#and the way the anime sleeps on that dynamic is so fucking criminal especially when it's literally canon it's in print it's out there

[shannonsketches]

Why is the anime so weird, it's not even the same series dude?? It's like,

Anime:

GOKU: I have a great idea to bring peace to the universe, and my leadership and compassion alone will unite us all. I have No Flaws and am A True Relatable Everyman :)

VEGETA: NO! I AM THE BEST AND I WILL CAUSE PROBLEMS UNTIL I AM RECOGNIZED AS SUCH!!!!

Manga:

GOKU: Vegeta what's cornmeal made of? I know it's what the corn eats, but what's it made of? VEGETA: Hey Kakarot let's play the quiet game until one of us dies.

[mundungs]

ϟ.  → robert sheehan : genderfluid : he/they/she : dealer of illicit objects and substances : the raven by the alan parsons project ϟ  did you see mundungus fletcher ? you know ,  31 year old halfblood who was formally in ravenclaw. some say dung can be quite furtive but are known to be unreliable. they are aligned with the order .  maybe that’s why they remind me of naming stray cats, flicking a lighter over and over again, falling asleep on the subway. ϟ 

some links for food

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ciannán o’donnell is a flighty man, one of many relationships and flings and little loyalty, and so his affair with maeve fletcher does not last long. when she tells him she is pregnant, he moves on to a different woman, and maeve has her son alone, with her sister on her side. and thus, mundungus is born (and giving an arguably atrocious name).

he grows up with his mum – a halfblooded witch and by far his favourite person in the world – in limerick, attending muggle school there. he knew who his dad was, but wasn’t quite sure how to feel about — his father is a criminal, a prominent member of the irish mob. 

he meets his dad for the first time at age seven, and was nothing but impressed. his dad showered him with gifts, his mum watching with a furious look on her face but biting her tongue. that moment was a switch for mundungus; he felt the need to impress his dad. he stole some sweets from a store on his way home from school a week later, fished some pennies out of the pockets of his classmates a few months later. when he phoned his dad to tell him, his laugh was warm and filled with life. his relationship with his dad got better as his behaviour got worse. the thrill of stealing, of doing stuff he wasn’t supposed to, lit him not only on fire because it was exciting, but also because he knew his dad would adore it. 

but ciannan, a flighty man, pushes and pulls. and so mundungus was fed disappointment by his father, liking love off a shiny knife rather than a spoon ( silver or plastic, what the fuck does it matter ). details omitted, long story made short: his dad sucks and his mother tries, but mundungus is pulled towards that what smells of danger.

DRUGS MENT. at hogwarts, dung is sorted into ravenclaw. not at all the booksmart type, he falls more into the chaotic-creativity, random-bursts-of-wanting-to-learn-everything-about-something type of ravenclaw. there’s two worlds, then: the muggle world, where he slowly dips his water further in criminal waters, and the wizarding one, where he’s chaotic and messy but a student. when he grows older, these overlap: dung starts selling some of his dad’s weed at hogwarts, and soon gains a reputation of being able to get people less-than-legal shit. 

not getting high off your own supply is not a sentiment he agrees with. not then, not later, not now. dung is fun, always in for a party and willing to supply the goods to throw it. if some rich purebloods lose a few galleons at said party, well, it sure isn’t him! END OF TW

he graduates with two newts, in herbology and potions, failing his dada and charms exams. he’s not an academic.

falling into the family business after graduation is easy. mundungus is attracted by the criminal underworld, both that of muggle ireland and that of the wizarding world. knockturn alley was a place frequented in teenage years, but now becomes more his place. he makes connections, exchanges strange potion recipes for other things. makes an odd wager on a bunch of stolen brass scales and turns a profit. 

a career is not something that interests him; he is more interested in bending rules and making quick money. thievery, selling illegal shit, heists, fraud, fuck-all. mundungus is not limited by one descriptor, one kind of criminality. he just does what he wants and hopes to make a good penny.

but then he almost gets sent to azkaban over some, in his frank opinion, bullshit. it’s dumbledore who talks the wizengamot out of it, saddling dung up with some community service and persuading him towards the order. he’s twenty three. the war is still fresh. he has no interest in it, but he owes the old man. fine.

