#it’s soooo. what happens when your whole worldview gets turned on its head. what do you do.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

i have no clue what possessed me to finish watching the pentiment playthrough tonight but i did and i’m ruined and i have to go play this game myself now huh.

[parasitoidism]

sending you walter after u sent me jonathan #dialectics

waoh its like cause like law and chaos are the same woawwwwwwwww

favorite thing about them

I do really like that he's such a little asshole sometimes like he just talks shit about people and demons right in front of them its really funny LOL but aside from that I just really like how .. clear his line of thinking is? Like it just makes so much fucking sense exactly how his life experiences and the structure of mikado's society led him from point a to point b in the course of the story because its like soooo fucked up. And it's just like this thing with him and jonathan where it's like he IS being manipulated and the .. conclusion he reaches is really not sound but the way Jonathan just can't understand that he's not just being corrupted by a demon and actually has reasons for feeling the way he does which like in turn drives them apart even more is like ooh its so good

least favorite thing about them

Oh walter i understand where your feelings are coming from but trying to create a world where the strongest survive isn't very based of you

favorite line

I have been thinking about the way he brings up Issachar to Flynn a lot recently and I think it's like... It is ultimately manipulative right. Like he is at the end of the day bringing up Flynn's dead friend whenever he's trying to get Flynn on his side like yeah he's using that tragedy to appeal to his emotions and especially in the YPR scene he's just flat out saying "If my worldview is fulfilled, what happened to Issachar will never happen to anyone else". But I don't think it's just like "Oh I'm just going to say whatever I have to in order to get this guy on my side" I think he really does believe it like he always has this sense of camaraderie with Flynn because they're both casualries throughout the whole game and I think he probably saw himself in Issachar in his last moments which is why this one at shen duque has been sticking with me because he's directly repeating Issachar's last words about "changing this rotten world". Like I think that did genuinely affect him and him invoking Issachar and his fate the way he does is his way of being like, his way of trying to get Flynn to understand what he believes to be true, that his world will never result in that kind of injustice again. IN MY CUTE LITTLE OPINION AS THEY SAY

brOTP

I THINK HE AND ISABEAU SHOULD HANG OUT MORE for the parallels bro the parallels does anyone else see the parallels Walter and Isabeau both have the thing of like being raised with a singular expectation for what the rest of their lives will look like (fisher for walter monk/monastery work for isabeau) and then being chosen as samurai instead like I think IDK i just think. i think about things sometimes.

OTP

Jonathan and Walter are really good like notice how although they do get along with and respect each other they can never fundamentally understand each other. notice how it was always fated to end before it could even begin

nOTP

uhhh Idk. I can't really think of any ships that I hate in smtiv because nobody really gives af about this game like that it's just me and my mind palace and like a few other people's mind palaces

random headcanon

Second oldest child with an older sister and 2 younger brothers idk when this popped into my head but it just did one day and now it's just like. i believe it.

unpopular opinion

People focus on the Hoy thing but that's just like a way that all the casualries talk in this game like Hope also says it a lot but I think the funniest thing about the way he talks is that he says shit like HELLS BELLS all the time like he's an old woman

song i associate with them

I DONT HAAVE ONE again like theres only a few characters I have Songs For

favorite picture of them

I only read like 2 chapters of it but the artist of demonic gene draws him very cutely

[stvlti]

And so I leap, widowed at twenty-seven, From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven. WIDOW WIDOW WIDOW. I like this line 🍸

Pick a passage (500 words or less) from any fanfic I’ve written and I’ll give you a “DVD commentary”

rules of the ask game | my AO3

oh my god, okay. I really do appreciate you sending this in, I was hoping to get a serious one for this ask meme. but I have to be honest, I have pretty much not looked at that poem since I first wrote it back in 2015, so when I received this ask I was scratching my head asking myself what the fuck was even going on inside my head when I wrote that last line (“lest I too be shriven”) 5 years ago.  the subsequent guesswork + digging through multiple online dictionaries / articles it took for me to compile a response... *lies down*

it’s ok though, it was fun trying to piece it back together. so, without further ado: this is False-Eyed Doll, a Death Note poem.

