Hosting the aforementioned event for the Death Note fandom. The dates for the 2025 iteration of this event are August 16th - August 22nd. Please read the pinned post, rules and FAQ for anything you might need to know. Asks and DMs are open for any questions! To enter: Just participate! Please tag your post with the #bbweek25 tag.
(For alternate image IDs, please see under the cut of this post.)
You are cordially invited to participate in the 2025 Beyond Birthday Appreciation Week - a week to celebrate the strangest, stickiest serial killer Death Note has to offer. This year's version of this event will run from August 16 - August 22nd. Please ensure you have read the event rules before taking part.
The suggested prompts are intended to foster creativity, not limit you! Interpret as desired. Late or early submissions for a certain day's prompt are allowed. This blog will reblog submissions for this event up to three days before/after its run time.
When sharing your creations for this event, please use the tag #bbweek25. If you have any questions, asks and DMs are open!
[Image 1 Alternate ID] A burning piece of paper, labeled as correspondence from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, CA. The typed return address is listed at the top left corner. Its entire first line is redacted. The remaining lines correspond to the MDC's address. The handwritten body of the letter reads as follows: 'I have been told I have fans. How flattering. (line break) Please do your best to entertain me. (line break) - B.B.' The URL of the blog behind the event is listed at the bottom right corner of the image. [End Image ID]
[Image 2 Alternate ID] A black background with white text and a flame border at the top. The image contains a list of prompts, which can be found in text form here. The URL of the blog behind the event, bb-appreciation-week, is listed at the bottom right corner of the image. [End Image ID]
[Image 1 ID: Beyond Birthday, dressed as L, is hunched over in a dark room. A little bit of light from an unknown source illuminates his red eyes and a patch of his hair. 'Failed' is written at the top of the piece in red handwriting. Beneath it, the prompt 'try again?' is written in the same fashion, a cursor beneath it. End Image 1 ID.]
[Image 2 ID: A (depicted as a young girl with blunt bangs and wearing a knee-length dress) and B are holding hands. The canvas is divided into light and dark. B stands on the right side against a white background and the better-illuminated part of a door, the floor beneath him black. A stands on the left side against a black background and the darker part of the same door, the floor beneath her primarily white. Their initials float above their heads in red. End Image 2 ID.]
the first one Tumblr cut off a little but you can see the full image by clicking it. The patch of light hitting BB's face is supposed to look like it's coming from a barred jail window. BB also has burns on his hands.
[Image 1 ID: Beyond Birthday, dressed as L, is hunched over in a dark room. A little bit of light from an unknown source illuminates his red eyes and a patch of his hair. 'Failed' is written at the top of the piece in red handwriting. Beneath it, the prompt 'try again?' is written in the same fashion, a cursor beneath it. End Image 1 ID.]
[Image 2 ID: A (depicted as a young girl with blunt bangs and wearing a knee-length dress) and B are holding hands. The canvas is divided into light and dark. B stands on the right side against a white background and the better-illuminated part of a door, the floor beneath him black. A stands on the left side against a black background and the darker part of the same door, the floor beneath her primarily white. Their initials float above their heads in red. End Image 2 ID.]
*If anyone decides to make a fool of me and submit in the next three hours, I will reblog with an obligatory clown emoji.
Thank you, everyone - this was so much fun and everyone who participated is so talented! I will be doing an interest check for doing something like this again soon.
If you’d like to participate in other events of mine, head to @dnsecretsanta for the event of the same name, as well as a front-row seat for announcements for the upcoming Naomi Misora appreciation week in January 2026.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Death Note: Another Note
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Beyond Birthday/L
Characters: Beyond Birthday, L (Death Note), Misora Naomi Additional Tags: Suicide Attempt, Attempted Murder, Canon Compliant
He has been waiting to die since the moment he was born. It leaves a constant bitter taste in his mouth that is best covered up with sweets. He is spending exactly as much time thinking about this as a man who is about to light himself on fire should, and that's that.
—
Beyond Birthday, covered head to toe in gasoline, allows himself a few final moments to think.
That makes it sound romantic. Let me rephrase. Naomi Misora, the solver of the Los Angeles B.B. Murders, kept an iron grip on Rue Ryuzaki's wrist in the ambulance. None of the paramedics dared remove her even as they fussed over the charred body, covering the burns with sterile dressings, avoiding her gaze.
Ryuzaki's pulse was still jumping. That was good.
The handcuffs were still on. That was good, too.
Misora wasn't sure what exactly she was feeling. Shock, mostly. Annoyance: she had told Ryuzaki that he did not have the right to remain silent, and yet here he was. Silent. Possibly for the first time in his miserable life, she thought, uncharitably.
For lack of anything better to do, she sorted through her head some more. What else was she feeling… Relief. Concern. Hatred, an amount she'd thought herself incapable of — she did not, after all, act on a strong sense of justice.
Betrayal.
The moment she realized this was when Ryuzaki's eyes met hers.
She almost startled, but tightened her grip instead of letting go. It didn't make any sense to her why Ryuzaki's eyes should work when the rest of his face was nothing but a burned memory. But he fixed his gaze upon her with unerring accuracy. Misora noticed for the first time that there was a chip missing in the outer ring of his iris.
