tenebraecious | (no subject)

(no subject)

Awwright, I'm in the mood for a ~question meme~ for Glacies and John Doe! Let's go back and forth until we're exhausted from words. I will also accept thread planning and CR plotting, because I've been remiss on that front, oops.

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I'm almost afraid to ask, but...

CR?

You are not Asidian! I can survive this! Also, already returning the same question to you, oho . . . Now, for the write-up . . .

John is, more or less, the same on Cobalt. We haven't threaded them out since Cobalt stopped by that one time for Amaranth . . . Which, yeah, was a slight ding on Cobalt for being that invested in Amaranth seems to be picking up all of these children to mother. Pot, kettle, John! Still, he can get why a lot of people get wrapped up in it, so it's not a huge mark, just a minor headache. He has probably gone out on the bolt once with Cobalt, then he let him take it on his own whenever he wanted . . . Whenever, John actually could look at the ocean and make sure it was safe . . . But, yeah, Cobalt is just another one of the few characters that John will tolerate and allow around him through sheer force of determination. He really is positively inclined towards Cobalt, but he just has no idea what to do with that or how to approach it. People that are 'pure' tend to make John the most nervous, because his inner alarm of 'I should not be here, I should not engage' goes off really loud. It's not even a twitch he taught himself; he's just bad at finding any chill around people that don't seem to have really obvious and exaggerated faults.

Glacies is over the top, stupidly pleased to know and be on the same unit as Cobalt. I keep questioning if it is because they share a world, but I believe she really enjoys his company since he is on the same level with him about trying to stay positive while also being very on the level with situations. They pair off well when it comes to perspectives, maturity, situational reactions, and so on, okay. She's about on the level where she tells Cobalt anything about anything at the drop of a hat, because she trusts him with whatever she has to share which is impressive considering how very reclusive she can be with people. The only reason she tries to keep some of what goes on with herself to herself is that she doesn't want to dump too much on her plate. Cobalt helps her out a ton, and she knows she does help him out, but she isn't sure that it is equal. Which is a silly concern! But it's a concern she has with everyone! Also, no one needs to know how many different balls she is juggling at any one moment, ok ok . . . One thing that I've enjoyed is that Cobalt has been helping her a lot with learning how to emote. She's shaking off burned in habits from the past twelve years, but he gives her a safe space to deal with processing and sharing her feelings. It is preparing her to open up with a few more people and has definitely popped up in weird places, especially in her interactions with, say, unitmates or Jay. There is probably a ton more if I want to get into super fine details, but Glacies loves Cobalt, best best friend, thank you very much, the end.

John - Overall, likes and respects him a lot! Under his gruff, impolite exterior, here’s a lot of good in him -- he teaches first aid classes, not because he wants to or because he likes it, but because he thinks it’s important and necessary, and he has given a lot of people the tools to help themselves and other people. And that’s a big deal! Cobalt knows how to place an IV and do blood transfusions now, which he’s had to do several times, and it’s thanks to John’s instruction that he was able to successfully stitch up Yugi’s stab wounds one time when Yugi didn’t feel comfortable troubling a sensitIV about it.

Outside of class, John has always been there when Cobalt needed him, whether it was something important like helping him revive a person, or something as dumb as telling him how antlers worked. And he’s never belittled Cobalt for his lack of knowledge, and always patiently explained things to him no matter how basic his questions are. You have no idea how much that means to him.

Also, John let him borrow his boat. The actual boat part of it isn’t so important (although it is extremely cool), but the fact that John offered (?) to let him just borrow this thing he clearly worked very hard on with his own two hands (?!) without even worrying if Cobalt knew how to use a boat or whether he’d take care of it (?!?!?!?) is a really huge deal. If you show Cobalt 5 minutes of trust then he’s basically ride-or-die for you after that. That’s just how it is.

Long story short, Cobalt has seen so, so, so many good and redeeming things about John that his opinion of him is quite high. Also, it turns out tsunderes are maybe His Type when it comes to friendship material. That said, he believes that John merely tolerates him, and doesn’t know there are any particularly positive feelings behind it, and so he tries his best not to be TOO annoying if he can help it, often excusing himself as soon as he starts to expect John is (or might be!) getting tired of him.

However, hearing now that they have gone out on a boat together (gasp!) may change some of his secret theories about how John feels, because surely a person who can barely tolerate him wouldn’t voluntarily get trapped on the ocean with him, right? Surely? Maybe he just wants to make sure he doesn’t wreck the boat? Jury’s still out, but, probably another point for “John is a pretty nice person and I like him, actually.”

That said, Cobalt is harboring one secret anger: during Betrayal, Amaranth attacked him and John just stood there and watched. He even stopped the other LiliS from helping, and said it was better this way, for Cobalt to be put down

The way Cobalt died was so bad. It was really, really bad. And John didn’t even try to stop it, even though he was right there. He had the power to make it stop and he didn’t.

When Cobalt looks at this logically, yes, he knows that it maybe was better overall if he were killed before he could hurt someone, because not even Cobalt could trust himself. He’d killed two people at that point, and one of them was purely because of crazy ghost brain. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone, and there’s a part of him that’s grateful he was stopped.

BUT HE WISHED HE DIDN’T HAVE TO BE STOPPED LIKE THAT

So he’s honestly pretty butthurt that John just stood there and watched. There’s a part of him that really wants to be angry at John about it, but then he tells himself that it was the House, and nobody was in their right mind, and maybe John wasn’t either, blah blah blah, all manners of other reasons why John would have done that. Trying really hard to give him the benefit of the doubt. But he’s still hurt, and upset with himself for being upset, angry at himself for being angry. This is all stuff he probably won’t ever bring up! But internally he’s a little at war with himself about it, and it’s complicated some of his feelings about John just a little.

The reason why he visited Amaranth after the House is because he was SUPER UPSET about how she killed him and needed to confront her ASAP for his own sanity. I’m not entirely sure what John’ assumption was re: why he came over that day, but if he has a lower opinion of him for that, then that’s fine. Cobalt still does care about her, even his feelings about her are different now. And he’s going to have his emotional guard up around every LiliS for a while, including both Amaranth AND John, whether he means to or not.

You say that John doesn’t see his obvious faults, but John actually successfully detected AND called out some of his biggest flaws after like one conversation. It was very impressive. But if John no longer thinks those flaws are exaggerated, then that’s fine with Cobalt, I’m sure. ;> Thank you, Imeeji, for having a lot of characters who are much bigger disasters than him to move the overton window of personality failures.

Glacies - Hell yeah, Glacies!!

Not gonna lie, he was really suspicious of her at first. Before she arrived, pep had a newbie that was really sweet, polite, and friendly, who he got along with really well. But it turned out this newbie did not communicate her inner thoughts very much, and during a bad game, she snapped and dropped the veneer of compassionate understanding and lashed out at pep. She steamrolled him and made an already bad game into one of his most traumatic ones, and even though pep won the game and survived, he was so upset about how things went that he immediately went on to try and kill himself in the castle game as a direct result.

The takeaway he got from this was “don’t trust newbies, even when they seem nice.” It also didn’t help that Glacies arrived immediately after a week that included the castle game, capitalism game, space game, AND five of his very good friends dropping within the space of a few days. So he was…. very depressed. And having a very hard time having positive feelings about Glacies’ arrival. He spent a long time emotionally holding her at arm’s length, just in case she wound up hurting him and his unit the way the other had done.

But man, she’s really winning him over. He’s so impressed by how hard she works to help people, and how thoughtful she is. She listens to everyone during games, and he SUPER APPRECIATES that she both expresses her opinions openly, but is also willing to hear out the other players and consider their opinions, too. Because of the specific way he’s been burned in the past, the fact that she is clearly trying to find compromises and work cooperatively with the rest of the unit is something he pays attention to and means a lot to him. Also, he gets the impression she’s willing to put her foot down and be firm when she means it, which is ALSO really important, because he doesn’t want her to get steamrolled, either. He feels like he can trust her to advocate for her own boundaries. So, great work on that front, Glacies!

