#balance of two lights

[angst-is-love-angst-is-life]

arrowverse oliver/kara?

For this

An old OTP I won’t lie (it’s because of a fic that changed my life ok)

The conditions: NO FELICITY BASHING. You’d be surprised how many there are and I HATE I HATE

Anyways go read this

You’ll see why I’m obsessed

[kiivg]

.please please please please please pl.

[gummi-ships]

[fullscoreshenanigans]

Posuka Demizu's second artwork for Norman's birthday 21/3/24 (first)

[stars-n-kites]

really an inexplicable train of thought but i feel like taako is the kind of person who in a modren era au would just decide to go to a shooting range and learn how to shoot a pistol for funsies, but would consider learning to spin the pistol all cool like they do in cowboy movies to be his first and foremost priority. like hes already bought a holster and the moment he is given a gun he immediately starts trying to twirl it. the instructor has to tell him to stop or theyll take the gun away from him. he keeps trying to lead the conversation back to it anyway because he really feels like theyre putting the cart before the horse here if hes learning how to shoot the gun before even knowing how to dramatically reholster it if he were to get in some sort of cowboy duel. hes actually really good at the shooting part but he gets kicked out of the class after his eighth guntwirling attempt in which he accidentally flicks the safety off mid twirl and shoots one of their light fixtures

[heybaetae]

WAKE ME UP INSIDE

[dezimaton]

a fan of his new gold touched eye & queen's blood'n 🟡🩸

[especiallyhaytham]

So I have the Mcfarlane Connor, Aveline, and Shay all hanging out on my bookshelf, and I don't know if my cat was climbing around or what. But this morning I come out to see that everyone else is fine, while Shay... has had an unfortunate time.

[hellofastudysession]

am i rlly going to write a death note literary analysis when i could be doing other things

about the discourse going on in the tag abt "death note is acab and thats why the characters couldnt better the world with the note (/written in somewhat jokey matter)" vs "death note is trying to say we all have potential for evil, especially if you get a chance to insta-hurt ppl without repercussions, and it doesnt matter if youre a cop or not", i personally feel like it ignores the things that i like abt death note, which is "both of these things are true", and simultaneously "both of these things do not matter". the first part of this is dedicated to the first point, the latter to the last.

first point. i think its an important part of the message and themes (unintentional or not, and i lean on the former because... come on, can you really say the author intended you to not think of the cops as good people, at least compared to light and l) that light is a cops son, and that almost everyone who gets the death note is cop adjacent/thinks like a cop and is already corrupt/powerful when they get it (mello raised to think hed be just like l, yotsuba group is self explanatory; you cannot look me in the eyes and tell me teru "churchill" mikami, who was hand selected by light out of a bunch of rabid kira supporters, is a normal citizen). i appreciated the cop post bc its rlly important to not gloss over that aspect.

all of this would be an argument for "only someone like them would do something like this, and i am not like them, so im above them and immune to thinking about what id do with it", but... misa is the MOST important outlier in all of this bc her murders are solely selfish in nature and shes not doing any of this for "the greater good"!!! her nature of being an exception and still a very very bad person is really really important...

or it would be if death note gave a shit about her character at all!!! im not talking about her tragic side, im talking about exploring the ramifications of her killing people the way lights murders are (somewhat) explored. that would strengthen the message greatly! but shes dismissed and that weakens it overall. firstly, she's dismissed by the characters when l only sees her as a way to get to kira and basically shelves her the rest of the time. secondly, shes dismissed by the narrative when her character is gradually ground down to a stump and (not to sound perilously close to the bad takes ppl meme about) she never faces repercussions for her actions. every other character using the death note is treated relatively seriously, but misa just dies bc her love is dead. im not saying this isnt a... fitting punishment or that it isnt in character, but it doesnt fit snugly into the theme other people are talking about of "you reap what you sow" at all.

we do have something of an equivalent to misa's grayscale motives. surprise surprise, its light yagami. first is light's characterization in the musical (i will also note that misa never kills anyone in the musical). light's thinking is coplike, yes — he literally starts his first song by talking about "throw[ing] away the key" — but also, oddly enough, could be read as progressive and therefore sympathetic to tumblr ("let the corporations make the regulations / and hold no one accountable when everything gets wrong / let the rich and famous get away with murder / every time a high-priced mouthpiece starts to talk, his client gets to walk"). compare to the anime and manga, where his bigotry and pride and disgust come from a place of lukewarm dissatisfaction and boredom. the musical has much less time to play around with lights character, so it gives the audience something to immediately hook on. more on how that actually plays out later.