mundungus does vehemently oppose blood purity and any kind of discriminatory ideals, an anarchist in his very bones, but he is also cowardly. to side with self-proclaimed rebels is not in his blood and yet it’s where he ends up, bringing shady ties to the underworld to the table and a sheer ability to sneak around and fuck the law. and maybe, amidst the ranks of the order, dung finds something he’s not very familiar with: a large family. and dung? well, he’s the stoner, gay, super-fucking-chaotic cousin.

personality

if jesper fahey and kaz brekker had a child, it would be dung. 

other character parallels: fezco ( euphoria ), boris ( the goldfinch ), doug judy ( b99 ), jason mendoza ( the good place ), chris miles ( skins ),  nick miller ( new girl ), creed bratton ( the office ), scott lang ( marvel ), lillian ( unbreakable kimmy schmidt )

technically he’s homeless. he’s got a bedroom at his ma’s place, has a ton of squatter connects in the muggle scene and couch surfes aplenty, but dung doesn’t rent a place. why? landlords are evil. he could afford a place, just doesn’t see the point. life’s better with some adventure.

appears very neutral in public as it’s beneficial to his role in the order??? 

.... tortured artist. writes poetry and loves to draw and paint. 

tattooed the fuck up. some are his own designs.

can usually be spotted wearing The Coat, a rly expensive, vintage long coat that he once stole of a pureblood. he’s enlarged the pockets with some handy spellwork and pretty much carries everything he owes in there, like his produce and his money and his second pair of shoes and his art supplies and probably some random trash. 

loves animals. he loves stray cats especially <3 they are his kin. 

an anarchist. a bit of a punk. a deep idealist with a cowardly heart so constantly betraying himself (and sometimes others?)

queer! enby! genderfluid! i used he/him pronouns throughout this intro but dung truly doesn’t give a damn what u use. loves to dress up in feminine clothes. 

has a ton of aliases, lol, the most important one being marigold fincher. 

cusses too fuckin much to be healthy :/

oh no he is a big sad insecure kid deep inside :/ dont tell anyone how embarrassing!!!! shhhh!! it’s a secret.

quick connection ideas

victim. wow please. if your character is rich. let me steal from u. pick ur pockets. break into ur house. get some of ur stuff and drop it on the black market. 

customer. dung sells. whatever u need. drugs. weird magical things. ask and ye shall receive. his prices are whack but he does deliver <3

pal. party friends! order friends! random encounter friends! dung has a trashmouth and loves to talk pls let him chat u up and u will never be rid of him <3

couch. he couch surfs. a lot. if ur character trusts dung enough to let him into their home (which they shouldnt) then pls let him sleep over for a night. he will leave a strangely expensive necklace on ur kitchen table as a thank u. or wilted flowers. no in between.

skeptic. ur char is in the order and thinks dung is a liability and maybe they have a point. a point mundungus would rather not face :)

dmle bitches. dung hates anyone authoritative but esp the coppers at the ministry (hit wix & aurors) (yea he calls them coppers sorry he doesnt respect them enough to call them aurors <3). give me that doug judy/jake peralta dynamic. or just someone in the dmle who is like ... sigh this guy again??? 

fwb/one night stand/fling/etc. he’s a bit slutty <333 give him some ppl he’s hooked up with / will hook up with.

[whimpering-hearts]

I'm curious about the dynamic of Herakles' housing situation. Who gets along? Who hates each other? Who's the asshole who keeps putting empty containers back up?

1P Greece :: Herakles Karpshi

Who?

Oh, yeah, that guy everyone met one time when they first responded to the ad. 

Honestly, the housemates forget he even exists because no one ever sees him.

Jason broke into his room one time - because he thought the guy had keeled over or something - and his bed didn’t even looked like it’d been slept in.

That’s because he’s picking up cute people at the local bars, clubs, and coffee shops, and staying with them overnight.

Household opinion says he’s a total weirdo.

But that’s okay, because Herakles is pretty disappointed that his housemates aren’t the ‘cute’ housemates he wanted.

2P America :: Jason Cardinali

Household opinions are pretty diverse when it comes to Jason. 

Xiao and Issy, both being first-generation immigrants to America, see Jason as the cool, street savvy, hyper masculine ideal they should both strive for. 

With Xiao, this manifests in approval-seeking behavior. 

