Snook - The Final Fantasy House: An Internet Cult

Episode Date: July 1, 2026

The Final Fantasy House. What began as a fan community dedicated to all things Final Fantasy slowly transformed into something far darker, a story of manipulation, abuse, and control. This is the story of the Final Fantasy House: An Internet Cult. Would you like to see another video like this in the future? Let me know down below. Thanks for watching and supporting the channel. Join the Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/SnookYT ⁠Follow me on instagram and Spotify! And yes, I'm a human voice. NEXT SUB GOAL - 1,000,000 subscribers! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A teenager is running down the sidewalk. He has no shoes, no money, no cell phone. He hasn't eaten in days, hasn't drank any water, and the sun is hammering down. He doesn't know where he'll go, where he'll sleep, he doesn't know if he'll ever get home. But right now, he couldn't care less, because the boy we're talking about just escaped a cult. and for all he knows, they're probably out looking for him. The boy's name is Sid, and the cult was called the Final Fantasy House. After his escape from the cult, Sid created a website called Demon Sushi,

part personal testimony, part public warning. It was his attempt to write down exactly what had happened inside the Final Fantasy House, not just to reclaim his own story, but to make sure no one else wandered into the same trap. The site eventually became a hub for other former members' accounts as well. Sid writes, This all started with innocent internet friendships and spiraled completely out of control into something that most normal people would find wholly unbelievable. Once I escaped the Loonies, I decided to write up my experience,

and share them with the net. Almost immediately, other survivors of this group of nut cases began to send in their stories as well. Naturally, the people who ran this fantasy land cult were unhappy. They deleted live journals. They accused everyone involved of lying. They accused me of inventing it all because I was on drugs despite their knowing I was not. They claimed that personal accounts written.

were not true, and in the same breath began to attack the people who had not written them. They hopped fandoms and hopped states, but have never been able to shake the fact that they very obviously did these things, and people have very obviously got sick of being quiet about it. Here is Sid's story. It was 2001, in Brooklyn, New York, when Sid was scrolling through messages on his aim account. Sid, who was a freshman in college, lived in his parents' basement. His life, up to that point, had been rough. He suffered a toxic upbringing that left him emotionally and mentally scarred. Frequent scoldings, strict supervision, verbal thrashing, the works. But in Sid's

fragile, emotional state, he always found ways to cope. He liked to play video games. To be more specific, he liked to play Final Fantasy 7. It might not look like much compared to today's titles, but at the time, Final Fantasy 7 was revolutionary. No one had really seen graphics like this. With its beautiful cutscenes, gorgeous colors, and more importantly, it's mature and, and narrative storytelling. The protagonists of the game, Cloudstrife and Zach, are iconic. The whole game is made to feel like a movie,

and Sid really, really liked that. Not only was it beautiful, it was emotional and relatable. He played the game in 1998, and after that, Sid was a mega fan. He created and maintained a website dedicated to two of Final Fantasy 7's main characters, Cloud and Zach. To a lot of isolated teenagers online, they weren't just characters, they were idols. Heroes who endured suffering, reinvented themselves, and found purpose in a world that felt broken.

Sid related to the characters so much. In fact, he decided to create a website to celebrate them. He posted art and made discusses. discussion threads so people could talk about the characters with him. With the booming interest in Final Fantasy 7, the site gained traction, and people from all over the nation began contacting Sid, trying to get involved. They sent him pictures of their art. They made recommendations on layouts for the web pages.

Many of these people were just fans, but some were very friendly. And so Sid began several new relationships. Then one day, he received a message from an unknown account. I got an instant message from some stranger offering a link exchange. They told me they ran the domain Hojo, another Final Fantasy website. I'd never been there before, but I ran a quick check. It looked mostly personal, with a little bit of a shrine to the character professor, Hojo from the same game.

I was like, oh, that's cool. Sure, we can link exchange. The person who ran the website insisted on being called by the name of the character, Hojo. And the two began talking constantly. At first, Hojo just seemed eccentric. Just another, intense guy from an online fandom community. But the conversations quickly became personal.

