#death note l change the world

[nerdstify]

I'm writing a Death Note story and need help with the middle. Send your ideas via DMs, comments, or asks. If I like them, I might even draw them! Also open to Death Note art requests. Share any Death Note-related ideas and I'll see what I can do.

(and in this case comments too!)

Start and end of the fic under the cut:

God, the rain was gorgeous. L wasn’t usually one to remark or note on the beauty of people; people did things and said things that he couldn’t understand. They hurt and killed and lied; and for what? For only themselves. But the world- the non-people part of the world- was utterly beautiful. L knew why the rain fell. It brought the plants to life. And even though sometimes it felt like nature didn’t have a purpose- like destructive typhoons and hurricanes- he at least understood that these catastrophes weren’t self-serving. The rain had no greed or selfishness; nothing to gain, and so the chaos was out of its control. The rain was always his favourite, grey and rhythmic and cool. Any beauty he saw in a human was simply a reflection of the beauty of the rain. Watari, cool and graceful and methodical as himself, nurturing lost children like they were plants below his sky. Soichiro, stoic and sturdy, creating a calm and intentional rhythm for L to think to. These people and others he had admired for sharing the qualities of the rain he loved, but there was one more. A conundrum that L couldn’t quite place.

Start:

Light Yagami. Not just the rain, but a monsoon. He was endless and unrelenting. No matter how many challenges you gave him, he dodged and weaved until the rainwater had flooded every crack in the moulding and invaded your basement. L wasn’t fond of people getting into his basement. He wasn’t cool and stoic and calm, but he came with a surging heat and a blinding sun and a furious intensity. L was almost sure he was Kira, because like Light, like the monsoon, Kira barely seemed human to him. He didn’t seem to be killing for personal or even corporate gain. Kira had convinced himself and the world that he killed for righteous reasons; for saving the good in humanity, but L couldn’t believe that. Kira killed because like Light, like the monsoon, he simply couldn’t stop.

He had never before been so attracted to a person, yet so repelled. If Light contained a duality and, say, Kira was a north magnet, and Light was a south– then L was north. There was nothing his heart, mind, and the deepest parts of his very soul craved more than a friend- or so he told himself- like Light.

But Light was Kira.

Wasn’t he?

Ending:

He knew it. Of course Light was Kira. There was no way around it. L was doomed by this narrative of friendship he had written for himself. Light was so perfect that L couldn’t have beared to lose him. So charming that the barely human, hardly affectionate, happily lonely L had warmed to him. Welcomed him. Shown him the smallest, quietest parts of himself. But Light was barely human too; becoming less and less by the day. And as L grew more and more attached, Light grew further away. A part of him had known from the very beginning how he would die. It wasn’t a slip-up in safety or privacy, it wasn’t a miscalculation, or a misjudgement of character- in fact he had judged Light perfectly from the very beginning. It was trust that had killed him.

His first, his best and worst friend, using him even now. No doubt faking his grief towards the task force. Or perhaps the grief was real. Despite it all, L couldn’t help but clutch onto the glimmer of hope he kept locked tightly in his ribcage, as the light faded from his eyes, that he could still mean something to Light, despite using him and throwing him aside.

Like he did Misa. Like he would his father and Sayu. Like he did his own soul. Like he did everyone once they stopped being fun to play with. L laughed weakly. Kira really was a child.

He had always known he would die right here, in task force headquarters, where he was supposed to be safe, and at Light’s hand, who was supposed to be his equal. He had imagined dying with a subtle smirk, Light finally incriminated, and a successor lined up to catch him. But in his ideations of death, not once had it occurred to him that it might hurt so much.

The grief, the guilt, the regret, and most of all the gaping wound that Light created, ripping into him with his bare hands and clawing at the insides of his chest, twisting a knife right into his gut as he pretended to care that he was gone.

[artblooger19moon]

Death Note Live Action Movies

Death Note

Death Note L Change the World

Death Note The Last Name

Death Note Light Up the New World

[coddda]

I wish we could have met in some other way.