It helps that her gameplay opinions tend to align with his, as well. That’s convenient. 8)

Games aside, he’s really glad to have someone else from home around, and he feels especially blessed that she’s on his same unit. He’s been homesick for such a long time, being able to talk to her about stuff is something he’s very grateful for. He also really appreciates when she shares her thoughts with him -- her ideas, concerns, and worries -- and he’s working on being more open with her, too. It’s a process; he’s getting there. He doesn’t intentionally hide many things, but he’s also not the best at volunteering things, either. Talking to her is good practice. It also really helps that she’s both mature and able to handle bad news, so he doesn’t feel like he needs to wear any kid gloves with her or carefully tiptoe around certain topics the way he does with a lot of other people. Talking to her is often… a relief.

Anyway. He really likes her a lot, and he feels comfortable with her, and he’s so grateful she’s on his unit. He loves it when she smiles and laughs (even sometimes when it’s at his expense.) A++++ great friend and unitmate.

COUNTER QUESTION: What are some things you want to do/are looking forward to doing with Glacies? What are some things SHE is looking forward to?

Edited 2019-12-26 02:24 (UTC)

God, the house . . . Yeah, there are a few words I could put together on that. That hiccup was more to blame on an OOC thing going on rather than IC intent, but conflict adds a little spice to the mix and wasn't too awful.

I did not realize Cobalt had that hang-up on the new kids! Interesting!! Well, it makes me more pumped in how I play her for being able not to flip that alarm in him again.

Hmm, aspirations with Glacies . . . Gosh, well, I am starting to flirt more seriously with the thought of cast mates. It always takes me a minute to want any like super important CR to be in the game, but I'm starting to come around to the thought of Noctis or any of the other guys, especially since canon didn't really give us anything. Right now, I'm just hoping to get a larger CR net with her and figure out how to put together good, engaging lives. John hasn't really given me any practice on that (for some reason...), so I'm still trying to figure it out when I think she would be a bit better at it than I manage to be. Also, I'm so shy to, like, talk and collaborate with people. It's so silly since it would probably work out much better with outside investment and workshopping. Hmm, I am looking forward to eventually doing something with berserker!Glacies. Emet is having fun doing a science with her and Abinsthe, and she may eventually propose testing how she reacts to, like, a tiny stab, minor cut. Glacies was so locked on during GM because she was tense waiting to see if it was going to suddenly pop up . . . And, you know, that's not a good way to do it!! Nope, it should not be a sudden surprise to unit when they're probably already going through some shit if she managed to get injured in the first place. So, yeah, that is probably on the docket for her whenever she can mumble something at Pink.

GLACIES WANTS TO HAVE PARTIES!!! Oh, god, I love and loathe how she has tasked herself to be the sunshine committee. She is just determined to try and socialize everything better, or attempt the next best thing. For parties or events she is planning on (and one needs to happen during my break, so weigh on which you have most interest in), there is: A beach party with pep, damn it! She has wanted this for OOC months!!; A tea and simple games gathering for Baritones to make them less cagey assholes; Some kind of home-cooked pot-luck thing with HSS, since Hurricane mentioned they weren't a huge eating-together type of unit and she'd like them to experience it, so they can make it their own if they enjoy it; and a calm, relaxed gathering for adults of Imeeji which is more of an OOC desire, but she and Mercury would immediately be on board with shoving the kids away to some lunchables, so the adults can rest in peace for two whole seconds.

Cobalt's trajectory? Where are you hoping to go with him? Any good end thoughts?

YEAH the house stuff was a little awkward because it was something Degen and I really wanted to do, and to allow us to do it required you to come up with SOME reason for why your character wouldn’t intervene. And I really appreciated getting to do that stuff with Degen, because it was a ton of fun, and it feels unfair to punish you (or anyone) ICly for OOC decisions. Especially when the thing you did OOCly was a favor that made us both so happy. For that reason (if not others) I don’t want to put any sort of weight in Cobalt’s weird John feelings, and I am not about to let those feelings impact his behavior in any meaningful way. He’s never brought it up ICly ever, and I don’t expect he will. It’s more like, “here’s a feeling of tension that we could explore if either of us actually wanted to” but otherwise probably won’t ever come up on its own.

More castmates would be so fun. I’d be tempted to app someone except a) I hella cannot do two characters right now, and b) I couldn’t have CR with the castmates I’d be playing. And that would be terrible!

Berserker Glacies would be fun!!! Hilariously it wouldn’t be pep’s first rodeo with a berserker unitmate so I expect it will go well. Looking forward to it!

YEAH PARTIES!!! A potluck with HSS would be really fun. Cobalt likes quite a lot of people on that unit. A party for grown-ups sounds really fun, too! ALL OF THESE IDEAS SOUND FUN!!!! Cobalt has been wanting to throw a party for literally like an OOC year, so if there is some way to actually do this, somehow, I would be absolutely delighted. He’s angling for a Solstice party right now because Solstice is important to him and he’s homesick and misses his family, but I would also be happy with multiple parties so we can do ALL the ideas. Sign me the fuck up.

There are a couple major things I want to do with Cobalt. The biggest one is for him to learn how to be comfortable with love and sexuality. He had some pretty damaging sex and romance experiences during a formative time in his youth that really fucked him up in a way he’s never properly untangled. He still doesn’t understand his own sexuality (demisexual) so that’s not really helping, either. Based on his experiences (which he mostly does not remember) he believes in his heart that he is just a little bit broken, that there is something wrong with his brain that makes him not feel attraction “correctly” or at all, and the fact that he is terrified and repelled by what should be good things for most people is evidence of his brokenness. He believes he is inherently not a desirable person for anything other than friendship material, and Imeeji has done well to reinforce this belief. And then there’s a lot of latent trauma around sex and love that he doesn’t even remember, but he will still absolutely lose his shit if something gets too close to it anyway. So he’s battling his own personal minefield of emotions that he doesn’t understand. Everything is just really hard and complicated and stressful, and people giving him a hard time about it makes it worse.

He has grown SO MUCH since being in Imeeji. When he first arrived, he was absolutely not okay with anyone touching him in any way that was even slightly affectionate. Hair tussles, hand holding, hugs etc. were all RIGHT OUT. Absolutely not!!!!!!!!!! Terrible!!! However, the bingo games have helped a LOT, because all touching is negotiated beforehand, and people usually ask for consent and respect boundaries. It turns out consent makes things a lot better!! Who knew!! Yugi and Wednesday have also helped him out a lot in this regard, because they are both tactile people who are receptive to being hugged. So at first he’d do it for their sakes to try to comfort them, but then he slowly started to understand the appeal. So he’s coming around!!

I gave him his coeurl transformation corruption specifically to help him overcome his discomfort with physical touch and affection. People tend to pet him a lot when he’s like this, and as a coeurl all touch feels better than normal, so he can build positive associations with touch = good. He’s also slightly less inhibited in this form, and doesn’t feel stress so acutely. This means he feels okay about things that would normally embarrass him, he is more likely to actually ask for things he wants, and he is more likely to initiate physical contact on his own. Maybe some of these feelings will carry over to help him in his normal life, too. It seems to be working so far.

So that’s about where he’s at right now. He’s been slowly pushing his boundaries in healthy ways and growing a lot. He is comfortable hugging a grand total of 8 people now (Glacies got on this list in record time, btw). During the last kiss game (not this one, but the one before) he even kissed TWO (2) people! On the mouth!!!!! holy shit. He still struggles a lot sometimes, especially around certain people, but compared to how he was when he first got here, his growth has been dramatic. I really want that to keep going.

He is still extremely insecure about himself when it comes to sex and romance, and while he is usually open and forthcoming about most topics, this is one topic he absolutely does not want to talk about under any circumstances. (He’s okay talking to people about THEIR sex and romance lives, and maybe that could help normalize it if he did, but talking about his own sex and romance feelings are absolutely off the table.) Because this is such a sore spot for him, any teasing about his love life tends to lead directly to hurt feelings, disproportionate reactions, and minor setbacks for the progress he’s made. This being imeeji, you can see how this is a problem!

His relationship with Thorn is a little weird. Neither of them have actually like… confessed any feelings for each other. They basically started kissing one day and now they sometimes make out in addition to all the stuff they were doing before. They’ve only barely started fooling around a little. It’s going slow; they’re both tornados of of fear and insecurity, anxiously bungling their way into a relationship. Still haven’t gotten naked around each other, still haven’t gone all the way, still it took like an OOC year before they finally even kissed so…who knows what will happen on this front. Even though they are absolutely in a relationship, Cobalt Does Not Ever talk about it. They don’t generally engage in any public displays of affection. They do not hold hands anywhere where people might see. They are very much on the downlow because they are shy and full of ten billion bees. The relationship feels fragile, like it could fall apart into splinters at any time. He doesn’t feel as secure about as I wish he did.

