#dn meta: misa amane
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purplink8 · 11 months ago
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Ace Light is so important to me. Like it's not just a headcanon but something more. Here are some instances of ace!Light imo:
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When Sayu finds Light with a dirty magazine & he explains that 'no i was just looking at articles of Kira & L' and that makes Sayu go 'oh yeah! you're gonna be a detective in future so being the nerdy brother of mine that you are you're studying for that, too. wow.' LIKE SHE DOESN'T EVEN QUESTION IT FOR A SECOND. She just knows that Light's statement is true at its face value & since she knows him well: therefore I raise you ACE Light.
Then this exchange between Ryuk & Light:
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Ryuk makes a reference to finger-banging and Light's response? 'Looks are all that count!' Light is so ace it's cute haha.
Instance #3:
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Light looks at p0rno mags and Soichiro is SHOCKED. Now of course it's because he thinks that Light was too upstanding/well-behaved for this sorta thing but I cannot help but wonder... if Light being interested at looking at girls that way, might've seemed a lil too far-fetched to Soichiro. And just how is Light looking at the scantily-clad women? Take a look:
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Of course, Light's goal is to pretend that this is why he was checking if anyone entered his room and yet he cannot look more disinterested. It's not convincing that he'd go all through the trouble of ensuring nobody entered his room and look like -_- towards the p0rno mags he had tried so hard to hide. He's in the privacy of his room (yes there are hidden cameras & no Light isn't meant to know about them) and the least he can do in what I remind you that it's a Shonen manga which means that it's targeted towards young male teens so they couldn't show him jerking off or anything is to look like he's interested/attracted to these women but nope.
Light with all his acting skills cannot manage to look interested (let alone sexually interested) in women shown in these mags. So Light is not straight confirmed. Ace Light strikes AGAIN.
This is just an aside:
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Ace!Light is done with Ryuk & the ridiculous sexual positions he comes up with for Light & L lol.
Another aside:
"Misa: Hey, Light. Wanna come sleep with me tonight?
Light: Wh-what are you talking about…?
Misa: Ha ha ha! Just kidding! You're saving me for after we catch Kira, right? You don't have to be shy about it!
L: Yes, Light. There's no need to be shy.
Light: I'm not being shy!
L: No need to be so serious either."
Hahaha look at L & Misa bullying our dear ace!Light XD
Instance #4 (sorta):
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If we needed more proof of Light not being straight- it's that look on Sachiko's face. She is positively stunned haha.
Instance #5:
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Here is Misa hinting at something (presumably romantic/sexual) they'd do under covers and Light just completely dismissing it with a 'whatever'. #ace light
Canon shows us again & again how disinterested Light is in dating women (he does so only for achieving his Kira goals). Canon also hasn't hinted at Light preferring to date men (no offense to those who headcanon Light as gay as I'm one of those people (i hc him as homoromantic asexual)). So it's logical to assume that Light is ace. Yeah yeah I know you don't really need canon basis for your headcanons but as I said before Ace Light is more than just a headcanon to me :D
Oh and Light being an 'ace student' is literally canon ;)
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purplink8 · 1 year ago
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You know, people say “How is that Light doesn’t even look at Misa, she’s so hot, I’d be obsessed with her”.
Could you really be bothered about a person’s appearance if they deeply annoy you?
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stvlti · 4 years ago
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And so I leap, widowed at twenty-seven, From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven. WIDOW WIDOW WIDOW. I like this line 🍸
Pick a passage (500 words or less) from any fanfic I’ve written and I’ll give you a “DVD commentary”
rules of the ask game | my AO3
oh my god, okay. I really do appreciate you sending this in, I was hoping to get a serious one for this ask meme. but I have to be honest, I have pretty much not looked at that poem since I first wrote it back in 2015, so when I received this ask I was scratching my head asking myself what the fuck was even going on inside my head when I wrote that last line (“lest I too be shriven”) 5 years ago.  the subsequent guesswork + digging through multiple online dictionaries / articles it took for me to compile a response... *lies down*
it’s ok though, it was fun trying to piece it back together. so, without further ado: this is False-Eyed Doll, a Death Note poem.
CW: REFERENCES TO SUICIDE & CANON CHARACTER DEATHS
– also, spoilers ahead! turn back if you want to read the poem first –
So the lines you submitted are the last 2 lines of the poem, which was written as a derivative form of the Sonnet, making these 2 lines the final couplet of the Sonnet. 
Now the thing about Sonnets is, if you are following the Shakespearean format, the ‘turn’ (volta) occurs right before the final couplet, meaning this couplet is the ‘conclusion’ that follows the ‘twist’ of the poem’s narrative. 
Now He has Her slain; oh, will l remain Wilting in His wake, maddened by His maw?
Yet He by own pen dies, man who became Law. And so I leap, widowed at twenty-seven, From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven.
I wrote this poem as a ‘Misa poem’, and I meant for it to reappropriate certain canon events in Misa’s POV. So the poem’s narrative begins with the thesis of Misa being introduced to Light and his Kira world order (in stanza I), then sets up her relationship with Rem, her "guardian angel" Shinigami with differing opinions on Light (in stanza II) as the antithesis. The main thrust of the narrative concerns itself with Misa’s conflicting position between the two. However in spite of Rem’s warning, Misa chooses Light, because with the Kira crusade she has finally found a tentative foundation she could grow into and reestablish her footing in this world after her own tragedy (“in His embrace I shall rule again”). 
That was the trajectory of her life plans. So the ‘twist’, the turn, comes when not only Rem dies but Light, her new foundation, does too ("Yet He by own pen dies, man who became Law”). Of course, this is not a surprise for us the readers, since we know how the story ends in canon, but it’s a huge double whammy (heh, Wammy) to Misa. 
So then we arrive at the final couplet, which centres on Misa’s response to this ‘turn’ of events.
And so I leap
“So she leaps”, because this is the only logical conclusion she could come to after losing her “Law” and foundation. She sees no other future ahead with all her plans in ruins, so she climbs to the top of the investigation tower and chooses* death. (This line is a reference to the anime post-credits scene, where it’s implied she commits suicide.)
widowed at twenty-seven
Honestly I’m cringing a bit that the word choice, “widowed”, was what caught your eye. I’m not sure that’s my proudest detail in this poem 😬 I guess I was really leaning into the MisaxLight component there. There’s always been this underlying sense of commitment that Misa has projected onto Light in canon, from her wanting to start that kind of married, domestic life with Light during the Yotsuba arc, to her trying her hand at playing the stay-at-home housewife during the Light-as-L arc (albeit imperfectly) - there are so many aspects in her interactions with Light that simply screams marriage, at least from Misa’s POV. And on a meta level, she definitely promises her mind, body, and soul to Light’s Kira crusade, trading away her lifespan, altering herself to carry the Eyes for Light, and at the core of it, giving her heart over to Light completely. She has effectively married herself not just to Light, but to Kira, too. So to call Light’s death and the loss of everything that comes it a sort of “widowing” is simply the truth. It is Misa’s truth.
