#wedy

[kiyomitakada]

fucks me up that wedy canonically had an older sister…

[go-sullivan]

Me becoming emotionally attached to an OT4 from Wednesday that only has like 20 fics and one of them is mine. 😭

[couldtheycatchkira]

Could Wedy solve the Kira murders?

Could catch Kira, would survive

Could not catch Kira, would survive

Could catch Kira, would not survive

Could not catch Kira, would not survive

Voting ended onJan 31

[waifu4waifu]

actually diabolicial that light killed aiber and wedy. like probably to reduce the task force numbers as much as to "punish criminals." but like man you KNEW them. ur dad took a bullet her. that guy had kids.

[waifu4waifu]

soichiro yagami took a bullet for wedy and light yagami killed her...

[vampirekeehl]

i need to draw more of my girls

[magicalgirlypop]

the women of death note deserve better

so i just finished death note. i have Thoughts about the show. some good, some bad. its not the type of show i'd usually watch but there was something in it that kept me watching. but there was one aspect of the show that bothered me to no end, one that made me consider dropping the show more than once. and that's its treatment of its female characters.

now i know shonen isn't exactly known for writing women well. this isn't to say ALL shonen is like that, but the more popular ones definitely have this problem. the women are either sidelined, reduced to love interests, or aren't allowed to reach their full potential, and this can really be seen in the women of death note. for a show that prides itself on having complex, layered characters with depths that keep people talking two decades later, it sure does drop the ball when it comes to writing women. so here i'm gonna go through all the women of death note and how they were done dirty. keep in mind this is all referring to the anime, i haven't read the manga.

naomi misora

starting off with the one that pissed me off the most. naomi had me intrigued from the moment she first appeared on screen. she was a former fbi agent who left her job because her asshole fiance convinced her it was too dangerous, and then blew off her suggestions (which ultimately lead to his death which. el oh fucking el). she was able to piece together that kira could control how his victims die. she could add a lot to the story given that she previously worked with L. she could've been a part of the task force and would help them piece together clues that would pin down kira. does she do all that? LOL NOPE. the writers decided she was too powerful and killed her off within two episodes of her introduction. now i know this is death note and a lot of characters die. but naomi's death pissed me off the most. here was a woman who had so much potential and could solve the case within two episodes and she's killed off. oh but at least she stars in a spinoff novel half the fandom won't read! isn't that just GREAT? look how much we love women guys!

yeah all this time later and i'm still pissed off about how they did her. naomi bby you deserve so much better.

misa amane

OH BOY GET READY FOR A BIG ONE. so misa was actually the reason i wanted to watch death note because she's fucking gorgeous. i didn't have many expectations about how she'd be written considering this is a popular shonen, but even then i was disappointed. misa is the main female character of death note. she's presented as the second kira who has shinigami eyes, which gives her the power to see a person's name and lifespan by looking at their face. she was saved by a shinigami who was in love with her and got his notebook, and her current shinigami rem (more on her next) also has feelings for her. she worships kira because he killed her parents' murderer. she finds out light is kira because her shinigami eyes don't allow her to see the lifespan of a death note owner and as such asks him to make her his girlfriend.

misa misa misa. my gorgeous goth girl. you deserved to be written so much better. a second kira who has shinigami eyes? she could've been so cool. but the writers made 90% of her personality revolve around light and treated her as this dumb, impulsive girl who worships the ground light walks on. and light doesn't even treat her that well. he just uses her and takes his frustrations out on her. oh, and don't get me started on this bullshit

look, i get that misa is a killer and had to be restrained. but WAS THIS FETISHY CRAP NECESSARY?? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE FUCKING CROTCH STRAP?? when light was imprisoned he wasn't tied up like THIS. this is just another case of shonen authors being fucking weirdos with their female characters.

and in the end she kills herself because light dies. instead of letting her heal and live her life the author decides "welp, the man we based 90% of misa's character on is dead, time to kill her off too". just absolute bullshit. she deserved so SO much better.

rem

rem, my gorgeous butch shinigami. she became my favourite character when she was introduced. i was actually surprised by how direct they were about her feelings for misa. i'd seen bits and pieces of remisa before and i thought it'd be one of those ships the writers dance around but they explicitly had her say she has feelings for misa. i was so surprised and happy at that. but of course, this is a popular shonen so i shouldn't have had high expectations. my problem with how they treated rem comes in her death. she dies after killing watari and L to extend misa's lifespan. if a shinigami extends a human's lifespan they die. now, i'm not gonna say her death is an example of bury your gays because gelus, the male shinigami who saved misa before, met the same fate. however, i will say its very Interesting that the only canonically lesbian character who explicitly declares her feelings for another woman dies BECAUSE of those feelings. and then she isn't even acknowledged by misa which is so weird considering how much rem helped her. there's no scene of misa even mentioning rem or mourning her death. she dies without anyone knowing. i do enjoy the doomed yuri aspect of remisa but i really do wish they'd have misa at least acknowledge rem's death.

wedy

wedy, aka merrie kenwood, is a spy who joins the task force in the yotsuba arc. she's an expert at getting through security and is crucial in helping pin down higuchi as kira as she's the one who installs the bugs in yotsuba's meeting room and higuchi's cars. another cool female character with a lot of potential. you know what that means. TIME TO KILL HER OFF! wedy doesn't get much screentime and then dies within eight episodes of her introduction. which is slightly better than naomi. but still. i won't say this is also a case of misogynistic writing as aiber also dies. however, there is a pattern of having a female character with potential, not giving her enough spotlight, and killing her off shortly after her debut.

