#asker wasn't specific so this is mostly plot

[read-watch-sleep]

Okay, so for a 100% Genderswapped Death Note, you have to look at what would change basically from the beginning. I’m using the manga timeline from the Death Note Wiki, which is one of my favourite resources.

Looooong looong post under the cut:

1998-  think Light’s and L’s upbringings are likely fairly unchanged. Light is an eldest sister from a family with two working parents, so she may have felt more familial pressure. Either way, it makes sense that she’d be a tennis champion and then abruptly retire, probably due to an obligation to be at home. She tutors her shithead younger brother, talks with her idol-obsessed friends, and nurses a soul-deep hatred for the state of humanity.

1999- Near, Mello and Matt are orphan genius children/pre-teens with budding rivalries. Mello learns about emotional manipulation and leans into it, hard. Matt’s ADHD goes undiagnosed, and she’s already on her way to burning out. Near speaks very rarely, and is slow but steady in advancing the ranks. Everyone underestimates her. 

2002- Naomi/Noah Misora catches the strange femme fatale Beyond Birthday in LA with the help of a mysterious figure who calls themselves ‘L’. He is one of the few people in the world to figure out that the filtered voice through the computer belongs to a woman. L still takes up capoeira. 

2003- Misa/Masa Amane’s parents die. He begins to develop a complex about his own strength/bravery. He was a teenager– if he was stronger or smarter, he would have been able to save them. Notably, Naomi/Noah Misora does not quit the FBI to get married here, because that was always a weird misogyny thing. Instead, she and Raye/Raya Penbar take leave together to be married, and both return to the FBI. When Light first picks up the notebook, she thinks primarily of killing men. The more strict gender roles of Japan in the 90s would have gotten to her still-developing worldview. Her first murders go about the same as they would in canon, though. I imagine she thinks there’s some kind of poetic justice to Ryuk being a female shinigami, as well. Some kind of ‘women are lifebringers and death deliverers.’ Ryuk knows it’s bullshit, as shinigami are barely gendered, and male shinigami exist. 

The bus hostage scene goes even easier for Light in this universe. Raye/Raya largely underestimates the high-school girl who seems to be under threat– and Light kills her and her team. This is notably the first time Light has actively targeted a woman, especially one who wasn’t a criminal, and marks a turning point in her descent. When Naomi/Noah arrives, he is inadvertently the one who reveals to Light that L is a woman. He also doesn't see the threat that Light poses when they meet, blinded both by his own grief and her act as a helpless schoolgirl. 

When his stalker also drops dead of a heart attack, it becomes a catalyzing moment. He was unable to be strong enough once again, he just froze like a deer in the headlights. When he meets Rem and inherits Gelus’s death note, he becomes convinced that helping Kira is the only way he can make up for his own cowardice. He tracks down Light, and under the guise of asking her on a date, reveals that he’s the second Kira. 

When he confesses his devotion to Light, it is entirely genuine, and it disturbs the hell out of Light. She thinks he’s a neanderthal who only sees her as another pretty woman, especially when he implies himself to be the jealous type. This also marks the beginning of her use of seduction to get her way, and chooses to practise on Kiyomi/Kiyoshi Takada. 

When Misa/Masa is kidnapped by L, he’s a lot more brazen, although not in a particularly helpful way. It builds him up a lot that he’s able to withstand the torture without giving up Light– this is penance to him, he’s being strong and protecting her. 

The yotsuba arc otherwise goes about the same, with the mind games between L and Light and the Girlboss-ified Yotsuba company. Light objects so strongly to the kind of gaslighting that L is putting her through, and it’s more convincing for her perceived “feminine gentleness.” She accuses L of wanting her to be Kira, and at the same time is grateful and hates that she doesn't have Kira’s power. The Murder/Suicide plotline of Sochiro/Sachiko and Light is a lot more meaningful– it’s really deliciously the desperation of a mother who can’t trust her own child, and really puts forth a “You were a mistake I made that I can correct” feeling. 

When L dies, it's just as much of a shock, but it’s still an ultimate act of love. Rem loves Misa/Masa in the way only a gay guardian angel can, and Misa/Masa loves Light in only the way that a young man who believes a woman can fix him and the world can. 

And then… Near, who has begun to dominate as the #1 in line for L’s successor at Wammy’s, and Mello, who has felt like an object all her life and blames Near… they come into the spotlight. 

POST TIME SKIP- 

The major differences in this arc are as follows: 

Mello is a lot more violent in the Mafia. Rod/Rio Ross was a mob wife who’s husband Mello killed, and the two of them inherited the gang and overturned it. She builds manpower through promising other people freedom. When she comes out with the head of a criminal not even Kira could kill, it’s for a human trafficker, and her main loyal crew is of ex sex workers and trafficked kids. They respect Mello, not because she treats them like people, but because she offers them power in a way that most pimps can’t manage.  And because she truly believes that she’s one of them– grabbed as a little girl to be turned into someone’s object, only to escape via blood on her hands. She feels no remorse for blowing them all up, because she believes that all of them, including herself, were going to go out– fighting and in flames. 

Hal/Halle Linder is the only man who survives the initial cull of the SPK, and Near suspects that Mello will try to seduce him, because it’s her usual MO. She doesn't predict that Hal/Halle and Mello already knew each other– or that Mello has been disfigured.