If she hadn't met that idiotic notebook murderer the day she did, if he hadn't had an absurdly unfair amount of luck on his side, she might have had a chance to understand later in life, to recognize those eyes when the sun caught them at the right angle. The eyes of the shinigami.
She expected him to glare at her. Or maybe laugh. But she realized a moment later that to expect anything of him was ridiculous, because she knew now that she had never understood Rue Ryuzaki at all.
He just stared. Wonderingly. As though he was seeing her for the first time.
[Image ID: Beyond Birthday, dressed like L, is leaning over the vanity in a bathroom. Off to his left, a makeup palette, brush and assorted other beauty tools can be seen. He is lining underneath his eyes with eyeliner. The drawing is in greyscale save the mirror, which is lit red by the glow of B’s eyes. B’s full name floats above his head. End ID.]
Day "7" - Death, flames, sickness / Life, failure, victory
So... that's it from me! I would've liked to do the two prompts I missed this week but currently, im posting this two days late already aha!
This was so much fun and its been such a blast participating and also seeing everyone's wonderful art and fics this week! ❤️❤️ Loved drawing my special little guy. He deserves so much love
I made this one in about 20 mins right before bed because the idea just came to me. The oil pastels just started calling out to me --- theyre such an underrated medium --- and I used a bit of filter magic to make the colours pop :) I would add the unedited version but the difference would make you shake your head irl. (I messed with contrast and brightness here cause wow i am no photographer. My photo taking skills are uh. Questionable.)
I mainly made this one with sickness in mind. Flame came naturally with sickness --- i was gonna make Beyond's frame a lot more wiry, very sickly, (and that slotted in with flames in my mind) but I fattened his left leg up too much haha! --- and death comes with flame as we all know.
The singular wing honestly only exists because in the scribble phase (no pencil sketch btw!) I accidentally made a shape in that corner that looked suspiciously like a dick and I was not having it. But since it's there, I think the wing is a reference to his shinigami connections :]
I put two versions of this piece here because although I personally am heavily inclined towards brightness and eyebleed, I know someone out there's gonna like the darker version better lmao. So here ya go!
Once again. This has been a blast. See you all hopefully next year! (And off i go into my slumber.... this is probably my last death note post for a while. Its been fun.) (10/10 experience.)
[Image ID: Two different versions of a piece depicting Beyond Birthday on fire. He is hunched over, his left arm swinging out from his side. The fire has overtaken him to the point where he is little more than the outline of a person. The left version of the piece is more saturated and brighter, where the right version is muted. End ID.]
(a live copy speaks to a dead one / @bb-appreciation-week day 7: death, flame, sickness; life, failure, victory / happy birthday near!)
-
Near sort of expected that the prisoner before him would be the first to say something, based on Mello’s account, but no: Beyond Birthday seems content to watch in silence, clouded-milk eyes tracking Near’s trajectory from the door of the visitor’s room to the chair in front of the glass panel separating them.
Near sits. The plastic chair is deeply uncomfortable; he reaches up and tugs at his hair, trying to cancel out the sensation. Still Beyond says nothing.
Well. He’s always been a fan of the direct route.
“Nice to meet you, Beyond Birthday,” he says. “I’m L.”
Beyond shoots up instantly, eyes wide: “You’re what?”
Easy, Near thinks, and almost feels like smiling. “The second,” he says. And probably the last. “As I said, it’s nice to meet you.”
Beyond stares for a moment longer, then unexpectedly untenses. Slumps back into the chair.
“He’s dead, then.”
“The original? Yes.”
“Let me guess.” Beyond props his chin on one hand and closes his eyes. “Six years ago.”
Near blinks. “…How did you know?”
“Felt it,” Beyond says, matter-of-fact. “Here.” He taps the spot over his heart. “It hurt.”
“Do you remember what day it was?”
“November 5, 2004.” Beyond tilts his head. “Or do you want it down to the minute, L?”
Some part of Near notes distantly that he says the name with the same intonation that Near himself used on Light Yagami. Maybe they are all the same.
“You knew a month before we did, then,” Near says. The emotion approaching his careful walls looks oddly like jealousy. He crushes it before it gets any closer.
Some old memory sparks in Beyond’s eyes; his voice turns almost fond. “Oh, that’s right. His thirty-day death countdown. I used to fantasize about tripping it.”
“By killing him?”
“No, actually! I’d kidnap him and then pretend to be his dead corpse.” Beyond frowns at himself. “Or just ‘corpse.’ Efficient phrasing is important. How did he die?”
“Kira killed him.”
“Yes, that’s the only way he could have died so young. But how.”
“…I’m not sure.”
It’s the truth. The record of events died with the original L and the original Watari and Light Yagami and whoever Misa Amane once was.
Beyond laughs. “Not much of an L, are you?”
Near stares into the space between Beyond’s eyes and doesn’t say a damn word.
“It’s fine,” Beyond says, almost consolingly. “That’s what they got wrong about him, you know. They thought he could be recreated if they just said the right things, taught us the right lessons. The whole idea was doomed from the start. He was lightning in a bottle. He was L. He was everything.”
