#to get home is an inescapable barrier. No matter how sick I started feeling or how bad things are and how much I wish I was comfortable

[icewindandboringhorror]

Daily Log 9

Trying out (probably just temporarily) making short daily-ish notes about things, in an attempt to see if it helps me be more reflective or productive lol.

Activities: Worked on the previously mentioned tapestry style painting thing for like 5-6 hours today (with a few breaks in between), and that's just for the border around the main picture lol.. I think all the little sections and detail always take longer than I think they might. But hopefully the final product will look interesting! :0

I feel like I'm entering another Sick Phase where I just am weird/ill/sleepy/having joint pains much of the day (probably some vitamin deficiencies or hormone imbalances or general bodily inflammation or whatever nonsense seems to randomly pop up from time to time lol), so couldn't focus on anything more intensive like writing or editing videos, unfortunately. It's good to have smaller crafts I can do that don't take much mental effort and are just menial hand tasks (like carving, painting, sculpting, etc.), but I still always feel frustrated falling behind on the things I see as much more broadly significant to my overall life and potential career (making games, writing, finishing videos, socializing, costumes, etc.)

Organized my desk a little. Responded to some doctor emails. Paid bills.

Planned out something I might make with pressed flowers tomorrow.

Edited like 4 costume photos.

Also have a lingering sense of dread due to the weather. The heat often makes me feel terrible, and if I'm already in kind of a Bad Phase at the moment, I'm afraid of it making it even worse... stimky..

Which I know these temperatures are nothing to some people but.. to me... aUGHHHH... I am abnormally heat sensitive + live in a dinky old apartment with no ventilation that gets direct sun the hottest part of the day.. on a 90F day outside, it literally gets about 84F inside.. like.. even people who love the heat I feel like would struggle to sleep at night if their bed is 85F lol... hewwo.. You can spray yourself down with water, drink ice water, put a fan on yourself, etc. etc. but.. sometimes it just feels so oppressive and inescapable..

ANYWAY. Aside from painting, feeling weird, and dreading the upcoming heat/contemplating my entire life and how to get enough money to move to a different climate somehow one day/existential exhaustion/etc., I didn't accomplish very much lol

Spent maybe 30 minutes thinking about a little more worldbuilding stuff, and some things in reference to the game I mentioned resuming work on at some point.

Notable sights: The clouds were really pretty and pastel this afternoon, and some stars are visible in the sky for once since the nights are beginning to be clearer. The 'forget me not' flowers that I thought had died after transplanting actually seemed to be perked up and healthy looking today, and perhaps may actually survive. >:3

Goals moving forward: Do new poll adventure post. focus on social activities, finding new friends in the places I want to move, communicating with the ones I have. Physical therapy exercises. Finish and upload videos, edit costume pictures & etc. Do the new costumes I've planned. MAKE SCULPTURES at some point, I miss them.

Notable foods: Not much, kind of a warm day so didn't really want to use the oven. No idea how I'll handle the diet I've been put on by my doctors (involves usually cooking all food fresh, using the stove a lot, nothing is supposed to be canned or processed or premade, so that eliminates a lot of 'quick easy simple warm weather' meals, etc. etc.) during the heatwave. I might just have to break the diet a little and hope it doesn't give me stomach pains while I'm already hot and feeling sick lol..

I did have a boiled egg with some green onions on top, which is very simple but was refreshing somehow lol. Another ice cold ginger ale treat today, and some cold prune juice (which I know most people find gross/it's an old person food/etc., but I like that it's a smooth textured and not very sweet juice? Like it's slightly thicker than apple juice, has a lightly bitter taste, etc. I just find it nice for some reason. More evidence I am secretly an 85 year old wizard)

[a-for-alternative]

Hello, A! So I was wondering do you have any headcannons about how you and B were like at Wammy's together? PS. I thought dead men tell no tales lol (sorry about the joke if you didn't like it)

// Oh do I ever... Alternative has such potential to highlight things about B’s character that develops him into the killer of Mello’s novel. The lore surrounding the first generation (and the notion of Mello writing about a dead successor that previously filled his position - his predecessor) is more poignant than I think it was intended to come across but here are some headcanons~

Wammys House:

A & B are the first to receive their secondary alias after which it becomes a kind of right of passage for other successors, choosing their own (though often not official) - to A & B, only theirs will ever be legitimate.