And I fought hard to keep the aged “twenty-seven” detail, because I always found it sort of fascinating that Misa qualifies for the 27 Club. She’s a star in the entertainment industry, at this point she’s amassed a successful mini empire with a career spanning modelling, fashion, cosmetics, TV acting, etc., and yet she’s gone too soon at just 27, because she chose* death to escape a tortured existence... (Just like many other legends have before her, who passed away from their own coping mechanisms in addiction and etc.) It’s definitely tragic, but there’s also a sort of dangerous romanticism that certain people associate Club 27 with, which unfortunately I think would be in line with Misa’s worldview too. 
(HUGE DISCLAIMER HERE, ok, I do not condone this sort of thinking! This poem is a persona poem! The views represented here do not represent my own. But it is in my opinion the sort of unhealthy ideas Misa would’ve believed in. )
But you know what though. Insisting to keep “widowed at twenty-seven” on this line had its consequences too, because then I had to find a word that rhymed for the last line, which brings us to...
From a made Heaven, lest I too be shriven
Bro, this line gave me soooo much trouble trying to piece back together the thought process behind it. The front part is pretty self-explanatory, it’s a “made Heaven” because Kira’s empire is just made by one man claiming to be God. It’s an artificial Heaven, not a real one. But dang, “shriven”??? 
2015!me was being too clever for my own good. Forget all the wack shit I was shitposting in the fandom about, this is the thing that’s ultimately come back to bite me in the ass, isn’t it
Ok but we’re here now, and we gotta finish this ‘DVD commentary’, so let’s get into it. Obviously I was trying to keep up the whole motif of God and Heaven and religion, so I went looking for a word that would fit the theme. Except, to be completely honest, I was raised irreligious, so when I chose the word “shriven” I kinda just chose it because (1) it sounded cool; (2) it rhymes. I don’t have any emotional connection to the word and I certainly don’t have a nuanced grasp of its meaning, which, really bad form of me as a poet. I don’t do that anymore. (And it’s probably the reason why I kept this in the fandom corners and never shared it in class back then 😭 I was hoping I wouldn’t be quizzed on this lmaooo)
But what I do know, is that “shriven” means to confess and receive penance for one’s sins. And I was aiming for meta here - because there is the Catholic concept of punishment and repentance for one’s wrongdoings, but there is also the secular, judicial concept of punishment and reform for one’s crimes. And, okay, I was making some assumptions* here, i.e. even without her memories Misa could guess something happened to Light, and that something had to do with the Kira case. She’s a bottle blonde, but she’s not dumb dumb, so she could’ve reasonably made an educated guess. So then, “lest I too be shriven”: in a way, Misa is choosing* suicide in fear of being “shriven” by the criminal justice system much the same way they’ve done Light in. And even without the judicial component, she could (and logically, should) be wary of the general persecution and social stigma that comes with being involved in a high-profile criminal investigation like this. (Because it wasn’t just any other criminal, it was Kira, the world’s most wanted killer and mass-murderer, and there’s still plenty of people left in the world with a bone to pick with Kira’s ideology, methods, and many more left with a vendetta for the loved ones Kira has taken away from them.) So this line sets up a nice subtle dichotomy, one that flips the script, because now she’s not the one who passes ‘divine’ judgement, delivers punishments and ‘shrives’ the criminals by Kira’s side, now she’s ‘fallen from grace’ (so to speak) from their 'made Heaven’ and she’s the one running away from being delivered justice and penance.
Pretty cool, right? But honestly, if I had a chance to write this poem again I would not do this to myself ( T д T ) The cool rhyme scheme is not worth all this mental gymnastics just to get at the idea I was trying to communicate ( T _ T )
(*) Note: 
I kept talking about Misa “choosing” death, but the very idea itself is also a bit of an assumption on my part. Sure, at face value we have no reason to suspect it’s not an act she chose to commit of her volition. But, there’s also been talk about whether her choosing to commit suicide at 27 is simply a result of her shortened lifespan after her having traded her remaining years away twice. Like it was simply time’s up for her at 27, and she had to die one way or another. Another consideration is the fact that Ryuk has stated all users of Death Note are cursed with an unhappy life / end eventually. There’s no telling whether that’s another contributing factor to Misa’s suicide, too. But for this poem and the sake of its concentrated narrative focus, I’ve chosen to go with the interpretation that Misa chose to commit suicide of her own accord. That bit of commentary on “lest I too be shriven” also subscribes to the particular school of interpretations / headcanons that Misa possessed far more cognizance than we expect throughout the whole investigation and story of Death Note. Like I said, she’s a bottle blonde, but she’s not dumb dumb. I like the fanon that’s been gaining popularity in recent years, the idea that Misa is plenty capable and cunning for a normal civilian and young entrepreneur. She just seems dumb next to literal geniuses.
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burningarchitecture · 3 years ago
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My interpretation of L's character
I've been meaning to write this for a very long time because of how extreme the takes in the fandom can get. Sometimes I see things like "L was a terrible person who only cared about power and establishing dominance in the detective world " and I go 'eh, not entirely'. Then I get out of my little curated part of the fandom bubble and see something like "L was right and he deserved much better than Light. He is justice" and suddenly I want to shove the first take into this person's face because even though I don't entirely agree with it, it makes way more sense.
Anyway, this is a result of me reading to many things I don't entirely agree with and wanting to solidify my own ideas for myself. It's basically a summary of the version of L that lives in my head.
So the first thing we need to discuss is motivation. We hear L himself say he solves cases for fun and not for justice. It is the only way he can keep his mind truly challenged. The detective expressed this as a child and Watari essentially helped him make the hobby his career. The way L was removed from humanity and his intellect never made him care about the justice involved. However the first interpretation I mentioned will go even further and say that he solved cases to maintain his dominance as 'The best detective'. I think that it was a factor but SECONDARY to the challenge element.( Not to be cliche but yes, cases are a GAME to him. And the thing most important about a game is THE PROCESS. L hates losing but he loves playing.) It's also important to mention that the reason he became such an influential entity (and not like, just some private investigator) is most likely Watari who provided him with funds, and encouraged him to do so since childhood. So yes, while I'm sure L enjoys having his best detective status(bc of the freedom and power he gets ), I don't think it was what he would originally strive for. If not for Watari, L would probably have been some well-respected eccentric british detective, not very known outside the UK (and maybe a few other European countries), and he would be more or less content.
Okay, now let's move on to how he views people.