Hojo wanted to know everything. Sid's fears, his frustrations, his family life, his dreams. Hojo spoke with absolute confidence and a friendly curiosity. And then things started to get weird. Sid writes, One day, I just got done putting up some art. It was of the monster Genova from Final Fantasy 7. I gave it a little mini-story under the image.

to be creative. Hojo contacts me and tells me that it was really well written. I'm flattered, so I thank him. Then it starts getting weird. It was really realistic, he says. Is that a memory? Understandably, I'm like, what? He replies, is that one of your memories? I was unfamiliar with the concept being put to me at the time, being still pretty internet, Virginia. I said no, I just made it up. He seemed disappointed and I didn't understand why. Days later, another message came in. It read,

My wife would like to talk to you. That wife was a woman named Jen. Jen was young, and just like Sid, she was a fan of Final Fantasy. She insisted on being called Genova. one of the antagonists from the video game. But Sid would quickly discover Jen wasn't just a fan and neither was Hojo.

They were believers. I was asked if I had any memories of past lives. I do believe in past lives. I think it's a pretty valid cycle given how many cultures believe in it. So I told Jen, no, I don't have any memories of

past lives, but I believed it was possible. I should have never said that. It was like inviting the vampire into my house. Jen's attack was swift and sure. She began in a flurry explaining things to me, how there are alternate universes. Do you grant me that? Sure, there could be. And in those universes, maybe, just maybe, video games actually happened. I thought could be plausible. Through all of this, she tells me that she thinks, in a past life, I was Zach from Final Fantasy 7. Think about it, she said. You're both country grown. You both have that instinct of dragging off friends who could be left behind. You'd take a bullet for someone right. You say you don't believe in magic or any of that. And he wanted to be a mercenary

For all of his five or six lines, you have a similar speech pattern. You even live in a basement like he was locked in one, and you hate it. Addle your brain with freshman idiocy and vodka, and this will suddenly make sense. Sure, maybe. I'm not him now, I said, but it was possible. You were our Zach, she says. Sid wondered to himself, why did she use the word R? Well, we didn't know it at the time, but Jen and Hojo weren't the only ones in this little group.

There were many others who were convinced that they were reincarnations, that video games were real, and that Jen, the magical online sorceress, was right. Sid was introduced to Jen's community. Everyone went by nicknames, naturally pulled from Final Fantasy. Some lived nearby to Jen. Others lived across the country. Together, they were all friends, connected by these same interests, the same hobbies, but more importantly, Jen, she was the matriarch, so to speak, the leader of their band.

and she had convinced everyone to live under the same delusion that they were all living, breathing, reincarnations of video game characters. Sid, of course, didn't believe any of this, but he played along. It was role-playing, he'd tell himself, nothing more. And for that matter, a host of other people seemed to be playing along. Come Christmas of 2001, Jen invited Sid to her home, and Sid agreed.

He packed up his pet rat and a couple pairs of clothes and set off for Pennsylvania. It cost me $300 to go by bus from my Podunk school to their apartment in State College, and they assured me that they would pay to feed me. I would just visit for a weekend to meet people and hang out. at the bus stop, Hojo, Jen's partner, met me in a lab coat. Hojo and Jen were lesbians,

and that was cool with me. I'm just noting it here to avoid future confusion. When we arrived at the apartment, Jen came storming up to Hojo and screamed in her face. I have no idea what it was about. Jen was wearing a purple skirt

pulled up around her breasts. It looked like she had. just got out of bed and I was, to say the very least, intimidated. About three seconds later, she whirled around in a quick change. Suddenly, the nicest person ever. Whatever she was mad about was out the window. It was a two-bedroom apartment, and it was a mess. Trash piled into kitchen corners, glitter all over the floor,

stains, dishes piled up, empty soda bottles strewn about. But Sid didn't mind. These were his friends, regardless of their personal issues, or the state of their apartment. He'd make the most of it. Together, the three went to the mall for some window shopping. Jen spotted something she wanted, whatever it was, and couldn't bear to be without it. She sulked and complained, withdrawing to one-quartered. of the mall until they were forced to leave.

