Untitled

[iowntheworldandyou]

Can’t put videos in reblogs who knew

Anyway this is an animatic based on @ckret2 ‘s amazing fanfic go read it NOW 🔫

It's pronounced "secret two"

At some point, the Axolotl must've witnessed the aftermath of the Euclidean Massacre. As you can see, Bill is very happy and definitely not

[kiranatrix]

Felt like sharing something about L - based on not just canon but fanfics too. I was thinking why I love him so much and it's partly coz a part of me wants to be like him. He has that "nothing fazes me" vibe. Like Light is extremely smart too but he also wants people to know & acknowledge it & like him & respect him- whereas L's entire personality is that he dresses, acts, sits, eats like he doesn't give a single f. (1/2)

Hi pashmina-dhaage, thanks for you ask! One bc it’s nice to hear people’s thoughts on the characters, but two so I can thank you again for the fic you wrote for me in the SE exchange ❤️.

Regarding L, yes I certainly see that fans admire certain traits about him, like his detachment from seeking others’ approval, and his ability to stay calm and focused even under tremendous pressure. Most of the time nothing does faze L— even in the face of the deaths of those around him or the risk of his own. He confidently strides into To-Oh or meeting the other officers with wild hair and eye bags, in just jeans and a tee, uncaring how he’s perceived by others. He makes a stark contrast to Light’s beauty and perfect appearance and social graces, and we know Ohba meant it that way. They are foils of each other, but are also very alike under the superficial exteriors. It also makes the few times L IS fazed (falling out of his chair at the word shinigami, getting depressed and fighting with Light, etc) more hard hitting in their rarity.

Regarding Light’s desire for recognition, I haven’t read the fanfic you mention but it’s certainly a common trope in a lot of fanfic that Light craves praise. In canon, I’d argue he was numb to it when it came for achievements he didn’t care about— academics, tennis, romance, etc. He barely spares a glance to his mother upon handing her his test results, quit tennis and had no plans to play at To-Oh (despite the coach’s enthusiasm), was bored when he gave the freshman speech, scoffed at Ryuk and Matsuda when he was admired for his way with women (pft). Light was used to being showered with praise and i don’t think he cared if he got it for those things. It came too easy to mean anything.

What Light did want praise and recognition over was his actions as Kira. He wanted it from his father most of all, and Light reacts very negatively (inside) to his father speaking badly of Kira. When people start to accept him, Ohba and Obata include illustrated fantasies Light has as ruling as a god, it obviously occupies much of his thoughts. Now this is is something he has to work for— not only to make it happen but to bring people to his point of view. And that makes the praise he receives for it, when it happens, extremely meaningful to him. It also devastates him when he never gets the chance to change his father’s mind before he dies, and it unravels him completely in the last scene when he’s unable to convince Near and the team that what’s he’s done was necessary and good vs. ‘just murder.’

Back to L and why he doesn’t seem to give a single f but Light does, it’s their personalities to an extent but I’d also look at their upbringing. L was raised in complete isolation from the norms of a stable society and indulged by Watari in all ways. L never had to go to normal school, never had parents hovering over him and worrying about his future. He didn’t have to worry about getting a degree or a job or an income. He was L and his whole life had been plotted out and smoothed down by Watari, who took care of his needs but also made anything and everything easy. L never had to conform like Light did, and in Japan there is high pressure to conform and achieve. Light was demonstrably bored with those aspects of society. His plans as Kira superseded that upbringing actually; deciding to lead vs. follow/conform, to act on his own morals vs. society’s. L also forms his own environment/rules/morals but still conforms to the legacy Watari has laid out for him and his successors. I suppose he found happiness there (of a kind) while Light didn’t find any in his prescribed role in society. Agree or disagree with Light, it takes a ton of confidence to cast that upbringing aside and forge on your own into danger, especially at his young age.

One last thing about a difference between L versus Light and approval-seeking was L had no one to look up to except Watari, and in the manga it was a very aloof relationship. The anime was warmer, slightly, but you have to go into fanfic to find anything actually fatherly or loving. Light on the other hand had that with his family and especially Soichiro. His father simultaneously represented everything that was good and worth saving about humanity, as well as how the rotten world and it’s justice systems can fail. Soichiro was the police chief but crime still existed, murders still happened, women harassed on the street and schoolchildren taken hostage. If the best man Light knew couldn’t stop it, who could? To him the answer was Kira, and he spent everything he had up to his last moments trying to convince by either words or actions that was true to the world.