CW: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE & CANON CHARACTER DEATHS

– also, spoilers ahead! turn back if you want to read the poem first –

So the lines you submitted are the last 2 lines of the poem, which was written as a derivative form of the Sonnet, making these 2 lines the final couplet of the Sonnet. 

Now the thing about Sonnets is, if you are following the Shakespearean format, the ‘turn’ (volta) occurs right before the final couplet, meaning this couplet is the ‘conclusion’ that follows the ‘twist’ of the poem’s narrative. 

Now He has Her slain; oh, will l remain Wilting in His wake, maddened by His maw?

Yet He by own pen dies, man who became Law. And so I leap, widowed at twenty-seven, From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven.

I wrote this poem as a ‘Misa poem’, and I meant for it to reappropriate certain canon events in Misa’s POV. So the poem’s narrative begins with the thesis of Misa being introduced to Light and his Kira world order (in stanza I), then sets up her relationship with Rem, her "guardian angel" Shinigami with differing opinions on Light (in stanza II) as the antithesis. The main thrust of the narrative concerns itself with Misa’s conflicting position between the two. However in spite of Rem’s warning, Misa chooses Light, because with the Kira crusade she has finally found a tentative foundation she could grow into and reestablish her footing in this world after her own tragedy (“in His embrace I shall rule again”). 

That was the trajectory of her life plans. So the ‘twist’, the turn, comes when not only Rem dies but Light, her new foundation, does too ("Yet He by own pen dies, man who became Law”). Of course, this is not a surprise for us the readers, since we know how the story ends in canon, but it’s a huge double whammy (heh, Wammy) to Misa. 

So then we arrive at the final couplet, which centres on Misa’s response to this ‘turn’ of events.

And so I leap

“So she leaps”, because this is the only logical conclusion she could come to after losing her “Law” and foundation. She sees no other future ahead with all her plans in ruins, so she climbs to the top of the investigation tower and chooses* death. (This line is a reference to the anime post-credits scene, where it’s implied she commits suicide.)

widowed at twenty-seven

Honestly I’m cringing a bit that the word choice, “widowed”, was what caught your eye. I’m not sure that’s my proudest detail in this poem 😬 I guess I was really leaning into the MisaxLight component there. There’s always been this underlying sense of commitment that Misa has projected onto Light in canon, from her wanting to start that kind of married, domestic life with Light during the Yotsuba arc, to her trying her hand at playing the stay-at-home housewife during the Light-as-L arc (albeit imperfectly) - there are so many aspects in her interactions with Light that simply screams marriage, at least from Misa’s POV. And on a meta level, she definitely promises her mind, body, and soul to Light’s Kira crusade, trading away her lifespan, altering herself to carry the Eyes for Light, and at the core of it, giving her heart over to Light completely. She has effectively married herself not just to Light, but to Kira, too. So to call Light’s death and the loss of everything that comes it a sort of “widowing” is simply the truth. It is Misa’s truth.

And I fought hard to keep the aged “twenty-seven” detail, because I always found it sort of fascinating that Misa qualifies for the 27 Club. She’s a star in the entertainment industry, at this point she’s amassed a successful mini empire with a career spanning modelling, fashion, cosmetics, TV acting, etc., and yet she’s gone too soon at just 27, because she chose* death to escape a tortured existence... (Just like many other legends have before her, who passed away from their own coping mechanisms in addiction and etc.) It’s definitely tragic, but there’s also a sort of dangerous romanticism that certain people associate Club 27 with, which unfortunately I think would be in line with Misa’s worldview too. 

(HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE, ok, I do not condone this sort of thinking! This poem is a persona poem! The views represented here do not represent my own. But it is in my opinion the sort of unhealthy ideas Misa would’ve believed in. )

But you know what though. Insisting to keep “widowed at twenty-seven” on this line had its consequences too, because then I had to find a word that rhymed for the last line, which brings us to...

