#death note rambles

[gh0stbeeee]

Random Death Note headcanons

L has a bit of an overbite, he had braces as a teenager but he never wore his retainers so it came back a little.

Misa was a little ragamuffin as a kid, she loved going outside and being messy with her hair unbrushed, but she realized she couldn't put her hair in twin tails if it was knotty so she improved her hygiene as she grew up.

Light has always wanted to grow his hair to his shoulders and part it in the middle because he thought it looked really elegant, but he never did because he was worried people would think he wasn't respectable.

Also, Light was a bit chubby when he was young. He developed an eating disorder as he grew up because of how family and other adults would comment on his body. Keep in mind this was healthy baby fat, and he is now perpetually a little underweight.

L has a ridiculous metabolism, so despite his diet he is naturally skinny and light weight. In contrast to Light, he wishes he could gain a little weight.

Misa knows Light doesn't love her. She stays with him because he became a rock in her life despite his coldness and manipulative nature, and he keeps her grounded. She is scared of independence, due to ptsd. Light isn't aware of this exact reason, but neither does he seek to know her. His optimism and confidence eases her anxiety, just as Misa's blind worship encourages him. Toxic af for eachother.

Light is on the aroace spectrum, but he never sought to experiment to find out what exactly he is. He is completely neutral to both genders, with a preference for intelligence. (Sapio.) He never learned the proper terminology for sexuality beyond hetero and homo.

L is completely ambiguous in terms of sexuality. He has attractions, but they disappear quickly and he never acts on them. He suspects he is aroace spec, but he never confirms it.

Lawlight was violently timid. Their passion for eachother was insane, but neither knew what to do with it. One minute they were kissing chastely, the next they were beating the shit out of eachother. They had sex a couple times, but they were more focused on the intimacy and mind games than the pleasure.

Misa was comphet and her obsession with Light stopped her from exploring herself (and Rem her monster girlfriend that loved her more than her life.)

Near found the HQ security footage years after the Kira case ended and to say it made his opinions of L and Light more complicated is an understatement. (I want to write this fic.) He saw L's true morality, and the endeared relationship between L and Kira. He saw innocent Light, and thought that he wasn't so bad.

[1ns3n1ty3x1sts]

you had me wondering if i qualified to be light yagami so

yeah this is a better option lowk HAHAHA

YOOO WHERE U TAKE THE TEST FROM

i think mello suits u better than light btw 😭

[kiras-law]

light "if someone tries to read my diary i will set my drawer on fire" yagami

[empressofthewind]

what's funny to me about Death Note is how casually the authors will drop the most insane lore you've ever heard and then just move on as if it never happened. like here's a girl whose parents were killed in front of her and who also would have been murdered by a crazed fan if he hadn't mysteriously dropped dead before her eyes. yes we WILL proceed to call her stupid and annoying for the rest of the series and never address how this affected her. btw did we ever mention that L is an orphan who has been working as a detective since he was 10? and that the orphanage where he grew up is now dedicated to raising child prodigies on the principle that their entire existence is worthless if they can't live up to L's standard? no? well he's dead now so here are his successors. yeah one of them joined the mafia at 17 and commits violent crimes because he believes it's the only way to prove that he's worth anything. yeah the other one had to take on the only case L couldn't solve entirely from scratch at age 13 with no prior detective experience. no the implications of this won't be addressed. also one of the new anti-Kira investigators has a vendetta against Kira because someone close to her was killed by him. will that ever be explored in canon, you ask? well you're not going to believe this-

[fluffyblue-multifandommess]

"Yagami Light as a youtuber would probably plagiarise" WRONG Yagami Light is insanely intelligent and looks down on literally every single other human person, he would rather stab himself in the eye than using the works of someone else - someone who can't be anything but beneath him. Pre-Death Note youtuber!Light would make long-ass videos about Everything Wrong With Society with completely unhinged takes about how xyz small innocuous thing is responsible for gang violence with numbers* to back it up.

"Light would plagiarise" get the fuck out of here.