A is introduced to B after only 1-2 years of being at the house

A, before becoming a letter, was taken into Wammy’s due to his intellect but only later is selected as the first attempted L-backup, probably pulled from a satellite home 

Alternative & Backup (A’s perspective):

His introduction to B is a pivotal moment for him. After so much loss, he sees this as an opportunity for redemption and a return to a clear path forward, and now it is under threat. B represents for A the physical manifestation apathetic fate, he is foreign in every sense, they cannot even communicate when they are initially introduced. His presence signifies A’s disposability - B is the backup plan for when A fails, like a vulture circling over head, it looms over him like a prophesy he is trying to outrun..  though, B can also overtake him at anytime, relegating him to a future that, from A’s perspective, is neither known nor the success story that he has put so much hope in. The world for Alternative at this point in his life is an unreasonable and precarious place. All he knows, up to this point as a seven year old, is that everything is fragile and must be hard won - and there is no guarantee that one can keep what they have fought or sacrificed to obtain. --- after all, he is in line to replace L and L is about as far from vulnerable as he believes a person can get --- Maybe, B also represents a challenge that requires a level of maturity that he does not yet possess - the inevitable dilemma, that this position is of such consequence to the world, that it needs the best person for it, — and that may not be him...

There is nothing genuine in the sweet smile.

The way he extends an open hand, how his soft, his boyish voice offering “ Hello, Alternative ” …  

A feels an unpleasant sensation snake up his spine like a fever’s chill, empathetic aptitude ringing in his ears with all the incongruence rolling off this boy.

His gentleness feels scripted, words trilling out of his mouth- practiced and angular; absolutely, wholly contrived. A has never meet anyone with such an emptiness in their words and actions…

A returns the greeting with a stony, silent stare - I know what you are. 

They slide up from the open palm to meet the foreign boy’s gaze - Blue eyes resting soft, knowing and stormy, heaven’s skies empty of angels. Alternative is standing his ground, refusing to pretend they are not here for a reason, telling himself, “I’m not afraid…”

 But,  he has never seen anyone with such deep eyes.

 They are the windows into an empty soul, a black abyss,                                                                                             absolutely apocalyptic…

Alternative is capricious in his treatment of B, vacillating between animosity and empathy- at times he’s even conspiratorial , allying himself with B and undermining their superiors- beginning to identify with B (even in spite of the language barriers). Backup is clever and naïve and careless, and unreserved in a way that A wishes he felt safe to be. B is the only one that can truly grasp what he is going through but he is also very strange... -- Alternative struggles with trials & setbacks that roll off Backup’s back with ease. B is several years into his understanding of his eyes and it shapes how he moves through the world, what he feels is worth his pain, what ultimately just doesn’t matter. A is, in some ways, what B might have become if he were a little more ignorant, spared the ever present reminder that this is all so temporary.

Alternative has many faces that none are as acutely aware of as B- it is why he doesn’t take the quips and backhanded apologies personally. Alternative’s identity has been tailored to his circumstances — so much of it he had to leave behind to become this -- to his superiors, he is mature, disciplined and motivated -- exemplary if not a bit too austere. To those that benefit him, he is considerate and trustworthy- and honest. To those that he fears will take advantage of him, he is an arrogant and harsh - conniving and spoiled. When he is caught without a persona on hand, he is awkward, reclusive, and reserved. Despite this, his cardinal traits are eloquence and persistence, he thinks deeply about his place in the world and who he should be but not enough on who he is — Only B is audience to moments when he is short sighted and immature, when he is undone or humiliated - when he is elated or truly.. afraid of what lay ahead of them. When he is sick or less than who he wants to present himself as, B has been there whether he wanted him to be or not.