From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven

Bro, this line gave me soooo much trouble trying to piece back together the thought process behind it. The front part is pretty self-explanatory, it’s a “made Heaven” because Kira’s empire is just made by one man claiming to be God. It’s an artificial Heaven, not a real one. But dang, “shriven”??? 

2015!me was being too clever for my own good. Forget all the wack shit I was shitposting in the fandom about, this is the thing that’s ultimately come back to bite me in the ass, isn’t it

Ok but we’re here now, and we gotta finish this ‘DVD commentary’, so let’s get into it. Obviously I was trying to keep up the whole motif of God and Heaven and religion, so I went looking for a word that would fit the theme. Except, to be completely honest, I was raised irreligious, so when I chose the word “shriven” I kinda just chose it because (1) it sounded cool; (2) it rhymes. I don’t have any emotional connection to the word and I certainly don’t have a nuanced grasp of its meaning, which, really bad form of me as a poet. I don’t do that anymore. (And it’s probably the reason why I kept this in the fandom corners and never shared it in class back then 😭 I was hoping I wouldn’t be quizzed on this lmaooo)

But what I do know, is that “shriven” means to confess and receive penance for one’s sins. And I was aiming for meta here - because there is the Catholic concept of punishment and repentance for one’s wrongdoings, but there is also the secular, judicial concept of punishment and reform for one’s crimes. And, okay, I was making some assumptions* here, i.e. even without her memories Misa could guess something happened to Light, and that something had to do with the Kira case. She’s a bottle blonde, but she’s not dumb dumb, so she could’ve reasonably made an educated guess. So then, “lest I too be shriven”: in a way, Misa is choosing* suicide in fear of being “shriven” by the criminal justice system much the same way they’ve done Light in. And even without the judicial component, she could (and logically, should) be wary of the general persecution and social stigma that comes with being involved in a high-profile criminal investigation like this. (Because it wasn’t just any other criminal, it was Kira, the world’s most wanted killer and mass-murderer, and there’s still plenty of people left in the world with a bone to pick with Kira’s ideology, methods, and many more left with a vendetta for the loved ones Kira has taken away from them.) So this line sets up a nice subtle dichotomy, one that flips the script, because now she’s not the one who passes ‘divine’ judgement, delivers punishments and ‘shrives’ the criminals by Kira’s side, now she’s ‘fallen from grace’ (so to speak) from their 'made Heaven’ and she’s the one running away from being delivered justice and penance.

Pretty cool, right? But honestly, if I had a chance to write this poem again I would not do this to myself ( T д T ) The cool rhyme scheme is not worth all this mental gymnastics just to get at the idea I was trying to communicate ( T _ T )

(*) Note: 

I kept talking about Misa “choosing” death, but the very idea itself is also a bit of an assumption on my part. Sure, at face value we have no reason to suspect it’s not an act she chose to commit of her volition. But, there’s also been talk about whether her choosing to commit suicide at 27 is simply a result of her shortened lifespan after her having traded her remaining years away twice. Like it was simply time’s up for her at 27, and she had to die one way or another. Another consideration is the fact that Ryuk has stated all users of Death Note are cursed with an unhappy life / end eventually. There’s no telling whether that’s another contributing factor to Misa’s suicide, too. But for this poem and the sake of its concentrated narrative focus, I’ve chosen to go with the interpretation that Misa chose to commit suicide of her own accord. That bit of commentary on “lest I too be shriven” also subscribes to the particular school of interpretations / headcanons that Misa possessed far more cognizance than we expect throughout the whole investigation and story of Death Note. Like I said, she’s a bottle blonde, but she’s not dumb dumb. I like the fanon that’s been gaining popularity in recent years, the idea that Misa is plenty capable and cunning for a normal civilian and young entrepreneur. She just seems dumb next to literal geniuses.