First of all, to be a detective (you have to know which spoon to use ddhjfjajdh) you have to be good at profiling & understanding people. Cognitive empathy, if you will. We see that L's manipulation tactics FROM 2nd episode and onwards rely heavily on the biases of the person he is targeting. This seems to be key to how he goes about his job (which he chose himself) so I assume psychoanalysing is interesting to him.
I think L views people a bit like puzzles, but most are sadly very boring to solve.
He looks down on dumb / naive people (Matsuda for instance) because of their ignorance.
When it comes to individuals who aren't stupid in his mind , he doesn't personally dislike or judge them for their qualities that are different from L's. Usually only gets annoyed when they don't cooperate or are working against him. A good example of this is the rest of the taskforce, whom L somewhat respects.(Even if he is super rude to them at times)
As for his social skills, L's good at psychological manipulation so I don't think he's actually really akward and bad at them. There are several reasons he acts abnormally:
1) autism that he doesn't want or need to mask.
2) manipulating others to believe he is more clueless/harmless/trustworthy then he actually is.
(it can be either depending on the specific interaction we're looking at)
Morality
People have pointed it out that L doesn't seem to view criminals as human, and we see it demonstrated in canon. It's similar to Light but I believe it's for a (kind of)different reason.
While Light is genuinely disgusted by criminals and essentially inherited this belief from his father's strong sense of justice ™, L probably took this belief from the system itself. It essentially doesn't matter what he does to people he is trying to catch, because when they get caught they'll be imprisoned or executed anyway. He doesn't really care enough to change this narrative so he joins it. L is pretty apathetic to the concept of justice anyway and just accepts the world as unfair.(unlike Light who actually tried to change it even if his goal didn't really work)
I've seen people call L utilitarian but I would argue, he doesn't really apply morals to his actions that much. He could see Kira's killings as an actual problem but if it is a factor, it's not a big one for his character. After all, He just went along with the fucked up justice system we already have(esp in some specific countries), even if he might recognise it as problematic. I do think that he *slightly* cared about the deaths of FBI agents tho. (he shows a lot of distress in that one panel. Most of it is bc he lost the round but still. L didn't have any reason to dislike these people and they wouldn't have died if he hadn't asked them to go stalk kira suspects. The responsibility here is not on the system but on him, and the people are capable smart FBI agents )
Conformity
Due to how detached he is from society, L doesn't need to conform to most norms. He doesn't need a perfect facade like Light does. This allows L to be unapologetically himself. Because of his status as The greatest detective he also doesn't even need to follow certain laws(which is kinda fucked up) . This freedom allows his actions and appearance to reflect L's wishes overwhelmingly well. So while he often lies, the detective still expresses many more aspects of himself, then the average person. L is allowed to go further with his ruthlessness, when ordinary people can only think of it. That's why I don't think he's fundamentally evil and very different from other people psychologically, he just has the power and detachment to express his darker side.
Ego
L's pretty self-centered, arrogant and very confident with his abilities. He does not need approval of the masses or status to prove it. Because of this, he is first and foremost driven by his want to win, to solve the puzzle and establish dominance in his mind, rather then increasing his popularity or showing the world a pretty victory.
L might also be narcissistic but I don't know enough about the subject, and I'm not narcissistic myself so I don't think I have any authority to speak on this matter. (And I can't form a solid opinion yet bc of my lack of knowledge) If you want to talk about this/have any relevant information, my ask box is always open. I really need to research this topic more...
Opinion of the two kiras(yes I am making this an actual section):
Misa: L finds her motive and actions as the second kira pretty dumb and naive. He's also irritated because she is a more boring enemy to him(but at the same time more dangerous) then the first Kira who is more intelligent, has a more complex motive, and tries to maintain a reputation by not doing literally anything to achieve his goal. However later L is surprised to see how obsessive, weirdly strong willed& loyal to kira Misa is around the start of the Yotsuba arc. Then his opinion shifts from complete resentment to also finding her extreme personality vaguely intriguing and useful. Although he's still often annoyed with Misa's presence.
Light:
L's first impression was probably something like: " Kira's morals are pretty annoying, however the case seems interesting and challenging bc of the murder method and scale. Not a fan of the killer so far tho. "
Then he gradually learns about Kira's intelligence, arrogance and will to play mindgames/taunt his enemy. Things that make L more interested in who kira might be because the detective has found someone potentially similar to himself. He doesn't like Kira in any way at this point but he is curious about this person and enjoys their rivalry.
When he meets/first sees Light on surveillance, L decides he wants the student to be kira straight away. It's the most fun option to him. He is judgy of Light's social performance at the ceremony, but I don't think he openly hates Light for it. In fact, he stops having any strong personal hate for kira/Light after several days at To-Oh. They're still enemies but he doesn't despise or look down on Light anymore, sees him as a worthy opponent etc. L essentially acknowledges this in the First ever friend scene. They're both lying here but the subtext is them saying telling eachother interesting enemies.
In the Yotsuba arc, L is dissapointed and annoyed with Light. He's generally frustrated with the case because he should have caught the Kiras but there's somehow a new boring one. Everyone wants to dismiss L's deductions and move on and Light's a constant reminder of that. His change in personality makes everything even worse, because now L has to consider the option that Light was only controlled by kira, second guess his deductions etc.. Also there's now an offended police chief's son complaining about L's methods and talking about his innocence. L is bored and pissed. He tries to taunt Light because he has nothing to do anyway. Petty bitch.
When the taskforce finally get their breakthrough, he calms down a bit and works more comfortably alongside his suspect. At this point he still tries to trick Light into admitting he's kira, but he isn't so openly pissed at him and actually appreciates Light's intelligence as a partner sometimes. Maybe he tries recreate Light's thinking as kira, and understand if he lost his memories etc.
(This is a generalisation. I attempted to make it non-shippy. Might write a proper analysis of them later but it'll probably be more shippy and biased)
Final thoughts:
I know most of these things have been talked about in more detail by other people. However I wrote them to form a more solid picture in my own mind.
I would love to discuss some of the mentioned topics with other people in the fandom. You are free to disagree with me as long as you're polite, I try to be open to new ideas. L is a very interesting character to me, and he can be interpreted in so many ways it's scary.
My fave adaption version of him is probably the musical one. It's similar to the manga, but we get a lot more insight into his thought process/emotions because of the genre. He also isn't molded to be the "hero", like in a lot of other adaptions.
Anyway, this is my first attempt at writing meta. I spent way too much time on it, so I would love to see some feedback!!
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roselevesque · 4 years ago
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A good chunk of Death Note's plotline is about discovering someone's identity, their face and name, and that makes it lend itself well for a Soulmate AU.
You live in a world where there exists someone who can kill with a face and name...where everyone walks around with the name of who's supposed to be your closest person tattooed somewhere on your person.