With Issy, this manifests in imitative behavior, like dying his hair to be the same color as Jason’s, and sporting a similar haircut.

There’s definitely some animosity between Antonio and Jason. 

Antonio came from a middle class background, was a successful high school athlete who gave up a college sports career in favor of modeling, was the golden child of his family, his father’s pride and joy, and has been spoiled by all the opportunities he’s had - and, in some ways, squandered. 

He often labels Jason as a “thug,” a “criminal,” and is casually - and obliviously - offensive in general.

Karl also looks down on Jason, and sees Jason as uneducated, poor, and untrustworthy. He often orders Jason around and treats him like the hired help.

Beau, meanwhile, didn’t grow up with Jason in the Human AU. Instead, Jason was always the - absolutely infuriating - kid of his dad’s best friend. He’s bossy, annoying, and has a punchable face.

2P China :: Xiaoyu “Xiao” Wen

Household opinion pretty much dismisses Xiao as an equal member of the house.

Jason treats Xiao as comedic relief and his go-fer. He doesn’t dislike Xiao, but Xiao’s just… kind of a loser, you know?

Issy, unfortunately, tends to imitate Jason in his treatment of Xiao. However, the two do sometimes bond over their shared “foreignness,” both being first generation (versus later generation) immigrants, and Xiao is pretty much the only housemate who will watch gory movies with Issy.

Antonio doesn’t even realize Xiao lives there. He thinks Xiao’s just one of Jason’s druggie friends who, for some inexplicable reason, is always there.

Karl knows that Xiao lives there, but deems him unworthy of notice. The only thing Xiao is good for is a laugh, because he’s utterly convinced Karl is a serial killer.

Beau is probably the nicest housemate to Xiao, and he tries to come to Xiao’s defense with the other housemates - Jason - when he can. But he’s also so damn frustrated by how Xiao doesn’t stand up for himself.

1P Spain :: Antonio Hernández

Household opinion agrees that Antonio is at his most fun and charming when his mouth is shut.

And so much of that is because Antonio sometimes says classist, racist, or otherwise offensive shit without even realizing he does it.

And then he can’t understand why people get mad at him.

Karl is probably the only household member he gets along with - as much as anyone can get along with Karl, anyway.

Probably because the two of them have the shared history of being down-on-their-luck men from advantageous backgrounds, which puts them a step above the other housemates.

Unfortunately, Antonio has said this out loud in front of everyone else.

Jason is probably his biggest annoyance in the house.

Beau comes in at a close second, because he doesn’t listen to orders very well, refuses to iron Antonio’s clothes, and is all around not very good hired help.

You asked which of these assholes keeps putting empty containers back up, and I can say with confidence that it’s Antonio.

Which only adds friction between Antonio and Jason, because, “Hey, dick weed, we have recycling containers for a reason!”

2P Lithuania :: Isakas “Issy” Gylys

General house consensus is that Issy is just… unmemorable, plain, average, and all around forgettable.

Per Jason, he just doesn’t have “that presence, that oomph factor, you know?”

Some of this is because Issy just isn’t home as much as the other housemates.

If he’s not at the university, and he’s not working on his schoolwork, he’s spending time with Kaz and Jan.

No one even knows what his major is.

(”Art, guys. I keep telling you, it’s art!”)

Perhaps the good thing about being “unmemorable” is that Issy gets along with his housemates fairly well.

Except for Karl.

2P Austria :: Karlheinz “Karl” Richter

Ah, Karl. 

Pretty much everyone in the household agrees that Karl is either a Satanist, a serial killer, or a vampire.

No one has ever seen inside his room, but sometimes they hear really fucking weird sounds coming from behind his door.

Like, “we’re pretty sure he’s sacrificing live animals” levels of weird.

Issy is convinced that Karl will one day come for his precious pet spider, Monika, after he runs out of goats, chickens, and Xiao.

Jason has tried - and failed - to break into Karl’s room more times than he can count because he has to know what’s in there.

Is it dead bodies? It has to be dead bodies.

Antonio and Beau are probably the only two housemates that actually like Karl to any degree, Antonio because he sees a kindred spirit and Beau because Karl is easy to cook for, cleans up after himself, and does his own laundry.