And L is also cool lol despite being objectively odd because Ohba and Obata wanted him that way. :) A lot of answers the two of them give about L’s designs and mannerisms is along the lines of ‘we just thought it was cool.’ Thanks for the thoughts and sorry for the ramble!

[oopdeathnote]

Hello, just logging on for my biannual post. Do you think Light feared leaving university, leaving being Japan's Number One Student, the junior tennis champion, the highest scoring student on the entrance exams, and becoming just another member of the police force? Do you think part of what drove him to become God was the fear of no longer being exceptional? That he had to keep getting better, exceeding his peers all the way to the status of a deity, because to do otherwise would be losing some fundamental building block of how he saw himself as a person?

Do you think Light Yagami feared coming to nothing?

[kiranatrix]

I don’t think he feared coming to nothing, but rather coming to boredom. His core identity of exceptionalism was unchangeable because it wasn’t based on achievements (which didn’t matter to him) but a lifetime of observations. All of the achievements he’d racked up thrilled his parents and would have thrilled any of his peers but meant nothing to him because it was too easy. The “normal” world he lived in was structured to help the average person succeed and he knew he was not that. We might say that he was full of himself but it’s hard to argue that Light wasn’t singularly exceptional. His judgements about himself and his abilities were based on a solid foundation of truth. He sought a challenge at his level and it simply didn’t exist. It wouldn’t exist in any normal career path even when he got to the top. That depressed him.

So it was tragic in a sense that the Death Note, while unique and amazing in its magical ability, also provided the easiest possible method to achieve that magic. You simply needed to write a name. Anyone could do it! Just using the notebook wasn’t enough as it was too easy. But not just anyone could keep it up in full knowledge or use it to achieve a greater goal. So he took the opportunity to do it only after wrestling with the consequences (to HIMSELF)— that was a big challenge (Light vs. Light), he overcame it, and decided that only HE could do this. Obviously, that’s why it came to HIM, right? This was his purpose, doing something exceptional nobody else could do, even if it destroyed him.

Ryuk tarnished that notion when he informed Light that he dropped the notebook at random. He didn’t “pick” Light. But even that statement wasn’t enough to change Light’s mind about it, perhaps because he needed it to be true given what he’d already done. Or maybe it didn’t matter anymore since he’d proved he could do it. It was something he believed until he died (nobody could do it but me) and, interestingly to me, an idea Ohba (and Ryuk) reinforce in the later stories and one-shots again and again.

But…being Kira became boring too and the first time he says so is after L is gone. Once again, he has achieved something remarkable (if horrifying), is poised at the top, and it is losing meaning to him because it is easy. Light was only happy during the struggle because of how rare it was for him. This feeling is mirrored by L who views Kira as his ultimate intellectual rival and a case like none other, creating an obsessive fascination that eventually killed him. And with L’s death, something else died that Light craved yet never got back in the story—a true challenge that banished his boredom.

[13eyond13]

In my opinion one of the weirdest/funniest/most frustrating things about Light Yagami is how rapidly he can mentally readjust to convince himself (and others) that everything is always going according to his plan, or else automatically beneath him in some way.

For example, this is what he says to Ryuk about Lind L. Tailor appearing on TV to confront him:

Like I’m sorry Light, but there’s no way in hell you “knew” this was going to happen lmfao, I mean this was his initial shocked reaction to the broadcast literal seconds before that:

I think Light is honestly so overconfident and unable to admit he can make mistakes or be outwitted that he genuinely convinced himself that he “always knew” this would happen in a matter of split-seconds, though. Like as soon as L decided to publicly condemn and oppose him, Light mentally readjusted the narrative to convince himself (and Ryuk) that he was the one with the upper hand all along, and that he always had control over the whole situation – that he could not possibly be outsmarted or proven wrong by anyone, ever. This rapid mental re-framing and dismissing of things that don’t align with his idealized view of himself and his goals is something you see constantly in Light throughout the story.

[kiranatrix]

Heh. Cognitive restructuring. This is something a lot of successful people do in real life and as long as it isn’t maladaptive, can be a coping tool. It’s actually the basis of cognitive therapy, reframing negative thoughts and situations as positive ones so they can be tackled vs. overwhelm us. The opposite of this is distortion, where negative thoughts become exaggerated instead and cloud out the positive (and also commonly the way out of the situation). Which would be more useful from Light’s perspective?

