rionaleonhart | Dear Self: You Cannot Spend Sixty Pounds On A Manga Boxset.

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Dear Self: You Cannot Spend Sixty Pounds On A Manga Boxset.

SERIOUSLY, GUYS, SOMEONE WRITE/DRAW ME LIGHT/HIMSELF. PLEASE. HE IS SUCH A NARCISSIST AND THIS NEEDS TO EXIST. I have a mental image of Kira!Light pinning down non-Kira!Light's wrists and smirking at him, and it is amazing. I would love to bring it into the physical world. It is such a shame that I have no artistic ability whatsoever.

Ahem. Anyway, I have now finished watching Death Note.

I became quite emotional during the final episode, actually. There's just something a bit horrible about seeing controlled, calculating, intelligent Light reduced to a pathetic mess.

I'M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE FEELING SORRY FOR A DERANGED MASS-MURDERER.

SERIOUSLY, DEATH NOTE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME? If I end up in prison, I'm blaming you.

Other notes:

- Oh, oh, Matsuda was so betrayed. I want to give the poor man a hug. He always believed in Light!

- Near: you're all right, I suppose, but you cannot replace L in my heart. It did feel a little too 'OH, HEY, L'S BACK, EXCEPT WITH WHITE HAIR AND WITHOUT THE TRAGIC UNREQUITED CRUSH ON KIRA. ALSO, HIS QUIRK IS NOW TOYS INSTEAD OF SWEETS'. If you want to kill L, writers, kill L; if you want L around, don't kill L. You can't just kill L and then bring in L the Second!

- Really, Death Note did rather go downhill after L's death. I still enjoyed it, but not to quite the same extent. Woe. This, I think, was in part because, y'know, no L, and in part because it just became too complicated.

- Also, I was a little sad at the lack of interaction between Light and Ryuuku in later episodes. They had an oddly adorable relationship.

- Was - was that Matt? The man who appeared in one episode, had two lines of interior monologue and two lines of dialogue, and was then shot to death? Don't people massively 'ship him with Mello or something? He barely even appears. Does he have more of a part in the manga? Was I mistaken in my belief that Matt/Mello was an enormously popular pairing? I am so confused!

- Light! So sad! So inexplicably sad! (I cannot believe I am mourning Light. He is just a terrible person in so many, many ways. And yet!)

This is probably my favourite scene in the whole of Death Note. I laughed so hard. It is simply not what one expects of a terrifying god of death.

In conclusion, Death Note is essentially a murder mystery that tells you who the murderer is before he starts murdering. It is a slightly odd concept, but I think it works.

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- Was - was that Matt? The man who appeared in one episode, had two lines of interior monologue and two lines of dialogue, and was then shot to death? Don't people massively 'ship him with Mello or something? He barely even appears. Does he have more of a part in the manga? Was I mistaken in my belief that Matt/Mello was an enormously popular pairing? I am so confused!

I have the manga and even I read it I spent ages going, "So... who's Matt again?" On rereading, I swear he's in a few frames, or like 2 pages. I'm sure that's pretty much it. Somebody might wanna confirm that though.

Perhaps he's used so much as it's a male character who isn't an OC but isn't really developed?

I really missed L. (When I was spoiled about his death, I guessed when he would die by the images on the manga covers. I got it right too! :P) I did like the ending because it couldn't really have ended any other way.

Alas, I struggle to find good Death Note fic however (although I would totally read narcisstic Light/Light fic, just because it could be amazing!). I just read a rather crackish AU and all the fics of another author whose Final Fantasy 7 fics I really liked (and then they wrote amazing Death Note fics - great!).

Whoops, sorry for the fanfic babble! :P

Madness! Why on Earth is this Matt barely-a-character so popular?

Perhaps he's used so much as it's a male character who isn't an OC but isn't really developed?

I suppose that makes sense. I imagine some sort of fanonical characterisation has sprung up and been propagated through fanfiction. It just seems terribly, terribly odd to me.

I was spoiled for L's death as well, but I wasn't expecting it when it happened, largely because I had also been spoiled for the Death Note movie and confused that with the spoilers I'd heard for the anime. 'WHAT? HE CAN'T DIE NOW, WHAT ABOUT... oh, that doesn't happen in the anime, does it?' Essentially, I was so spoiled that the spoilers combined to make events a surprise, which I suppose was quite nice.

I would totally read narcisstic Light/Light fic, just because it could be amazing!

It may interest you to know that

kadrin, being a wonderful person in every way, has actually written some.

Really, Death Note did rather go downhill after L's death.

Then I feel I made the right choice to stop there! I still don't actually know Light's fate. If you feel like telling me some spoilers, I'd be all for that.

Also, yes, Matt/Mello is enourmously popular, and no, he does not have a bigger part in the manga (to the best of my knowledge).

