#death note discussion

[izzyabij]

Honestly i just wanna ramble about light for a second even if Im not making any sense- regardless I wanted to talk about how I saw this particular scene in the manga in terms of how Light was in the beginning of the manga.

In this scene it almost feels like for a second he felt called out- like he’s reminded of his initial ‘hesitation’ and feelings in the beginning when he found out the death note was actually real and not some stupid joke. Like a brief point of clarity- that initial ‘doubt’ that he felt in the beginning in terms of his actions and what exactly that made him.

When he realizes that the death note actually works he looks sick- he’s in disbelief about everything. And he’s shaking, nervous over the fact that he had killed two people. At first his first inclination was to and I quote, ‘Get…. rid of this evil thing.’ But before he could settle that thought he stopped himself. Despite his shakiness and apparent fear he starts rationalizing too himself.

‘ I was actually doing a service killing him…’

��But what about the second guy? That wasn’t worth the death penalty, what he did…’

These two thoughts of the first two people he killed really puts certain things into light (lmao) when we are talking about how he changes throughout the manga in terms of mindset and how far he would go. After these thoughts of his he begins excusing it with- this is what I’ve been thinking all along! The world is a rotten mess- It NEEDS to be cleaned up….

He’s rationalizing to himself his own actions. Almost convincing himself to accept a certain mindset and position on the subject. Regardless, clutching his bag in hand he’s like- and I can ACTUALLY do it. It wouldn’t be impossible with this in hand. This notebook. However in the next page we see him curled up in his own blanket seemingly fearful over the very notion of doing such a thing. ‘Does he even have the guts? Could he really do such a thing?’

He starts to then sort of debate with himself about it.

‘Just two, and look at me… Well it’s only natural. They’re human lives… Of course it isn’t easy.’

‘Can I take it? Maybe not.’

Then he starts delving into something else, convincing himself that he CAN’T quit. He CAN’T give up- So what if he loses peace of mind? Somebody HAS to do this. And he deems it as himself. I mean who else would have the guts? Who else but him?

‘I could do it… not just that… I’m the only one who could do it.’ (Wonder where I’ve heard that line before)

Then in the next page we see Ryuk being like i really don’t give a fuck when Light is telling him about how its been affecting him.

Anyways- Back to the first picture of panels I showed you at the top- regarding the fact that this is more towards the beginning of the story I think it wouldn’t be incorrect to assume he really did feel that flash of original weakness he had in terms of using the death note. That is of course until he clings to the mindset he has now built for himself- convincing himself that he is doing a service to the people. To the world. How could he possibly be evil? Be wrong. He’s making a good choice. He’s helping. He’s not a bad person. They deserve it.

Plus he is the only one who could. Who could handle it? Who could do it… If it isn’t him, who? So how could you call him evil?

And thus in a childish manner he acts out against the bait dangled in-front of him.

Regardless I just love Light sm and his character- especially the differences in the beginning- his rationalization and basically self consoling methods to validate his choices to himself.

Anyways i hope this makes sense- i think it does! I just like to ramble

[ladygriffith]

What if Kira was female?

Hi I wanted to thank you guys for your discussion. I did this fan art and had no idea people were already having a reddit thread with my fan art. here is my take: I thought if Light was female, L and Kira would slowly fall in love with each other.

I don't see Light as misogynist, as he disregarded the feelings of either sex and I don't believe female Light would be misandrist. I would have kept Misa female, with Misa being one-sided romantically attracted to fem! Light. She was still kira and had killed the murderer of her parents and Misa pledged her loyalty. I don't believe Takada would be a love interest, but more her best friend from university.

She would still manipulate Misa and L would have even more conflicting feelings between justice, rivalry, psychological mind games and love. L's analytical approach and suspicions of Light might take on different nuances as he navigates the complexities of interacting with a female suspect. With Light being female in a traditional setting in Japan, I believe Kira would be a lot more unassuming as the daughter of the police officer, Soichiro Yagami, making it harder for L to prove she is guilty and the task force would doubt him more. L may grapple with internal conflicts as he navigates the possibility of accusing a young woman of being a mass murderer, adding complexity to his character development and moral dilemmas.

My ultimate goal was that L and Kira bonded more deeply and through love, built a foundation of understanding each other, navigating through the facades and lies as they had twin flame energy. during the time she erased her memory, they would end up being a couple. L would get the chance to confront her more privately and question her motifs more discreetly rather than investigating in front of the task force. they would have an emotional bond, sexual tension and she would try to seduce L. his suspicion increased to a high percent and there would be a phase where L would have to remove himself from the case since of his personal feelings were involved. and we would still have mello and near's appearance.

L would refrain from handing her over to the authorities (I think they still had death penalty in Japan) and Kira would refrain from killing him. soichiro would survive as mello wouldn't kidnap sayu under L's watch. mello would stay alive since takada wasn't involved. and near would work on the case eventually proving she was Kira, not sure if she'd kill him and mikami in the process.

