(no subject)

[tenebraecious]

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.

Comments

[tenebraecious]

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.

[we_meet_again]

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?

[theyregooddogs]

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?

[we_meet_again]

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?

[tenebraecious]

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.

[we_meet_again]

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