Lawlight Week Day 2: Soulmates

If you saw me repost and re-edit this several times uh No you didn't </3

Still frames/Individual gifs:

If you know what every frame is from you get a free cookie. by the way

[rowwiz]

phone scribble of the pathetic

original bit

[queerlightyagami]

interactive illustration from L: Change the World that breaks my heart

the symbolism…

[astersofthesky]

It's been hours since I discovered that this exists and yet it still feels so surreal. L felt such huge anguish that his heart was aching inside his chest at failing to save Maki from being kidnapped and the first thing that comes out of his mouth is "Light... It hurts. My heart—" and honestly, I felt like being punched repeatedly on the gut because this is honestly... *breathes* I am in awe and in disbelief because why would L speak Light's name like this, when Light was the reason why he's dying now?? Why would he confide in him, when Light had only shown him fakeness and lies since they met. It's so easy to think of all the evil things Light had done to him yet L doesn't think of any of those things.

He wasn't even thinking in this scene because all he can register is how his heart hurts and that it was telling him to speak Light Yagami's name, no matter how absurd, how silly, or how pathetic it seems. Because like Light, people NEVER sought him beyond the great detective L. No one bothered to know him beyond the gothic letter on their screens. Which honestly, isn't their fault because L kept them at arm's length.

But somehow, someone forced L's arm to minimize that distance and he's left with Light and his deceptive yet all-knowing eyes that managed to understand L. And it's so effin funny that a twisted individual like Light was the only person to actually see beneath the iceberg that is L. The one that caused his demise. It's so sick and ironic that Light is the one person who L thinks can understand his pain. He didn't think of Watari, his father-figure.

He thought of Light. Because at this place, at this point, he knew no one would understand his pain, his ideals, his everything, the way they didn't understand Light and his twisted sense of justice and his genuine distaste for the judicial system and how childish his black-and-white morality is EXCEPT L himself.

He called Light's name because deep down he knew, only Light would be able to understand the pressure and the lies the facade he'd been wearing all this time.

It's honestly insane how these two has something worse than romance, and that no matter what universe, no one really wins because all that is left of the other is the empty, shallow void caused by the other person's non-existence.

Lawlight, you both got some toxic codependent sht and honestly i'm here for it.

[llawiletisjesus]

death note is just the ultimate emo vs prep and no one wants to admit that

[night-lie]

𝔻𝔼𝔸𝕋ℍ ℕ𝕆𝕋𝔼-tober Day 30: aLone

[archrins]

In 'L change's the world' he shows sorrow/sadness for light dying, like taking his watch showing that he was your greatest enemy clearly, that no one could replace him

But,

In the normal death note, light shows craziness/ I've lost it all, from L's dead, yes he laughed but can't that be thought/showed as him losing it all? Light remembers L, by taking his title 'L' which is his real name (kind of) so light always remembers him

It shows how both of their characters were friends in the end.

[pennyblossom-meta]

L Lawliet: a deep dive into the expanded universe pt.01

EDIT (07/04/2024): Added some imgs.

Apologies for being so late to give this a follow up to @maevearcher's meta which can be found here and here. As usual, she’s made excellent points and I'll try to answer the ones which caught my eye.

Since this post ended up gaining a life of its own and becoming a bit too long, I’m splitting it in 2 or 3 parts. The core of the content for part 01 starts after under the button to Read More.

Here we talk about L's humanity.

I'll start with a disclaimer of my own: while I consider the manga as the base for the story, I'm very much open to the expanded DN universe as a complementary study of the characters and their motivations — sometimes even filling in the blanks for some of the background mysteries, such as the dynamics of Wammy's House and how L's successors view him.

To further clarify: by canon I mean the manga and any works by Tsugumi Ohba as the base material. I think @maevearcher and I are more or less in agreement on that, from what she mentioned in her own posts. As she said, the written word is indeed the baseline truth.

The expansion of the DN universe also has its own very special set of problems; for example, in many ways, L:CtW (L: Change the WorLd) commits the sin of overindulgence by throwing in considerations that, arguably, go against canon. Besides the ending where L lives for a final 23 days and Watari dies, the portrayal of Near in the movie (though in the novel he's also walking a fine line between becoming partially and very much OOC) is also a point of contention. I confess that I really wasn't fond of the way they portrayed Misa as a potential crush of L given canon insights on his opinion about Light whether in the role of Kira or as a person (pg.64 of Vol 13: How to Read, henceforth referred to as V13:HTR), but aligning L to become more humane and forgiving was at least interesting.