You sound like Mello, Near thinks. Corrects. Mihael. Corrects. Mello. It isn’t as though he ever gave Near permission to call him his real name.
“I thought the point of the Los Angeles BB Murders was to mock him,” he says instead.
Beyond shrugs. “He was also a weird, pathetic asshole.”
Near doesn’t notice himself react, but he must, because Beyond snickers at the look on his face. “There’s no need to be upset now.” Again with the consoling. “I lost. He won.”
“Do you regret it, then?”
“I regret failing.”
Of course. He didn’t expect anything else, based on Mello’s account. Secondhand uncertainty had jittered through Near’s every keystroke as he typed up those scribbled notes, but Mello was always better at judging people — better at most things — than he gave himself credit for. Beyond Birthday is exactly as self-doomed as Near thought he would be.
It disgusted him back then, when he saw it in Light Yagami. It doesn’t with Beyond. All Near feels now is hollowness.
Then again, that’s hardly an unfamiliar emotion these days.
“I have a deal to offer you.”
Beyond tilts his head. “Name it.”
“In exchange for better living conditions elsewhere, you lend me the use of your eyes.”
Beyond, this time, holds dangerously still. “What?”
“L and Mello figured it out,” Near tells him, heart glowing with extremely irrational pride. “You have eyes that let you see people’s names and lifespans, don’t you, Beyond Birthday?”
For a moment Beyond forgets to not look truly, genuinely shocked. Near allows himself to feel smug about it.
“…Who’s Mello,” he says, finally.
What a question. “It’s a long story. I’d like your answer now, please.”
“What do you mean by better living conditions?”
“You would live with me and my employees, in New York. I have a room set up for you in headquarters. It would be like indefinite house arrest. I don’t think you’ll murder more people, but if you do, I’ll send you back here.”
“You want me to help in your investigations,” Beyond says slowly. “You want me to be L’s right hand.”
“No.”
“No?”
“It would be nice if you did,” Near says, “but mostly I just want you out of here.”
“Why?”
“Mello liked you.”
And the Kira Task Force had talked of a Ryuzaki they knew. Though what that reflects of the original L, Near has no idea.
Beyond studies him. Near twists another curl of hair around his finger, diverts his gaze, yanks harder. Inventory at the end of the apocalypse: last will and testament, chocolate stash, memoir, Beyond Birthday somehow still alive in Los Angeles. Near is not all that used to saving people. He hasn’t managed it once.
“You’re an interesting person, Nate River.” Beyond smiles with all his teeth. “I accept. But only if you tell me the story from the beginning.”
Near breathes out. Maybe this is what a bloodless victory feels like.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Relationships: Beyond Birthday/L
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Artificial Intelligence, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Friends, Computer Programming, Obsessive Behavior, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Summary: L Lawliet is an undeniably talented child - and one who also happens to be terribly socialized. Hoping to help him develop social skills without the pesky snags that come with living, breathing peers, the heads of Wammy’s present him with a friend.
-----
chapter one of maliceware is up! written in part for day 1: beginnings of the @bb-appreciation-week event :')
The prompt is beginnings. My headcanon is that this is what Beyond naturally looks like (brown hair, freckles, not much similar to L) and that he found the shinigami eyes as a small child the way Light found the death note, like it was randomly dropped
[ID: Animation of Beyond Birthday as a kid. As he blinks, his eyes alternate between dark irises with red pupils and completely black eyes with no sclera at all. Three pairs of red Shinigami Eyes float over his head. End ID]
Mod has been less active than desired due to some sickness, so submissions will definitely reblogged for the promised three days following the event! Please give any late submissions the same love.
Thank you, everyone! This event has been small but really, really delightful. Any input or suggestions, please sound off in the comments!
Finally, if you haven't considered participating in Naomi week yet... you should! Visit @dnsecretsanta or DM for details :)
[Image ID: The character Beyond Birthday, dressed as L and engulfed in flame. The skin of his face and arms is beginning to melt and bubble. He wears an anguished expression. End ID.]
…I’m just so tired. I can’t do this anymore and you can’t understand what that’s been like for me. I know you’ve been distant because you’re jealous of my position. But you need to understand something, B.
L LIED to us. Watari lied to us. They’re bringing in 26 children next week to create a new alphabet and end, as they called it, the first generation of successors. They never intended for us to succeed L. They want us to surpass him — to hold ourselves to an impossible standard — a standard that I managed, that everyone competed for. Even so, Watari and R have already decided that we’ve failed. When I turn 18 on Friday, they want me to take up a leadership position in the FBI. You’ll be lucky if they offer you a similar position, but really B, you should search for a way out.
I don’t know who I am if I’m not L. I know you understand. There’s no hope for me. It’s like you said. I’m out of time.
[Image ID: L Lawliet stands in front of a desk and mirror, a piece of notebook paper in hand. His expression is unreadable. The lower corner of the image reveals that the paper is signed 'A'. It is implied to be the suicide note mentioned under the cut. To the right of the image, a view from out the curtains of a window can be seen, showing a residential street with a single shadowy finger traveling down it. End ID.]