My absolute ideal situation, though, is to get where a point where Cobalt can openly admit Thorn is his boyfriend and have that not feel like a big deal. Or just… be able to talk about his relationship like a normal human being. Or have Thorn come over to spend a night or two and not have to stress out about his unitmates knowing he’s there, or carefully sneaking him out in the morning when nobody’s looking. Or have romance/sexual intimacy become a good thing instead of a source of pain. It would be amazing if he could just relax and have everything just… be okay. Find peace.

The other thing I want to do with him is have him remember more of his life. The catch is that I hate writing and he’s an OC so I have to write all his memories, myself. Wow, I hate that!! So much!!! So he hasn’t gotten any memories at all for a truly ridiculous amount of time; for a while I was off the hook because he made the decision to not take memories while he was feeling sad, because some of his memories have been terrible and he doesn’t want to deal with that on top of his normal everyday sadness. And for a while he was never not sad! so it made my life very easy. However, he had a dream thread (which was started before Betrayal but I am still picking at it, even after all this time,) that has healed him so significantly he’s ready to take memories again. Fuck. I played myself. Now I’ve gotta write them. Or find someone I can pay to write them for me.

I honestly have no idea what his good end might possibly be. Imeeji is a much, MUCH better place than his home is, even when you factor in all the bad games. He’s a lot happier here than he was at home. His family is dead, which means they’re somewhere here in Hell now, and he wants to find them and be reunited. So even if he graduated, he’d probably stay in Hell as a demon, probably trying to use his position on the outside to try and help Intensity overthrow the system. He can’t go anywhere without Thorn, though, so the only way he’d graduate is if Thorn did, too.

I can’t see any of that happening for a long time, though, if at all!! Either he’ll last until the end of imeeji, or (more likely) my anxiety will become too strong and I will drop Imeeji (and RP in general) forever one day without warning. One of those! Hopefully the former.

You mentioned it in plurk and now I’m curious: who are John’s kids, and who are the people he’d consider having sex and/or relationships with?

ALL THESE THINGS I DID NOT KNOW (OR REMEMBER??) ABOUT COBALT . . . !!! Aaah, oh my gosh, I am going to have to roll those thoughts over, because I'm super interested in it.

On the memories, I would say bullet point it or something, but . . . God, they can be so long. Glacies tends to be spartan, because I have a lot of headcanon with her, so I just bullet point out the big things. I wouldn't even write up as much as I do for her except she has memory-pact with Absinthe, so it's all — Have to be written to be shared-ish. But John will always spawn multiple paragraphs from writing up forty minutes of television, ugh. G-Godspeed with memories . . .

Well, with the understanding that differently-abled and younger people tend to have a quicker access to John (and even Will), he's got about . . . Two point five kids?? There is Silver, Camellia, and Nemesis. Silver was obviously the first, and John does give Silver a lot of leeway while still trying to guide him. John has been kept stable and manageable by having a connection to Silver that grounds him, but he's still allergic to putting words or feelings on the relationship. Camellia managed to pull off the same trick as Silver to get John to care about her while he got amnesia during GM. Both of them are younger individuals that are doing their best to manage the situation and help others, but they definitely are taking on a lot of burden that ought to be divided and shared more across many different people. So, John immediately latched onto supporting Camellia the same as he tried to support Silver within WC. He's not quite there with doing anything emotionally involved with her, because she still cuts too far into the 'Too Good to Be Around Me' area but he's not going to just leave her out to dry, either. And Nemesis . . . Fuck, she is his sleeper favorite. He always smiles and laughs more with her, enjoys shooting the breeze with her, and it's really one of his brightest, most positive relationships. The only issue is that he and Nemesis both do not do well with engaging with feelings. He tried it once awhile ago with her, and they both were deeply uncomfortable with it and had a poor time. John has been convinced up til now to not try it again, but he has some deep concerns after seeing her get tortured and also having amnesia and re-evaluating his own situation. Do not leave funny, sarcastic powerhouse alone . . .

Um, relationships and sex, though . . . Gosh, okay, John/Will is way more comfortable with sex than with relationships which is a surprise to everyone ever. I still love that Will only ever got up to calling Hannibal a friend when they are on the soul mate level, but you have your emotional hang-ups, buddy, okay. Uh, in Imeeji, I don't think he has anyone that he would consider dating or having a relationship with. Everyone is either too crazy or not smart enough to keep pace with him. He really does lean towards the emotionally intelligent and caring individuals when he's open to the thought of dating. When you add in his age bracket . . . I think only Silk and Glacies fill the quota? And Silk is a little too reticent, so I am apparently playing a potential ship with myself, cool. Anyway, sex tends to be an open option for anyone who is around his age range and can understand that it is a one-time hook-up, no repeats, we don't have feelings about it. Amaranth is an option in theory, but he is allergic to the concept in a big way. Grace, Silk, Thorn, Doodles, King, Shrike, and Yvette check all boxes without too much issue. However, any of those would require John to want a sex which is asking him to have far too much personal awareness . . . I'm setting a timer for about two OOC weeks before I (and thus he) forget that a hormone was had during kissing game.

What are Cobalt's plot thoughts? He does a lot with writing up the guides, but I haven't caught much of his personal opinion or plans in threads.

WAIT HOLD UP I FORGOT SOMETHING RE: HIS PERSONAL TRAJECTORIES. Which will probably wind up impacting Glacies at some point, somehow, sometime. So I’m coming back to it before this thought gets away again.

One thing going on for Cobalt is that, just beneath that friendly exterior, he is incredibly, unbelievably ANGRY. And he has absolutely zero healthy ways of coping with it!!!

As you can imagine, this being Imeeji, a whole lot of things have happened that have really pissed him off! Bad End, fin, and HSS -- his top three beloved units -- eating shit nonstop, for one. The time in the balloon game when his unitmate steamrolled him and he sacrificed his best friend because his other unitmates wouldn’t budge on the units on their own no-hit lists. Maki’s live immediately after, threatening to kill everyone who hit fin. The castle game and the unbELIEVABLE amount of bullshit that went down both during and after, and all the people who came out of the woodwork to leap straight up his butt about it. He’s mad at every single off-unit person who’s told him how he is and is not allowed to play games on his own unit, without even bothering to ask how any of them feel. He’s mad at all the people who have told him he has no right to be upset because he hasn’t visibly suffered enough to earn it yet. He’s mad at the out-of-game murders, at God and Belial, at HSS, at Pentium, at Aries, he’s mad at everyone who scorned pep!pep! and called them extortionists when they actually tried to stand up for themselves and have a boundary. He’s angry at the producers and the audience and all the other idols who make this place suck when it doesn’t have to, at the unfairness of everything and the endless helplessness of not being able to protect anyone or change anything, and the survivor’s guilt, and constantly getting his feelings policed.

But every time something happens that he gets pissed about, he talks to the other person, and they explain why they’re mad, and he instantly capitulates, saying “well, their point of view makes sense” and “they’re saying this because they care for me” or “they are not hurting my feelings on purpose so I shouldn’t be mad” and all manner of excuses. He doesn’t stand up for himself or express his anger at all ever. Because every time he’s ever dared to show 5 seconds of anger in Imeeji it’s always made his life measurably worse, so this has become a dangerous emotion for him. So instead he tells himself he’s being unreasonable, and that he ought to just take everything others say at face value, and he shouldn’t be mad. He takes all his anger and crams it in a jar and shoves that jar under the bed where nobody can see it and he doesn’t process any of it ever.

So, of course, it is all steadily mounting inside of him like a pressure cooker full of nails and despite his cheerful demeanor, if something doesn’t happen to give him some healthy way of addressing this and dealing it properly, one of these days he’s going to McFucking Lose It and burn everything to the ground. As you do!

So that’s a fun thing for everyone to look forward to! :’DDDDDDD

Anyway thank you, I’m glad you think this is interesting because apparently I am incapable of not writing five million words about it.