During this, Jen adopted a new personality, a child. She stomped around the mall, huffing and puffing like a baby. And this is when Sid began to realize Jen wasn't role-playing. She truly believed she had multiple personalities floating around in her head more than just the video game characters. Over the coming days, Sid would witness these personalities. personalities, all of them being dramatic, extreme, manipulative. This really came to light one day when Sid had just gotten in a fight with his mother over the phone. Sid was not the kind of person who let himself cry, especially because there was usually no one around to care. But this time,

someone was there. Sid writes, I let myself cry at Jen's house. Jen. Jen, and Hojo suggested I stay longer and begin talking about very, very drastic measures that I needed to get away from my home, that I could abandon my family. Here's the number of a youth support group. Jen told me that her mother was the same way and that Hojo had to go all the way to California to rescue her. Jen's mom was apparently a horrible, abusive person who hated her daughter for being a lesbian. Her father was absent or divorced or something. It was never clear. She kept saying how even though

her grandmother was rich, she didn't love her. She had stories about her abusive friend. I was sympathetic. Always believing in that, don't complain. People have it worse than you, schick. That conversation lingered in his head. Even when Sid returned home two days later, Jen's words echoed in the walls of his family home, a home where he felt so depressed, angry, isolated. But he didn't feel so alone with Jen and Hojo. He started to wonder if maybe those drastic measures were really that drastic. Why continue living his life in Brooklyn? Why spend his days trapped in a dark basement?

Why stay with his family? Sid started to forget about the mess. the temper tantrums, the delusions. Maybe the Final Fantasy House was where he belonged. After his first visit at Christmastime, Sid continued to visit Hojo and Jen every few weeks. And between intervals, there were new behaviors that started to rear their even uglier heads. Jen started pressing the issue of Sid's other life. He was Zach, after all,

From Final Fantasy, she would insist he should have memories, and when he denied the claims, she'd get a twisted look in her eyes. Within the next few visits, more people would come and go from the house, more members of Jen's growing cult. One of those people was a girl named Aries. Sid and Aries had become fast friends. They talked all the time and saw each other. often. She was sweet

and kind, so it was no surprise that Sid came to really like Aries, but Jen had noticed that also. Jen wanted the two to become intimate. She dropped little comments at first, subtle little hints,

and when that didn't work, Jen outright commanded Sid to sleep with her. She threatened to put an aphrodisiac in their food. Still, neither would budge. and in lieu of Sid's advances, Jen took it upon herself to court the young Aries.

Jen approached Aries, acting stern. She started flirting. Aries was in no place to object. After all, Jen was the leader of their friend group, the owner of the home, the brokerage for all of their friendships. So Jen took her to bed all night while Sid was falling asleep,

he'd hear the sounds of their intimacy. It went on like this for days. For a couple of months, though, it wasn't that bad. Sid couldn't make the trip often, just the occasional weekend trip. And with time away from Jen's house, the uncomfortable pressure that she applied didn't seem so bad. So, he kept visiting. And things only got worse and more delusional, from the same. there. Jen began asking him for money. She needed to buy food for the house and Sid was expected

to contribute. Sid was broke. He was just a poor college kid trying to get by, but he didn't want to be rude. So he'd give her what little money he had. With that money, Jen would go buy steak, expensive steak. That was all she ever wanted to eat. But Sid was allergic to red meat. But Sid was allergic to red He was raised vegetarian. His body never adapted to the heavy proteins. He told Jen that he couldn't eat the food, but Jen didn't care. So whenever he stayed at Jen's, he'd eat the steak, night after night, and he'd make himself sick. But it was okay.

He'd manage. After all, Jen didn't mean to ignore his requests. The group mentality began to sink in. The longer Sid stayed, the harder it became to tell where hospitality ended and obligation began. Jen made every extra task feel like a favor, every sacrifice, a proof of loyalty. By the time Summer crept in, Sid had already been folded into the rhythm of the house. the dinners he couldn't eat, the magic battles, the talks about reincarnation, the endless expectations. So when Jen asked him to stay through the summer, it didn't feel like a question.