sayu yagami

sayu, my poor bbygirl sayu. she's introduced as light's bubbly little sister. in the timeskip she goes to college. her most significant role is getting kidnapped so her father could give up the death note to mello's men, making her the classic damsel in distress. and the poor girl is so traumatized that she's in a catatonic state and has to be wheelchair bound and taken care of by her mother. oh, and there's also that weird comment matsuda makes about her which... really dude? sayu isn't AS badly done as she doesn't play much of a role beyond her kidnapping. but still, she also deserves so much better.

kiyomi takada

i didn't think i'd be as pissed off about how they did a female character as i did about naomi and misa but BOY they proved me wrong. takada was light's girlfriend in college but she doesn't play a major role until the timeskip where she becomes kira's spokesperson. like misa, she worships kira. she's happy when she finds out light is kira and would do anything for him. so another woman who worships the ground light walks on. how original. she's supposed to be smart but they never demonstrate it. and need i mention that rivalry between her and misa? making two women catty to each other over a man who isn't even all that, how very typical. but what pissed me off the most was her kidnapping. that scene where mello asks her to take off all her clothes, and then she's left with nothing but a blanket? so fucking weird, i don't care if she's kira's spokesperson. this show has a history of treating its women weirdly and i'm not gonna believe this was anything but the author being weird once again. because what even was the point of that? and then she's killed by light to destroy all evidence. i'm saying this a lot at this point but takada also deserves better. she deserved to live up to her potential.

halle linder

out of everyone, halle is treated the best and that's not saying much. she's a double agent serving as takada's bodyguard and a spy for the spk. she's also the only woman besides sayu and sachiko who survived till the end and wasn't killed off. which i just realised. out of all the women in this show, only THREE survive till the end. isn't that something? i think my only issue with halle is the lack of spotlight. which is a theme with these women.

i thought of adding sachiko but she isn't much of a character. but there you have it. i'm not sure how bad it is in other popular shonen. but death note is full of women who had potential but the author squandered it for the sole reason that they're women. and its so jarring because people can write essays on light, L, near, mello, etc. even MATSUDA had more care put into him than any of these women. which is a damn shame. these women deserve to be in a show that actually cared about them, where they can actually live up to their potential.

i don't dislike death note. it definitely has its strong points. but the treatment of its women is something i take issue with, very strongly. if the author wasn't a weirdo and a nasty misogynist i feel like these women would've been the complex characters they deserved to be.

[kiyomitakada]

“Bad news,” Aiber says over the phone.

“Yes?” L dangles the phone carefully between two fingers. Light looks over in mild interest.

“They want to interview Misa’s sister.”

L frowns. He had ordered Misa to say her sister was against her Kira fanaticism, yes… “What for?”

“The Yotsuba guys couldn’t find any information on her on the Internet,” Aiber explains, “and they want to make sure their background check is perfect.”

“What’s wrong, Ryuzaki?” Light asks from beside him. L shushes him by putting his finger on Light’s mouth, enjoying the way Light turns an angry pink.

“That’s fine,” he says instead to Aiber. “I’ve prepared for the eventuality.”

---

“’Sup,” says Wedy ‘Rika Amane’ Nolastname.

The Yotsuba group exchanges glances amongst themselves. Shimura is visibly trembling.

“Better make this quick,” Wedy continues, hooking a finger through the gun stuffed in her leather jacket pocket. (Terrible gun safety, but it impresses this type of person.) “I got some people to take care of in the afternoon.”

“Are you Misa Amane’s sister,” one of the businessmen manages.

“Yep,” Wedy lies, popping the P. “Til that good-for-nothing left to Kanto, anyway.”

“You’re so mean, sis,” Misa says, putting on the doe eyes.

“And you disapprove of Kira?” another one — Higuchi, she thinks? — asks.

“Hate the bastard. Killed some guys I know from the business.” She turns a baleful look on Misa. “Good men.”

“But sis, without him our parents…”

“Would still be just as fuckin’ dead, wouldn’t they?”

Tears pool in Misa’s eyes. Damn, she’s good at this acting business. “You’re just heartless!”

“I can show you what being heartless looks like,” Wedy intones, and puts her hand on the gun again.

---

“Did they have any further questions?”

“Nope!” Misa beams. “They all just sort of ran away.”

“What are you two talking about?” Light asks.

Ryuzaki pinches Light’s mouth shut. Light-kun makes very amusing fish noises this way, he’d said once, and Misa would have yelled at him for it except that… well, he’s right. “Well done, Misa-san, Wedy-san.”

“We make a great team!” Misa shoots finger guns in Wedy’s direction. “For a second, I almost thought I really had an older sister!”

Wedy salutes. “Anytime,” she says. “As long as ‘anytime’ means ‘never again,’ fuck you all, Aiber’s supposed to be the disguise man.”

“Aiber was already Eraldo Coil,” Light points out as he yanks Ryuzaki’s hand away from his face.

“And?” Wedy counters.

Misa… sort of wishes she had an older sister. It might have been less lonely.

But probably not. Probably whoever it was would have died that night too, because surviving despite the odds is a Misa-exclusive special.

Well, it isn’t worth wondering about, anyway. Misa’s a realist!

“It’s almost bedtime, Light,” she chirps, interrupting whatever argument Ryuzaki and Light had been having. “Are you feeling the loooove in the air?”

“No,” Light says.

Aw. She’ll get him next time.

[ @deathnotetober day 4: family ]