The same happens with the live action movies, the 2015 series, and the musical. At least the game Spiraling Trap isn't clashing with canon elements — that I could tell. The main plot is separate from the events of DN and the dating sim is a little slice of heaven into L's thoughts and emotions which I dearly love.

However, while L:CtW does indeed overindulge, the novel AN:LABB (Another Note: LA BB Murder Cases) gives us a singular glimpse into L through the eyes of Mello while keeping the events mostly accurate to the main plot, even with its slight deviations. It's certainly an optional perspective to the core of DN, but one that I always found very insightful. In V13:HTR, Obha mentions how he would’ve liked that there were more novels about L and how he solved previous cases, in a similar fashion to how Nisio Isin approaches AN:LABB. Here’s what Ohba says in pg.61 of V13:HTR:

(...) I didn’t think up much for [L’s] past. For him to be in such an influential position, he must have solved an amazing amount of cases, but I have no idea what kind of cases they were or how he solved them. But I would love for NISIOISIN, who wrote the Death Note novel, to write more stories about that (...)

This means that, to some extent, even the original author, Ohba, accepts AN:LABB as close to canon — or rather, as canon as it can get given the creative liberties allowed to a third party writer. To that point, Nisio Isin took L’s capoeira demonstration during the Yotsuba arc and made it a whole thing in the novel, with L taking inspiration from Naomi Misora’s skills. However, given the importance of that event, in the main story, L takes a while to even remember Misora so we can infer that either the stress of the case is getting to him OR learning capoeira and subsequently Misora’s role in it didn’t leave that much of an imprint on him because true canon didn’t really put that much emphasis into it. Either way, it’s an extrapolation that works. The technicalities can be overlooked given how ambiguous the scene is, as there is more than room to deduce a different past.

At the same time, I am an apologist that there are shared characteristics to L throughout the different mediums. My own interpretation of L's character has the manga as a baseline, but the expanded universe has taught me that there are sides to him that might not be so easy to perceive in dialogue bubbles or illustrations alone. Little things like L's addictive personality or the way he represses feelings are visible in the manga but caught beautifully in the novels, for example.

Going from the written word into the screen also represents a loss of the purity achievable only within the narrative in-book, where you can extrapolate and reach your own conclusions without being subject to the bias of sound and movement — though manga aggregates the visual to words and with it an altogether different dimension of meaning. That's one of the many things I enjoy about elements of fiction introduced through books; the stillness of the images and the narrative are more complex. Every time the baseline gets adapted, it loses something or that something shifts to fit into the perception of others. It ceases being pure and its essence is fundamentally shattered. Like the concept of a musical score on paper that gets played by an orchestra, there will never be an adaptation as good as the source material because it breaks the illusion.

While I can certainly extrapolate and accept the loss, I find that the written word from the novels, the tone of a VA's voice and the body movements in a live action still complement the manga well, despite narrative clashes.

About L’s humanity

Recently I've been re-watching the anime and it's incredible how Alessandro Juliani's understanding of the character resulted in such a well-rounded voice for L. I actually prefer the EN version to the JP because of the voice acting. It's superbly brilliant, even if L becomes less listless. He's certainly still aloof, but his aggressiveness is portrayed more vividly; in contrast, L in the manga feels a bit more dangerous and scary to me due to the range of expressions that the anime didn't manage to add in due to time and budget constraints. If anything L tones down how dangerous he can be. He does this on purpose so that he can trick and trip his adversary, as can be seen during his earlier interactions with Light. At times, L makes a mockery of himself, apparently placing himself in the position of a more demure individual while sharply observing the world around him and forming conclusions.

As to @maevearcher ‘s first point:

(...) An image of this lonely autistic genius, locked inside the confines of his ways, waiting for the right person to come along and save him from the banes of his solitary existence…until he meets Light and realises there’s someone out there who he can relate to, for understanding and stuff. I personally don’t buy too much into that.

The depth to which L relates to Light can be overestimated, but not without reason. Theirs is mostly an adversarial relationship with varying deviations throughout the expanded universe, but if we solely consider the manga then we get this comment from Ohba regarding whether L has any friends on pg.64 of V13: HTR:

Nope. And when he says that Light is his first friend that’s a big lie. He never considers him a friend. He probably secretly thinks really negative things about him.