2P Canada :: Beauregard “Beau” Lambert

So, Beau is one of the more unappreciated housemates, especially when you consider how much he does (e.g., cooking, cleaning, laundry).

Jason and Antonio definitely take Beau for granted, boss him around, and otherwise expect him to wait on them hand and foot.

Beau, of course, says fuck that.

And the only reason he hasn’t punched Antonio yet is because it’s easier to catch Jason - and more satisfying.

Xiao and Issy are probably the only two who make any effort to actually help Beau out with the cleaning.

Jason makes an effort to be even messier than usual just so he can watch Beau have to clean up after him.

Which has resulted in Beau collecting every dirty dish, discarded laundry, and piece of trash Jason leaves behind, and dumping it on Jason while he’s sleeping at least twice.

He tried doing something similar with Antonio, but Antonio merely pointed out helpfully that Beau left some things in Antonio’s room.

[mendechuu]

Gabriel de la Fuente, 31 Personality: talkative and likes money too much. Has the sense of humor of a divorced mom.

Story:

Gabriel was a tall kid with a bad personality, living with an abusive family and in poverty. Because of his tendency for violence, other kids either followed him or feared him. He became aware of his situation so, he started redirecting his anger into plans, projects, ideas, and became independent very young. He could be described as someone who has always had a part-time job and has taken any chance to make money. He used his popularity to get clueless kids to help him, the main sidekick being Dani. He also spent time with the old ladies from the town’s knitting club, because they liked his sense of humor, and enjoyed the company of girls in general. Because they trusted him, he helped some teenagers with clandestine abortions and, this became his main business as a teenager. 

This all ended when the civil war started, where he lost everything. Realizing Dani’s family was involved made him hate him, especially because he left the day military attacked his house. He lost his father and brother, and the town descended into poverty. More than a civil war, it was a massacre. 

He noticed corpses from outsiders where being thrown in his area and garden, and with hunger in his mind he decided to cut and preserve the meat. He ate the bodies as he cried from rage, knowing it was the meat of victims. The business went well, people turned out to be as desperate as him to turn a blind eye to the obvious situation. Horse meat and human meat were very popular. 

His close circle eventually learnt the truth, and they started praying to honor the bodies before eating them. In a way, the horrifying nature of their own survival gave Gabriel a sense of purpose and continuity. This dynamic slowly escalated, and when he discovered the properties of dark vomit, he had the idea of bringing his brother back to life. 

He started frequenting the capital and started a bigger business after the civil war, but his desire for revenge was as fresh as ever. He saw Dani and his family as the source of evil and planned to eat them all. 

Nowadays he's some kind of a public figure for people, who thank him for helping them get out of poverty

Longer story: 

Gabriel was always power hungry, energetic and an instigator. He wanted to be involved with the who, when, and where of things. In school, he always took the spotlight but as he aged, he became more selective and less impulsive in terms of where to impose his big personality. He didn't like other kids, and mostly spent his time figuring out ways to make money but he enjoyed hanging out with older ones, who did cruel and destructive things for fun. This, because he had little tolerance for people's mistakes.

His family was poor, and his dad was a useless alcoholic who spent most of his savings on drinks or lottery tickets. They didn't own their house and he worked with his brother to save enough money for rent, so every month their aunt visited them and took stuff from them and hit them. To Gabriel, this made no sense and was an insult to his intelligence. He wanted to spend as little time as possible at home, but he also lived with his little brother, who easily got sick because of an illness he had. For this reason, he responsibly got home every day, only to find scratches and marks on his little brother's body. This enraged him tremendously, but he was just a kid and couldn't really do much. His dad wasn't strong thanks to the alcohol, and to him, he wasn't even a man. His goal was to save enough money to run away with his brother

For all those reasons, rich pricks like Dani especially pissed him off.

He met Dani when he was 10. The smaller kid followed him everywhere, which made things convenient for him. No matter how mean he was, the boy would stick by his side because he was too lame to make other friends. To be honest, he needed someone that would take the dirty jobs and help him out. The problem began when he realized Dani became friends with his little brother and started hanging out with him in the backyard. He would hunt small animals to impress them, because their friendship made him incredibly jealous. But he also thought asking Dani to steal money from his uncle couldn't be too bad for their situation, so he let it pass. 

