(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]

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