Teru/Terumi Mikami still tracks down Light through Kiyomi/Kiyoshi Takada. She assumes from the very beginning that Takada and Amane are tools that will be killed– I think she’s in love with Light, and also follows that kind of disdain for men that certain toxic lesbians subscribe to. This is important because–

Mello doesn't allow Takada the privacy to kill her. She kidnaps Takada and has no problem stripping him “What, you don’t think I’ve seen anything before, handsome?” And Takada has no bra to hide the scrap of notebook in.

So what happens when the news goes live that Takada has been kidnapped? Mikami scrambles to kill their male co-conspirators. While Light hopes to wait it out and trust him to handle himself, Mikami writes his name in the notebook in order to destroy him, and all the evidence Mello might be able to get. This does allow Stephen/Stephani Gevanni to replace the real notebook with a fake, but it doesn't save Matt, who is still shot by Takada’s bodyguards on television. 

Near realises this has happened when Amane drops dead in her custody. Hal/Halle arrives to find Mello in the burning ruins of her kidnapping. In Masa/Misa’s place, Near sends Mello, in disguise as the male idol, to the Imperial Hotel. Light does not learn that he is dead until she is dying herself. 

Finally, even when they meet face to face, Light is never certain of Near’s gender. While Mello wears femininity like futch was a kind of weapon, Near wears shapeless pyjamas and could as easily be an 18 year old girl or a 12 year old boy. It’s something that enrages Light– to believe that L, her ultimate rival, was replaced by a little boy. 

I'm so sorry to whoever sent this ask (it got lost), but also I could write a 10 page thesis on this, so please be patient for a little longer and I'll add my thoughts on this soon!

[mixmangosmangoverse]

May I please learn about your Precure Fanseries?

So sorry to both of you askers for taking so long to answer!! I wanted to wait until I fully designed all the main characters and also made a new blog for my magical girl art (I think it's good to start to separate my fandoms a bit)

Anyways!! I currently have two fanseries in development but I'm focusing first on the older one, which I started around 2020 but abandoned for a while... Mostly because I stopped being into the inspiration

But! Late 2024, I got back into it, got very into something else and mashed that together. Back when I first created the fanseries I still wasn't used to writing or really developing a whole plot, so I made sure to do both before I really started the art and talking about the series. And I'm very happy with what I have now! My fanseries is titled

Fly! PreCure Starset☆

And the name gives it away- this fanseries is based on the band Starset and (very very) loosely based on the extended lore of the band. It's a very weird idea, especially since I got really into Hawaii Part ii and just mashed that in there too, but hey, what's the point of a fanseries if I can't go crazy? It's content for precisely one person and that's me

So to get to the questions:

It's a space and music theme! Not separately, the two are connected and are both the primary theme (mostly so there's no overlap with Star Twinkle)

Their colors - it originally followed the pink-blue-yellow formula but I kind of got self conscious about that, so the yellow was changed to white, I think it fits her better. And for the last question, I might just introduce the girls themselves

Zohar is the lead pink, and she like every character changed quite a bit. The basics are the same; she's very shy, quiet unless crying or stressed, and at the start of the series gets transported from Modi'in to America, meaning she's a fish out of water. Her Cure personality changed a lot - I ended up going with the gimmick that every girl changes a lot when she transforms, but Zohar has the biggest change. Her Cure form is bright, heroic, very brave and a lot more energetic. However, because of this she actually has a hard time bringing herself to transform, because she's so different, and she feels like she isn't fit to be a Cure

Also- each cure is based on a part of space and a music genre! Everglow's is shooting stars and Israeli rock

The second Cure who's probably second most different, because originally she really didn't have much of a personality beyond "airhead". And that part sticks! Aurora is very airheaded, very loud and energetic, a mix of Cure Sparkle and the typical pink personality with just a bit of arrogant edge. She also got a very significant development when I decided she would be a baker too- specifically a chocolate maker! It fits very well with her new personality, and also acts as a way for me to input some of my own sweets making knowledge in the show. It was something I decided to make sure the cast doesn't get repetitive; they don't all have music related goals

Halo represents the sun and her music genre is bubblegum pop

Luna is the character that has changed the most. She was very shallow originally, just a moody goth. I went away from that personality because it's very stereotypical, and her design especially got revamped since I wanted to portray accurate hair. Luna now is still a bit moody, but she's got more to her. She closes herself off from others because she's scared of getting hurt again, but once Zohar and Aurora prove themselves she becomes very close to them, especially Aurora. Her arc also involves her struggling with her parents' divorce, which is a conflict that to my memory was never addressed in PreCure. It's part of why she starts very distant

Satellite represents the sky and her music genre is punk rock

And finally...

The fairies and the helper character! (Think a mix of Laura before she becomes a Cure and Satoru)

They've been part of the story since the beginning, and have stayed pretty consistent

Major and Minor are the fairies who transport Zohar to America and who give the typical exposition to the Cures. However, they don't actually talk. Their "talking" is a melody in either major or minor notes, and only the Cures can understand it. Normal people also can't see them. Just like the association of the music notes, Major is upbeat and excitable while Minor is mellow and more serious. What's interesting though, is that they're not the ones who give the Cures their powers — Simon is. Why he has those powers is a mystery, but it's through him that Zohar, Aurora and Luna get their powers

He is more similar in personality to Laura, although way less excitable. Before the story starts he has never had friends which means a lot of the story is just about the team learning to get along. He acts as the down to earth voice of reason of the group, and also the one who collects the magic energy that the monsters steal, like Laura.

And that's all I have so far, at least until I start publishing the story! I'm very happy with what I have so far and I hope others enjoy it too!