Moving on, plot thoughts:

Cobalt’s not convinced going back home is a good idea for him, and the more he remembers, the more resolved he’s going to feel. At home, he’s 5 years into WoR, his family’s dead, his friends are dead, his city’s dead, he has amnesia, and the world is collapsing around him at high speed. The only good thing in his life is Thorn, and he’s in Imeeji now too, so there’s nothing left for him to return to. So instead of running away, he’s staying here and trying to improve what we’ve got.

What he wants to do, at this current moment, is escape Imeeji to find his parents. His family is almost certainly somewhere in hell and he wants to be reunited with them and be happy. Above that, his topmost desire would be to change the system. The current system, with Lucifer in charge, has two hells where humans can survive but suffer constantly, and a whole bunch of other hells where entire worlds full of people can’t survive at all. Not ideal!

Currently, Intensity’s goals align with his. They both have family in hell they want to rescue. They both want to escape this place and change the system. So Cobalt’s doing everything he can to support Intensity and the rest of the community to try and achieve that goal, because that seems like his best option right now, that has the best chance to succeed.

He doesn’t want to necessarily kill, replace, or defeat either Azzy or Pythia. Both of them are helping humans, in their ways, though he wants them to do it better. And removing them seems unideal because it will destabilize the only two places where people (including imeeji) can actually exist, not to mention creating a power void for some other worse demon to swoop in and take over.

What they can do from inside Imeeji is really limited, and there’s still a lot they don’t know. Specifically, they need to learn a lot more about their adversaries. What do they want? What do they fear? What are their endgame goals? We need leverage in the worst way.

Cobalt thinks their best bet is to get allies on the outside, as high up on the totem pole as possible. Their best bet is probably Furfur, the fallen angel who’s the head of Pythia’s security. We know what he wants (a happy life for himself and his wife), we know that he’s not particularly loyal to Pythia and will follow whoever is most likely to give him what he desires, he’s already given us a lot of information and aid when he didn’t have to, and we have a way of communicating with him (his wife watches the show religiously, and her favorite characters are Cardigan, Shu, and Pharaoh.) Cardigan is unflinchingly loyal to Intensity, so we need to get Cardigan in the vid room to pass a message to Furfur through his wife, to set up a more discrete means of communication somehow.

The trick is figuring out how to reach out to him in a way where he’ll bite, because we don’t have any leverage right now. We don’t have anything he might want.

Their second best bet is for someone to graduate and take Asmodeus’ offer. Then they’d gain the power of demons, the ability to travel nearly anywhere, and they’d be able to support Imeeji from the outside, doing recon and stuff. If Cobalt were offered graduation right now, this is what he’d do (and use his wish to…. fffffix Eos? Somehow???)

Mehniel seems like he has the potential to help us, because he’s extremely powerful and we share a common enemy, but he’s also so much of a loose cannon he’s difficult to control. Plus his current status is unknown. That sure doesn’t help. Cobalt’s pretty sure they haven’t seen the last of him, though, and he’d like to be prepared when that happens. Prepared for what, though, is the question. Every time Mehniel’s shown up, something completely bananas has happened that nobody saw coming. So for now, the best he can do to prepare is to write everything they know down in a compendium and distribute it to literally everyone so they can keep an eye out and report back if they see anything. Arm everyone with information so if they see Mehniel they’ll have a chance to recognize him and know what his deal is so they don’t have to start at square one of “what the fuck’s an angel” the way Cobalt did when he first got to imeeji.

From what he knows, he thinks anyone who tries to take on the demons using powers -- the powers the demons gave us in the first place and can take away as effortlessly as thinking it -- are naive. Instead of fighters, what we need right now are spies and diplomats. People with charisma who can shmooze and negotiate and can hold their ground. What I’m saying is that Glacies could probably be useful, here, when it comes time to haggle with the demons and suss out their vulnerabilities.

Cobalt has no capacity for nuance in conversation and he’s easily intimidated, so he’s not an ideal negotiator. He’s better off doing back-end stuff -- collecting and distributing information, brainstorming, and coming up with strategies. Quite a few of his theories behind what’s going on have wound up being true, like Hadassah’s true identity, and the fact that Lilith is working with Asmodeus and not Pythia, that imeeji was a program that people could wind up repeating several times. Not all of his theories wind up coming true but his hit to miss ratio is pretty okay. So he’s going to keep at it until they start making some breakthroughs.

OK I… CAN’T THINK OF A QUESTION FOR YOU RIGHT NOW SO I WILL THINK ABOUT IT AND TRY TO COME BACK TO THIS

Glacies impression of Silk...?

Even tho they've only threaded maybe twice and also I only just tagged back in the game thread, but.

Hahahah, well! For Silk, Glacies views their clash as a cultural conflict which she is determined to respectfully overcome. However, she also knows that she personally makes Silk uncomfortable, so she's not ready to push her too far on the issue. If it was something vitally important, then Glacies would move with more urgency and apply more pressure, but she doesn't see that way and knows pushing any further will just get Silk's back up more.

On a personal level, Silk is definitely kind in Glacies' book. She is protective of her unit, of other people. Glacies can tell there was something difficult for Silk in the past, that got her to be wary of others, but Silk seems to have found something of a comfortable place in Imeeji for herself which Glacies is happy for. Also, hush, Glacies is very thankful that Silk is also part of the effort to get Jay to not flip out at every turn, okay. She is not going to try to stop that every time because she knows her limitations, and the more people on the team, the better. Jay is a good boy, he should have lots of people looking out for him, like he already does.

And, yeah, reverse! I'm curious!

So! I was looking for Glacies' inbox and ran into this. If I am too late, that is fine but I am curious!

Question 1 - CR for Glacies and Ardyn because I stalk them. They are so good.

Question 2 - CR for Emet-Selch and Glacies.

(also if I want emet to text Glacies where should I do that?)

I have been using her continuations post for texts. But I should really get around to proper contact pages for both of mine, oops . . .

I want to be like really composed and articulate on Glacies and Absinthe, but that is near impossible because of how much is going on between them, so you get the full ramble, yep.

Overall, she is positive towards him with the understanding there are a lot of hang-ups involved. Right now, she is trying her best to engage with the person presented before her, rather than the five million issues she has heard or knows of. She wants to get to know him and see the good in him before she confronts all that has gone wrong with or because of him. Glacies has more or less heard the reasoning behind why Absinthe did most of what he did back home which makes it hard for her to judge him, especially when she recently got back her biggest axe to grind with what went down back home. To her, he was doing what he could in order to meet a particular end. The situation was unfair, and he was managing. Granted, he could have found another way about it, but there isn't anything to be done about remonstrating him for what he's done; she can effect what he is going to do a lot more than she can what he did. Also, no one responds well to someone lecturing them on what they should do without establishing a strong personal bond first. She does get that she is not making the strongest connection she can without facing his actions, but she also doesn't want to prematurely have The Talk, especially when she is lacking a lot of context, then have to keep revisiting it with more and more outrage. The big hot button issues that will probably push her to confront him will be the death of her mother, the destruction of Insomnia, and her death being a tool to enrage Noctis.

She also has a lot to find out about from what he's done in Imeeji which has less excuses, and she will probably be more upset about it. Granted, his actions had a bigger effect back home, but there was a lot of (horrible, no good) logic behind it. In Imeeji, that excuse doesn't fly as far. Glacies is not going to be okay with signing off on his actions without the attempt being made to try anything else first. Again, she sees his future actions as infinitely more malleable than his past ones, so what he does when she is present or when she knew what situation he had going on at that point is going to get a lot more questions.

Then, I got sidetracked trying to figure out XV lore . . . So, I need to come back to this at not 4AM. Please, hold.

I am excited to hear the rest. I am on Idaho internet (which might as well be my computer plugged into a potato!), but I hope you got some good rest!

Okay, back at it!! So, on a personal level, Absinthe has been pretty gracious with Glacies, so she doesn't have a bad take on him. He does try to play games and do his skeezy thing, but it's not more than on a surface level. Glacies has never felt any threat from Absinthe, not physical or sexual, and she trusts that he is meting out information for his own sake and, possibly, hers. I mean, part of her feels for the fact that he isn't used to being treated as a normal human in some way, so she tries to keep it all fairly on the up and up, normal in as much as they can manage . . .