Imagine how many people would shudder because of this. Especially if they have the tattoo in a real obvious place, difficult to cover up.
Imagine people passing by a news report on some device and hearing the name of their soulmate, who has just died of a heart attack.
Imagine the debates that would arise between those who wholeheartedly believe in the soulmate system and those who oppose it. Kira's clears proof that higher forces exist! Soulmates must be meant to be then. Ah...but if Kira and the marks are of the same origin, would you want your life dictated by a thing of malevolence and severity?
Imagine the terror of knowing that someone, out there, has the key to your undoing on their skin. Your career, you very life in absolute jeopardy.
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purplink8 · 1 year ago
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One thing I never understood was why people felt bad for Misa because Light mistreated her.
Because, in all honesty, isn't Misa pretty much as bad as Light? She killed innocent people and even criminals who didn't even have that big of crimes (which Light says he doesn't kill except for that one time in the beginning) all because she wanted Kira to notice her.
Plus, she even said she didn't care if Light used her. She received what she wanted: Light's attention, and she knew perfectly well that Light never actually liked her.
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“If things go badly, I might have to kill Sayu.”
Why did Light say it aloud?
He says this to himself in the bathroom with the water running.  Even so, he left so suddenly that Misa didn’t even notice he had left right away.  He also left the bathroom door open.  As methodical as he is, I don’t believe he deliberately set up that scene to have Misa listen.  I believe he had the thought and it hit him that he is resorting to killing his family to save himself from being discovered; that he’s this far into his dedication to being Kira and that he’s in such an unmoveable spot that he is considering killing his sister as an option.  I feel he still has a bit of morale inside of him, despite the mounting evidence of him being a natural-born psychopath as the series continues.  This moment I feel grounds the viewer that, yes, Light is evil.  He is an awful person.  But it also is grounding when you watch it again, as you notice he had to say it out loud to himself, as if confirming the thought in his head was real.  Is that really what I’m thinking?  Light’s eyes do not waver from his reflection either.  He’s having a conversation, like he is making sure this is what he is coming to.  Even though he uses the reasoning of “if Sayu dies, they’ll know it was me, we are the only people to know about this situation” later on, and obviously he succumbs to the insanity he has made for himself, I feel it was the last time we see him with reason.  With value for human life.
Also, Misa hearing him say it; her face reflects the thought train of “What?!  Why would he say that?” to “Would he really do that?” to “Oh my god, he might kill me too...just to save himself.”  And afterwards, she begins to see Light as the manipulator that he is.
“If things go badly, I might have to kill Sayu.”  This line really is striking.
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kiranatrix · 4 years ago
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How did the shinigami eyes deal work again? Like it takes half the life span of the person, but is it per day? Can it be turned off and on? Like misa asked for it, then had her memories removed, then when memories are regained, did it take again half? What about with mikami, he seems to have it on all the time? Did he give up half everyday?
Hi anon! The shinigami eye deal transfers half of a person’s remaining lifespan to the shinigami but it’s a one-time transfer, not by the day (that would suck!!). The power can’t be turned on/off — it becomes a permanent feature of the person’s vision. If that person gives up the Death Note (causing them to forget it), they will also lose the shinigami eyes. So, if they get another Death Note and want the eyes back, they need to make the deal all over again and give up another half of their already halved lifespan.
Misa made the eye deal twice, once with Rem  and once with Ryuk when she digs up the Death Note Light buried for her. She lost the power twice when she gave up the notebooks, and at the end of the manga, she has normal eyes. 
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Mikami made the eye deal once with Ryuk and never gave them up.
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The one exception to all this is Beyond Birthday, who did not make an eye deal and never had the ability to lose the power because there was no shinigami attached to him. He was born with them (according to Mello) and died with them.
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Broke: Light and Misa have an unhealthy relationship because Light is manipulative of her and doesn’t love her. 
Woke: Misa and Light’s relationship is unhealthy on both sides. Yes Light uses her but Misa is fine with that in hopes that one day he’ll fall in love with her and she threatens to murder any girl around Light despite knowing Light uses women to cover up him being Kira and, unlike the majority of the characters in part one, does witness how manipulative Light can be so it’s not the women’s fault if Light uses them. 
Also maybe the reason Misa is so clingy to Light is because she knows he won’t pay any attention to her on his own unless he needs something from her. 
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purplink8 · 1 year ago
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How would a genderbent L turn out? What about an M takada and Misa
Genderbent L hmm...I think fem!L would be a "not like other girls" kinda girl. Fem!L would be a lot more condescending & patronizing towards the men she works with because of the gendered expectations they hold towards her. She'd have long hair and would like to twirl it sometimes when deep in thought (like Near does, both in manga and the oneshot). She'd also be very ambitious in her career goals, just like in canon. And she wouldn't care about beauty standards at all, she just wants cake & justice :D
I feel like she would be a bit like Raven except with longer hair from Teen Titans:
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-fiercely intelligent, mysterious, secretive, quiet, moody, sarcastic, cold & bluntly rude at times etc.
Male!Misa would be a little like Peeta Mellark, I think. Both would be charismatic, popular, outwardly kind & nice with a very likeable personality. They both are clever yet subtle in their manipulations. Male!Misa pursuing Light would seem a lot more creepy than when female Misa was pursuing Light. I guess Male!Misa would also be a bit like Matsuda: not exactly intellectually bright but resourceful nonetheless, cheerful, reckless, brave etc.
Male!Takada would be somewhat like Light, I guess? Not a genius like him tho, yet still very smart in his (Takada's) own right. Very political & ambitious (not unlike female Takada) too. And would view his good looks as an asset(+scoff at people who fall for them alone, as he'd judge them to be shallow but at the same time be secretly flattered). Sadly, male!Takada would also be deeply sexist like Light & would dislike "stupid women" as female Takada did.