I think the writers also made Light’s character very suspectible here to hindsight bias—where an unpredictable event is now viewed as expected despite no evidence for that. The “I knew it all along” phenomenon. It’s a way for people in uncontrollable situations to feel in control and maintain perspective and optimism. Light was deeply uncomfortable in the series with not being able to predict or be in control of situations, so these psychological details just make him more of an interesting and multifaceted character to me.

Ryuk said he admired Light’s optimism and here we have it on full display, and his coping mechanisms to stress.

[si1verdeer]

Misa: I love you, Light.

Light: I love you too, Misa.

*silence*

Misa: We both love you as well, L.

L: Thanks. I was feeling left out.

───♡───────

[guideaus]

i saw the clip of orange being ejected on twitter, and it made me realize green also does that thing when you play among us where you slightly question the accusation of your partner, but then eventually have to give up and vote against them bc you'd look suspicious if you didnt.

and in the show, green only gets away with it because they have that naive, pure, and kidna dumb vibe. i originally wasnt sure about red since he couldve just been dumb or the actual alien, like how orange acted unnaturally, but green is the opposite in a passing way that lets them fly under the radar.

[navigatorsghost]

I love this pic so much. Not mine, artist is あまどらごん on Pixiv, link in post source.

[the-witch-of-resurrection]

𝖳𝗈 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗅𝖾𝖿𝗍, 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝗇𝗈𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗌 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍.

𝖳𝗈 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝗋𝗂𝗀𝗁𝗍, 𝗐𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝗇𝗈𝗍𝗁𝗂𝗇𝗀 𝗂𝗌 𝗅𝖾𝖿𝗍.

[sapphickocho]

I love how Light thinks “I’m so disappointed in you” at Near after he thinks he’s won, as if he’s some disapproving father figure (he's a 23-year-old mass murderer losing his mind in a warehouse). With all that being said, I need this dynamic taken to its worst possible conclusion. I want Light to provoke Near's severe daddy issues.

[playinghergame]

Confessions of a Mask

A short Lawlight / L->Light comic

by Ruuko as part of the multi-author anthology Death Logic 1!

[quicktimeeventfull]

Hammer and Nail

2k words Gen Read here or on AO3 Light really and truly isn’t Kira. He’s a regular person with OCD who lands under L’s surveillance and has to handle the absolute nightmare scenario of having your paranoid thoughts of being monitored suddenly come true. Content notes: Non-textbook OCD. Includes descriptions of violent thoughts and impulses, paranoia, and allusions to other intrusive thoughts. Please note that this centres around a situation where Light's paranoia becomes (partially) justified.

Someone has been in Light’s room.

Light is certain of this because he checks for the possibility every single day. He has a slip of paper in his door, a trick with his handle, and a thin piece of graphite tucked into the hinge that will break if anyone opens it. He sets all these up every time he leaves his bedroom, then resets them every night before he goes to bed so he’ll know if he’s tried to leave. He does all these things because he is batshit.

On some level, he is aware that he is completely insane. He tells himself this repeatedly, every time he goes through one of his rituals. They are bizarre, and they are ridiculous. They are not based in reality. It doesn’t help. He tells himself and he believes himself but he can’t stop himself from doing it anyway; he watches like a passenger inside of his body, shouting directions at a driver who refuses to listen.

Frankly, he’s stopped caring because they work. Sort of. Briefly. When he checks the door and sees that the paper is in place and the door handle is where it’s supposed to be and the graphite is unbroken then there is a moment, fleeting but real, where his thoughts recede and he can think like how he imagines normal people think.

But today the handle is not in place, and the graphite has been snapped in two. And, much worse, the slip of paper is exactly where it’s supposed to be.

Feeling dazed, Light removes his jacket and hangs it neatly in the closet. Everything looks just as it’s meant to — the light, fading thin through his balcony windows throwing soft shadows on his bookshelves, his VCRs lined up neatly in the shelf beneath his television, his bed made with hospital corners like he’d left it before school. It had rained last night, and so it still smells like petrichor; he rubber seal around his balcony door has cracked and so any scent from outside gets in, filling up his bedroom with diesel or rain or the the sweetness of camellia in the spring.

He paces a slow circle around the edge of his room, then throws himself onto his bed and folds his hands behind his head. His preference would have been to curl up in the fetal position, but if he hopes that if he forces his body to behave normally his mind will follow suit.