God, okay, I will say that her decision to not give too much credit to his reputation came from her trying to deceive him on their first meeting and, well, it just didn't work out! She didn't like the feeling that came from trying to play him, and he was too practiced with it, so she just has decided to be very forthcoming with him. Even when she sees that she is posing a threat to his own aims, Glacies has come straight out and said that she is without any heat to it. It helps that the Absinthe reaction to half of her bullshit is just to sigh and shrug. He is really indulging of her! Glacies takes all her memories with him, to be perfectly honest with him on what she knows, and she invites him over for tea, and she just treats him like a friend. Hell, she stabbed him, and he did a lot more to help her as she was freaking out than she did for him.

Honestly, he kind of is a mentor, too! As she learns more about herself and her world, she can see where her destiny is paralleling his, so she really has no one else but him to learn from to try and make her go of it better. She doesn't know that they are both the only functioning humans with scourge, but she wouldn't be surprised if they were. It certainly seemed a surprise to Thorn and Cobalt when she talked to them. The fact they share such common points of history and identity ties right back into making it hard to chastise him for his behavior. What is she going to say when some odd years down the road she could be doing the exact same thing?

ANYWAY, WORDS WORDS WORDS. Glacies is fairly positive on Absinthe! She has the potential to get very steamed at him, but it comes from a place of compassion rather than disgust! And she got to give him a hug and no one died, super great!!

Hmm, Emet!! Glacies had deep reservations about him before, because she had a lot of Baritones suddenly jumping on her as being special to Absinthe which is not how she wants to be framed nor drawing attention to Absinthe in ways he doesn't want. However, Emet has been respectful since, so she is slowly learning to relax around him. There is a discomfort with how he approaches or views things that she can understand as being part of his background or nature, but she also can't really see where that behavior is any threat to her. Again, if she's going to shift his thinking, she can do more by engaging him than just shutting it down. So, she gently pushes back when needed, but she is also trying to force herself to listen to him carefully.

She is very cautious about his relationship with Absinthe. Glacies can tell there is some connection, but anyone who knows anything about Absinthe knows they can't really be sure where they stand with him. Glacies is certain that she is pretty important to him, but she also knows it is less on a personal level, more to do with what she is. To her, betraying Absinthe's trust is really a heavy weight, but she can also see that Absinthe gave her freedom to share whatever she wants about him with anyone. The understanding being that what he may find difficult to share, she may share for him. Granted, he probably thinks that he isn't telling her any damn thing . . . But he can think what he wants, and she will just read between the lines, thank you very much. So, there is a pressure to give Emet enough bread crumbs to strengthen his own connection with Absinthe. It's a very delicate balancing game between her reservations, her wish to protect all involved, and the character of all of them.

In summary, Glacies has some reservations, but she is pushing herself to trust him. There is something worthwhile there, and she doesn't intend to miss it.

OKAY, FIRST, TALK TO ME ABOUT EMET AND GLACIES, KTHX.

Thank you for indulging me on Absinthe and Glacies. I do really enjoy them! And I did see the hug and got a good chuckle out of it. Indeed, no one did die. I really enjoy how Glacies just pushes him just a little. And that they are just both polite face at each other sometimes. It's really good.

It was really good of Glacies to be wary of Emet-Selch, because he absolutely was going to use her to learn more about Absinthe, and it became quickly apparent that she was going to make him do his own research. So she got a few begrudging respect points for that. That is someone who is reliable.

In the GM game, he was not lying when he said he trusted her. 1) She seems the person who when she says she is going to do something, she will indeed do it, and 2) She generally seems like a person who is caring of the lives placed in front of her. #2 is probably what got him to respect her more. It's the attitude he would like to have, but he keeps falling back into his own cannon headspace of everyone else are not real people so there is no point in caring about the masses. It's been a few lifetimes and habits are hard to break. While he realizes he will never have that attitude, he will always respect those that do.

I find it amusing that both of them have come to the conclusion of 'be very careful with Absinthe's trust'. He's quite sure that once that particular bond is broken it will be impossible to repair. On the flip side, he also knows of Absinthe's goal, and he does not like it. He does not like it one bit! It is a monumental waste of effort for no gain whatsoever, and it will do him no favors. However, doing anything about it seems complicated and he's got enough on his place, so he's putting it aside for now.

Curing and figuring out the mess that is Absinthe's soul, however, seems like both an intriguing puzzle and a boon to him. So that has his current attention. He was very surprised to see that Glacies also suffered the same illness, though he's not quite sure if they are the same. He is curious to see if her soul is also corrupted (thank you dream powers!). He would genuinely like to see her cured without the reliance on these gods of hers. Also before all that crazy stuff happened to him and his people, they were a group of scholars, and he hasn't been presented with such an intriguing puzzle in a long time.

So a lot of Glacies CR is still wrapped around Absinthe CR, but he definitely sees her as her own person with wants and desires and hopes. He will pick and choose which of these he will assist, as he sees no reason for her not to live a long and happy life after this whole Hell ordeal. He's mildly invested in seeing that happen which for someone outside of BARiTONES is quite a feat.

For both John and Glacies, do they have any idea what they plan to do if presented with graduation?

John plans to raise an eyebrow, murmur 'huh', and walk away from it. He has long since planned to just remain forevermore in Imeeji. It's hard to manipulate the variables enough to get the ends he wants, but he knows that if he holds onto his space then he is denying one more person the trial of going through this place and potentially being lost forever . . . It's funny that it isn't to support anyone, but he really can't picture himself in that kind of position. He's just prepared to be left alone at the very end of times with the demons sighing at him, because he did it again . . .

Glacies is and will always lean towards going back home immediately with no catch. She has a lot of work, and she has been slotted as one of those key pivotal people in how things shake out in her world, so she can't really ignore it. For me and her, that time will likely come after she's shown some growth on par to what the alternate end to her canon gave us and also whenever she completely fuck-owns Absinthe into getting off his bullshit. Glacies would, of course, like to remain and help everyone else out where she can, but she also knows that people who know her and care for her would understand that she has a lot of other things on her plate, so she can't really stick around for any longer than she truly has to.

And, now, it is time to talk to me about Absinthe and Emet.

John! I really enjoy John a lot and this is something he would totally do, but John!

Absinthe is probably the person he is most comfortable around. Their banter is engaging, he's mellow enough to just let things be, and he's surprising calming to be around. Now he knows a lot of this is an act, but oh, well, he's taking it.

Absinthe will always have his respect for what he did with the Starscourge before his imprisonment --- that selfless sacrifice. It reminds him of his people and how they sacrificed themselves for each other, and he has such deep awe and almost reverence for that. So even if they were to have a falling out, Absinthe will always have his respect. He will be placed on par with his people which Emet has nothing but love, appreciation, and awe for.

However, Absinthe's stated goal of revenge is just plain dumb. To put all that effort, all that planning, all the grit for what? When it's over, he'll be no happier than he was before. Worse yet, he wants to go to his grave shortly after. If he isn't going to find peace or solace or some amount of world where he is happy after the fact, then there is no point. He won't tell him that to his face because at the end of the day it is Asbsinthe's choice. Absinthe is smart, he weighed the options, and while he believes he came to the wrong conclusions he won't bully him about it.

Emet-Selch also as sees a lot of parallels in himself compared to Absinthe. A worldwide tragedy, a betrayal, and then being thrown into a world that doesn't seem your own. He's pretty sure if he was in Absinthe's shoes he just would have stopped, simply put. So he can't really begrudge him his desire to end it. It fortifies just how lucky he was to have his two companions even if they didn't necessarily always get along. He always had them. He can't imagine attempting it alone. (Subsequently it also just fortifies his horror that out of the three of them only Elidibus is left, and Elidibus will absolutely break under it all.)

He also can't imagine being imprisoned unable to die for two thousand years in isolation. That almost chills to the bone more than the state of his soul which is a mess! A mess and something that looks exceedingly painful. Honestly, he really did start his research on the Starscourge to cure Absinthe's soul. No one deserves that. The fact that he blights other souls is really quite sickening to him --- another huge strike against the pointless revenge --- and if it could be cured, it would be better for everyone involved on the planet. This is why he approached Glacies to see if he could give her a tool to fight the Starscourge as farfetched as finding an actual solution is. He knows a cure will undermine Absinthe, but he can't in good faith not try to find a cure. He will still use it for a rejoining, but that excuse was mostly for Absinthe.