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harlothane · 8 years ago
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Death Note and Western Astrology - Part II
THIS IS A FOLLOW UP TO THIS POST. ( Here we talk about Sachiko, Ide, L Lawliet, Wedy, Ukita, Mello, Matsuda, Misa, Lester, Matt, Halle, Naomi, Light, and others)
I kindly asked @lux-mea-lex if she allowed me to finish this wonderful study in the astrology of Death Note, and guess what, here I am. To be true to her impressive work on Death Note, I will often be referring to her analysis. Mine tend to be rely on hers often anyhow so it doesn’t make a difference - and she has been more careful than me as she rely on pictures and text while I work from memory (careless Aquarian versus orderly Scorpion, I guess). So whenever there’s a link, please do take the time to read her posts, they will provide the evidence for what I am asserting. I am reminding you that you don’t need to believe in astrology to find interest in this post. Astrology is an amazing tool for writers, another way to construct characters and create oppositions in archetypes. I am convinced that Ohba did not choose the signs randomly. First, they took care of giving each character - even the super minor ones - a precise date of birth. Second, if you read Lex’s first part, then you must have realised the signs are all accurate, eerily so. This is only logical after all, that astrology can serve us to understand Death Note. Don’t be fooled, this isn’t another thriller, a complex crime story. It is first and foremost a story of fate, missed chances, what-ifs. A tragedy, in which the characters seek to escape fate only to fail, or die, or both (L and his encounter with Death ; Light and his inevitable downfall - a human cannot be a Shinigami ; Misa and her love, doomed to provoke her demise ; Mello, bound to lose, reaching for the stars and burning as a result, etc.) Death Note has always been linked to the supernatural, forces too great for humankind to grasp. It has always been about fragile humans and unfathomable gods. That second part explores the last signs, and among them, some of the most prominent ones : Libra (Sachiko Yagami, Ide, Kida), Scorpio (L. Lawliet, Wedy, Ukita), Sagittarius (Mello, Matsuda, Takahashi), Capricorn (Misa, Penber, Lester), Aquarius (Naomi, Matt, Lidner), Pisces (Light, “Jack Neylon”, Mido) I have to point out that the signs are evenly distributed - each sign gets three, and not one of the Yotsuba guys share the same sign, proving that the choice is not coincidential. These characters must be analysed together, the minor ones, perhaps, may serve to reveal hidden aspects of the main characters of the same sign. (This is exactly what happens in some stories, the minor one-arc character being a tool to make a point about a main character to the audience). My main reference is the fantastic website https://www.autourdelalune.com, written by an actual astrologer. It’s full of interesting resources, although entirely in French (but if you ever need a translation, feel free to knock on my door). I also am a big fan of http://songsdomain.tripod.com for the symbolism parts. The quotes all come from the latter website. We will always keep in mind this aspect : there are main, secondary and minor characters.
♎ LIBRA (AIR SIGN / CARDINAL) ♎
Characters: Sachiko Yagami (secondary), Ide (secondary), Kida (minor).
Main traits: principled, obliging, respectful, affectionate, delicate, elegant, moderate, romantic ; capricious, hesitant, fragile, easily swayed, absent minded.
Symbolism: justice, chivalry, harmony, artifice, balance, need for affection, empathy, love (Venus).
Tarot: Justice & Temperance. 
Libra is the sign of justice, harmony and pure, selfless love. This should strike us that there is no main character to represent these qualities throughout the story. Justice, especially, is almost absent. The tale of Death Note is not one of temperance: it’s a tragedy, with no place for peace nor rest. 
A quick survey of the qualities associated to Libra is telling : it fits our characters perfectly well. Often, it is more evident to see the influence of astrology with the minor characters. Those are archetypes, the author has no plan to develop them. As a result, minor characters barely diverge from the idealised portrait of their respective signs. 
Kida is the textbook Libra : he was a good student, seems peaceful and desires a calm existence. His hobby consist in collecting glasses - it’s clear that he isn’t supposed to frighten you, or anyone. During the Yotsuba Arc, he demonstrates his need for security (harmony) as he is the one who hires Eraldo Coil (actually, L). The How to Read stats underline his fragile nature (he scores 4/10 for emotional strength) and his social skills (Libra are quite friendly and loved by many). 
Now, this archetype is a guideline to better understand our secondary characters : Ide and Sachiko Yagami. One aspect that define Libra is their idealism - in the sense that grand Ideas inform their perception of the world. Love, especially, is an Ideal to them. 
Interestingly enough, Ide and Sachiko Yagami are both strongly tied to the theme of love. You probably remember it. Ide’s official stats even underline this as his “Romantic Luck” is described. As for Sachiko, she symbolises the lost harmony of the Yagami household. She is tidy, orderly and loving. Her relationship with Soichiro is the only solid, healthy romantic relationship in the story. She seems to obey her strong code when it comes to love: she is loyal to her husband no matter what happens. 
As for Ide, one of his most noticeable moment is the Hotel Room trick Light pulls to contact Mikami. Matsuda mocks Ide for his naive approach on the Light/Takada business (the amusing twist being that Light isn’t interested in her, making Matsuda sounds like the fool in the situation to the reader, but that’s just Death Note humour for you). We know that Ide’s love life isn’t successful and that is something that happens to the idealist Libra. They are often disappointed by real relationships, in opposition with the Idea. 
Libra's idea of love isn't necessarily your idea of a warm, cozy, delightful tête-à-tête.  More likely, it'll be one of his many theories on the nature of love and marriage, his ideals of the perfect relationship, his concepts about how people ought to behave toward each other, his urgent vision of a world where everything is absolutely balanced, polished, perfect, symmetrical, harmonious.  It can drive you mad.  This sign, whose symbol is the scales of balance, has less to do with ordinary sweaty human coupling than any other.  What?  Libra soil his hands?  Never.  Love, for Libra, must always be in the appropriate style:  a ritual of courtly love, complete with the right gestures, the right words, the right perfume, the right satin sheets, the right scented candles, the right flowers. 
In that regard, Sachiko, while being married, does not spend much time with her husband. This allow her to maintain this perfect idea of love : it cannot get ugly if they don’t see each other. She plays her role, Soichiro plays his, and everything stays pretty, beautiful, admirable. It is so typical of a Libra archetype, so bent on harmony that they become hypocrites. (In a way, Sachiko represents the human tendency to fit society’s expectations - the one thing Kira, the role Light endorsed, dares to challenge). 
Finally, Libra symbolises Justice. A crucial theme in Death Note… or is it? The theme is represented by secondary characters, and not the most memorable ones. This is so, so telling. I don’t need to provide you with an in-depth analysis to prove it : Death Note is not a story of Justice. Justice does not prevail at all, for none of our characters manage to live up to the Idea. They are humans, and only death is fair. This is no surprise that Libra are underrepresented ! Justice is forgotten, a lie or a dream no one attains in the end. 
(Libra) believes passionately in fairness, and this often causes him a great deal of unhappiness, because life and people aren't always fair.  Again and again his idealism collides with an imbalanced world full of imperfections and rough edges. 
Well. Of course, our Libra all end up miserable (Sachiko), scarred for life (Ide), dead (Mido).
♏ SCORPIO (WATER SIGN / FIXED) ♏
Characters: L. Lawliet (main), Wedy (secondary/minor), Ukita (minor).
Main traits: passionate, daring, ambitious, uncompromising, devoted, sensual, impulsive, firm ; unforgiving, diehard, resentful, obssessive, ambiguous, suspicious, inflexible
Symbolism: magnetism, death and sexuality, instinct, transformations, survival, endings, passion, suffering, self-destruction.
Tarot: the Devil, Death.
This one is fascinating. L is a complex, well-written character who often gets misinterpreted. Of course, he is a Scorpio !
