hadriel_logs | Event Log: Keepsakes

Who: Everyone participating in the event!
What: The event log for the Keepsakes event!
Where: All around the city
When: October 15th-October 19th
Warnings: A bunch of random crap.

Well, Hope and Delight are messing with the door again, but at least this time dragons aren't involved, right? This attempt goes a bit better - sure, no one gets sent home, but if everyone will just look under their seats, they'll find a FREE [INSERT SOMETHING YOU MAYBE DIDN'T WANT AT ALL HERE]! Awesome! So nice! Yup, throughout these few days people will be finding things from home - something they loved, something they used all the time, something they hated, something they totally forgot they even had. All sorts of cool stuff!

Well, they might not actually find it. Their neighbor might, or a complete stranger. And who knows where it could turn up? At the park, half-buried? In the Silent Hill zone, kept safe by a horrifying monster? Or hey, maybe in somebody's underwear drawer. Awkward. Better try to find your stuff, or find the owner of whatever weird crap you found. It could be something important.

► This log covers October 15th-October 19th.
► Feel free to make your own logs, as well
► Please tag headers of threads with content warnings where they apply
► Please put your character's name and open/closed in the subject line of your starters!
► If you somehow manage to die in this event, please let us know here, and also what the hell?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[That's ... a little irritating, but Mello does his best to ignore it. While he'd made an explicit agreement with Near to never enter his room without explicit permission, he'd made no such arrangement with L.]

Yeah, I know. I've done this before a few times.

[He replaces the brush inside the bottle and screws the cap back on, careful not to disturb the wet polish.]

Did you need something?

[As long as there's no such arrangement with L, it will not occur to him to respect boundaries that most people would consider implicit. Such is the joy and wonder of living with the original genius superdetective who set the standard for their strange legacy.

He doesn't seem perturbed or to find it strange that Mello has painted his nails before, or that he's doing so now. Most aesthetic decisions admittedly baffle him on a pretty basic level.]

I think this is yours, and related the the current series of strange events. There are many objects you were sentimental about, it sees like.

[He turns the book in his hands, shuffling closer to Mello's bed.]

[Mello wouldn't dream of placing such restrictions on L. He's L, after all.

He definitely takes notice of the book in L's hands, sitting up with interest, eyes widening as he recognizes the image on the cover. He doesn't bother to protest the statement about sentimentality.]

The Prince? That looks like the copy I had when I was a kid.

[Even if such a restriction was attempted, L would likely shirk or outright ignore it. Not out of disrespect, exactly, but more out of inexperience.]

Given the nature of what's happening, lately... I think it's your copy. The inside cover certainly indicates as much.

[His exact copy? He did write his name on the inside cover as a child ... Still wide-eyed, Mello extends a hand out.]

Can I see?

Of course... if it is yours, I wouldn't try to keep you from it. Especially if it provides you with some comfort or recognition you'd forgotten, prior to coming back in contact with it. No one should be denied that, least of all someone who studied after my methods.

[He closes the rest of the distance between them, offering the book. Hopefully that nail polish is sufficiently dry.]

[If the nail polish gets smudged, Mello can live with that. The book is a lot more important at the moment.]

It's ...

[He flips open the cover, and sure enough, there's his name, M E L L O, written in childish block letters. Mouth pursed, he flips through the introduction, skipping through dog-eared pages with notes scribbled in the tiny margins.]

I've read a lot, of course, but ... ever since I first read it, this was my favorite book.

[Which probably comes as no surprise to anyone who's ever met him.]

[L watches Mello's reaction to having the thing in his hands; he wasn't sure what to expect. He's privy to much of Mello's life and times, of course, but there are things he's had no reason to be aware of. Either because they're deeply-buried and secret, or (more likely) because they're largely inconsequential to what L absolutely needs to know.

And, in truth, so much of L's dealings with his successors have been very much on a need-to-know basis, for better or worse.]

What is it that you like so much about it?

[L has also read extensively, but has no favorite book.]

How true it is.

[Mello gently closes the book and glances up, giving L his attention again.]

Machiavelli gets a bad rap, but he wasn't wrong. A lot of people like to believe that those in power have their best interests in mind, that they're good, virtuous people. They don't really understand how flexible political machinations truly are. There are a lot of variables to consider. "Any man who tries to be good all the time is bound to come to ruin among the great number who are not good."

[He shrugs lightly.]

Frankly, I think it's all pretty sound advice, and I always have.

[Which perhaps says a lot about Mello's disposition toward the world at large - something L has probably already been able to observe about him.]

[It says so much that Mello took a book like that as truth, as opposed to what so many other potential successors chose. Religious texts, ideal-ridden narratives, things that promised a stark difference between right and wrong and assured that good would always eventually triumph. Especially when good, like the ultimate good that was L, stood in a position of power, evil ran out of corners to lurk in.]

I don't think that Machiavelli is so far from the nihilistic rhetoric of certain other influential thinkers. Monsters fighting monsters, the abyss staring back... it's all very relevant, or... was.

[L has seemed paler since arriving in Hadriel, in more ways than just his coloration. It's like vitality has been sapped from him, leaving an earnest but exhausted husk who doesn't know quite how to deal with the loss of his own relevance. Some are quick to find new purpose and establish a new life in Hadriel, but L hasn't been one of them.]

I've always considered Machiavelli to be more of a pragmatist, personally.

[Not that he's saying L is wrong, necessarily - in Mello's tone, there's an unspoken prompt for elaboration, if L feels so inclined.]

It's still relevant, I think - maybe more so here, where we have actual monsters to face.

[Mello sets the book down on the bed and draws his knees up with his arms wrapped around his legs.]

But I've always found nihilism a fairly depressing branch of philosophy - I tend to fall more on the side of existentialists. "Life has no meaning a priori … It is up to you to give it a meaning." “I rebel; therefore I exist.” That sort of thing.

[None of this is likely surprising.]

[Truly, none of it is very surprising, knowing Mello. Of the forerunner's for L's title, it makes sense that he would be the one with an interest in philosophy, the way lives are lived and the reasons for certain methodologies. L can easily envision the 14-year-old Mello poring over such books; he has a hard time imagining Near doing the same at any age, although it would be dangerous to assume that any successor contender is predictable, especially over years L did not witness unfolding.]

You did a lot of rebelling, in a lot of all-or-nothing situations. I don't find the side you fall on terribly difficult to believe.

You deserved to exist longer than you did. I've always been in awe of people who have such a strong desire to exist.

Event Log: Keepsakes

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