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Light as Boa Hancock

Tried to draw using only the lasso tool. I'm pretty happy with it, kinda wish I had planned the background a little better.

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Light getting a nosebleed when aroused would be so funny, he would hate it so much. Inadvertently announcing to everyone how aroused he is, getting constant nosebleeds from being around L or when he used the death note.

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WIP - Light in a changshan wearing glasses

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Light vogue posing at L's grave with Ryuk as photographer except Ryuk keeps taking pictures of everything but Light

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Music: Fly, my wing by Mili. A death note animatic about Sayu and Light.

Finally decided to make an animatic, I've been meaning to try my hands on making one for years. I'm mostly happy with the final results but there are things about it that I'm not satisfied with.

I couldn't decide on who's perspective to draw it from but landed on Sayu since it focuses more their relationship then if I had chosen Light's. With Light I feel like it would have been more about pre kira him and the him at the end of the series not unlike what the anime did with Light running pass his past self. Which is something I do want to explore but not for this project. (I did find a song that I feel fits a bit better in way too.)

Why are wheelchairs so hard to find good references for in different angles. Felt like the poses were repetitive, also realized that I cannot for the life of me keep a consistent art style/character design.

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Light would have thrived in the To Be A Hero X world. Hands down Nice is basically what everyone think Light is anyways, even with the celebrity girlfriend and probably dating nemesis.

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Ghost L would 100% mess with Light whenever possible.

Light would jut be sitting and suddenly something pulls his leg and drags him off the chair. He would feel hands massaging his feet while in bed. His thighs are groped while pissing or in the bath.

...Actually why is his legs the only victim of this haunting.

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lawlightmane where L only kisses Light after Misa kisses Light because he likes the idea of Misa's lipstick on Light's lips smudging onto him. He gets twice the kisses at the time so to speak.

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okay class, we’re gonna do a close reading today, which means we’re going to read through a section of the text and analyze specific textual and visual elements of it. the specific scene we’re looking at today is the kidnapping of Sayu Yagami from the hit anime death note. this is a very dense event with a lot of text and clustered images, so to make this easier, I’ve selected a few pertinent pages of the manga for us to close read. Buckle up!

some things to think about here: light’s first thought after being informed sayu was kidnapped is “they beat me.” What does this say about light’s initial mindset about the kidnapping? How does his use of the word “underhanded” characterize his feelings on the kidnappers? How does this contrast with Light’s own methods, and what does this say about Light’s view of himself? keep this in mind as we continue the close read.

Most of this section is heavy dialogue. The only internal monologue present here is light thinking “Sayu…” while clutching his phone. What does this suggest about his priorities? What techniques does the mangaka use to create a sense of urgency and tension? Why does Light ask his father if he’s okay? What contrast is the mangaka drawing between Light’s condition and Soichiro’s?

Prior to this page, Light lays out a convoluted excuse for why the task force can’t notify the rest of the police about Sayu’s kidnapping. The last panel is the part I want you to focus on. Manga is read from left to right—why is it that the first explanation for why Light is preventing the task force from telling the police is Ryuk’s statement? How reliable is Ryuk as insight into Light’s mental state? How reliable is Light himself as insight into his own mental state? Provide textual evidence to back up either of these narrators as “reliable.”

Please also consider Ryuk’s position in the narrative as the “audience stand in,” to whom Light has historically monologued at and explained his schemes to. What is the significance of the audience stand in teasing light for his “soft spot” for Sayu? Is it notable that this is the first time in the scene that Light has referred to his identity as Kira, relatively late in the incident? What does this suggest about Light’s evolving mental state?

For these three panels, I want to focus on visual choices made by the mangaka. What is different about how Light is drawn in these pages vs. the previous ones? Why did the mangaka avoid drawing Light’s face? What does his lack of internal monologue paired with this facial ambiguity suggest about his mental state? At what other points in the story has Light been drawn without an internal monologue AND a lack of facial clarity? (I’ll answer this one: when Soichiro has a heart attack and Light visits him in the hospital.)

what does this suggest about light’s feelings about his family being in danger? What is the mangaka trying to suggest he’s hiding from the audience or from himself?

This page is directly after the previous, and the first clear shot of Light’s face in a while. What does this suggest about his dialogue with his father? Why does Light tell his father not to die? Is it significant that the usual audience of the task force is not drawn witnessing this exchange? What does that suggest about whether Light is saying this performatively or not? Why does Light specifically tell his father not to die “in front of sayu”? What does this suggest about his feelings about his sister’s mental state?

Do you think Light is being honest here? Provide textual evidence to back up your argument.

I want to focus on this page. What do you think about Light telling himself he can kill his sister? What do you think about his immediate reversal? What do you think about his reasoning?