First, I want to stress that most of what we see of him is likely to be (partly) an act - a HIGHLY suspicious, genius detective would never tear down his walls among people he might respect but barely knows, let alone with his main suspect nearby. at. all. times. during the Yotsuba arc. This is completely unrealistic to pretend otherwise. That doesn’t mean L is out of reach, though. As readers, we are in a position that allow us to decipher the character. With some help. Astrology, as I said, is a tool. Many of L’s traits are hidden, they’re not plain to see. Yet, if you know what to look for, some of his strange reactions become clearer.
Suffice it to say here that Scorpio has a great problem relinquishing control.  This means control on a lot of levels.  It may be controlling spontaneous expression or emotion outward - we all know the character that, even after a couple bottles of wine and a fifth of whiskey, still maintains his iron grip on himself, and will never, never allow himself to appear foolish or sloppy in front of others.  It may be controlling other people - and this is a real problem in Scorpio's close relationships.  It may be controlling life itself - where you find the arch-manipulators who pull the puppet strings all around themselves to keep the world in its place.
Nothing is left to chance in a Scorpion’s world.
Let’s start by a quick glance at our secondary/minor characters. The little we know of them is, again, fitting the archetype. Wedy is an attractive, intelligent, mysterious spy with a dangerous streak. She was, after all, a highly skilled professional criminal. I mean no offense by that, as I love the character, but she is almost a caricature  (which is fine, it happens to secondary characters all the time). Sensuality ? Check. Leather Pants ? Check. Shady past ? Check. Secretive, alluring, daring ? Check, again, no surprise here.
Symbolically speaking, she fits the bill. Wedy is a thief, and this is no coincidence. She made a career out of breaking defences, penetrating buildings, stealing secrets, concealed truths. This is reminiscient of Scorpions passion for truth; or rather, pure hatred for lies. They tend to be portrayed as human lie-detectors:
It's said that you can recognize a Scorpio by his stare.  That famous stare has become downright notorious in general astrology textbooks and sun-sign columns.  Enigmatic, penetrating, probing while revealing nothing, apparently hostile or ruthless.  The man with the x-ray vision.
If that sounds familiar....
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Ukita. Is he our typical Scorpio as well? Without a doubt. Symbolically speaking first, he is one of the first important characters to die. Scorpio is strongly associated with death, more precisely, sacrifices. This is Ukita’s choice to risk his life to arrest Kira, and so soon into the investigation! A true Scorpio indeed: reckless, passionate about his case, willing to die to attain the truth.
Ukita’s death touches the reader and why? Because it highlights L’s emotive side. We feel Ukita’s demise through L’s reactions…and they are numerous. Narratively, it serves to link the two characters : they must be similar in some way.
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[L cares about no one but himself! How about you give it another read first?] Here is what L has learnt to hide:
(…) Scorpio, regardless of his habitual smokescreens - and make no mistake about it, Scorpio has the best smokescreens of any of the signs - is a sign of profound feeling and sensitivity, easily affected by the emotional currents inside him and around him, susceptible to the feelings of others, easily hurt, sympathetic, compassionate, often intensely lonely, and driven by an almost voracious need for relationship.
One weapon Scorpios wield with verve is observation. Masks don’t fool them, they see the face beneath, the monster crouched within your stomach, the ugliness eating your heart. Naturally, it is a Scorpio who has the courage to accuse perfect prodigy Light Yagami. Only a Scorpio would have dared make that assumption, and how it cost him. The Task Force resented L for that at times, his obsession with this one suspect, a mild-mannered, kind student they all had affection for.
Scorpio has an uncanny way of perceiving what other people don't wish to be known.  Often they don't know it themselves, which makes things even more uncomfortable.  It is very unnerving to feel that somebody knows something about you that you don't know yourself. 
By virtue of seeing what others prefer to deny, Scorpio is often the bad guy. L accepts to play the role, if need be. His methods certainly are questionable, and he is ready to cross moral boundaries to be proven right, or rather to unveil the hidden truth.
That doesn’t mean he wasn’t affected at times (please read this work of art). Yet, the Kira investigation is too important to let doubt eat at him. One aspect of L’s character I find is too often downplayed is the passion he has for the investigation. He is just as passionate as Light. He is just as involved. He was just as lonely and sad and bored.
if it interests him, then it will never be just a lukewarm job.  It will be done with heart, soul and body thrown in.  When you are really emotionally committed to something, you're going to put all of your talents and resources into it. (…) To Scorpio, skimming along the surface is offensive.  He loathes superficiality almost as much as he loathes weakness of character.  He must understand why he feels as he does, why he acts as he does, why others act and feel as they do.  (…) Scorpio must ultimately understand himself, and come to some kind of truce with the warring forces of his nature which allow him no peace.  
On the symbolic side, all our Scorpions are associated with an eternal cycle: they survive, even in death, in spite of the odds. 
Let's look at the figure which symbolizes Scorpio.  In very ancient astrology - Egyptian, Chaldean and Hebrew - Scorpio was represented not by the familiar scorpion, but by the serpent.  This is a profound symbol which tells us a lot about Scorpio.  Firstly, the serpent sheds his skin cynically, and was thought by the ancients to be immortal and capable of constant self-renewal.  Now this pattern of outgrowing a skin, sloughing it and growing a new one runs through Scorpio's life.  Often his life breaks up into distinct chapters, as he moves through one cycle after another.  All come to ultimate destruction.  Then he rebuilds and starts again.   (…) There is a fascinating legend about the scorpion:  if you corner him, and give him no avenue for escape, he will sting himself to death.   The message here is that Scorpio would rather destroy himself, and go down in flames by his own hand - literally or psychologically - than submit to another's ultimatum or control.
All of this could be applied to Ukita - he dies but his sacrifice strenghtens the determination of the JTF - and Wedy, a spy who collects false identities and defies death. L, of course, can be seen through that lens. He is more than a man, he became a role and an Idea, a letter whose aura rivaled a God’s. (His Tarot Card? The Devil!)
♐ SAGITTARIUS (FIRE SIGN / MUTABLE) ♐
Characters: Mello, Matsuda, Takahashi.
Main traits: generous, benevolent, curious, zealous, dynamic, courageous, imaginative, risk-taker, enthusiasm ; (too) ambitious, reckless, excessive, utopian, self-centered, irascible.
Symbolism: faith, idealism, knowledge, philosophy, truth, independance, adventures, key moments.
Tarot: the Chariot, the Wheel of Fortune.
You probably need to be reminded of Takahashi’s face. Here. Chances are, no one remembers him. This is our entry to understanding Sags in Death Note, you see, Takahashi’s fate is to be forgotten. Matsuda and Mello follow that path.
