So, the Justice League and the Light (OR villains in general) have two newish members, they've both been around for about a year and they're from the same plane of existence (a place called the Infinite Realms according to those who dabble in the occult)
And the two seem to have some serious beef with each other.
Wisp and Wrath are basicly feral cats hissing and hekles raised when they spot the other and their fights normally ends in draws. They're evenly matched and sometimes the two even fight to the point they are out of steam and just fist fight.
Needless to say everyone believes they totally hate each other and might one day kill (or end?) One of them.
So everything gets turned upside down when suddenly both factions of heros and villains are suddenly summoned to the Infinite Realms.
In a throne room.
In front of the Infinite King (or most commonly known as the Ghost King)
A King who looks very, very much like Wisp and Wrath (like yeah the two do sometimes look alike, like when they grin with sharp teeth and their hair color, but one has blue skin and red eyes for crying out loud!)
He's staring at them, glowing green eyes that seemed to just... know.
"Welcome to the Infinite Realms. I am King Phantom." His voice echoing in the throne room and seemed to rattle them deeply, like a sudden chill in the early morning.
"I have summoned you all here for a single reason." He continued to say "Tell me..."
Here he paused, closed his eyes before leaning back on the chair then he smiled big and cheerfully asked.
"How are my kids doing in your world? Dan and Ellie aren't causing too much chaos in their wake are they? They tend to go a tiny bit overboard sometimes but what siblings don't when they rough house you know. Tell me everything."
I fear that "fire bending didn't come easy to zuko" and "zuko isn't a prodigy" (both true) has somehow snowballed into "zuko is a bad or at best average fire bender".... which simply isn't true, especially by the end of book 3
It irritates me alot when people say that making medic more compassionate is ''missing the point of his character'' when he is literally shown to be in the comics.... did you miss the part where he showed concern for both sniper and miss pauling's well being in comic 5 and 6.
His actions are a combination of genuine attachment + clinical interest and these things do not cancel out one another. He is always pushing boundaries and going against the grain and i think this is what led to him losing his license in the first place. He felt stifled by the rules imposed on him.
He is shown to be extremely passionate so it makes sense that he would use his endless fascination with medicine as a way to show his affection. He loves his friends so he will find a way to make them borderline indestructible. Malpractice is his love language.
Shen Yuan getting transported into pidw isn't "the system punishing him for being a lazy internet hater," but instead representative of "step 1 of the creative process: getting so mad at something you decide to go write your own fucking book" in this essay I will
Everyone knows that Light and L matched each other's freak but I think their dynamic in the musical (the Japanese ver specifically) is underrated. Like it's not super different from canon but they just had this extra edge of Violence that we never quite saw from the more methodical and careful mindgames in canon death note and I think it's great. Like, yes, they did declare in canon that they will bring each other to justice, yes L says he wants to send Kira to his execution, but in the lyrics of the musical they both outright say multiple times that they just want to straight up Kill each other. It's direct the whole way through. There's more mutual contempt. This game is about nothing more than simply being the first one to Kill the Other (they actually use the word "殺し合い" (koroshiau) or "to kill each other" to describe their game (translated as "murderous ... game")).
(Sidenote but all those references about wanting to send each other to Hell?? Beautiful)
Yeah this is a battle of justice and ideals, yes that clash is a key part of their final confrontation at the end of the musical, but throughout their duets (or even songs like The Game Begins where they're singing by themselves) there's this near singleminded desire to just fucking End each other. It's fucking Raw and it's great.
Also THIS FUCKING SCENE?? THIS SCENE FROM SECRETS AND LIES. Iconic. Actually Insane. My jaw dropped. Light looks like a crazy bitch it's beautiful.
Um. Also. Obligatory Playing His Game (yknow the gay sex song) lines dump. It basically says everything I just said above in like 9 lines. You see what I mean right.
In canon they're playing a game of mental chess, trying to use everyone around them to finally catch the other as their end goal, but in the musical you really do feel like all they see is each other. They would probably beat each other to death with their fists if it came down to that. Idk they're just so excited and fired up about their little game in the musical and it's so unhinged and fun and special and I love it. It's like the writers for the musical decided to kick their murderous intent up a couple notches and the result is absolutely Beautiful.
I also think that the intensity of their rivalry in the beginning just makes the wind-down of The Way It Ends soo much better. It's such a good contrast to their previous duets where they try to sing over each other (Secrets and Lies & Stalemate) or with each other but basically at the top of their lungs (Playing His Game). It feels like there's both a quiet mutual understanding but also an underlying disappointment that the game is finally over. In canon, L's death Is instead the peak of their game, the moment he gets confirmation that Light is Kira is the exact same moment that he dies. In the jdrama it's almost sudden, how L dies, after the quiet moment has already passed. But in the musical L's death, ironically, Is the one quieter moment in their game. Their peak was the game itself. It was Secrets and Lies and Playing His Game. But the end of the game in the musical is not a victory, it's just (as L says) the end of everything they'd been wanting up until this point.
Uh. Fuck it. Clip from the Kenji Urai version because I just love his delivery here. His tone just goes so well with the silence and the sound of the clock ticking. You see what I mean right.
Their rivalry in the musical may have been more shortlived but like Damn they were really enjoying every second of it. They were truly insane about each other until the very end. (Like despite everything I just said about the ending it was still unhinged as fuck. Light Making L Shoot Him and then Making L Shoot Himself with L's Own Hand?? Holy shit man. What the fuck /pos)
Musical Light and L your game might've been shorter but you'll always be famous <33 Please never inflict what you had on anyone else ever please stay in hell forever thank you
artistic rendition of my desk aka my insanity domain
this was actually good practice for drawing from life- its just a doodle but still. my tablet lives on the little shelf under my desk but i put it up where my keyboard is when im using it and i just slide it under where my monitor is. also shoutout to my disco lights
If you’re gonna care about prison abolition and justice you are necessarily going to have to care about the people who DID do those crimes and just want to reintegrate and live a normal life without hurting anyone. You're gonna have to be cool with the fact that the guy scanning your groceries might’ve raped someone. You're gonna have to relax about the possibility that your bank teller used to be a career criminal. The person sitting next to you on the bus might’ve committed three different murders, and as long as he's not about to commit a fourth right now, that's not your fuckin' problem. People don't disappear from society after they commit crimes, and most of them really just want to live a normal, stable life instead of going back to that. And the best way to make sure they don't relapse is to ensure they're able to live that peaceful life instead of freaking out because the guy next door used to run a dogfighting ring. You don’t have to be friends with them, you don't even have to like them, but you're gonna need to be okay with them existing in society. Sorry.