It felt like the next thing that was always going to happen. So Sid grabbed his pet rat, a couple pairs of clothes, and took the long bus ride down to State College. He'd be living with Jen until the false memory. began. With no car and no phone, Sid spent his first days trudging through the summer heat, going from business to business, asking for a job, until a local supermarket finally gave him a shot. He'd start that week. The pay wasn't much, but it was enough to cover his share of rent, staying at Jen's for the summer. Sid was elated, as any college kid would be. A whole summer, with his friends away from home, building a life that finally felt like his own.

Whatever questions lingered in the back of his mind, the strange rules, the small discomforts, the way Jen always seemed to get her way, they were easy to quiet beneath the excitement of it all. Because at that age, when you're handed the thing you've been wanting most, you don't stop to ask what it might cost. So he worked his new job, and when Jen asked for his paychecks, he gave it without question. I was the workhorse, I guess because I was Zach from Final Fantasy. I was there for the manly man. Jen quit her babysitting job and refused to look for another one.

I was the one who had to carry groceries to and from the house, the one who made the money to feed everyone. the one who had to fix or move furniture when it needed to be fixed or moved. My computer could rarely get online because Jen was on it almost 24-7. Jen was not supportive of me having a social life. When my phone ran out, I was not allowed to call home on my own. When I talked to people online, she would hang over my shoulder and ask who they were. Then she would write down the screen name and go talk to them on her computer later.

This is how she got a hold of many of my other friends who she would later abuse. Jen would, and did, keep a very strict track of my activities. If I was going out, I had to tell her where. I did not have a house key, so I had to make sure they were home or I would be locked out. I was locked out a few times, because Jen would go to sleep and I would stand at the door banging and not to be able to get in. I had a few fun moments like dumpster diving, but I had to keep it all a secret to myself, or I'd get in trouble.

Then there was the fighting, not the silly magic fighting I talked about earlier, but real fighting, screaming fights, slapping, punching. The sound of flesh beating on flesh is not one you can miss, and the apartment was small, so there's no way not to hear them. hearing one of them wince or whimper, then the beating, and immediately after, the noisy intimacy. And in the midst of real violent fighting, there was also the increasingly difficult imaginary fighting. Jen would wake him up at 3 a.m. to fight imaginary enemies, whatever demons or goblins or ghouls she invented, Sid was expected to combat.

Within a couple of weeks at staying at Jen's, his mental health was beginning to suffer, as was his performance at his new summer job, so his hours were cut, and with Sid's shrinking paycheck, Jen bought steaks.

The only time he ate was at work. Sid would beg his coworkers for something to eat. Expired bakery goods or sushi, just something to get by, But the managers noticed. One of his managers outright denied him. Very quickly, Sid was suffering the consequences of his inaction.

He didn't realize how controlling Jen would become. He didn't realize that he was in a cult. The summer he began to take its toll. Without a car, Sid walked for hours each day, from work and back, to the grocery store and back. and as the days grew longer, his health continued to deteriorate. And the house did too. Jen and Hojo were unclean. Piles and piles of trash and muck stacked in corners.

Papers lying around, food wrappers, sweaty clothes, spillages. Their home began to smell like garbage and rotting meat, all amplified by the blistering heat, baking it all. But there were still his other friends, like Aries, another member of the cult, and another victim of Jens. She endured the same treatment as Sid. The long nights, the yelling and screaming, financial control, but Aries was waking up. When she was over, Sid could talk freely, and he would become conscious of the treatment he was enduring. But once she was gone, Jen and Hojo, when she was gone, Jen and Hojo, when he was,

back to working on his psyche. They had me brainwashed. I was terrified and miserable, but I was brainwashed. I know this because Jen had a fight with Ares at one point. I don't even know what it was about. I think Aries woke up to what Jen was doing and wanted out. Jen was on about how she had been betrayed,

how they were so united. About this time, I began to learn what happened to Aries. Jen had made Aries sit in a bathtub full of ice cubes and green food coloring as part of her training. It's a wonder the poor girl didn't get hypothermia, but Jen was up in arms. Apparently, Aries called one evening when Hojo and I were at the used bookstore, stealing books. Yes, that poor. And said she wanted some of her things back, that she had left at the apartment. Jen exploded.