Calling back to the earlier panel with Ryuk, how does Light use his identity as Kira to justify his initial feelings and reactions? How does this connect to the Japanese archetype of the “tsundere?”

Is it significant that Light uses the word “can” instead of “will?”

Multiple times throughout the manga, Light has turned to the notebook as the first solution for any problem. Is it significant that he does not do so here? What does this say about this particular situation and Light’s feelings towards it?

We know from previous readings that Light hates losing. Is it significant here that he admits a loss to both the kidnappers and Near? Why does Light abstain from killing his sister? Why does Light not consider killing his sister at the very start when killing is typically his first solution to a problem?

What can you infer about Light’s mental state by the tone of his internal monologue and the use of “…” and repetition of words? Why is he stuttering? What does his self admonishment of “what am I saying!” suggest?

How does this compare to his initial reaction to Sayu’s kidnapping?

This is the last page we will take a look at today. Why does Light ask Near this question? What does he hope to gain from the answer?

Contrast his earlier decision to prevent the police from knowing about the kidnapping and his regret for not doing so here. What does this suggest about Light’s ability to make decisions when his family is involved? Why does Light refrain from killing his father and sister? How reliable is his reasoning for not doing so? Have there been other points where Light abstained from killing and then making excuses to absolve himself?

Lastly: what is Light trying to convince himself/the reader of on this page?

Do you believe him?

And that’s a wrap! Please answer these discussion questions in essay format, making sure to cite specific examples from the text. you may use the whole manga to support your argument. See you tomorrow!

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Man I feel like every time I join a fandom, I end up with a new kink. Predator and prey was not really my thing until lawlight. There's just so many fics that have the whole you run, I chase dynamic and now I'm really into it. Light needs to stop being a tease or he'll end up captured.

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Every one of Light’s squeaky/quiet laughs <3

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Bet Light would be unreasonably obsessed with Infinity Nikki. Cozy game with pretty clothes and the ability to purify evil, sounds like something someone would be into. He'll never let anyone know about this though.

Misa would be the one playing it first and she would pester Light to play with her. He reluctantly does except he gets really into it. It even got gambling in it someone with an addictive personality like Light would get sucked in.

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[day 7 of @dnrarepairweek: judgment | audio drama 'verse | l/ryuk]

-

Light walks back to his apartment on his own after the funeral. His face is devoid of tear tracks. He’s staring off into the distance, eyes fixed on absolutely nothing; if L were to float in front of him, he could almost pretend Light was looking at him.

L is not one for self-deception. He stays where he is.

“I didn’t think he’d be so sad,” Ryuk remarks, once Light has returned to his bedroom and fallen face-first onto the bed. Ryuk and L are in the living room now.

“Of course he’s sad,” L almost-snaps. “He’s been honest to two people in his life, and one of them just killed the other.”

Ryuk frowns. “He’s been honest to me.”

“No he hasn’t. He likes you too much for that.”

There’s a silence. L falls back on the couch, not that he can feel the cushions physically anymore, and stares at the ceiling.

This is actually a fairly decent afterlife, all things considered. No pinpricks of sensation can touch him now. He’s going to miss haunting this place, once Light is gone — because he will be gone: L may have no faith in his successors but he knows Light’s time is ticking to an end. L can tell. He doesn’t have the energy to run much longer.

When he closes his eyes he can still hear Misa’s wild laughter in his ears. He stares at the ceiling instead.

“You really hate him, don’t you?”

“Hm?” L lolls his head around. Ryuk is dangling from the ceiling beams like he’s doing a pull-up. “Why do you ask?”

“I told you,” Ryuk says. “Ghosts can only hang around if they’ve got a powerful anger in their hearts, yeah?”

Oh. Right.

L is not very used to lying. He’s good at it, don’t get him wrong — certainly better than most people he knows — but he has never had to sustain one for such a long and continuous span of time. Ryukichi ‘Ryuk’ Nishiyama cannot be allowed to figure out who L’s real target is, because who knows how that would disturb the little play they’re both watching?

The moral thing to do, really, is write Ryuk’s name right now. But then L wouldn’t be able to hang around here anymore, and he is rather invested in seeing how this ends.

(And seeing Light’s misery first-hand, but that’s less relevant.)

“Yes,” he says. “I hate Light Yagami.”

It’s not even that much of a lie. Dying hurt, you know?

“Well,” Ryuk says, “I’m not letting you kill him.”

“I’m not planning to,” L says politely. “But how would you stop me?”

Ryuk shrugs. “I don’t know how ghosts work… Block you from getting to him. Tell him about you. Kill him first.”

“Why haven’t you told him already?” L asks, because apparently he wants to keep up his streak of self-sabotaging curiosity.

“Are you kidding? He’d be all over me, asking me how to talk to you, trying to figure out how he could kill you again… He’s insufferable when it gets to you, L.”