Gabriel's business included stealing, hunting, obtaining rare items to resell, selling his own braided hair. He also took some part-time jobs at school. One day, a girl that lived nearby asked him for abortion pills. They only existed in the capital because they were so isolated in this area, so they did it manually. After that, he gained her trust and she recommended him to other friends. This silent bond of trust between Gabriel and teenage girls became his first source of income, where he even made Dani help with some things. 

The trust he put in Dani felt too dangerous for him, so he started becoming a little more violent as he grew up, as if to make sure he wouldn't leave his side. Watching his brother get worse sure did stress him, but he didn't think something worse would happen. Lately, his brother only felt dizzy at times and took long naps. No more pain in his sleep, and his father was also calmer since he started gaining money. If he kept this that way for a bit longer, he could give them a better future. 

The problem began when his dad had an accident when drunk and couldn't walk anymore. His aunt visited for the monthly rent pay, and because Gabriel had extra spendings, she kicked them out of the house. She offered a way shittier apartment that had no water. 

This situation made Gabriel fall into a cycle of bad thoughts, where he built even more resentment for other kids like Dani, who didn't have to face this type of problem. His father's lack of hope angered him, but he could do nothing about it. The recent political tension also made it tight with his business with girls because they had no budget for his stuff. He was desperate and considered selling his body to them or kill his own dad to save the extra spendings because of his disability. He needed change desperately. He decided to do the first and went to an older woman's apartment. He was 14.

When he was about to do it, there was a fire near his house, and he ran there only to find that his dad was burned alive and his brother was missing. It was a civil war, the start of it, and they started burning the houses made of inflammable materials, like his own. One more time, his chances of a better future were taken from his reach.

His brother gone missing didn't let him think, and when he tried to find Dani, he found an abandoned house and no trace of his friend. The military invading them looked exactly like Dani's pajamas... like his uncle's uniforms, which angered him to the point of not forgiving his friend for leaving when he really needed him.

Now he really was alone, and the town fell into poverty, but because of his name he was an easy target: his family belonged to the opposition, mostly as a formality, but they didn't care. He couldn’t really move, or they would find him. He buried his dad in his backyard, and obsessively spent time working on it, to make it neat, presentable, like a beautiful garden where nothing happened. 

One morning, he noticed his garden was destroyed, marks of cars or something, holes…when digging into them, he found corpses. Of people he never saw before. They were using his garden as a cemetery. He started to understand that this town’s vulnerable position made it the perfect place to hide crimes. This is when he had an idea. 

People were starving, and he was a hunter. 

Selling human meat felt grotesque at first, but after the most disgusting parts got done, he felt a strange sense of relief. The clarity of turning horror into hope, abandonment into a source of strength. It felt sick, he realized it, but it felt familiar to what he always did to survive. He just wished very strongly he was eating the criminals’ meat instead of victims. The anger alone revived his appetite. He got to work and started reselling the meat at a very cheap price and worked on the skin to make shoes. He didn’t have the talent, but he knew a lot of teenage girls shared secrets they could get in trouble with if their families found out. He heard rumors of a girl who got rejected by their family and had to survive in the mountains eating grass. He didn’t know if it was true, but it would work to scare girls enough to help him.

The business went pretty well. He thought he would get betrayed because this was a huge risk, but other people turned out to be in a similar desperate situation. He found a new family in all the people of his town, after all, he was feeding them. He felt like a father to them. In his close circle, they prayed and honored the meat before eating it. Seeing death daily became familiar, horrifying, but Gabriel always tried to be reassuring, to remind them to be thankful for what they had, and to never be cruel to a victim. But, to himself, he kept thinking that one day he would make a fancy dinner made of the head criminals who did all this to his people. While he did feel relief knowing they would survive, he also felt like something was missing. Justice, and his brother. 

Gabriel even contacted some of the truck drivers and made them pay him for his “cleaning services” regarding the corpses. He was really willing to do anything, which is why, with enough money, he started frequenting the capital to find ways to make business that would fuck militars up and not his people’s psyche. Having a bigger perspective on things made his anger calm down, and even if his life was far from a normal one, he felt at peace, like he found a place. 

The only problem were the recurring nightmares about his brother. He had to be dead, right? If he was injured, disabled, he would take care of him. He had done it before, with their dad. Now he had things to offer him. The thought of him not being by his side didn’t let him sleep, so he started praying for him to appear in the pile of corpses one day, for them to meet again. Then he prayed for him to come back in one piece, alive, healthy.