He tries to remember — did he really pull the handle down? It’s possible that he’d forgotten. It wouldn’t be like him, but it’s possible. Except the graphite is lying in two pieces on the ground. There’s no way around that. Could his mother have come in to clean up? He’s asked her not to, but she sometimes does it anyway. But, if so, she wouldn’t have put the slip back.

No, the conclusion is absurd and terrifying but inescapable. Someone has been in here. They’ve been touching his things and seeing everything private.

He shuts his eyes. From the street below, he can hear a car door slamming, and then a sudden burst of muffled laughter. Usually, he likes that he can hear a little bit of the outdoors from in here, but right now it just feels like another invasion.

The outside world often feels like hostile ground, but he’s worked hard to make sure his room is safe. Once he locks the door, he knows that no one will hurt him and he won’t hurt anyone else. This is where he keeps all of his things — his art books, his VCRs with recordings of all his favourite shows, the magazines he forces himself to read over and over again to prove to himself that he really is interested in girls. It isn’t always pleasant, but there’s a relief to preforming all of his rituals without judgement, even the ones that are strange or embarrassing or gross.

And he’s got his book —

Light jolts upwards.

A few weeks ago, he’d stopped by a stationary store on his way home from school and picked up a plain black notebook. Everyone says that it helps to journal, and he’d been desperate. He’s been writing out every stray thought that comes to mind, scribbled in a panicked stream-of-consciousness which feels more like an exorcism than a writing session.

His mother must have found it. Or Sayu. Or his father. That would explain why they’d put the paper back in place. They must have looked through it and seen what he’s written, everything about them and his classmates and strangers on the street, all the things he doesn’t want to do but which echo around and around in his mind until he can’t distinguish them from the things he does. They’re probably calling the police right now.

He has to kill them.

The thought comes to him, unwanted and unbidden, and lodges itself in his throat like hair in a shower drain. He doesn’t mean it, but he knows just what they would look like. He could make it look like an accident and everyone would believe him. He’s the golden son with the perfect grades and his whole life in order; it would be so easy, and then everything would be just fine, forever. He’d be safe.

He twists his hands into his hair and pulls, trying to make the image disappear. He thinks, he needs to get back to studying, so no one will suspect him when he kills his family.

Light shuts his eyes. He breathes out. Carefully, he relaxes his hands, then folds them into his lap. His scalp hurts where he’d tugged. He reminds himself, very firmly, that he does not want to kill anyone. He’s a good person. Everyone says so. He helps his sister with his homework. He does well in school. He’s going to get a perfect score on his entrance exam and that will prove how good he is, how tame. It will prove that he isn’t a danger to anyone at all. He can imagine how their blood would look, drying thick and dark in the carpet.

He exhales, then stands and walks the length of his room to his desk.

He plucks a ballpoint pen off of it, then kneels down, pulls out his drawer, and opens up the secret compartment where he keeps his notebook.

It’s exactly where he left it. Of course it is. He picks it up and flips through it, trying not to read his own words. It looks like something that belongs in a grainy scan on a true crime website.

Light returns the notebook to the drawer. Then he takes it out again, and checks one more time. He’s not entirely certain what he’s looking for but he knows he has to keep looking. Even if they had found it, he tells himself, nothing bad would happen. They’d still love him. They’d take him to get help. He should tell them. He should walk downstairs this second and phone his mother and tell her that he’s losing his mind and needs her to come back home, right now, no matter what.

He can smell copper. He can feel it on his fingers, oily, drying in flakes.

Light slams the drawer shut, then paces a circle around his room. He tries to focus on the scent of rain or the distant sound of cars from the streets below, but he can’t do it — his entire world has narrowed to the pinhole of his mind, to the strangling certainty that he will hurt and kill, that he is dangerous, that he is a murder waiting to happen.

This is insane. He is insane. But he didn’t make it up. Someone has been in here.

He has to get rid of the book.

-----

“What,” L says, not particularly expecting Soichiro to have an answer, “is your son doing?”

“I —“ Soichiro’s voice is hoarse. L flicks his eyes over, but that appears to be the end of his sentence.

True to his word, L has restricted monitoring of the Yagami household to Soichiro and himself. The rest of the task force has been shuffled off to a separate hotel room, where they are presumably watching the Kitamuras.