*numbers which he completely twists to his own bias - without even knowing it because he thinks way too highly of himself

[applestorms]

i cannot imagine what it would’ve felt like to be yotsuba-era light making all these connections between himself and the previous KIRA killings. to see the evidence of such horrible violence and know how evil it is, know what a twisted, pathetic imitation of justice this immature idiot was enacting— but to have it all still resonate with something deep within you. you trust your memories because of course, how could you not, it’s all you’ve ever known to do— but you still allow yourself to be subject to all these breaches of human rights because on some level, you don’t trust yourself either.

i can even see the exact same coping mechanism that led to KIRA leading to amnesia! light’s repression of these connections, actually— a desire to see oneself as someone good, someone pure and virtuous, originally manipulated into a justification for serial murder, now desperately clung to as an explanation for why it couldn’t be you. it can’t be you. it can’t. you were perfect, you are perfect, you were a good boy, the best, you did everything they told you to do— how could you ever have fallen so far?

yotsuba arc light really is on a whole ‘nother level when it comes to seeing the evil inside of you, looking into the alternate timeline and watching what you could’ve become. only, in this story, you’re not the main character anymore— you’re the tragedy, the bittersweet taste of what could’ve been. you look at your jailer and you resent him for all that he’s taken from you, your freedom, your family, your life, but you allow your wrists to be chained to him anyway because you know that if it’s true, if you really are the horror he insists you are, he’s the only thing that could ever possibly stop you. you hate him and you need him and you don’t know what will happen if he ever lets you go— you fear your own potential even as it draws him ever closer, fear your capability to be the monster under your own bed. so you let him cling and grasp at you, bite back the fears, lock away the nightmares, and go back to sleep to escape the looming threat of your own lost humanity.

and then you wake up. and you kill him.

and this is the only way it ever could’ve been.

[gabriel-shutterson]

I enjoy all of the Light OCD discourse, because, like, yeah. There’s obviously symptoms. I LITERALLY have OCD and I see some of myself in him. But as a psych major, with several psych major friends…. Light is legitimately just impossible to diagnose. Because, sure, he has symptoms of OCD. But some of these symptoms overlap with autism. Some of these symptoms overlap with ADHD. Some of these symptoms overlap with BPD, some of these symptoms overlap with OCPD, some of these overlap with narcissism. And once you come to what you think might be a conclusion— how do you know that this is true? When it comes to most of these disorders, they have to be present from childhood. We only get to see small clips of what Light is actually like as a person, without the notebook. How can we be sure that these symptoms were actually present before the notebook— let alone, since he was a child? A lot of things are speculation. And then you have to take comorbidy into account….

I do enjoy the OCD interpretation, I really do! Like I said, I have OCD. Moral OCD too, which is what Light probably has. But I find it honestly hilarious that people well versed in psych cannot pinpoint what is wrong with this man. He has Light Yagami Disorder, an in-universe special. And I love him for it.

[werwlf]

[ambulancie]

I see your “ship so good one of them died” and I raise you

“ship so good one of them killed the other”

[mossy-rot]

death note really is just like watching the worst polyam couple you've ever met

[an1muuarts]

i was thinking how light's name must be funny if you can understand japanese

like, light's name is a kira-kira name. aside from the obvious joke, it means that his name has a different pronunciation than usual.

the kanji for his name (月), is usually pronounced as "tsuki," but instead it's "raito" or "light". (which is actually kinda cute, too bad most of the english speaking people see the name "light" as something like a self-serving name)

and his surname is comprised of "night" and "god"

putting all these together, the rough localization of his name is

Moonshine Darklord

[gh0stbeeee]

Lawlight is unhinged.

They are obsessed. Completely enamored with one another, can't sleep because their mind is flooded with the other. Absolutely enthralled and amazed and terrified because a god has met another of its kind and they don't know what to do.

They devour one another, a fucked up cannibalism of the mind spirit and blood. They lap at the wounds they inflict on one another, kiss eachothers brutal injuries with the most tender care and love like cauterizing fire. They press their mortal bodies against one another, always touching, fingers twisted and legs tangled. Their lips are hungry maws ripping and biting at one another, kisses tearing and bleeding their faces while their wide eyes are locked and their beings are entwined on a level incomprehensible to others.

They smile at eachother, like little secrets or screaming victories. White teeth gleam, sharper than they should be. Grins are threats, promises, and intimate. Their love exists in a language that cannot be read by other people. It's just them, no one else. No one else matters.

Just lawlight.

[gummy-sharks666]

Meronia is so beautifully tragic. Near always looked up to Mello, always believed that he couldn’t beat Kira without him, but Mello would for the rest of his short life, always believe that Near looked down on him… even after death Near would thank him and contribute his success to him…

And the sad thing is I don’t think Mello would’ve ever been able to accept that. I truly believe Wammy’s House and the pressure put on those kids to be the next L is what created Mello’s inferiority complex. I don’t think Near could’ve fixed that either, dealing with his own trauma and the way he expresses his emotions so unconventionally. Sometimes I wonder if Near still feels so much guilt and anger at himself for not being able to make Mello understand, even though it wasn’t his job to, especially as a clearly autistic person unable to express appreciation and love in a “conventional” way.