The fantasies started becoming really intense, so Gabriel had a switch in his mind where he would go from extremely functional to having the nostalgic look of an insane man. He had psychotic episodes over this situation, where he had mistaken his reflection for his brother’s, or sleepwalked. 

He found peace the more he prayed, and the more he consumed meat. His cannibalistic urges started to feel like a ritual for inner peace, and people followed. It was a shared agreement between town people, who also believed they got rid of the corpse's darkness and crimes by eating them. 

One night, Gabriel was walking home when he found a witch named Cami. She asked to read his future and told him “Your soul is a splash of color in a paper white world, that will consume it all whole”. He got scared and told her to fuck off, but then she told him there was a way to see his brother again. He needed one soul marked by evil, and a body marked by transition. 

He found his brother’s corpse next morning in his backyard.  He was disfigured, abused in many ways, but he was familiar with scars. It meant nothing compared to his feelings. He was buried at the center of his garden.

He had a plan, and a deeper connection to life and death than ever. And he had his first objective: a soul marked by evil, Dani’s. 

Researching some more, he found out that souls are charged not only as individuals, but in a historical way. Because Dani’s last name was connected to many war criminals, he would be the perfect sacrifice. He just needed to make sure he got triggered by the same violence running in his family or showed the worst part of himself. 

(next stuff goes into general story)

Trivia: 

+One of the older kids Gabriel hanged out with let him sell some drugs and drinks to younger kids; he would also accept money to lock a girl or a boy with someone who wanted them in the school showers so they could have their way with them. This gave him a lot of money, and some sort of twisted entertainment for the older kid. 

+They found his little brother’s corpse a few years after, but it was unrecognizable.

+People in town are thankful for Gabriel’s efforts and his cannibalistic practices are a known secret. In a way, the religious aspect of his cannibalism made it easier for people to accept it. 

+Gabriel’s delusions represent his need to go back to the status quo previous to the civil war. Same about his desire to revive his brother.

+Gabriel believes that for justice to be restored, evil people's legacy needs to disappear. One death or cruelty is not enough. They need to be erased and hope needs to be reborn

[cviperfan]

OKAY DEATH NOTE 2017 THOUGHTS

Under a cut for length not spoilers because honestly who fucking cares

-So the movie commits many sins but principle among them are two 1) The Death Note is basically just a vehicle for gore porn, pretty much indistinguishable functionally from any other 'Cursed Object' type horror movie.  There's lip service paid to the suspense trappings of the original work but Wingard is clearly much more interested in the kind of brutal deaths that can be extracted from the Death Note's flexibility of options and far less in the moral quandaries that such an object would create, and Wingard's pre-release interview that expressed an interest in creating a Hard-R version of the story was at least for me a clear indicator that he was Wrong for the project, since grisly deaths are not what makes the story interesting, or in fact are even a priority.  The fact that the default way the Death Note kills in the original canon is a heart attack (by all intents a fairly 'clean' method of death) is there for a reason, as is the 2017 version's curious decision to specifically omit that detail.

(In Wingard's interview he expresses a desire to include the "adult themes of anime" which specifically include "nudity, swearing, tons of violence" to him, which suggests that his familiarity with the medium starts and ends with Ninja Scroll and nothing else and that he probably didn't actually watch Death Note outside of a cliffs notes he had an intern scribble out or something)

2) And this is much more fundamentally antithetical to the original work, but Light's transition from Villain protagonist to Reluctant Misunderstood Anti-Hero.

in the original canon it's certainly possible to find Light's end goal aspirational, even if the actual empathy with Light himself doesn't last very long, and part of the paradox of the manga/anime is Light being a pointedly and unmistakably Terrible Person while also being a compellling and interesting protagonist.  Even if you don't necessarily want Light to succeed, watching him operate and maneuver through various obstacles on the path to his goal is fascinating on its own terms.