She called Hojo's cell phone and tears, screaming she was going to commit S-word. I believed it. Hojo called a nearby cult member and demanded he go over. Hojo called Aries and screamed at her. I told her off too. We rented a taxi with money we didn't have and raced home. She claimed to have made an attempt of S-word. When we arrived, she had wash claws on her arm.

I woke up for a second and knew this was bullshit. I had a problem with S-H. Jen had made no attempt of S-word. She had just scratched herself. At most, it would sting, but I was still mad at Aries because I was supposed to be. I wrote her nasty emails. I joined them in bashing her. I ignored her when she came to pick up her stuff,

even though she obviously wanted to still be friends with me. I regret that now because we never reconciled. Maybe if I got the clue and tried to get out with her, things would have turned out different. And just like that, another ally was gone. Near the end of summer, Jen and Hojo were having trouble paying bills. Not because they were working, they weren't, but because Sid wasn't providing enough.

So they made the decision to move apartments. this time into a one bedroom. It was in the same complex, just across the street, and with help, it wouldn't have taken long. On the day of the move, Jen and Hojo were nowhere to be found, and Sid, knowing that time was running out, had to move it all by himself. In 90-degree weather, half-starved and nauseous,

he moved the furniture, the boxes, the dressers and drawers until the entire apartment was somewhere else. Sid was angry. He had to escape. Somehow, some way, but the truth of the matter was he had no money. His bank account was drained, and for the foreseeable future, it would remain drained. He had no strength, he wasn't eating or drinking, and he had no way of reaching out for help. would see and he would be punished.

Though Sid was nearing his breaking point, he wasn't brave enough to leave. Not yet. So he stayed to endure. Even more abuse. Toward the end of the summer, Sid's hours had been cut to one hour a week. By the time Jen got a hold of his check, he had $6 in his pocket. He was dizzy from starvation and sick. sickness and had lost a lot of weight.

One day, the forecast called for rain in the afternoon. Sid, not knowing this, walked to work. And just as soon as he arrived, the rain started coming down. Hard. So hard, the electricity went out in the supermarket and everyone was sent home. He had to walk in the pouring rain all the way home. When he finally returned, he looked at. left his soaked shoes outside to dry, wanting nothing more than to dry off and relax.

But Jen wasn't interested in his comfort. That night, she pulled them outside. She was laying in the grass, talking about God with another member of the cult, and wanted Sid to join. She wanted him to admit he believed in God. Sid was fed up, so he denied her. No, he didn't believe in God, and he would never believe in God, or her. Jen began fake crying, pretending to be a child, but Sid, after a long day, had gotten fed up. He screamed at Jen to stop. Jen, shocked and upset, sprinted away into the house. I'll let Sid tell you what happened next.

The next morning, someone had stolen my shoes. You may think it's a silly reason. to snap, but that's what did it. That this god-awful town with these god-awful people who were taking all my money, they had to take my shoes too. I had it. I just had it. I pulled a sheet of paper that had Hojo's computer campus logging a name. I stole some keys. I threw some edible trash to my poor rat who was starving too. I threw on a change of clothes, a pocket knife, and all the money I had left. $5. Into my bag along with my sketchbook and a pencil.

And I walked. Shoeless. Because I had no money, I couldn't leave town. But being so poor in town for so long, I learned where I could find the cheapest food and drink. I could get a bagel for 50 cents and a drink for 75. The streets were so hot. It burned my feet.

It hurt like hell. But I was done. I went to my job and poked my head in. I couldn't actually go to work because of the no-shoes policy. I quit. It didn't make sense to work there anymore. I'd hang around the bus stop or in front of the churchyard, and I'd sit in the shade and draw and think.

I tried to think of what to do. People would notice me in my torn pants and my bare feet, and I'd just shrug and laugh it off. I was homeless for a few days. All in all, I felt fantastic. I felt great. Better. Better than the entire two months I spent with them.

I had the freedom to walk where I wanted and sit down where I wanted. There were no smells. There was no fighting. No one was ordering me to buy a steak. I wasn't sick of the food I ate. No one was waking me up, telling me to go outside and look at fairy rings. I swear to you. I would much rather be homeless than live with people like them ever again.