But anyway!

[kiras-law]

this is a love letter to light yagamis big brown eyes

[undergoing-mitosis]

i have a very sudden and specific urge to see L hugging a massive blahaj

[applestorms]

L can be such a possessive character at times. he always strikes me as the type of person who is deeply aware of everything that he owns, both in a more literal sense and metaphorically-- like, he knows what money he has and how to use it, what resources are readily available to him and what he has to be sneakier to utilize, the habits and tendencies and emotional states of individuals and world governments both. the DN musical really puts an emphasis on the more computer-y aspects of how his brain functions, which isn't as obvious in the manga/anime but i think still works well as a way to follow his thinking. it's kinda what near does too: everything is a factor to them, every tiny detail a new opening to optimize for the best results, every person and location and object a part of a puzzle waiting to be solved. and as a part of that, L is deeply aware of every and any little thing he may or may not have control over, and exactly to what degree.

his habit of stealing titles as depicted in the LABB murders novel is such a good example of this. ryuzaki, eraldo coil, deneuve. he eats people alive and then takes their names for himself like some kind of fucked up fae or trickster god, creating new masks and personas to hide behind from the remains of the people he's devoured. i have to wonder if he would've used the title of KIRA for himself had he won-- i can hardly imagine what kind of power such a title could hold if held in his hands. of course, he could've just used the defeat of KIRA as a way to build up the L title even further, offering up the body of a dead god like perseus showing off the head of medusa. but L is so emotionally attached to the kira case, i struggle to see him allowing it to fade from existence so thoroughly as near does, even if it is only kept close on a private level...

this is part of why i think it genuinely makes a lot of sense that L's ultimate win state would include capturing light to some degree. even if the memory of KIRA somehow manages to fully disappear from the public consciousness, there is no fucking way L is letting light yagami out of his grasp. honestly, the moment that L truly loses this game is not when he starts investigating misa while still under rem's watch, not when light gets back his memories, not even when he dies, but the moment when he allows light to be freed from the handcuffs. the moment when he allows the other members of the task force to turn off the cameras and keep him from watching light and misa talk in the lobby. the moment when he gives up, lets light yagami go outside of L's personal sphere of control, is the moment when L starts the clock ticking down to the end of his own life.

this is one of the key ways in which i see light as a true equal and parallel to L, as after L's death he, intentionally or no, continues the same tradition and takes L's title for himself, twisting the two sides together into the L-KIRA amalgamation. only, the L title functions a little bit differently than every other persona or title that we see in the series-- because L's true name is L. that's all that he is. on a literal, legal, and emotional level, i don't think that L is anything more than L. he is the world's greatest detective, he's an incredible, weirdo super genius, but he does not afford himself much more than that, barely allows himself personhood or humanity outside of his work. light was the one to ultimately defeat L because he did not just put a stain on his character (as BB attempted), did not just kill him, but stole his very identity and took it for himself.

one of the biggest contradictions of L's character that i think you must accept should you attempt to portray him accurately is that he is both deeply detached from humanity while also having all of his work and effort and life be focused around saving it. it's one of the ways in which he is an exact opposite to light-- where light relies on humanity for external validation, to be Seen, while also looking down on it as dumb and immoral and spineless, L is so separated from it that he barely exists as a person, all the while dedicating almost every action he takes to helping it. remember: for all the emotional turmoil that wammy's house and the legacy of L may put on the kids living there, ultimately it's entire existence is nothing more than L's logical solution to his potential demise. if he dies, the world goes down with him, all of the cases that are yet to happen and he is yet to solve being left in the air. he has the foresight to set up a fail safe, but not to consider the emotional implications of what being that fail safe might feel like, how high the price of your own humanity is if you are not already alienated from it, the inability to have your own name on your gravestone-- though perhaps some of the blame also falls on watari's shoulders in this case, philanthropic old bastard that he is.

imo, playing his game really got it right in presenting L and light as one and the same, synonyms on either side of the mirror. in every action they take they are both so selfishly selfless, playing the game for themselves and their own pleasure but plastering the needs and will of humanity on top of it. L isn't invested in saving humanity for the sake of humanity-- he just likes the thrill of having the stakes raised so high. hard to shit on ryuk for wanting entertainment when the humans he finds are just the same as him.