Well, those 'I WANT TO BE THE MATT TO YOUR MELLO'

fandomsecrets are now absolutely hilarious. 'I WANT TO BE THE PRACTICALLY-IRRELEVANT CHARACTER WHO GETS SHOT IN THE PROCESS OF ASSISTING YOU WITH AN ABDUCTION.'

Spoilers! Right! The rest of this stupidly long comment contains final-episode spoilers. Just in case anyone wasn't expecting that in an entry about the final episode.

Light (who has been posing as L since L's death) and the rest of the Kira investigation force are invited to meet Near (FAKE L, TSK) and his group of Kira investigators. Light had given the Death Note to a man called Mikami, who looks a bit like Joe Jonas and has the shinigami eyes, and so he gave Mikami instructions to show up and kill everyone, because, hey, everyone who opposes Kira is going to be gathered together in one room. Convenient.

Mikami peeks in through the door and writes everyone's names! (Apart from Light's, obviously.)

AH, BUT NEAR HAD ANTICIPATED THIS. He had replaced the page of the Death Note on which Mikami was going to write!

AH, BUT LIGHT HAD ANTICIPATED NEAR'S ANTICIPATING THIS. The Death Note of which Near replaced a page was a fake!

AH, BUT NEAR HAD ANTICIPATED LIGHT'S ANTICIPATING NEAR'S ANTICIPATING THIS. He had also had the real Death Note replaced! AND OH, LOOK, NOBODY'S DYING AND IT TURNS OUT YAGAMI LIGHT IS THE ONLY NAME THAT MIKAMI HASN'T WRITTEN DOWN.

Light panics and tries to escape! He can't escape! OBVIOUSLY THIS IS RIDICULOUS AND NEAR IS SIMPLY TRYING TO FRAME HIM YOU DON'T BELIEVE THIS DO YOU IT MUST BE A TRAP why won't this freaking door open

Then Light laughs, and it sounds like this.

Yeah, all right, he's Kira. What are you going to do about it? Someone had to clean up this world! Kira is the hope of all mankind! He has ended war! He is ending crime! This is becoming a new world, a better world! Kira is the only one who can lead it into a new age of justice! Are you really going to stop him?

Yeah, shut up, Near says. You're just a crazy mass-murderer.

Right, well, Light, er, Light's just going to check the time OH LOOK HIDDEN PIECE OF DEATH NOTE

Matsuda shoots! ~~He scores~~ He hits Light in the shoulder!

WHAT THE FUCK, MATSUDA? Light enquires.

You let your father die trying to find Kira, Matsuda responds. That's what the fuck.

Right, well, Light's just going to wipe his bloodied finger on this piece of Death Note in suspiciously letter-shaped patterns oh no turns out Matsuda's going to shoot you four times instead.

As for the rest of it, you can watch the final eight minutes here.

The preceding stupidly long comment contains final-episode spoilers.

Did you find it a satisfying ending? Out of curiosity.

You are the second person to tell me Mikami looks like Joe Jonas.

I did! It took me a little while to decide how I felt about it, but yes. Although it would have been more satisfying had L been the one to bring Kira down.

Mikami's Joe Jonas resemblance probably would not have occurred to me independently, but I saw this entry before I met the character and it is alarmingly perfect.

You need to summarize the endings of all shows I can't be bothered to watch. Then I'll know how they end without having to bother watching them.

NOT READING but, uh, I take it you liked the ending? Would it be worth me going back to it, even L-less?

I don't quite know what I think of the ending!

What I can say is that Death Note isn't quite as good when L is gone. I think what I'd suggest is watching the final two episodes. It may be a bit confusing, as there are characters and events you won't know about, but at least you'll know how it ends.

(EDIT: Actually, after a little thought: yes, I like the ending. I found it quite distressing, but I think it works very well. (I won't say it was the way Death Note should have ended, though, because it should have ended with L there. Tsk.))

Edited 2009-05-26 17:42 (UTC)

Hrm. Perhaps, then. I think I'd watch all of the ones I haven't seen, since that is my way. *adds another Thing To Do In My Long And Listless Summer list*

re: 'was that Matt?', it's like Organization XIII all over again! Yeah, his part is only marginally bigger in the manga (he's in about fourteen panels, perhaps?). He has a tiny bit of backstory, I believe. Mostly that he's one of the orphanage kids as well, and he. likes video games. Of course that constitutes a backstory, sssh.

Soichiro, Matsuda, Aizawa and the other cops were my collective favourite characters in Death Note. That said, and in regards to what you mention about Near, I have a bit of a soft spot for Mello for the sorts of reasons you're mentioning. He's just refreshing in this series comprised so intensely around restrained and focused characters.

Ahahaha, how bizarre! Well, I suppose a character who likes videogames is automatically great, no matter how small a part he has. (AND YES, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE ORGANIZATION XIII OBSESSION. I thought perhaps I was the only one who felt we didn't even get an impression of half the members' personalities.)