During the Yotsuba arc, L is at a disadvantage. Light has turned the tables, tricked him into what Beyond Birthday could not do and thus gained a solid position into rendering L almost powerless to charge him. To elaborate on the latter point: BB wanted to create the perfect, unsolvable crime to humiliate L, making him lose, and thus “spend the rest of his life trembling in fear of B’s shadow” (pg.163, AA:LABB); L would know who the guilty party was but wouldn’t be able to prove it or bring that person to justice. As such, L would not be able to solve the mystery. At the end of the novel BB fails due to Misora’s quick thinking and that’s that. However, Light has several advantages that BB lacked, starting with his own social position, charm and the impeccable reputation of a model student and the prized son of a police chief who helps solve cases every now and then.

We can argue that, what truly happens in manga canon, is L and Light showing how much they respect each other for their detective skills, forming a sort of strange kinship within the cat and mouse game, especially when Light loses his memories of the Death Note. The game thrills them and they enjoy pushing each other’s buttons. No one else has ever challenged them like this. That being said, the first time they meet up for coffee after the tennis match, L is observing Light like a hawk, keeps testing him for a reaction and seems somewhat irritated at how much Light talks. I would venture a guess that L doesn’t actually like Light that much, even when he loses his memories. He might even find Light a nuisance when he waves the flag of morality — though this is a common problem L is confronted with when dealing with the Task Force, in particular Chief Yagami and Aizawa. This also places him at another gruesome disadvantage, as he’s surrounded by people who openly dislike and criticise his methods. The Task Force is also extremely wary of the way L pursues Light and think he’s being stubborn without proof to substantiate his reasoning. Ironically, it’s Aizawa, one of L’s most critical subordinates, who initiates Light’s downfall years later once he starts to consider L’s suspicions in light of Near and Mello’s tactics. 

Both L and Light respect the game, no matter where it takes them. I would further make an educated guess that Light even preyed on L’s vulnerabilities during the Yotsuba arc, predicting how L might fall into depression for failing at the game. Light was more than capable of understanding that L’s competitive and childish side would make him a sore loser, especially given that he had already “lost” the first round of battles just by showing his face. Even if there is a sliver of friendship between both during Light’s months of amnesia, it’s dead and buried the moment he becomes Kira again. 

My conclusion here would be that, while what happened with Light was extreme, it was also somewhat similar to Beyond Birthday’s eternal enmity towards L: the challenge, the need to humiliate and take down the greatest detective, one of the most brilliant minds to ever walk the Earth. There are some notable quotes from AA:LABB that reference what it is to be L, surrounded by future challengers and individuals who both look up to L and want to prove they’re better than him:

Pg.69

By simple arithmetic, L's ability in 2002 was the equivalent of five ordinary investigative bureaus, and seven intelligence agencies (and by the time he faced off against Kira, those numbers had leapt upward several more notches). This is easy to think of as a reason to respect and admire someone, but let me say this as clearly as possible: that much ability in one human is extremely dangerous. Modern danger management techniques rely heavily on diffusing the risk, but his very existence was the exact opposite. In other words, if someone was planning to commit a crime, they could greatly increase their chances of getting away with it by simply killing L before they began. That was why L hid his identity Not because he was shy or because he never left the house. To ensure his own safety For a detective of L's ability, self-preservation and the preservation of world peace were one and the same, and it would not be correct to describe his actions as cowardly or self-centered.

Pg. 117

L was the goal of everyone in Wammy's House. Everyone of us wanted to surpass him. To step over him. To step on him. M did, N did, and B did. M as a challenger, N as a successor. B as a criminal.

Pg. 160:

B approached Naomi Misora, calling himself Rue Ryuzaki. Rue Ryuzaki - L.L.  For anyone from Wammy's House, there could be no higher goal than identifying yourself with that letter - and Beyond Birthday seized this case as his chance.

One of the biggest problems with these quotes is that they paint a very complicated — and, ultimately, suffocating — picture of what it is like to be L. Ohba himself mentions Watari’s predisposition towards collecting geniuses from all over the world and what Wammy’s House has turned into, under the snippet for Watari’s character (pg.60 V13:HTR):

He’s a guy who cultivates detectives for fun. That’s kind of terrible, isn’t it?