Emet-Selch has come to the conclusion that he can't really do it anything for Absinthe that will have much impact. So he has decide to see if he can at least give Absinthe some semblance of joy before he goes off and does his revenge. He's not arrogant enough to think he can make him happy, but a pocket of good memories here or there wouldn't go amiss and he certainly has earned it.

Outside of his horrible circumstances that is FFXV, he genuinely likes him! His dry humor, his wit, and Emet-Selch does derive a lot of comfort from Absinthe. Of the people he's told about his goals, he wasn't worried that Absinthe would be upset by it. He finds great joy in the banter they have back and forth. He can definitely push more boundaries than he can with anyone else. Also despite being a decaying zombie, somehow Absinthe's physical presence is a comfort which Emet-Selch isn't sure why, but just accepts it all the same. Absinthe is also incredibly frustrating at times, but that is part of his charm. He's a delightful puzzle!

So to contrast Absinthe and Glacies. Absinthe represents the comfort at the end of a very bad day where all you want to do is blanket burrito. Glacies is the inspiration, the goodwill towards others that makes you want to get up in the morning and appreciate the day.

It's weird. Not sure how it came to this, but here it is.

For both John and Glacies, if they had to yeet one unit from existence, which unit would it be and why?

John would be extremely torn between Baritones and Zrael for yeet purposes. If it came down to it, he would probably pick Zrael since they are a lot less active in ways he can pick up. Baritones is a greater threat in the long run, but they are also the threat he is familiar with and he can engage. So, they can stick around while he just takes out a problem that refuses to be managed at all. Also, they are threatening his fucking son, so they can get the fuck out. Bye, Felicia.

Glacies would also lean towards Zrael. It isn't for lack of love, though she is light on CR with them as well, but they have caused a lot of problems that she can see and not help with whereas she is actually working and engaging Baritones. If Zrael wasn't really, really Zrael, she would probably be looking towards power sets that make her really wary. The issue is that the people can't be divorced from the powers available to them, so it would be a game of balancing who can she live with dooming to some unknowable end versus how much does she not trust anyone to ever have this ability. Given enough time and awareness of what is going on, she would absolutely switch to Baritones, though. Y'all are collective assholes, and you need to stop that.

I have not done a single solitary MMO since Ragnarok. Sell me on XIV. Also, I have spent 500+ hours in Don't Starve if that helps in the selling process.

I did not see this when it went up, but I am interested in a CR update between Glacies and Jay!

Hmm, this is a hard ask, because they have been doing a lot of lowkey development rather than having any big revelations. Glacies is just an accommodating girl who is not going to make any drama, since Jay manages enough of that himself and does not need a tiny bit more in her mind. She appreciates that he does push back on her thoughts and decisions, since it does make her explore them a bit more to make sure they are what she should be doing. Jay, dear, you are the adrenaline junkie who needs high-stakes distraction, not Glacies, but she is glad for the offer. There is the feeling that she is, perhaps, a little too slow and sedate for him, but she is going to leave that decision up to him. Well, in as much as a decision is needed, since he can't even commit to dating anyone. But Jay is a good boy who can say that he is no longer interested in a girl. Glacies believes in him. At the core, the relationship is still the same. Glacies draws comfort from Jay, and she hopes to provide the same for him. His honesty and direct manner is definitely the draw for her. I mean, she would obviously help and comfort anyone that she could, but she has a personal interest in him because of who he is.

And, gosh, to clear the air and also help myself out in the future. I know that their threads have been pretty tame lately which isn't a huge draw for RP. I'm going to try to be more mindful of, like, the bigger topics that they ought to discuss which would be . . . Malik, PTSD, her death and that scar, the relationship question . . . I feel like there was something more game connected for them, so that may also get tacked on.

Reverse?

CR MINE BECAUSE IM GREEDY!

BUT THERE ARE ... SO MANY ...

Uh, Glacies thinks that Camellia is a very nice girl. She appreciates the easy chatter between them as well as getting to learn her way around baking with her. They will not have a deeper relationship on the pain of my death.

John doesn't have any strong, new thoughts on Silver, I think. It's always very slow and undercurrent moves with them, though. Silver wanting to be around for memories meant something. Not that he was going to say no, but it is the action that counts! John was sitting on his hands, trying not to explain that he is banking on Silver being the first to call him out when he gets too dicey because he figures Silver already knew that. They tend to be going through the focus on John cycle since dad is twitching a lot lately about five million things, and Silver had his cycle just before. It's finally getting back to a point where John is getting on his feet enough to attend to Silver, checking if everything is okay with him. There is a weird paternal itch in John nowadays where he wants to do more things with Silver? Like just them activities rather than being sarcastic assholes together? It feels like it would be weird to mention any stronger than he has, though . . .

Camellia is, of course, the new kid on the dad block for John. Like I said before, she did the same thing of punching John right in the gut with managing the situation and acting far beyond her years that Silver did. While John doesn't view things too much according to age, since what is age in this place anyway lol, he does feel a bit slighted on behalf of the kids that are just growing up way too fast because of Imeeji. At first, she was a bit difficult for him, because she seemed to be one of those too wholesome types that he gets nervous with. Still, she was stubborn enough to keep at it without having too much energy, so she got him to relax the slightest before game and amnesia happened. There is still a big reservation in him about how to handle her, because fear is getting too close to anyone ever. Actually, if I look at how John went with Silver, he is due to start doing some bullshit on her behalf which is already a thing. —He learned from last time! He is not as dumb as he was then, he swears!!

ok reverse

insert appropriate john mulaney "now we don't have time to unpack all of that!" gif

So, normally, I sum up the relationship in one line then expound upon it with more words, but I am not sure where to put these two at. . . Maybe, John gives a fuck about Amaranth, but he also logically knows he absolutely should not is the best zippy one liner. So, John knows how to shift his behavior in order to get along best with people or to just piss people off enough into leaving him alone. In Amaranth's case, he can't give her what she wants because it is so absolutely off the table, and he is kind of past the point of intentionally being the biggest asshole. Somewhere during the monster game, he became aware that just dealing with her straight is a bad idea. He has been lazy in that regard and not presenting for anyone which is just . . . A pain . . . So, John has been aware that he needs to be more careful in handling her, but there hasn't been much time for him to pick something out. And I haven't meditated on it which is kind of why I wanted to essay a bit, win!

So, hm, they were lowkey rubbing up against each other wrong because she is very direct and blunt while John demands a certain level of empathy or, baring that, time and space. However, as the thought came to him, the GM game happened and blew everything up. It's amazing how positive that game was for having him step back and re-evaluate his behaviors with LiliS; he really had been living with some level of hyper activated PTSD from his time with WC. Honestly, given the chance, he would never, ever go back. Not for Silver, not for anything. So, Amaranth coming down so hard on him without his memories and even when they came back was frustrating, because it was exactly what she wanted? Not that she can enjoy that around him because tsundere, but what more do you want? He also didn't like that she questioned his intentions, either. Without his memories, he was just trying to do what he thought the group wanted most. To stop the fighting before they went too far, to make sure she came back into the fold . . . He was reading those intentions off of Camellia and the rest, so that is what he was trying to act on, not looking down on her.

Ah, that's an issue he has— Respect. John doesn't know how, but Amaranth has the idea that he has no respect for her. If he didn't respect her, he wouldn't talk with her or make half the efforts he has. He has a crude way of talking, but it is also his unfiltered speech which is also not privy to most. So, when he thinks of shifting how he presents, he is realizing that Amaranth doesn't know how to read these behaviors from him. (And how could she, no one in Imeeji is a rocket scientist, John.) Presenting is just a way to communicate the same message in a different way. John can't help doing a lot of emotional labor on his side, his fault and he knows it, so if he can turn that in his favor and smooth out the path . . . Well, have at it! Also, if he changes his presentation, he is hoping she will stop being so sharp in her own comments. No le gusta, no gracias.