L would survive, but justice would be served.

She would be sentenced, but by L's intervention not to death. L proposes an alternative life sentence:

Kira's imprisonment in an asylum. she would get the help and the mental health treatment she so desperately needed. L revealed that he had personally funded Light's stay in the asylum. over time, they decided to burn the death note, erasing her memories of it and the evil it did in the world too. no one should ever put their hands on that notebook again. after some years when the he once-feared Kira becomes slowly a public distant memory, she would be released. L would take her abroad where they lived together rather secluded but peacefully and solved cases.

all in all, i wanted to give them a chance to confess their hidden feelings and stay alive.

this was partly inspired by a fanfic of bahari 'Asylum' and 'Silence'.

[yaolmao]

Special Wammy’s Christmas @dnsecretsanta gift for @applestorms

[nekotachiriba]

exploding them with my head

[fishwikipedia]

there’s shit happening on twitter don’t worry about it here’s my official jon moxley baby daddy suspect list. Gootbye.

[smallsinger5901]

how often do you think Light went back to L’s grave? Was it a ritual for him? A weekly, monthly, yearly date he set aside for sitting by him. Gloating, or idly chatting. Never admitting that it was mourning. Never admitting that he was lonely. (It’ll be lonely, won’t it? Isn’t it?)

or did he never even allow himself to think about it? Just pushing it at arms length, forcing himself to look away when he goes past the cemetery, pointedly not searching between the headstones for an single unnamed cross. Equally as lonely.

[rockafstw]

really the crux of the antagonism in Senna and Prost’s rivalry was the possibility of death on the race track. Prost kept on the side of the cautious, publicly adamant about not wanting to die in a racing car, even if it cost him competitively. He’s said he never drove at 100%, he was infamously a poor wet weather driver and he tried to not let emotion dictate his behaviour behind the wheel, so as not to fall into dangerous impulsive territory. This is an approach shaped by the deaths of Gilles Villeneuve, Riccardo Paletti, Elio de Angelis and though it was not a death: the career-ending injury (which, note, occurred in the rain) of Didier Pironi also. Senna, on the other hand, was known to be more aggressive and at times, reckless on track. Though Senna’s experience regarding death in his career was less personal, more distanced, he was of course well aware of the fact of it, of the fact that death was an ever present possibility. But his approach was a refusal to let death interfere with him competitively, rather opting to push himself to the limit because he doesn’t want chances at victory to slip away. It’s a matter of death will not affect me (I will not let this sport take my life) vs death will not affect me (I will not let the possibility of death hurt my driving) and the antagonism comes in where, despite these differing perspectives, both Prost and Senna still really, really wanted to win races, championships and to have them at the front together, directly fighting for something which they both desire greatly, they are athletes after all, it is no wonder these perspectives would eventually clash. Take the incident at Portugal 1988 for example. I consider this to be the first crack in the teammateship. Senna and Prost race down the straight. Prost is in Senna’s slipstream, he darts to the side, setting up the overtake… when Senna quickly swerves towards him, forcing Prost even further to the side and he’s suddenly so frightfully close to the pit wall that crew have to lift up their boards in order to avoid the battling McLarens. This, this manoeuvre was too much for him and he tells Senna as much afterwards, calls him crazy, says that if Senna wants the championship that badly he can have it because Prost won’t let himself be put at risk like that.

[dea-thynote]

Pov: you looked over to your top honor classmate light yagami.

[mars-ia]

i have spent so much time rethinking my thoughts about death note without interacting with the fandom that i somehow managed to forget L and now my brain is convinced that the natural narrative foil of light yagami is matsuda and the natural narrative foil of kira is mikami and that is why the warehouse scene was so excellent

[trashyshrew]

Sorry to hear about your wrist! If you want something to draw, how about Kiyomi/Misa?

well i gave it a shot! 😅

[dancing-lex]

I was immediately struck by this panel in the manga in which Light is thinking about the effect of Kira's judgment on how average people across the globe interact with each other.

This is well known and well examined in the fandom but it really never ceases to amaze me how much of an influence Soichiro has on Light's values and thinking patterns. The modern police state rules with fear as the primary method of control. Light takes the enforcement of law-abiding behavior under threat of violence to the extreme by giving any criminal the death sentence. Being raised by a cop, he would be inclined to believe that this is the best or only way to attain peace.

I think this panel reveals something about Light's character; he thinks to himself that it's a GOOD thing that people are afraid, that the fear of getting killed by Kira will prevent them from doing bad things. Fear = good. Now that I think about it, I bet Light is of the opinion that if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear, so he probably thinks that anyone who is afraid of Kira would be guilty (but that's another can of worms).