The threat of homelessness does not phase me, because I've seen something so much worse. He contacted one of Jen's friends that lived nearby and asked him for a place to stay. He didn't give any details fearing that if the friend knew he would tell Jen. Thankfully, that didn't happen. The friend agreed to let Sid stay. There, after months of psychological torture, starvation, and forced labor, he finally phoned his father,

and Sid was finally free. And I'd love to tell you all that the story ends here. Sid goes free, Jen and Hojo were arrested, and no one was ever hurt again, but I'd be lying if I told you that. The truth is, their pattern of abuse continued for years after Sid ran shoeless from their home in 2002.

On his website today, which was created to catalog the stories of other victims and keep other community members safe, there are 20-something stories. Some of them are stories like SIDS, others are journal entries, email threads, and conversations. At the bottom of the page are warnings about what a cult is, what it looks like, what it does. and how to stay away from it. After Sid left the Final Fantasy House, they adopted a new victim named Kat. Here is an excerpt from her own account.

My name is Kat, and I actually emailed you once before a long while back. Sometime not too long after I left, Jen's group by choice slash complete meltdown. I haven't really had the guts, though, to write anything until now. a day after my two-year anniversary of having a mental breakdown and leaving. They identified me as their Zach too.

Thankfully, the experience didn't turn me off of being a fan of Zach. I was really damn stupid at the time, and I was not doing well with my parents, my current roommate, and a really long bout of depression I was in. They seemed nice enough when I met them, and I was willing to go along with all these stuff they talked about because I was happy just to spend time out of my apartment.

It was harmless fun, right? I'd even sometimes joke around with my roommate slash best friend at the time about it. I remember she got a big kick out of it at first, but things also dwindled with time between us. Jen and Hojo slowly poisoning our relationship. Mind you, I'm not the type to get pulled into crap like this easily, but they had sadly noticed the state I was in

and hooked me nice and tight when I was as down as I had ever been, at least at the time. I was viewed as a source of income to Jen and also as a guard-type person, meaning she'd have me sit up until dawn a lot of nights because she was afraid something horrible was going to happen.

Most nights, in fact, were quite lovely and calm, but extremely tiring because I wasn't getting much sleep anymore. I'd sleep after it was light out and wake whenever Jen would waltz into my room to either use my computer or wake me up to do whatever it was my duty. Their fights would get so bad and so loud, you could hear it on any of the three floors of the house from behind two closed doors. Three, if you also counted mind. You could also hear them hitting each other, screaming like they were.

were on fire or something. There was one occasion I remember very clearly, where I was in the wrong place at the wrong time and was trying to get the hell out of the way when Jen spotted me. She stormed over and grabbed my upper left arm and shook me very hard, screaming about not looking at her like that. I had a black and purple bruise the size of her hand that lasted for weeks and weeks before it fully healed. The truth is, after Sid, many people were sucked into Jen and Hojo's twisted world,

some for just a little while, some for months, even years. The story has since become infamous. It's been covered across news networks like Vice and continues to attract attention across the internet. Jen and Hojo hopped fandoms as the years went on. The last known sighting of Jen, online, was in the Hannibal fandom in 2016, where she claimed many more victims in her delusional quest for control. There's even more drama and stories, crossing many different corners of the internet involving Jen. We just covered Final Fantasy.

There are entire communities she tormented after Sid escaped the house. But every story across every fandom, every community, every decade paints a single vivid picture. One of an abusive household, filled with delusional unwell people, in a cult-like mentality where scars embellish more people than we'll ever truly know. as of 2009 Jen and Hojo split Today no one knows if her pattern of abusive behavior ever stopped

where she is or what she's doing but we know for a fact that neither Jen nor Hojo have ever faced consequences for their actions thankfully Sid's story and the stories of other victims

posted on its website open the eyes of many people started to wise up to her behavior so hopefully many people were spared the same fate but many more weren't and i can only pray that the victims of their cult the victims of jen and hojo find the peace they deserve and all right guys that wraps up the final fantasy house and internet cult and thank you guys so much for watching would you like to see you more videos like this in the future please comment down below your thoughts critiques and feedback i truly appreciate it so much and make sure you like the video and subscribe to the channel it helps

more than you know and uh all right thank you guys so much for watching and uh this was snook and i'll see you next time bye