Then, the duel . . . There are a lot of feelings mixed up in that. The main ones for John being that he knew Camellia was trying to avoid that, to stop conflict, and that he is terrified of another WC happening. Whatever the cultural context for Amaranth, he knows how it would read to everyone else on LiliS, so he was indignant on their behalf. When it gets out, it would also read as Amaranth being a loose canon and that is not a good position to be in. He hated it from before, and he still hates it. His time with WC was doing a lot of dirty double-dealing, turning public favor against them, and giving long and deep thought over the best ways to kill his entire unit if he absolutely needed to. Amaranth giving such a strong hint of going back to that set all his alarms off; he's already had to plan out how to kill her from back in the house which is revolting enough. This is not what he wants for himself or LiliS or even Amaranth.

Hmmm, thinking on future responses from John to Amaranth . . . He's going to smooth a lot out, keep a lot from her, and not react too strongly. When John is reading her, there is no space for his feelings in the mix. He needs to focus and be absolutely on point, so even one feeling is one too many when it comes to Amaranth. Even in withdrawing himself, he doesn't have any intention to exclude her from LiliS, rather . . . He's still so sensitive to that feeling of hers that the effort will be made to include her when possible. So, he's going to keep talking to her about anything other than himself. After their live conversation, John would like to have a talk about on and off camera discussions, but that is probably too much for him to manage right now. So, yeah, he is working on getting his psychopathic glow-up, so he can just easily navigate all of this.

ok I'm actually going to go ahead and reply here since it's easier to ensure I don't miss anything. also apologies, I accidentally wrote you a novella.

So, I believe I've mentioned something along these lines before, but Amaranth's relationship with John is made up of fine layers of positive and negative emotion, built up over time like sedimentary rock. From their very first meeting in the Hunger Games, he struck her as someone unaccustomed to feeling as though there might be people who unequivocally have his back, and—notwithstanding the fact that she's also just Like This as a person—it made her want to offer some kind of salve to that aura of loneliness he carries around with him like a cloud of fog.

...Too bad they're such wildly different people! womp womp.

I think I want to start off talking about Amaranth's relationship to both respect and to displays of emotion, since they're each so central to her conflicts with John, and clarifying them I think goes a long way to explaining why she responds to him the way that she does.

For all that Amaranth is in a lot of ways a very deliberate person, she's also unapologetically passionate, with (as John has almost certainly noticed) a fierce sense of personal pride. While a lot of this passion is just, you know, her personality, it's also something that has been culturally encouraged. While a lot of Tsubaki Province is just Sengoku-era Japan with the patriarchy tempered a bit and then flipped upside down, a side effect of women being the archetypal warriors has been that emotions aren't stigmatized as weak; to the contrary, ~a warrior's passion~ is, if anything, encouraged.

As such, Amaranth has had a really hard time with how stoic and restrained John is. She wants him to know how she's feeling because she wants to know how he is feeling—she has these big, dramatic reactions to him as a very deliberate display of emotion in the hope that she can spur him into having Big Feelings along with her. Instead, when John reacts with his characteristic constrained responses, it feels essentially like a snub—like she's opening her heart to him, and he's at best failing to reciprocate; at worst, actively treating it as evidence that she's on some level rash or irresponsible. Essentially, whenever John comes off as trying to "manage" her emotions, she interprets it as condescension. (There's a touch of irony in all this, since Amaranth likewise continued to put in effort with John because she respected him and considered it worthwhile.)

The result has been that she's had the niggling impression that he doesn't entirely respect her for quite some time; it's just in GM game where it finally hit levels of being not just low-key irritating to something that made her specifically angry. It was really just a perfect storm of circumstances: amnesia!John arriving on the scene with no context for anything, seeing Camellia being the source of LiliS's strategy without the context that Amaranth had just arrived, herself; the fact that Amaranth still looks like she's just 20; Camellia's "negative trait" card presumably being why her reaction to Amaranth was quite that dramatically self-martyring (I actually don't know for sure and haven't wanted to pester Mika, but I assume it was at least something along those lines); Amaranth having just come back from seeing one of her son-figures brutally murdered, immediately followed by learning some really upsetting things about her world which re-framed one of her memories as her participating in institutionalized murder...
What I'm saying is that it was a lot, and it meant amnesia!John got a front row seat to seeing her at her most fragile—and even though she knew it wasn't really his fault, the fact that this was the basis on which John was judging her, now, just felt like one too many insults to bear. It felt like interacting with a judgmental stranger wearing the face of an old friend, and she just Did Not have the emotional bandwidth to deal with it on top of everything else being so bad. Amaranth is overall a quite resilient person, but the collection of circumstances that took place there finally managed to wear her down.

And now, suddenly John wants to be LiliS dad. Regardless of whether one approves of her parenting style, Amaranth has been more or less solo-parenting LiliS from the start... but she feels as though John hasn't acknowledged that, much less apologized for having, until now, resisted being there for the unit with everything in him. Indeed, Amaranth is absolutely aware that John sees her as a potential loose canon and liability. In their thread before his first aid class (the one shortly after he got his memories back), the question Amaranth considered asking but ultimately didn't was whether John saw her as "brutal," like his old Wild City unitmates who he clearly regards as the source of many of his (former?) issues. It's why she used that word with him in their argument about the duel.

So... the duel. There are... so many factors at play here. Amaranth's decision to pursue the duel in the first place was simultaneously her grasping desperately at atonement (for "causing" ZRAEL to attack them; for the re-contextualized murder in her memories) and her making a very calculated decision to pursue what she considered a peaceful solution.
She's honestly feeling pretty bad all around right now that no one who isn't from Creation seems to really get why a duel would be not just reasonable but an appropriate and even peace-keeping solution, but the fact that John doesn't seem to grasp it hurts more than, say, Nemesis completely not getting it. This goes all the way back to her attempts to be very emotionally open with him. She knows he's brilliant at reading people, but he still treated her actions as coming from a place of recklessness and (seemingly?) bloodthirst. Violence is a fact of life in Creation; I genuinely cannot emphasize enough just how many things are out there slaughtering mortals left and right. In The Hundred Kingdoms in particular, war is also a fact of life. So, for people like Amaranth and Shrike, taking a (perceived) group conflict and boiling it down to a 1v1 fight—that's not violence. That's civility.
Of course, Amaranth knew perfectly well that Camellia would hate it, but due to misinformation etc., she also saw this as being her own personal fuck-up: her own mess to clean up. (She also genuinely assumed ZRAEL lied to Camellia, rather than Requiem misleading her, since Camellia is Soft and literally no one can bear making her feel sad.)
It isn't as though Amaranth still thinks the duel was a good idea—far from it. The cultural divide would have been too much even if she hadn't been misinformed. But she still feels deeply betrayed that John reacted the way he did. The part of their text conversation where she said, "I thought we were better than this" and got the reply, "I am. You aren't" was... whew. That in particular was what really sealed the deal for her on, "John doesn't respect me, and sees me as a child to be disciplined rather than a peer," and the rest of the conversation didn't really disabuse her of that reading.

Her overall impression of Current John is that he sees himself as having come to his senses just in time to ~rescue~ LiliS from her, disregarding not only the work she's done within the unit, but also the fact that she's the origin of some of LiliS's most significant social connections. It's a kind of "what am I, chopped liver?" reaction, except mixed in with a lot of extra hurt, since she really does value John's opinion a great deal, and has finally concluded that he neither wants to understand her, nor likes those parts of her he does understand. It makes him painful to be around, for all that she still cares about him. What's more, John's willingness to threaten her with "outing" the duel is frightening—not because she thinks that knowledge would in and of itself be devastating, but because it introduces the small but significant fear that John's version of responsible parenting could involve "taking" her relationship with the rest of LiliS from her.

...And, as of the Live, Amaranth herself is finally starting to ping to the fact that something about John isn't quite right. A combination of no longer trying to look at him in the best possible light and seeing him just... flip the switch on being congenial to others means that it's at last struck her that, "...oh, he's putting on a Nice John mask." More concerning is that his Nice John mask looks a whole lot like how he's acting with the younger LiliS now and... wow, don't like that!! She wanted him to be happy, but is swapping out his Grumpy John mask for a Nice John mask "happiness"? Amaranth doesn't have the "psychopath" vocabulary to apply to what she's seeing, but it unsettles her.

---

If you want to bounce off this response in turn, go for it! But these are So Many words and there is no need whatsoever to match them.

MAN OH MAN . . .