There’s a surge of misdirected fondness in some chamber of his dead heart. L shakes it off and says, “I thought you liked him insufferable.”

“It’d be a nice change of pace from this,” Ryuk agrees. “But… hmm. I dunno, keeping a secret from him is kinda fun. Since he knows everything most of the time.”

Light has never known everything. Light knows around 1% of what L does, and certainly less than what most people do at his age, considering he can’t even act very human around his coworkers anymore.

“And besides,” Ryuk adds, “it’s nice having someone to talk to, you know?” He nods at the bedroom door. “Light-o doesn’t really talk anymore.”

Yes, because Ryuk dropped a murder book into his life and drove him to ruin his relationships with everyone around him while stagnating in forever-seventeen, and Light doesn’t even seem to realize. No fucking wonder he doesn’t talk anymore.

“I guess you’re better entertainment than I’ve had in a while,” Ryuk concludes.

“Careful, Ryuk,” L says, letting a drop of condescension seep into his voice. He’s earned it for putting up with this monster for so long. “I might think you like me.”

Ryuk’s eyes flash wide. “Huh?”

L rolls his eyes. “It was a jo—”

Ryuk lets go of the ceiling beam and only just manages to flap his wings before he crashes into the ground.

…Wait. Is L onto something?

He mentally flips through his psychological profile book. Ryuk likes: entertainment, apples, the secondhand thrill of breaking the rules. Ryuk dislikes: boredom.

Ryuk has been very bored.

L has also been very bored. And he can’t kill Ryuk now, but no one said a little torture wasn’t in the cards.

L tilts his head, deliberately slow, so his hair brushes over his clavicle in a way he’s been told is insanely attractive. Possibly it isn’t now that he’s dead, but Ryuk’s eyes snap over right away, so he’s still got something.

“I was joking. But we could have fun if you wanted,” L says, letting his voice dip lower.

“I — uh — wait a second, L,” Ryuk says, half-stammering. L smirks to himself. “Are you saying…?”

L raises an eyebrow at him. Then he remembers most people can’t see his eyebrows. Then he remembers the Shinigami have preternaturally good vision, and he has nothing to worry about.

“Uh…” Ryuk’s eyes dart around. “Gods of death aren’t allowed to have, uh, intercourse. It’s in the rules.”

“We’re not going to,” L says, hoisting himself up from the sofa and catching the brief flash of disappointment over Ryuk’s face. “Would you enjoy having a knife held to your neck, in a sex way?”

Ryuk’s eyes widen further. “That’s a thing?”

That’s definitely a yes. Also, how has Ryuk lived millions of years peering down at the human realm without witnessing knifeplay?

“Come on,” L says. “We can use the guest room.”

-

It takes more tries than L would like to admit for him to get a grasp on the kitchen knife. He has to focus, to feel the ground under his feet, to remember that if he can obey the physical rules of floors then he can obey the physical rules of wielding violence as well.

It’s vaguely uncomfortable. His body is his, at least in abstraction, but the environment is not; he was never particularly good at existing in everyone else’s reality even back when he was alive. He liked his padded white room and his Macbook and the deafening silence.

Ryuk is looking at him, though, and when he hyuks in response to L’s third failure, the rage that shoots through L is so cold and dark that he snatches the knife perfectly.

So now they’re here. Somehow L has ended up straddling the god of death that he swore his most serious vow to kill. The sheets underneath them are beige. Ryuk is panting in his face — his breath probably stinks, but thankfully L’s olfactory senses aren’t tuned into this world’s channel yet — and L eyes his neck: no arteries, but lots and lots of collarbones that are practically begging to be broken.

Lesser men would start doubting their decision-making skills at this point, but L is not lesser men.

“Ah — hah,” Ryuk says, when L touches the knife to his throat.

“Sensitive much,” L comments.

“Look, buddy, I haven’t been touched in—”

Ryuk shuts up when L presses the knife in deeper, punching out an exhale, a full-body shudder, the illusion of his pupils flickering as he looks down to where L is drawing a line down to his chest.

Does a Shinigami have blood? Would he even be able to tell if he broke the skin?

He imagines, briefly, Light underneath him instead. Light would put up a fight. Light would make L work harder to dig up the sparks so obviously spinning in Ryuk’s eyes. Light would buck into the knife if it meant getting himself free and L would shove him back down, watch the blood welling in the shape of a smile along that pretty neck —

“Scared?” L murmurs.

Ryuk barks out a laugh, high-pitched and careening. “You’re a detective, aren’t you?”

L drags the tip of the knife down to the spot right above where a human sternum would be, where Ryuk’s neck and chest meet, held together by jagged arcs of bones that look like staples. They would be so easy to undo. There are an unfathomable number of years thrumming in panic under the edge of L’s blade, desperate to fall apart.