The thing is, sure, fear is a great motivator, but that also effects other parts of your life. Light mentions that people have begun to treat each other better (citation needed, anecdotal evidence?) but consider. If you're afraid of your neighbors snitching on you, you're less likely to want to interact with them. You don't know who you can trust; best not to have any close personal conversations. You might be overly (inauthentically) friendly just to make sure people don't plaster your face on the internet for Kira to judge. Otherwise, you might avoid interaction as much as possible. Lie if you have to, if it preserves your safety. Conform, appear normal, be a good person, try not to draw too much attention.

And this is what gets me the most, because isn't that how Light behaves? He's taking his own fear of people finding out the ugly parts of him and imposing that on everyone else. He essentially standardizes how all the people in the WORLD interact. Can you imagine the impact of Kira's rule on communities, friendships, relationships, families, not to mention diplomatic relationships and politics?? Light is singlehandedly breaking down the networks between people.

And the fact that HE is the one doing this is just so fascinating. I'm under the impression that Light believes he's actually doing something good for the world, but what he can't see is that he's actually vaporizing something so vital to society - the genuine connections we need to survive and lead fulfilling lives. And because that's not something he's really, honestly experienced, he doesn't even realize what he's doing. He wouldn't get it anyway.

[m-4399]

I love old fandoms like death note bruh there’s never ending content and you can smell the which era of the internet it was too😭😭😭

[celestialbruise]

lawlight foreplay is just gaslighting and thinly-veiled threats of violence and murder

[13eyond13]

I feel like some of the "Light is NOT socially adept" discourse rn is based on the fact that people just personally don't like him because of what he does secretly in canon, or don't find him as charming as he's supposed to appear to others in canon. I fall more into the category of people defending him as the opposite though, and that's mostly because I think the point of the story is to show how a guy who has everything going for him and doesn't actually have a tragic backstory or a lot of deep dark antisocial tendencies or problems could actually also wind up being one of the worst people you've ever met if he ended up with something like a Death Note in his hands at age 17. Right? Not necessarily because I think everything Light does is excessively polite or incredibly suave, but because I think he'd easily trick me with his regular politeness and good looks and achievements / the usual facade he puts up around others. One of the strongest things about this series to me is the lack of troubling backstory for Light. I think the story wouldn't really make a lot of sense or be as good if he was mr. socially oblivious and delusionally vain who can't actually make friends or impress anybody or fit in.

[usedtobethelegendcreator]

Something I don’t think some people understand is that, if you haven’t watched/read a piece of media, you have no place to critique it. Unfortunately, there’s been an epidemic of people who have never watched Hazbin Hotel critiquing it and its character designs. But since everyone’s used to Hazbin getting dunked on, allow me to use an example.

If I went into the Doctor Who tag and said, “I think the TARDIS is stupid and all the Doctors are boring and ugly as shit”, I would likely be drawn and quartered, and rightly so. I’ve never watched Doctor Who, so even if someone who has watched the show agrees with me, my opinion still doesn’t matter, because I have no idea what I’m talking about.

As another example, if I went into the Death Note tag and said, “I think Death Note is slow and boring, it sucks”, I would likely be committing a cardinal sin in the fandom’s eyes. But my opinion doesn’t matter, because I never finished the anime—not through any fault of its own, but because it just wasn’t my taste. I don’t have the right to judge it for not meeting my taste, because no piece of media can please everyone, and those that attempt to do so often fail.

Can you see where I’m going with this?

If you’ve never watched Hazbin Hotel, you have no right to critique it, just like I have no right to critique a piece of media I’m not familiar with. If you’ve only watched a bit of it, but decided it wasn’t to your taste, it is not the show’s fault for not catering to you specifically. In fact, expecting it to cater to your interests every moment makes you rather entitled.

I love Beyblade Burst. It was my first anime, and my first exposure to fandom culture. But I have never watched season four, and never plan to. Why? Because my favorite character was not in that season, and only one character from the season returned in later seasons. This doesn’t make the fourth season inherently bad, or badly-written. It simply means that, if I did watch it, I wouldn’t like it.

It continues to amaze me how some people cannot comprehend saving themselves the time and effort of hating a show that is clearly not for them. It must be a pitiable existence to live.

[captainhysunstuff]

22 more images below the cut (Warning: Less than moral discussion ahead):

Light leads L to a particular stretch of woods that he calls "neutral ground" and demands to hear L's conditions for him to work with Kira. L tries to explain in a way that will convince Light to accept his assistance. It appears to be successful...

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Big Disclaimer here: I, personally, don't condone the "Kira Plan" in any way, shape, or form. I don't even believe that there is a "correct" way to enact it. I am very firmly on the "Anti-Kira" and "Light is a Tragic Character with Bad Coping Mechanisms/Self Delusion" teams. I don't want to spoil too much of what's left of this story, but I do have a plan/explanation in the future~.