in the animanga, none of this is justified from the start. animanga light could say he was just killing people to make humanity way, way worse, and that wouldnt matter, because at the root of it, it was always his boredom that made him pick up the note. of course he actually believes in justice and believes hes doing the right thing (no, he believes he's doing the wrong thing, for the sake of the world... the right thing, because he is god...), but it was boredom at the start. all animanga light says about justice and righteousness and the law is a front in the end, bc he is exactly like l and misa — amoral. selfish. searching for entertainment. hedonistic. we know this. he kills naomi misora*. he kills lind l. turner. everything hes saying deserves to be dismissed from the beginning.

"but doesnt that mean you agree with the discourse post you wrote this post to argue against?" like i said, i agree with both of them! but i... still think its not right to reduce death note to the message of "the power to kill people is bad". because that is not exactly what the story is saying, even though that's literally its whole plot and therefore reaching that conclusion is self explanatory (lmao). let's look at the concept of mu. nothingness. "there's no heaven or hell". The Real Slay The Princess (Death Note Essay) Starts Here.

in light's final moments in the death note manga, while screaming about not wanting to die, he remembers that the first day they met, ryuk told light that "there's no heaven or hell. no matter what they do in life, all people go to the same place. all humans are equal in death". it is retroactively revealed that light knew this the whole time, operated under this knowledge for all the years we watched him — the knowledge that nothing he does is actually bad, that nothing any human does is actually bad, that shinigami are not "evil", that the universe does not care. that no one cares except humans. this oblivion absolutely terrifies him more than anything anyone could ever do to him. its what he thinks of before anything else as he flails there, screaming, dying. one could say everything he does after that day is him trying to escape that fact, or wrest control over it. but it doesnt work.

here are the lyrics of requiem, the musical's final song, sung over the bodies of l and musical light, a light who was at least somewhat good-intentioned at first: "sleep now, here among your choices / then fade away / hear how the world rejoices / shades of gray / gone who was right or wrong / who was weak or strong / nothing left to learn". this is the final message the death note musical and the manga chose to leave us with. there is no judgement. even after all that acknowledged hurt, after all the damage done, there is no judgement.

in the manga and anime alike, the world is just as fucked when light picks up the death note as when he dies. sure, we as readers can guess otherwise logically (and be optimistic, believing the world was never fucked regardless), but that's not what death note wants you to think. it ends with matsuda and another member of the task force noting how the world is worse again even though they killed kira (matsuda is clearly much worse for wear, but still determined), we see the shitty motorcycle band again, it ends with misa and a whole kira cult on a mountain even though kira died a long time ago...

its extremely important that light is never killed by any human or any aspect of the law. he is always killed by ryuk: a chaotic force completely detached from human sensibilities, one that does not care about good and evil. same with l; in the anime, manga, and musical, he is always killed by rems senseless, morally gray love (and you could argue in the kdrama that hes killed by love there too lol). justice is just a set dressing.

this is not just because death note is a tragedy, because good and evil can still matter in a tragedy. the theme of "nothingness" and "good and evil doesnt matter here" is also shown in a situation relatively unrelated to light winning or losing, or being good or bad. and its in fucking lawlight of all things. we all know ls not a good person. we know lights not a good person. this is tip of the iceberg death note knowledge. but the moment they start to interact, none of that starts to matter. textually, their relationship becomes more important than the people theyve killed and hurt. and the thing is? the thing is? THAT WORKS STORY-WISE. THAT'S ENTERTAINING. AND IT'S NEVER TEXTUALLY CALLED OUT IN A LASTING WAY. l and lights relationship, no matter how much i meme it, is genuinely important to the themes and "mu" because it makes it clear that despite all the pretensions, despite everything, this was never about good and evil. and it still works in the story. this is why death note is simultaneously a comedy — isn't the battle of good and evil supposed to matter more? well, fine, i'll keep watching this anyway. that suspension of disbelief comes crashing down the moment l dies, though, and a relationship built on nothingness (the "mu" sort, meaninglessness, not "character development" nothingness, theres plenty of character development) gives way to just nothingness (again, "mu", not light's post-l depression nothingness), forever.