This room feels just like every hotel room he’s ever stayed in. Flat fluorescent light, the residual scent of bleach hanging around the sheets, a dull and disposable glamour that’s starting to feel faintly panic-inducing. He hasn’t been outside in months, and his whole body feels like a live wire. By contrast, the sleekness of the Yagami’s household looks quite pleasant, even in pixilated monochrome. There are apples on the counter, and photographs of distant family tucked into the corners. It’s a place where people live, and he has to tamp down an inconsolate and entirely inappropriate sense of jealousy.

Up until about forty seconds ago, the whole affair had been remarkably boring. Now, though, they’re watching his prime suspect disassemble what looks very much like a homemade bomb.

He gestures towards the television set. “I find that little odd,” he informs Soichiro.

“It — yes. He’s — he’s always been interested in crafts.”

L does not feel that requires a response. He plucks a mochi rabbit off his plate, in order to have something to chew on while he collects his thoughts.

“Frankly,” he says, once he’s swallowed, “the fact that he’s hidden the notebook doesn’t concern me. That’s normal enough. It’s the lengths to which he’s gone to hide it that I’m interested in. It’s a shame the resolution isn’t high enough to see what he’s written. I would have liked to read the contents.”

“We —“ Soichiro makes what L is sure is a very valiant, if not entirely successful, attempt at sounding professional. “We can send Mogi back in tomorrow to retrieve it.”

“I don’t think so,” L says. He points at the screen, where Light is dragging a metal wastebasket out from under his desk. Light tosses the notebook into it, then punctures the bag of fluid with a pair of craft scissors and pours it into the bin.

Soichiro seems to realize what he’s doing a second before it happens. With a strangled noise, he stands.

Light strikes a match, and drops it in.

The effect is immediate. The book shoots up in flames — a sudden tower, so bright that the cameras are momentarily blinded. The screen goes a sharp flat white. It hurts. L blinks, and then it’s settled, and Light is standing in front of a pillar of flames.

“He’s going to burn down the house,” Soichiro says. He reaches into his pocket and fumbles for his phone.

L holds out his hand. “It’s safe,” he says. “The fire is contained.” He’s not at all sure that’s actually true, but there’s nothing they can do without effectively announcing to Light that they’re monitoring him, and it’s suddenly very important to him that this does not happen.

Soichiro makes a strange, choked noise. L ignores it. He won’t do anything without his permission, not while the gamble of his son’s innocence is on the line.

It’s a small chance. Barely worth remarking upon. Five percent at best. If this were any other case, he’d notch it as another thing to follow up on, one blandly useful piece of evidence which might some day add up to something important. But this isn’t any other case. It’s this one, which is like nothing L has ever experienced before, and which has not yet had anything remotely resembling an actionable lead. He’s been chasing shadows with his hands.

Five percent is so much better than zero. Five percent will be enough.

He leans forwards. He can feel electricity running through him. This is how a case is meant to feel. It’s how it’s always felt before.

On the screen, Light is very still. He stares, unmoving, into the flames. A pyre, L thinks, wildly. That, or an offering to some profane being, the sort of monster that could kill hundreds without a whisper of mercy.

He makes a mental note to inform Watari the moment Soichiro is out of the room: as of today, Light Yagami will take priority.

L pushes his knuckle against his lip, hard, until his teeth press through the fat and he can feel the texture of his own bone. He looks and looks and looks until at last the flames winnow and flicker and die.

[sodiumfreak]

mama we all go to a place that is neither heaven nor hell because we used the death note!

[piskopiop]

⛧°. ⋆♱⋆. °⛧

[pastelloww]

It was gonna be longer but I ain’t doing allat. Im mad lazy

I like to think that when Light genuinely laughs he unintentionally maniacally laughs. L should’ve tested this.

[cherushiina]

eye for an eye you would risk it all for my blessing; look at what i did with my blessing

[pastelloww]

sorry guys it’s another redraw😔 had so much fun with this tho, I love all of Volume 1’s panels SM you don’t understand…..

These are so fascinating to me tho, when he first meets Ryuk he talks about how he’ll only experience the torment of those who use the Death Note and how he can neither go to heaven nor hell. And my guy is just laughing nervously 😭 I realized this got cut out in the anime so that made me a bit sad (unless I missed it-), I would love to see Light’s VA’s take on it

Obata’s expressions are always so good broo he’s such an inspiration to me (also sorry for the poor quality of the manga, it was the only image I could find)

[creepycr4wly]

It's her first day on earth be nice to her