Death Note 2017!Light, by contrast, is given great, excruciating measures to make him Highly Sympathetic to the audience, and indeed we are meant to interpret him specifically as a Good Kid Who Took A Wrong Turn and is now Way In Over His Head.  His mom died at the hands of Joe Chill a crook who got away with it, giving him a nice clean Batman justification, he's bullied at school, is extremely concerned with his actions being percieved as good and perhaps most crucially, tries to limit his body count outside of criminals (American!Light reacts extremely negatively to the mere IDEA of killing his dad when he calls Kira out, whereas canon!Light, while certainly not enthusiastic about the idea, was right there weighing the pros and cons, reasonably prepared to do so if he proved to be enough of a problem).

He doesn't even use the Death Note initially of his own volition; Ryuk has to be there to straight-up Devil on His Shoulder-him into it (in a hilariously over-the-top introduction, more on that later), and Misa (sorry, MIA) is constantly pushing him to go darker when his resolve wavers, and indeed seems way more into the idea of using the Death Note on a visceral level than Light is.

All of this is contrary to one of the crucial points of Death Note in its original form-- Light was a person of privilege surrounded by a loving family and with infinite potential who had absolutely no reason to have become a power-hungry arbiter of "justice" with a god complex, and yet when a bit of power happened to fall into his hands that's exactly what he became.  He didn't need a traumatic event or a bad situation to become Kira, just the possibility that he could do it and get away with it.  

But even in a Death Note adaptation where the first death we get is someone's head being cut off at the jaw with a fucking ladder, this seems like too dark a conclusion for Adam Wingard to come to, so even when his body count starts rising we get constant excuses and reminders that he's A Good Kid, Honest, He's Really Trying To Do The Right Thing He's Just Got So Many Bad Influences That Pushed Him This Way and in the face of the original work's frankness (and Wingard's talk of "adult themes") this just comes off as cloying and toothless.

Nevermind that in light (heh) of the extremely whitewashed nature of this adaptation, the almost fetishistic effort of the writing team to sanitize Troubled White Teen Boy Light Turner (Who Has His Whole Life Ahead Of Him) of as much active culpability as possible is certainly quite telling isn't it