So, John with emotions is handled heavily in canon. When Jack speaks about Will Graham dealing with massive amounts of fear, he is on the money. The money just happens to be Will fearing who he is and fearing what his abilities says about his own psychology. His emotions are to be kept far from other people for fear of contaminating and staining others. Even when he does share his emotions, he's also swallowing a bitter pill with it, thinking that this action or gesture will be something to be abused later. —He's scared of hurting other people, scared he could easily hurt other people.

When he leans into Nice John it is him leaning into his psychopathy without that fear, he has a level of trust in his self. If he is going to do something awful, then so be it, but he also trusts that he has put enough road blocks in, mastered his self enough not to be beholden to the whims of an innate self that may desire violence or pain for whatever reason, whatever feeble justification. It's telling that this shift somehow leads to him getting married and being willing to be a paternal figure to a child when he struggled with the concept before; he's a little more likely to throw things to the wind, go along with it, even if it is ultimately unwise. It's not his best hour, but there is something to be said about the fact that he had Hannibal on his shoulder waiting . . . And, well, his decision in understanding that he could not shake him was to go off a cliff. But the stakes aren't nearly that high in Imeeji, so he can use it. John knows he can get behind it and drive it, and be a master of himself and those around him if he just allows it.

Gosh, the feeling of John treating Amaranth as unequal or lesser is kind of interesting, because he would not show as much heat or anger to anyone else. When it comes to the 'kids' of LiliS, that he does treat differently absolutely but not as if they aren't fully capable people on their own, he is a little more willing to wipe away himself. The interaction is not centered on what he has to gain or learn from it, but what they can take from it, so he doesn't include himself in it aside from presenting the self or aspect they are struggling with. When he interacts with Amaranth, he holds onto himself. He knows she wants to be respected, so he doesn't drop down to the level of shifting face that strongly, only modulating his emotional responses because he can't mange to be level with her and also be fully in his own emotions . . . Which still are dangerous, you know . . . I've found it funny, how he doesn't read her and present accordingly fully because he could, and there's largely two reasons to it: 1. She would spot it from a mile off. The kids let him get away with it, because he has his airs about him, and they take what they get, not ask for what they want; and 2. He is affording her that experience. From first meet, he did feel some measure of respect towards her, and he's holding desperately onto that. If she didn't want resistance and push back, then she should have been something else from the start. But he's not going to spit in her face, pretending he can be something so different from his true self and she will be none the wiser to it.

Man, once upon a time, you said Amaranth should be Jack to John, and I'm still so confounded by that. Jack had a moral compass that was impossible to argue with. Jack saw that Will was struggling and told him to put up and shut up while not sharing his own concerns. There's a reason why Will has been ready to betray Jack at multiple times in the series; it's because Jack doesn't understand what Will needs and keeps failing to respond to that while still appealing to his better self. Between Hannibal and Jack, there's no grey, only black and white. And Will/John exists best in that grey area. He is a man with love for monsters and angels, who can appreciate the depth of someone's love for him and at once understand that his beloved ought to be dead, no longer of this world. The women in Will Graham's life appeal more to his grey nature. Alana who understands Will, then even falls in love with the same man as him. Margot who finds direction from Hannibal and then is able to find what she needs in Will. Chiyoh, Abigail, Bedelia . . . Somehow, female characters always straddled the gap between the polar opposites in the series while retaining their own direction and narrative which, sadly, few male characters have managed to accomplish. Don't hold onto too fondly to the idea of Jack and Will, because it never, ever ends well.

oops john mulaney gif, never forget

I MEAN, I don't know if Amaranth should be Jack, but if I had to connect her to a character in Hannibal...

—And to be sure, that's not a great thing, in terms of them being able to understand one another. Like Jack, Amaranth can be absolutely unbending in pursuit of the Greater Good—and, particularly if she respects someone as an equal, she expects them to be just as no-holds-barred committed to the cause as she is. "I will lay down my life in this kissing game for my unit or so help me—" is kind of a mini version of that intensity.

However, if there's one thing that might be their relationship's salvation, it's that, unlike Jack, Amaranth wants to be vulnerable around the people she trusts. It's just that it has been hard for her to find people who feel appropriate to open up to—and, for at least a little while, she has taken John off that list.

There's also the fact that she is (eventually; g-d I hate writing OC memories) going to start getting more specific memories about how she grew to be disillusioned with war—and that gradual tilt towards (comparative) pacifism is something that I suspect will narrow the gap between her and John.

That said, while Amaranth is perceptive enough to realize when John is wearing a mask, one thing she really struggles with is realizing when he's actually taking it off. (I believe you've noticed this as well.) Maybe it's an understanding that will continue to develop with time; maybe it's something she'll actually need to be specifically told. ("Stop looking for the 'real me,' idiot; I'm right here.")

In lieu of a John Mulaney gif, this time I raise you a collection of Amaranth + John CR visuals, because in my heart of hearts I'm pinterest trash, and I started collecting these as a way of processing my thoughts on their CR, so... here you go!

you know what, sure, CR away

also i admit i want to know what john thinks paloma's deal is

That second questions is so tempting, but here we go . . .

John on Shrike is pretty steady and even. I don't think they've had anything come up that isn't just weird, awkward times of John reading too much and not hiding it. Shrike may have an interesting time with him leaning into his psychopathy, because he's more comfortable that way.

John on Paloma is just finding someone impertinent and distasteful for the way they handle themselves. He doesn't object to her side aims which are generally alright by him, even if he can't understand how she pushes at them. He's not opposed to helping people, but he can't even tell if her method is based on giving honey or vinegar . . . On a personal level, he's just been tired. He didn't want to play at a personality on top of reading her on top of doing some mental acrobatics. Right now, he doesn't view her as a threat that he needs to manage too closely, so he is a little more honest in his reactions which is just to keep being annoyed and vaguely suspicious in her direction. You seem fine, but I don't trust you and I don't really care to have you around me, thanks.

Glacies on Palmona is a person-mover seeing another person-mover moving at full steam. She is a little wary of her ability, since Paloma is actually very good, but she may eventually relax when she can tell what her intentions are on a grander scale. Still, Paloma is interesting and easy to talk with, even with the slight misgivings present, so Glacies enjoys her company on some level.

Goooood, John on what Paloma's deal is, though . . . Ummm, he (that is to say, I) haven't put a huge amount of thought into it. Really, the core reading is that she isn't completely willing to fuck over everything and everyone to get hers, and he can sense a level of morality in her, though what the parameters of what she defines as moral are still to be seen. Honestly, he doesn't have too many qualms with the behavior he's seen her present with other people, he just doesn't want it for himself. She seems to enjoy meddling and getting into people's lives and fixing it, but John doesn't really have an option to fix his life that isn't realized and then acted upon by him. It requires letting too much in. Also, her personality and approach really does rub him the wrong way; it's just too spunky and upbeat to jive well with his often morose self. There's also the audition issue, yeah. She's an audition, she has a different goal in all of this, which is also something to be wary of, so John is even less inclined to open up at all with her. Considering that he trusts her not to be an absolute fuck like some people in Imeeji, the best option is to stay far enough away not to end up throttling her while still overlapping circles enough to sense if there is a big change in that call.

What does Paloma think of John, tho . . .

The big thing about Paloma is that her origin society has a take on morality that is at best detached from making imperative moral judgments about a person's behavior (e.g. if someone is doing something incorrectly and they stop and potentially make restitution, well, it's fine) and at worst can get very ends-justify-the-means.

Therefore, while she'll tease John about the new leaf he's turned over (because he reacts to it), she doesn't argue with him playing the part. After all, if someone's heart isn't in performing their societal role but they're still adequately doing it, she doesn't see anything wrong with that. Like, her current impression is "huh, he's actually doing something instead of being a drain on resources, as it is meant to be." Of course, it's always better to lean into it and exceed expectations, in her book.

In general she likes, as a hobby, picking people apart and seeing what makes them tick—in a metaphorical sense, of course, not Dr. Muraki bullshit. She has so many questions and thinks it'd be a shame and also boring if they went unanswered.

The other thing is that a lot of people don't really provide her a conversational challenge, and she spent a lot of time learning the ropes of socialization in cutthroat upper-crust society, so she feels like he's at a good level for keeping herself sharp, as it were.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

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1/2

#aesthetic

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