Not that they deserve it! The How to Read states that Takahashi was scorned upon because of his impulsive nature (”tends to speak before thinking”). He couldn’t be a leader. And guess what? He existed only for Higuchi to look good in comparison. Tell me that doesn’t bother you on some level that he shares his sign with Matsuda and Mello.
Yes, this is depressing. Mello and Matsuda keep being underestimated. They are the second (or third, or fourth, in Matsuda’s case) choice, too brash to count on, too childish to rely on. Yet, they both intervene in crucial ways toward the end - changing it radically and forever (the Wheel of Fortune is their card). Mello and Matsuda’s moves shape the very last part of the story. We don’t see them coming because we underestimated their quest, the path they followed to get there.
The goal is really, after all, relatively insignificant.  There is a basic attitude innate in Sagittarius that life is an adventure, a journey, a quest - and the real sport of living is to make that journey as interesting, as varied, as expansive, and as informative as possible.  Arrival is not the point. (…) It's the ideal that drives them, the possibility of something new and exciting.  The adventure, the unexplored mystery, the unobtainable goal, the one that got away (…)
Mello’s goal is never clear: revenge, personal accomplishment? To the reader, perhaps to himself as well, his moves are unpredictable for this precise reason. Sags don’t know where they headed to. They never stay still, though. Mello, as a character, is a wild card. He acts in mysterious ways, rarely unveils his true intentions to the point that the nature of his death is a debate in the fandom - was it a sacrifice on his part? Did he have a death wish? There are clues, but nothing definitive. This is the point! Sags act first, with all their heart.
Sagittarius loves to play roles - the more theatrical, the better.  Being caught in the same costume twice is quite horrific for him.  His restless mind is always seeking new ways to approach those goals, new costumes, new poses, new techniques.
Matsuda is one of the rare secondary characters - aside from L’s associates - to share the double identity motif with Light and Lawliet. During the Yotsuba arc, he played the role of Misa’s manager with pleasure. 
His impulsive side shows again in this storyline and later when he volunteers for the Shinigami eyes exchange. They have a near unbreakable faith. This is the sign of mystics after all. 
Sags are strongly tied to religion, a connection you could discern in Matsuda’s blind faith in Light (and sympathy for Kira). Religion is also a strong motif when it comes to analyse Mello’s character:
In a sentence, at the heart of Sagittarius there lies a great craving to explore and understand life.  Whether orthodox or not, Sagittarius, like Leo, is a deeply religious sign, and the word religious is here used in its original sense:  to reconnect.  This means reconnection with the source, with the roots of life, with some sense of meaning.  Whether you find him traveling as a salesman or an archaeologist, a poet or a scholar, whatever profession or job he lands himself in.  Sagittarius is trying to broaden his scope, to enlarge his consciousness.  
Others mistake his strength with stupidity - a recurrent problem Sags encounter - when Matsuda is a selfless, dedicated person. They love, trust, admire without any boundaries, and they’re bound to be fooled. Mello, unable to reach a star named L. Matsuda, betrayed by a man as perfect as an ideal.
How to put it…?
And in an odd sort of way Sagittarius is the biggest sign - in terms of horizons.  Better to shoot an arrow high and lose it than to aim low.  
Neither of them ever aimed low, and oh Light could not ignore both Matsuda’s and Mello’s bullets in the end.
♑ CAPRICORN (EARTH SIGN / CARDINAL)  ♑
Characters: Misa Amane, Anthony Lester, Raye Penber.
Main traits: calm, honest, cautious, discreet, responsible, hard-working, resolute, determined, loyal ; stern, stubborn, easily hurt, introverted, anxious. 
Symbolism: integrity, willpower, solidity, success, silence, time, reason, ambition, humility.
Tarot: the Hermit, the Tower.
Capricorns tend to be unlucky. Well, Raye and Misa can certainly confirm. Lester makes it out alive, but he arguably has the worst job in all the SPK. He never gets any of the spying and action. No, Lester is a cautious, calm, discreet man. He the rock, that unwavering presence Near needs (a Virgo, one of Capricorn’s trusty friends).
Often he'll play the humble servant, the one who has no ambitions, who only seeks to help, while he waits and assesses and plans.  But there's no time for wasted time with Capricorn, no space for useless leisure and play.  Serious?  Yes, you might say that about Capricorn too.
One archetype the Capricorn is close to is the Monk. They are devoted to a cause they deem worthy, willing to fight for it in the shadows. Ambition comes second if the cause is right. They will obey. And they never give up. It’s a matter of pride (oh, they are prideful, have you met Raye Penber?)
Many Capricorns follow the classical goat's pattern of having to carry responsibility or hardship very early in life.  The goat doesn't take kindly to having his secrets probed too quickly.  He must first know exactly where he stands, and exactly who you are, and exactly what you want, before he is willing to show his hand.  Suspicious?  Yes, you might say that.  Suspicion is a natural propensity with Capricorn; sometimes it goes the wrong way and becomes profound mistrust of life and people, but the better face of it is caution and realism.  
We do not much about Penber and Lester. Misa, though, has had a miserable life up until she found a cause in Kira. Hardship, yup, that’s the word. She grew to despise humanity’s failings, chose to hide all her bitterness, turn it into an iron will to succeed and to spread happiness. This is how I read her ambition to become a star. She wanted to shine: she succeeded. It is often overlooked! Misa is hard-working, dedicated to climb up the social ladder. Without the Death Note, she would have won at the game of life, finally letting her past go to write a better, beautiful story. She would have become a symbol of hope.
...Have I told you that Capricorns are unlucky?
Survival is another key theme for Capricorn.  To the goat, the world isn't always a friendly, bountiful place.  It's as if his antennae are always plugged into what might go wrong, rather than what might go right. ..  Nothing is ever taken for granted by the goat, least of all luck, which to Capricorn is a highly untrustworthy and often nonexistent commodity.  He'd rather replace luck with good, solid hard work 
The Death Note prevented her to move on from the past. She got stuck in a cause that ruined her life. That happens to Capricorns: forgive and forget is something they have trouble doing. The Death Note forever closed that door for Misa Amane. Death Note is a story of masks and hidden motives. Don’t pretend to know about Misa Amane right away. She has a mask, same as the others. The naive, air-headed idol is a scarred child, a resentful young woman who needed a cause to believe in. Someone who has nothing will give up even herself for a promise of hope. Light was that, to her.
Capricorns might be hard to convince, but once you have their trust, you’ll have to work hard to lose it. They will do unspeakable things, if the cause is right.
Saturn is also often portrayed as a ruthless figure in mythology, who will stop at nothing - even his own father's destruction - to seize power.  Ruthlessness may often be seen in the goat, and the field of politics swarms with Capricorns.  But it's always a necessary ruthlessness, and rarely stems from a wanton malice or cruelty.