Okay that out of the way, time for some just Random Bad Shit lol

-just so we know exactly what we're dealing with and what director Adam Wingard thinks is cool one of the very first shots of the movie is Misa (sorry, MIA) at cheerleading practice but see she's not like THOSE OTHER SHEEPLE who are all ACTUALLY PRACTICING AT CHEER PRACTICE SHE'S A COOL DISAFFECTED REBEL BECAUSE SHE DOESN'T WANNA PRACTICE AT CHEER PRACTICE god look at these PHONIES all having fun and laughing OUR GIRL IS SO COOL SHE'D MUCH RATHER SMOKE AND LOOK BORED WHAT A BADASS -And like later in the movie she's all to Light "I'M A CHEERLEADER nothing i ever did mattered before i met you!!" like then WHY ARE YOU A CHEERLEADER WHY WERE YOU THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?????? YOU CAN DO LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE MY KIDDO -So the Light/Mia relationship is kind of a mess because not only do they try and play it up as the emotional lynchpin of the narrative (no, for real) but the reversal with Mia being the one who becomes super obsessed with the Death Note (even to the point where she tries to set up Light to die so she can get it) and her being the Other Bad Influence on Light really manages to make even the original Death Note's bad track record with its women fucking shine by comparison.  If the original Light/Misa dynamic was basically a Joker/Harley setup written by someone who understood that it's an abusive relationship, new!Light/Mia is the Hot Topic Romanticized Joker/Harley but also Joker is the Real Victim here apparently -Like they literally get off to using the Death Note together and make out while scanning the internet for targets-- like there COULD absolutely be a place for there to be commentary on Bored Well-Off White Kids abusing power for the fun of it, but again there's no room for insight when there's those practical gore effects to throw around -Dear god there is not a HINT of subtlety in this fucking thing, an especially egregious stylistic choice when the manga/anime is (while ofc prone to Light's.... extreme and borderline comically evil reactions) overwhelmingly grounded with-- especially compared to many anime and manga in general-- comparatively moderate supernatural elements and touches, especially in terms of its visual detail and art direction.  Wingard's Death Note on the other hand, has thunderstorms AND flickering lights that accompany Ryuk's appearances until they... don't (ARE YOU PICKING UP THE SUBTLE FAUSTIAN ELEMENTS HERE AUDIENCE????????), a trip through a Spooky Dark Abandoned Mansion that features a close-up of a busted doll accompanied by a creepy child's laugh NO REALLY IM SERIOUS and deaths that frequently end in torrents of blood because that's what we're really here for apparently -Speaking of a lack of subtlety, while I get the logic in casting Dafoe for Ryuk he ends up being both underutilized and a sadly uninteresting choice, since the apparent direction for him to go more Norman Osbourne really takes away any degree of ambiguity Ryuk has as a patently neutral party in the whole thing (at least as far as the original goes; this really wants to set him up as a Red Herring possible antagonist in a thread that goes absolutely nowhere and ends up meaning nothing).  Like I think he could have worked if the performance was a little lower-key and he had not-terrible writing to work with, but at least someone's having fun in this mess so wth -L fans are gonna be fucking pissed off because HOLY HELL they didn't not fuck him up either -Canon L: Sherlock Holmes but with sweets instead of hard drugs and also he sits weird sometimes -Death Note 2017!L: Fucking Weirdo Asshole With Bizarre Rituals galore and also he can't sleep without Watari awkwardly singing the greatest hits of Celine Dion SHUT UP IM SERIOUS because okay -So the wierd race bullshit definitely doesn't stop at Light because the framing of L (who is played by Keith Stanfield, a black actor and OH BOY I CAN ALREADY HEAR THE IMNOTRACISTBUTS COMING IN) is pointedly, aggressively antagonistic.  Rather than giving Stanfield the collected, analytical, somewhat awkward detective characterized in the source material, Death Note 2017's L's erratic tics and behaviourisms are meant to make the audience find him uncomfortable rather than compelling in his own right, because autistic-coded super detective is such an interesting and not at all gross and played-out formation of a character.  Because again, the movie has no real interest in being suspenseful or focusing on the cat-and-mouse game, L figures out that Light is Kira with very little deduction or buildup, and indeed aside from a pointedly brief midpoint conversation and a completely stupid and pointless chase scene near the end, the two barely interact, so the whole aspect of two strong wills directly competing within inches of each other is tossed aside. -Also WHO THE FUCK THOUGHT A SCENE OF A YOUNG BLACK MAN BEING SLAMMED INTO A TABLE AND NEARLY CHOKED OUT BY A WHITE COP WITH ANGER ISSUES AND A SELF-RIGHTEOUS STREAK IN DEFENSE OF A GUILTY WHITE KID WHO ULTIMATELY GETS AWAY WITH IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TASTE WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT -Speaking of poor taste we couldn't find more than one Japanese actor for a speaking role (Watari, natch, with barely a handful of lines) BUT WE CERTAINLY COULD FOR THIS SEX CLUB SCENE WITH A ROOM PACKED FULL OF DEAD JAPANESE PEOPLE IN FETISH GEAR -Ryuk himself also looks Fuckin Bad and they know it since the overwhelming majority of his shots are him BLURRED THE FUCK OUT IN MIDDLE DISTANCE OR OFF IN THE CORNER -"many people have tried to write the 4 letters in my name into the Death Note but nobody has gotten farther than 2 :)" your full name was literally in there but ok -"all the deaths have to be physically possible" Ferris Wheel magically collapses for no reason to facilitate a death -"I need L's full name to kill him, I'll just take control of Watari with the Death Note EVEN THOUGH WATARI IS A FUCKING ALIAS" and also if this was in fact his real name and L knew it WHY WOULD HE HAVE LET HIM GO AROUND WITH HIS FACE UNCOVERED LIKE????????????????????????????????? -Reveals L without ceremony during the nightclub murder investigation/pretends like there's a mystery and a reveal to be had for the audience and awkwardly attempts to re-enact bits of the original introduction to the character anyway

Ultimately there's more that I'm probably forgetting but wow Death Note 2017 is just impressively dumb.  Like, original Death Note could get pretty dumb especially in the last half, but that was more a case of working itself into a corner over time and its reach extending beyond its grasp on occasion.  This just has no aspirations to even try.

Like, shit, I honestly don't like Death Note all that much but I can at least appreciate that it has some weight to it and made an effort to build a complex character-driven narrative while proposing a thoughtful moral paradox, which is more than I can say for the 'fans' who wanted to adapt it and decided this was the best possible approach lmao