(an aside: there is no one to root for in death note, and the only things to root for are either interesting character relationships, convoluted plots, or complete and total destruction: for everything to end so no more damage is done.)

not to say that death note does not encourage its readers to consider what damage they might do with the death note (obviously.), or that its characters never do. look at matsuda, a much easier heroic figure to latch on to than soichiro because of his unique place in the cast dynamic and because he's willing to consider both sides of the situation and kill light instantly for all he's done. its just that the story's own stance on the subject is... complicated by the existence of shinigami worldviews and by its own insistence that the world cannot change for the better.

also, this is not to say that this is executed well by the death note manga at all. it is a very strong tool, artistically, to establish and then violently remove any emotional connections between characters and make your story only about the exceedingly convoluted lengths characters go to to survive and catch each other so the reader can realize how ultimately pointless all of this is, but like... is that a good story choice if that's all you do? i would say not really. add in a good dollop of misogyny that destroys the second-to-last character who might actually be an interesting contrast to the rest of the cast's dull one-track focus on winning and justice, and youve got yourself a shitty story that... honestly still achieves what it went out to do, just not in a way id ever want to replicate.

anyway, back to the parts death note's actually trying to say. no matter what any human does in their life, no matter how they try to hurt or help the world, they all die in the end. hey, light, they all die in the end. once dead, they can never come back to life. and the seasons turn. and the world rejoices. and you say "goodbye"...

that's all.

no analysis of death notes overarching theme would be complete without nears final monologue, the definitive roast of light, the "you're just a murderer" speech: "what is right from wrong? what is good from evil? nobody can truly distinguish between them. even if there is a god." if we take this as talking about the actual god in the room (ryuk) as well as light, then near admits that humans will never be able to withstand these overwhelming forces and that, using justice and happiness and selfishness, they are just scrabbling to find meaning in things they ultimately have no control over.

but of course, near does not stop there. "[...] even then i'd stop and think for myself. i'd decide for myself whether his teachings are right and wrong." nears alright with not having control over everything, because near can still control nears own actions. these forces can and do exist, but they have no sway over nears own humanity — unlike light, who caved.

one of the creators of death note said they believe its message is "life is short, so everyone should do their best". the first time i learned this, i was like, thats... nice and optimistic, but an awful reading of the story! "life is short, so everyone should be desperate and striving like light yagami", who literally cut off other ppls lives for his own life? what character in death note are we supposed to strive towards when we "do our best"? they all do awful things with their lives! honestly, maybe they shouldnt have tried their best, if this is what their best is!

but with the view of "mu"... it makes a bit more sense. just a little. maybe.

there is no good and evil. there is only what humans think, and no matter what we do, we all die in the end. it is easy to be crushed and terrified by this in the same way light is, but what is more important than justice and righteousness and finding meaning is... doing your best. not being a person that hurts others too much. not letting yourself get swallowed up by an ideal. not going too far. and simultaneously, trusting yourself.

it leaves a few questions, though... was the currently dead l even a little bit right about his blatantly amoral approach, then? was there a point to this pain, and me slogging through this dumbass manga, and all the people that have lost their lives to a selfish teenage cop's son and the whims of everyone chasing after him? was there a point to any of this...?

the manga** never answers this. it stays clinically impartial until the very end. the musical is anything but clinically impartial (and i love it so much for that), and its ryuk that has the last word.

"there's no point at all."

of course theres no point. none of this was ever supposed to happen. that is what matters more than all the hurt and the crimes and the pain.

and that's... actually okay, because it's over now.

yes, death note has many really important themes present in its story, but its viewpoint is nihilism first and foremost. thats why its so fun and easy to play around with all the other messages, because no matter what fun or torment or awful things or righteous justice or absolute nothingness or sentimentality happens in between, there is always an end.

there is always the end.

[aughtpunk]

Hey, wait a minute! This isn't the Heket POV story!

Nope, instead, welcome to "En Passant", the Kallamar/Shaun modern board game club AU. it's happening

[deathsweetblossoms]

Light and dark, the space between their two bodies a blend of the two.