I love Soichiro, the poor man. And I have to agree with you regarding Mello, even if I sort of hate him for the Sayu-kidnapping incident. I find him a lot more interesting than Near, simply because he's actually a new character.

"In truth," said the man who wasn't him, who - yes, Light Yagami could tell quite well, was simply a hallucination devised by his subconscious to exorcise the few last lingering doubts as to such an extreme course of action, a very mild case of disassociative identity disorder brought about by massive stress which was itself caused by the strange new world the notebook opened up, of course he was... "the old English system was best. A criminal was declared outlaw - outside the law. Since he had abandoned the law's strictures, he had abandoned the law's protections, and there would be no punishment for acting against him."

Snap, went the first shackle, and Light turned to look at it with an apathetic curiosity.

"A society without laws is a society without a government, because in the end, someone must always be coerced by threat of force. Without firm law, one particular individual can hijack the will of others - either preventing their achievements in the best case, or profiting without contributing in the worst. You remember your Hobbes, you read it when you were twelve. Without society mankind is in a state of war, and his life 'solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short'. And society is law."

Snap, the second shackle, though these couldn't be real. A hallucination couldn't honestly manipulate steel and chain, which made this another coping mechanism conjured by his brain. An excuse not to move, perhaps?

Why was he cold?

"So to act against law is to act against society. Criminal acts are revolutionary acts. Breaking the law is treason. Because it is only law that keeps society together, and only by society that we avoid Hobbes's state of permanent warfare, of every man for himself, every human against every human. The criminal doesn't realise this, the criminal realises... x in ten are caught, x1 in x arrested, x2 in x1 charged, x3 in x2 convicted, and the odds x3 in ten become infinitessimally short. Every time a criminal realises the unlikeliness of his punishment, society allows a fraction more anarchy, and the nightmare spelled out in Leviathan becomes a fraction more real."

Snap the third shackle, on his bare ankle - his bare ankle? surely he was dressed, it wouldn't be proper for a Yagami to simply throw off his uniform after coming home... But, no, it was comprehensible. His mind, in a state of wildness, could go anywhere, and through his own inventiveness end up sabotaging a greater aim. To properly achieve what he needed to achieve, he would need to keep it focused. Contained. Shackled.

"You have thought along these lines before. These are not new philosophies, they have been passed down and down the lines, from great thinker to great thinker until finally they reach perhaps the greatest... and in you, in your circumstances, these philosophies finally find a way to express themselves. You have the tools to be the ultimate expression of the law. To do any less would be to let criminals go unpunished. To let criminals go unpunished would be to go traitor to the law yourself. To hold to consistency you must write at least one name in that book, and if you'll write one alone, make it your own."

Snap, the final shackle, and with that final focus Kira was visible, straddling him, his hands on Light's shoulders, and Light for the first time appreciated his form. Strong, lanky, golden with health and righteousness... This was the form of the ultimate arbiter, the man who was more than man, Nietszche's ubermensch turned to precisely the opposite will, and this was what Light could become. If he accepted it. If he started the work. If he ascended to become the final answer to the philosophy of civilisation.

Kira's body was warm against his own, and when Kira's teeth found his neck, Light realised he was smiling; the smirk of a man who has managed to meet his destiny.

I'm going to just wait around and watch the Riona-flailing begin, okay.

Also hi you are sort of amazing.

Amazing Light/Kira fanfiction is superior to cymbals in almost every way. Even in a band, amazing Light/Kira lyrics would exceed even the best cymbal-player.

I

adgkgfjkgghsifjgahh

I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT TO SAY

YOU ARE AMAZING

It is such an effort not to break into a massive ridiculous grin and laugh in delight and flail off the sofa, but my brother is sitting next to me and he would probably wonder why and that would be awkward.

Right. First point: yes, you should have stayed up another forty-five minutes writing this. This was one hundred per cent the correct decision.

Second: LIGHT ANALYSING EVERYTHING

(all right, I am not going to be able to keep up a 'first, second, third' structure; my present state is far too gleeful to be so coherently expressed)

Light! Recognising the situation as a hallucination! Calmly analysing what aspects of the hallucination might represent! His musings on the significance of the shackles fill me entirely with delight.

Kira! Being so very persuasive! Seeming so very reasonable! Expressing the mindset of the criminal in mathematical terms! Being warm where Light is cold!

they have been passed down and down the lines, from great thinker to great thinker until finally they reach perhaps the greatest

Oh, oh, oh, I love Light's ridiculous narcissism so much. ALTHOUGH NOT NEARLY AS MUCH AS I LOVE YOU.

You have the tools to be the ultimate expression of the law. To do any less would be to let criminals go unpunished. To let criminals go unpunished would be to go traitor to the law yourself. To hold to consistency you must write at least one name in that book, and if you'll write one alone, make it your own.