Alternative is attracted to B though it is initially a disquieting realization, one even he doesn’t entirely understand. It isn’t that B is unusually good looking or charming — though perhaps A has peculiar tastes that B unintentionally satisfies (I can’t imagine him actually trying)... The level of intimacy involved in knowing someone this long, on such a personal and inescapable level has made B a source of unwavering acceptance, — because he had to be. The alternative would have been sleeping next to someone he would gradually come to despise any who really wants to live that way? Yet, B comes to represent stability and unconditional regard that feels a lot like love. There is a fraternal element to it in that B anchors who he is. B is someone that has a history with him that hasn’t been erased or eroded -- that contradicts A’s perception of the world as fragile or finite - it is comforting to have something seemingly permanent ... and terrifying that he cannot start anew, if he doesn’t like who he is and cannot be hidden in the obscurity that L enjoys.

When B begins to insinuate an interest in something more, A is not initially receptive and becomes genuinely distressed. This doesn’t translate with any logical sense to B, who believes it’s born out of A’s latent fears of realizing his own sexuality...  But, by the time they are entering late adolescence, A is more concerned with the prospect of romance and that becoming L is destined to be a lonely path. He sees their childhood in it’s twilight as a tragic loss that cannot be reclaimed or rewritten, and B’s subtle advances as destructive to the purity of their friendship -- but he can’t stay a child forever even if he feels a sense of unfinished business surrounding it and he can’t keep B there either... It takes B’s attention shifting elsewhere for A to begin softening to the idea that B isn't ruining what's between them but expanding on it.

Alternative has experienced depression -- at some point he was prescribed SSRIs, as a part of basic care for successors. While it does alleviate the depth of his lows, he begins to worry that it is dulling the sharpness of his mind, which he has come to see as central to his self-worth. It may have no foundation in reality but A develops an inconsistent relationship with any medication prescribed to him out of those fears. In the end, - there are some things medicine cannot fix...

A few other small things:

- A loves the smell of lavender and grass, it reminds him of his home though as he gets older this memory is more elusive and he begins to wonder if they memories from funeral flowers or even if they are impressions left over from a dreams.. did he even attend his parents funeral?

- A knows they aren’t allowed to take pictures of each other in Wammy’s for good reason but when Y sneaks a camera into the house one summer evening, he is can’t deny there is something precious about having pictures of B perched on the railing of the back steps - his hair sweep by the wind just as he turns his eyes to look, soft unfocused, — like the tender look he gives him just as he wakes up in the morning before he remembers who they are. A traces the lines of his face while lying beneath his bed, where he tucks it between the boards. It’s only a few years later that he will see how much his friend has matured. -- B hates photographs and will place them face down when they go into Roger’s office. Roger has never understood why.

- A drinks his coffee and tea black as tar. B thinks it is terribly bitter but will bring it to him anyway, unaltered. There is something uniquely enjoyable in knowing that B doesn’t need to be told what he likes~

- A is borderline masochistic though perhaps only B has any inkling of it. He would probably never acknowledge it openly... it is degrading to get a charge out of being hurt.

- A loses his faith around age 10 but still believes that he might as well act as though there is a purpose in being good and not just adept and ruthless. The only alternative, from A’s perspective, is to believe that everything he has been through meant nothing and he will ultimately change nothing. And, that may be too painful a philosophy for him to embrace. 

- A’s worst injury occurred when he was deliberately shoved off the roof by an irate B ( thatvhe provoked). While it was a watershed event for A coming so close to death and experiencing the consequences of pushing B beyond that point of caring about consequences... For Backup, this a was also critically informative event, an exercise proving the numbers were infallible -- he was genuinely surprised that A survived the fall and, to a greater degree, surprised that he felt regret in having done it ... left alone in their room to wonder for days, searching for the contraband pictures from that summer A had hidden that could prove if A was even still alive....