Everyone profits from L. Watari becomes richer than ever. Wammy's House becomes breeding ground for geniuses who end up dreaming of a life where they enjoy constant thrill and challenge. However, in order to do so, the dream cannot be complete until the successor crushes the original; until M, N, B and A defeat L. At least one of L’s successors couldn’t handle the pressure and committed suicide. B, known as Backup, runs away from the orphanage and goes on a murder rampage. Having never met L in person, he deduces several personality quirks that the “original” demonstrates, going as far as exacerbating them in order to be creepy and repulsive. Mello, who boasts of having met L in person and being privy to stories about how he defeated several other detectives (then taking their aliases as a trophy) both fervently admires L and wants to step on him. 

Step on him. That’s quite the turn of phrase. It does sound scary, doesn’t it? To be surrounded by people who would take the opportunity to pull you down, no matter how much they admire you. They want to be you, to prove that they’re better than you. It’s game and ego. Life and death. Winner and loser. 

And that’s perhaps the most blatant summary in approved canon of what it is like to be L that we’ll ever get. We can, of course, argue that Watari cares about L. He’s not only his handler, but also the one who brought him into Wammy’s House. It’s fairly clear that he nurtured (and even enabled) some of L’s most distressing character traits, though I wouldn’t necessarily say it was with a purely utilitarian agenda. It’s perfectly acceptable to extrapolate how Watari might’ve wanted to keep L, a child of great intellectual genius, happy by allowing him to be challenged and properly educated. In fact, AN:LABB (pg. 145-46) even gives us L’s perspective on the kindness that justice can achieve, which is confirmed within the expanded universe to be similar to Watari’s teachings as L confronts Kujo in L:CtW. 

"I have nothing to do with him," L said. "To be completely accurate, I do not even know B. He is simply someone I am aware of. But none of this affects my judgment. Certainly I was interested in this case, and began to investigate it because I knew who the killer was. But that did not alter the way I investigated it, or the manner in which my investigation proceeded. Naomi Misora, I cannot overlook evil. I cannot forgive it. It does not matter if I know the person who commits evil or not. I am only interested in justice." "Only... in justice... " Misora gasped. "Then ... nothing else matters?" "I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority." “You won't forgive any evil, no matter what the evil is?" "I wouldn't say that, but it is not a priority." "'But..." Like a thirteen-year-old victim. "There are people who justice cannot save." Like a thirteen-year-old criminal. “And there are people who evil can save." "There are. But even so," L said, his tone not changing at all. As if gently admonishing Naomi Misora. “Justice has more power than anything else." "Power? By power ... you mean strength?" "No. I mean kindness." He said it so easily. Misora almost dropped the phone. L The century's greatest detective, L. The detective of justice, L. Who solved every case, no matter how difficult... " ...I misunderstood you, L." "Did you? Well, I'm glad we cleared that up."

I would, once again, venture another educated guess that, while Watari’s primary reasons for starting a program of successors to L was noble, it ultimately backfired on an individual level. Society wise, the letters, as L calls them in L:CtW, are a force for good. They solve crimes, help law forces around the world to keep peace. Some of them even become scientists like Dr Kujo — though she becomes the main antagonist in the spin-off novel. However, the pressure this kind of lifestyle fostered creates a group of individuals who are highly competitive and manipulative. Some, like A, can’t handle it. Even L has his own troubles, being called a reclusive sociopath, possibly by the police forces who treat him as a utility rather than a person. He’s someone they admire and resent, who is tolerated given how effective he is at cracking down cases. 