Falling into his interrogator voice is the easiest thing in the world. He makes his voice low, soft. “Answer the question.”

“I’m a little scared,” Ryuk says, sucking a breath in through his teeth when L slides the knife between the bone-rings. “I k-know you can’t hurt me, but — fuck.”

L grins. He twists the knife, listening to it scrape as he applies pressure outward, half-thinking of Beyond and then thinking about nothing at all except how goddamn difficult it is to not just tear the whole bone out and then start stabbing.

He wants, is the thing.

L does not want very much, as a rule. (Said with the carefree air of someone who has everything they believe they want on a silver platter.) He likes winning: he likes clear, beautiful, remote takedowns, cases solved and tied in neat little bows, preferably with as few civilians involved as he can manage, although he often can’t. He likes the way surprise looked on Light’s face. He likes sweets. Liking is not the same thing as wanting.

If he’d wanted Light dead, he could have arranged it. But that wasn’t the game.

Ryuk, though —

L remembers the exact moment he’d realized this was all Ryuk’s fault. He’d gotten the notebook already, his grip on the corner white-knuckled. He usually wasn’t so afraid of dropping things, but this was the only way to make things right for good. And then it had hit him in a tidal wave of nausea: he’d stopped before he could reach Wammy and almost doubled over, pressing his fist to his mouth, because — thousands of people. Hundreds of thousands by now. Real people who made bad jokes and listened to music and probably had loved ones, dead because a Shinigami was bored.

L doesn’t really have much of a moral compass. Times like this are when he remembers why. How does anyone stand it, he’d thought, Light’s face swimming in his vision, the phantom tang of blood trickling into his mouth as he remembered the sting of his punch: how can anyone stand to feel all of this at once?

Is this how Light felt, picking up the Death Note?

L could have stopped this. L could have thrown him into prison as soon as they’d narrowed their suspect pool down to the two families Raye Penber was tracking. L had not, because it was out of his jurisdiction, because he hadn’t gotten solid proof yet, because it would be boring.

“L—” Ryuk wheezes. “L, wait—”

L, the letter, was the unspoken god of the old world. L Lawliet was a person, and not a particularly good one; he acknowledged this and moved on, because there were more important things at hand, such as catching a murderer. L was judge and jury and executor. L Lawliet is dead at twenty-five and blindingly angry.

Maybe it’s not even all the rotting dead. Maybe it’s just Light. Maybe, L thinks as his grip tightens, his mouth drawing back of its own accord, he’s just hopelessly fucking furious because Ryuk had brought Light into L’s life in the same move that killed them both.

No, this isn’t judgment. Not like Light writing names upon names without breaking a sweat. Not like L’s distorted voice ordering Lind L Tailor to be restrained and dressed in newscasters’ clothes. Not like Ryuk leaning back and laughing at the fire consuming it all.

This isn’t judgment. This is just rage.

“Light!”

L lets go out of sheer shock more than anything. He looks down. His hands are bleeding, just a little, from where they were wrapped around Ryuk’s neck. At some point he’d abandoned the knife, he supposes.

Ryuk is staring at him with something like wonder and something like fear.

Okay. Well. That was a rather alarming loss of control. L sucks in a breath, then blows it out, stretching his fingers. This has never happened to him before, but he supposes it just did.

It’s good to know that Ryuk can be choked, though. Good information.

“Should I be offended?” L asks.

Ryuk looks slightly embarrassed. “Phew. Uh. No. Sorry, you’re good.”

L tries to picture Light doing what he just did. He comes up empty. Light was never much for physical violence unless it was directed towards L. Unless he had done this with Ryuk before —

Oh, wonderful. He can add jealousy to the mixture of everything he’s feeling for the first time right now.

“Jesus, I didn’t know you could be that scary,” Ryuk says, rubbing a claw over his throat.

L shrugs. “You liked it.”

“Am I supposed to take care of…”

L follows Ryuk’s gaze down to himself. Oh. “No thank you,” he says, meaning I would literally rather kill myself than let you get me off, before a thought occurs to him. “Since when do Shinigami believe in Jesus Christ?”

Ryuk laughs. Hoarse, maybe a little hollow. “You sound just like him sometimes.”

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Misa sketch, mostly for planning dress design

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Kinda funny how Ohba considered L and Light playing golf or fencing as their first face to face battle. Would have been fun to see them play golf.

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Found this in the local book store, had to get it. Looks really cool in person. Had a hard plastic cover with the title on it and the illustration underneath by itself. L looks so cute

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Roseate Desire

Come, indulge yourself upon my ribbons. - Light Yagami

Had to do the Pink Shoes first. This took way longer then planned, kinda gave up at the end. Will be doing more Egos and IDs with Light and maybe other death note characters.