YOU ARE JUST SO BRILLIANT I CANNOT EVEN EXPRESS IT.

And that ending! And everything!

Thank you so, so much for writing this.

I should not have just stayed up another forty five minutes writing that and if I did I should have known more about philosophy than vague memories and wiki-ing Thomas Hobbes. Oh well. AIN'T NO STOPPIN' THIS TRAIN WE'RE ON.

...one day I will actually write sex without immediately fading to black.

In conclusion, Death Note is essentially a murder mystery that tells you who the murderer is before he starts murdering.

L IS COLUMBO ONLY WITH LOW BLOOD SUGAR SOMEONE INFORM BEN CROSHAW SO THAT HE CAN STOP BEING MILDLY BAFFLED BY JAPAN

And this is where we differ, because the only time I liked Light was when he was the innocent version. I never liked him as Kira (though I could appreciate some of his genius skills) and I spent the entire series waiting for him to lose. I actually liked the manga series ending better than the anime. His death is much less peaceful and he deserved every moment of wretched betrayal. In my opinion.

Thing is, I could have liked Kira. Then he started killing innocents along with the guilty and not caring about his family and no, that is not okay.

alhlgkjghs XDXD at wondering about Matt. His part is a little bigger in the manga but no, you're right, that's mostly it. I sort of ignored both Mello and Matt (and Near...) until a friend starting writing M/M fics. Mostly they were centered around speculation of why Matt hung with Mello and was willing to fight and die for him (especially considering this guy was number 3 and didn't really seem to...care). It's a fannon Matt, but a Could Be senario and I liked that.

XD "whee...plonk."

I wanted Light to lose! Or, rather, I certainly didn't want Light to win. Even though I disagreed with him every step of the way, though, I have to admit that I found something about him quite attractive, and when it looked as if he were about to get caught I would often find myself hoping he would escape somehow and then feeling awful about it.

I did find the ending very sad, though. I don't know why. I think perhaps part of it was the fact that we had those episodes in the middle with the innocent Light, and we realised what he could have been had he never found the Death Note. Kira had to die, really, but Light didn't have to be Kira.

Whee..plonk.

Best Death God Ever!

I never got the Matt thing, either. Especially since I read the comics, then saw people shipping Matt and Mello, and argued about his characterization, and I was left going "Who's Matt again? Oh, him. Wait what characterization?" I mean seriously, it wouldn't actually go against his existing characterization for him to go home on his free evenings, break out his collection of needlessly elaborate evening gowns, and reenact the dance numbers to Priscilla, Queen of the Desert in his living room. Or to have crossed the world's silliest shinigami, and have been given the special Death Note that stabs people with rainbows (except Misa would kill him out of jealousy).

Near was okay. I liked Mello more, because he was messier and more complicated. I felt bad for Mello, especially as things go on.

I found Light fascinating, but wasn't really sad for him when he cracked up like that. Mostly because I pretty quickly mentally slotted Light into the 'sociopathic bastard' category (when he jumped so quickly from 'I don't actually think it will work, but I'll test on murderers just in case' to 'Here's my elaborate plan for declaring myself judge, jury and executioner to the world!'), so it was more interesting than sad.

Based on your plot preferences, I strongly suspect you'd like the Japanese movie versions. Which are similar, but not identical in plot to the cartoon.

Also, I seem to once again have achieved weird-by-TGS-standards fic, and for once it isn't your fault. It's Draco's.

Re your first paragragh: Yes to this. *makes grabby hands* Want!

RIONA HEY RIONA. (one day I may actually leave a comment that relates to the contents of your post, but today is not that day.) I was thinking about the potential train station shenanigans we may encounter on Friday AND I HAVE PLAN: if my train is gonna go through Birmingham International, I will text you, and you can do likewise, and then if we both have International-y trains we can go HOORAY and get off at that stop. And if we don't, we can go HOORAY and get off at N St. and get hopelessly lost for a while, instead.

(Or, idk, potentially catch a train from N St. station to International? It could be quicker/cheaper. But we can cross that bridge in a couple of days.)

TREE, TREE, TREE! Can you measure Riona's wrist for me while you're there?

Circumference or length?

Circumference, definitely.

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I would be so delighted were you to draw some Light/himself! (Are you interested in finding out about Death Note? The basic premise is that a hugely intelligent teenager with a God complex finds a notebook that kills those whose names are written in it. Never before has writing looked so awesome.)

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The main difference is in the eyes: when Light has no recollection of being Kira, his eyes are considerably wider than they are when he is murdering people. Also, when Kira!Light is being particularly evil, his eyes are sometimes portrayed as glowing red.

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Dear Self: You Cannot Spend Sixty Pounds On A Manga Boxset.

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