This passage from L:CtW paints a grim picture of the way L suppresses his own feelings as he breaks down for not being able to prevent Maki from being kidnapped (pg. 150-51):

"Light...it hurts. My heart--" It was a hurt that L Lawliet had suppressed, that he had to suppress in order to continue his existence as the peerless Detective L. How had the world's top detective been described in regard to facets of his personality rather than his ability as a detective? He had been called a kinky detective who relished bizarre murders, a human computer capable only of measuring mass murders in terms of cold numbers, a reclusive sociopath. What L thought of such estimations of his personality only L could know. But no one could truly understand L. How L did not and could not forget the faces of thousands of victims. Who could comprehend the man who had lived his life, and had to live confronting all the lives that ended prematurely, the tears of grief-stricken survivors, the devaluing of life as a daily reality. How was it possible to measure the pain of such a man? Was it a strain so heavy that L's back curved under all its weight? Was it an agony so terribly to leave the indelible dark circles around his eyes? Was it a feeling so bitter that every bite he took needed to be coated in sugar? The chronically rounded shoulders, the inevitable dark circles, the eccentric tastes--L suppressed the pain of being a champion of justice, but the evidence of the pain was moulded into his very body.”

Even within the clear disparity from the official canon, this passage slaps. It humanises L further, making the detective become a person and not just a machine who is content with his lifestyle. I know there’s a tendency for those who prefer the manga to see L as someone who is unabashedly himself and perfectly alright with the life he lives. I would argue that the Kira case was not only the most difficult challenge L ever faced, but also a series of moments where he had to be at his best — and at his worst. He had to do everything within his power to solve the case, not only because of his pride but because of what he considers to be his sense of justice. Saying with such confidence ‘I am justice’ is a rather cheesy and childish thing to say out loud, though I read it as both what started as a child’s stubbornness and what L became, as he positioned himself as a barrier to prevent crimes. 

L suppresses himself, represses his emotions; he tries to control them, as Fu Takashi says in an interview, he is “dependent on games or battles of the mind”. Perhaps this is a consequence of the foundations of his personality. Despite L’s innate stubbornness, it could be argued that this is as much his fault as it is Watari’s, who didn’t nurture L’s social skills as he should have when he was a child. By not having an outlet outside of his hobby, L is trapped in a prison of his own making. Superficially, L is a “smart guy who hates losing”, but what about the rest? What about the things that make him human, the connections with others? In the same interview, it is mentioned how L feels lonely and needs affection. But what affection can you get when you isolate yourself from the world and keep everyone at arm’s length? He’s not a machine. Even machines become obsolete with time, and need outside help to keep functioning.

As for the latter point, if everyone around L is trying to step on him, humiliate him and surpass him, then it’s only natural that his emotional defences would be up. Aside from Watari, whose loyalty he can count on, he’s alone. L has no one else. And everyone around him will have a dangerous, significant probability to betray him.

Next in part 02: About romance, having someone close and intimate, the meaning of the Monster speech.

Tagging @rinneroraito and @sharkiethrts who might be interested in this meta.

[lunalit-river]

I translated this page of L File No. 15. It's one of the many passages of Watari's Journal. I couldn't find English translations for the passages of Watari's Journal, so I translated them from Mandarin translation to English. I compared the Mandarin translation with the Japanese original text using Google Translate to ensure accuracy and made some adjustments for flow and maintaining the original meaning.

July 7th, 2006. L. Was this the outcome of giving you the opportunity to learn? Was it arrogant of me to think that I had given you everything you needed? A genius without parents or relatives, without food or education, a genius who may have had a miserable past. Was I wrong? L wrote his name in the Death Note. Was this all for victory? Was this all for justice? To fight something supernatural like the Death Note, it is true that we must arm ourselves with something that is also beyond human understanding. It is highly possible that Light Yagami will write L's name in the Death Note. In theory, L must write his name in the Death Note first to prevent Light from doing so. But don't human emotions have a tendency to refuse to accept the truth and instead hope to twist logic and theory? L. Don't you ever place your emotions prior to your goals? L. I never meant for things to end this way. Your talent has surpassed mine, and now you are consuming yourself. But I… Today I learned F's death. Am I about to lose you, too? I have never felt so powerless as I do now. L. I am confused. When I established Wammy's House, I might not have anticipated this. I learned a lot from being with you, L, just as parents learn a lot from their children. L. Just one sentence is enough. Please tell me you want to live. L. L…

[captainhysunstuff]

L’s got a bone to pick with Light’s grand plan. (And Light’s kind of into it…)

[pipsi-soda]

this movie made me want to end it ill be fr

[coddda]

deleted L Change the WorLd scene tbh

[rowwiz]

l lawliet: a formal analysis

[boobook3ys]

MY BOOK CAME EARLY!! :3