly…?

Kaoru Naito

Everyone here’s such rule followers… just like Vinceeentt, ugh. He’s crossing his arms quietly right now.

Chula - Suzune

She’d seen these behaviors before. Very closely, actually. The problem was it was SO HARD to tell if these scenes happened this way only because they were making these choices or because that’s what actually happened.

“How do we know any of this is true? How do we not know if this is people giving him too much benefit of the doubt?” Vincent seemed to hardly know what happened either, did he? So much of this could have been entirely made up by his brain. “Why would you even think of Churchwell first for the makeup for example? Doesn’t Gracie-San wear makeup?”

Kaoru Naito

“Then why’d ya disagree with meee? Ugh, I wanna see under th’ skin of this dumb projection, we gotta flip some shit.”

Bow-wow

Luca tips his head a little to the side, “Ah, he showed me how to cover up my scar…” He touches his face absentmindedly.

A lot to think about… a lot to chew on. He can’t help but also wonder how much of this is real.

“I… have trouble thinkin’ that all of this isn’t just how he wants us to see it, y’know?” As if Vincent’s perception of things was far worse than Gracie’s actual behaviour had been.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Only a moment after all of the figurines in the bathroom have been placed, the lighting in the main room *shifts* once again, and it takes you a little less time to realize why this time. When you back towards the three windows, you realize two of them are entirely dark now, and only one is still giving that soft pink light. The lighting fixture on the wall is on too, with a particularly small sized flickering flame within it. Was it always set that low? Maybe you’re imagining things there.

But as you try to think about it once more, you realize there’s again been some changes around the room itself, too. Are some of the choices you made earlier switched, now…? You’d put the Dog and Cat the other way around at the phone, right? And you swear, the portraits on the wall look ever so slightly different in the dimmer lighting…

And now, another door is open too, leading to what seems like a bedroom.

The bedroom is very dim, with no windows to speak of within it, and the now poor lighting from the main room seems to cast long dark shadows across the room. Still, though, you can make out a regular sized full bed, nothing extravagant like a queen or king size, but still perfectly suited for two people to share. The sheets are made neatly with a light pink quilt on top and have decorative heart shaped pillows on top of everything that clearly aren’t meant to actually be slept on. Though, there are actually some crumpled pamphlets on the bed too. Other things of note seem to be the fact that there’s a book of some sort open on the dresser, and when you look a bit more closely, there’s actually… shards of something on the floor? Near a journal fallen open on the ground too.

Bow-wow

Well this is getting a little freaky. Luca has seen enough horror movies… he reaches for the journal slowly.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Bow-wow he reaches for the journal slowly.

Kaoru Naito He’s just going to snatch the journal first. Dweeb.

Sitting on the ground near the side table next to the bed, a somewhat heavy personal journal is laid out open among shards of some sort of vase. It seems to be flipped back to a very early page that has a small bookmark in it, possibly by chance because of it being marked, even as you can see more of it has clearly been used over time. This might even be a decade old, given what’s on here.

My Life Plans
- Start dating by the end of the year
- Get married by 22
- Get a good job that’s low stress
- Make tons of good memories
- Have two kids by 30
- Stay together forever

…The shards on the ground, meanwhile, seem to be from some sort of broken vase, formerly atop the night stand.

There is a hexagonal hole in the middle of the journal itself, stamped through it. When you bring the Dog figurine closer to the hole, the color of the journal changes to black, the handwriting is more blocky, and the shards become pink with a rose design on them. When you bring the Cat figurine closer to the hole, the color of the journal changes to pink, the handwriting is more curly, and the shards become a deep blue with a bird design on them. Which is the right figurine, though?

Kaoru Naito

“Oh yeaahh, yer so right. I’ll report back when yer projection shows us just what you want, Beebo, cause that’s how these things have worked.”

He’s just going to look at the journal first. Dweeb.

Emmy | Akemi

“We don’t know for certain. But every other piece we’ve placed has been backed up by other pieces of evidence and by Vincent’s own words. Even if we removed the make-up and photo as the two contested choices we’ve made, you know fully well what has been implied by the ones we know for a fact are correct. Get one wrong for all I care.”

Akemi appears frustrated. She keeps her tone even, but only just.

“I understand your skepticism, because of what you’ve both been through, but it seems as though the both of you came here prepared to see him as a monster no matter what you were shown. Had the opposite been implied, had we placed the other pieces and seen a different narrative, would you believe it without question? Or would you still be asking if we’re seeing the truth?”

Vincent was never going to push back against their opinions of him.

“If this were showing us what Vincent wanted us to see, what he believed happened, you know as well as I do that he would be painting himself in a negative light. Even if he is my friend, I came here prepared to be wrong about him. Did you?”

As the room shifts, as the figures are changed out, Akemi curses under her breath. Now it wanted them to doubt their own reality.

She wordlessly goes to look at the book on the dresser.

Erin | Vincent Churchwell

Emmy | Akemi She wordlessly goes to look at the book on the dresser.

There’s what seems like a childishly drawn story book open on top of the dresser, with two characters that are only detail-less humanoid outlines that haven’t been colored in. It’s spread open to the first two pages of the book, and each page seems to have two images. On top of the first page, the figure on the Left looks like they have cracks over where their heart is and a rain cloud above them, and the figure on the Right has no cracks and wears a smile as they reach out to the other figure. On the bottom of the first page, the rain cloud has gone away and there’s a bandaid over the cracks for the Left figure as they hold hands and smile with the figure on the Right.

The top of the second page has the figure on the Left walking away towards the left side of the page, still wearing the bandaid but no longer being rained on anymore. The figure on the Right stands where they originally were still, still smiling. The bottom half of the second page shows the small Right figure has grown, with a crack over their heart now too as a small raincloud forms above them, a small frown on their face. You can’t flip the pages to see what’s next, but you do notice that there’s two small hexagonal holes in the dresser on the left and right side of the book.

Depending on which hole you bring the Dog figure near, left or right, the figure on that side becomes colored in with Black crayon. When you bring the Cat figure near, either to the left or right, the figure on that side becomes colored in with Yellow crayon. Which do you put where?

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