[quibbs126]

So I talked about Frost Queen getting into the main story, and that a possible solution I could come up with being her just joining Dark Cacao in a story to recruit the dragons of his kingdom (assuming they do that), and my brain just kind of took that idea and started running with it, and it culminated in this

I personally like to read the text in a dramatic narrator voice

Also I don’t really know where the “Ice Cold Squad” bit came from, I just thought their names were too long and needed something else, and that’s what I did

Also my first time drawing Frost Queen. Her outfit wasn’t too bad, and I liked drawing her hair, but I did not like that crown. Also as to why Dark Cacao’s in that outfit and with no crown, well I thought since he’s going on a dragon recruiting trip, he probably wouldn’t bring his crown. And as for the outfit, well to be honest I just sort of started subconsciously drawing it. Also I thought “hey, Hollyberry’s got a different outfit than her normal one, give Dark Cacao one too (even though I just drew a pre-existing outfit)”, even though as I write this I realize that Dark Cacao’s outfit is a literal suit of armor and would probably be more suited for fighting than this one. The one excuse I can come up with for a new outfit is that the dragons’ domain is incredibly cold and he needs something better suited for it, as metal isn’t exactly going to keep him warm

But I mean honestly, maybe it’s because my brain has decided it’s interested in Frost Queen, and Dark Cacao is one of my hyperfixation characters, and/or it’s because I’ve recently seen quite a bit of content with Frost Queen and Dark Cacao, but I really want to see Frost Queen and Dark Cacao interact, and specifically the way I want them most to interact is just in a story where they have to work together, and it’s just them. I need to see how they interact, mostly because they both seem pretty similar in terms of personality, and that they both seem relatively antisocial and also dramatic. There’s some comedy potential with these two, along with dramatic potential

But yeah, enjoy them

[dragonsongmakhali]

alright xiv folks I've made myself curious. what is your Thing in gposes?

Not necessarily what you're best at but like. What are you drawn to the most when you're looking at gposes? I'll go first.

Mine is expressions. I'm obsessed with expression work, like how the tiniest details can completely change the emotion you're trying to portray. I love to look at a face and try and figure out what gimbals OP has messed with to get it that way! It's a fun puzzle that can sometimes give me ideas to try when I go posing next.

What about y'all? What sparks joy for you personally?

[iamthepulta]

The best thing about Italy and Europe is that linen just- exists here. I can go buy a shitty cheap 100% linen dress like I would go to Fry's and buy a shitty cheap 100% polyester dress in America. Absolutely revolutionary for my wardrobe. I can't actually buy wardrobe enhancements because I have a carry-on suitcase, but the fact I still have the option is amazing.

[monster-noises]

There needs to be more events where wearing pants, a sick jacket, and no top is acceptable attire... The world is really missing out.

He/him

[grimalkinmessor]

Doing a little math again because I'm legit insane ✨✨ about Light Yagami ✨✨✨

THESE ARE ESTIMATES AND GUESSES DON'T COME FOR ME but I wanted to see how many people he'd killed by the time the broadcast happened!

I counted all the names on that one manga panel—thirty-two lines with four columns per row, which puts us at 128 names per page. There are obviously pages before the ones Light shoves in front of Ryuk, so that's already over 236 people dead.

Then the police say that all of Kira's kills are between the hours of 4:00pm and 2:00am—eleven hours total.

The average person can write anywhere from five to twenty words per minute; I took a guess and went with the upper bit of sixteen words per minute being Light's writing speed. NOW with this hypothesis (doing science in my DN headcanons now, watch me if-then), accounting for any breaks Light might have taken from writing between those hours by knocking two whole hours off altogether and making it a nice nine, given that he's shown to develop a bout of insomnia for that period—but not accounting for any names that are more or less words than two (which brings up the interesting question of if Light would need someone's middle name to kill them...hmm questions for another post)—Light fills about three and three quarters of pages per hour. That's 480 names per hour.

480 names an hour for nine hours is 4,320 names a day.

So in the frantic panicked haze Light would've been in during those five days before Ryuk showed up and told him he wouldn't be dying, Light likely killed somewhere around 21,600 people.

It slows drastically after this, because Light begins to calm down and think his kills through more thoroughly, developing an actual plan of action to justify all the people he's now killed. He starts getting proper sleep again, and likely does a lot more research because the "worst of the worst" (at least those in public eye) have already fallen under his pen. They had to have, given the number of them he nerfed in those first five days.

So he puts his sleep schedule back in place, starts doing more thorough research; that knocks his time down to about six hours a day to write names, give or take depending on the day. After Ryuk appears, there's only two more days before the broadcast. In those two days, using my prior calculations, Light likely killed around 5,760 additional people in those two days.

Putting his kill count as of the Lind. L. Tailor broadcast at a little over 27,000 people :D

(Then of course he levels out to twenty-four people per day once it comes out that L thinks Kira is a student, which is a FAR more drastic change from fucking over 4,000 per day. Really highlights how his priorities switched from cleaning the world to playing his fun new game with L lmao).

Do with this what you will ✨✨✨