Never forget that Misa is far more devoted to the cause than Light ever was. She has none of his hypocrisy on the matter: Misa without her memories still support Kira. It is clear to her: Kira is right. She only stands by Light’s side because she remembers loving him (yet, doesn’t know why). This show that Misa, while sharing Kira’s ideas, deems emotional security more important. Indeed:
Work and success aren't the whole picture to Capricorn.  Because he's very concerned with tradition and structure, his family life is also often highly important.  Structure is yet another keynote for the sign, and marriage and family commitments are often taken with great seriousness and responsibility.  Capricorns don't like to break promises, they like to be thought responsible, and it's important to their self-image to have the world see them that way.
One of Misa’s most important moments comes after she accepts L as a friend. She will never betray her friends. Her sincerity in that instant is touching: the Death Note also twisted her fate, woke all the worst parts of her. She wasn’t destined to this.
He's often more of an idealist than you'd expect, in that he may have a vision of how to improve the world, or the small corner of the world he inhabits.  Mystical, he isn't, and his ideals are always attainable ones.  He makes sure of that, and also usually makes sure he has the resources and the skills to achieve them in his lifetime.  He won't sit idly by and let others bring to birth his vision; he hates to delegate responsibility, and usually believes he must do it himself.
Contrary to popular belief, Misa isn’t a mere follower. She takes initiatives, and she’s the one to find Light, to strenghtens his power and cause. (I know I barely talked about Raye, but the few moments he has are all very Capricorn-y: he is attached to tradition (to a fault), seems to be stern and hard-working and unlucky).
  ♒ AQUARIUS (AIR SIGN / FIXED)  ♒
Characters: Naomi Misora, Halle Lidner, Matt.
Main traits: visionary, progressive, mobile, independant, altruistic, non-violent, sensitive ; excentric, nervous, restless, touchy, impatient, individualistic.
Symbolism: individualism, a stroke of genius, transmission (electricity), surprises, cooperation, marginality, revolutions, unpredictability, hope, freedom, ideals.
Tarot: the Star, the Fool 
Aquarians do not mind standing behind a friend. I know, I’m one of those. I tell you, Ohba chose the signs carefully. Look at all our water-bearers here: they all stood, loyal as a shadow, behind someone. Naomi sacrificed her life to discover the truth behind Raye’s death. Halle managed to remain loyal to both Mello and Near without betraying any of them - she tied them together - in a sense, it’s the idea of L she was loyal to all along. She made that happen, a true “stroke of genius” (a symbol of Aquarius). Matt existed as a character to help Mello, and to highlight an unseen side of him, calm and caring.
Narratively,  they all exist to complete another character. They would see no shame in that. Aquarians always look at the big picture : what are their life worth in comparison with a desirable future?
Aquarius is about love and brotherhood.  Or perhaps, we should say, with more accuracy, that it is about ideals - and the ideals of love and brotherhood are among many which are formulated in the forward-looking Aquarian mind.  Particularly ideals about the group, the welfare of humanity, the future of society. 
This is telling that you cannot detach any of these characters from the ideals, groups or people they serve.
He often has a horror of being what he calls 'selfish', which is very noble but not very psychologically healthy.  Regardless of his personal likes and dislikes, his dedication to his beliefs is unshakeable.  And this dedication is often to the objective perspective, the broad canvas, a code of ethics or principles by which he believes he should live.  And, of course, he is often dedicated to Truth.  Yes, it's capitalized, that word Truth.  For Aquarius, there is generally only one Truth (…) On the other hand, he doesn't much like individuals.  Aquarius is the fellow who loves humanity and doesn't like people.  He can be brusque, cool, unfeeling, insensitive, rigid, dogmatic, and downright stupid when it comes to the subtleties of human relationships.
Aquarians are humanists who prefer a solitary life: Halle seems to fit the bill, Misora probably wouldn’t have loved the tranquil life Raye was offering her. As for Matt, he embodies the Aquarius archetype: detached, aloof and yet able to maintain a strong friendship (Aquarians need at least one strong friendship). Still, they all seemed like independent people. 
I also believe that Misora, while being very intelligent, was a bad judge of character. It fits with the Aquarius archetype that she understood Kira’s intricate plans and failed to see the monster Light was carrying with him. (He didn’t hide it that well, but Aquarians tend to trust the wrong people).
And most important, with all this obsession about the rights of others and what they ought to do and be, they forget about themselves - to such an extent that they mince their own emotions to pieces through simple lack of expression.  
Well, we all know them thanks to the ones standing before them on the stage. Without these brilliant minds acting as their shadows, neither Mello nor Near would have won. All that selflessness, for friendship, for ideas, for a better future (their card symbolises this: the Star shining above us all). 
♓ PISCES (WATER SIGN / MUTABLE)  ♓
Characters: Light Yagami, “Jack Neylon”, Mido
Main traits: charitable, devoted, patient, compassionate, shrewd, observant, unassuming ; sensitive, ambivalent, resigned, submissive, dreamy, indolent, vulnerable, shifty.
Symbolism: illusions, prisons, secrets, contemplation, guides, transcendence, madness, psychology, escape, solitude.
Tarot: The Hierophant/The Pope & The Hanged Man.
Really now, I will not dwell on Neylon nor Mido because the only thing we know about them is this: they are weak. And this is our guideline to understand Light Yagami. You don’t need a map nor a guide, no. Weakness. Mido, especially, is explicitly connected to Light: his father is a powerful man, his hobby is fencing (Light and L were supposed to be fencing at first, instead of play tennis), he graduated from To-Oh University’s Law department, and he is full of contradictions: he despises finance and works at Yotsuba. Mido resembles a man who couldn’t choose his own fate. Weakness. Here’s your key.
I have always argued against the “Kira is Light’s other personality” interpretation, as it diminishes Light’s character. He has consciousness of his actions. That said, Kira is very much a mask, a persona that Light crafted BUT he forged it using materials others provided, as evidenced from the start. Light made Kira out of his supporters’ hopes, it is a God people created. Read this, and think of Light working hard to become Kira:
(...) the tendency Pisceans to become the people with whom they are strongly involved causes many of them to be subsumed.  Sometimes texts refer to Pisces as 'wishy-washy', because there is a passivity, a kind of inertia in these people that shows most clearly when a crisis is upon them 
There is a kind of passivity with Light’s relationship with Kira (an Ideal, in the purest sense of the word, NOT a person). Deep down, Light understands the sentiments that led people to believe in Kira - that despair, that lingering, poisonous sadness. Yet, he disagrees with the ideas Kira represents. His education taught him better. He also tends to mimic his father during the Yotsuba arc, and L after the Detective’s death.
It is crucial to remember why Light started to kill : boredom, and dare I say, sadness. A moment of weakness, from a teenager who longer for ... anything, something else.
(...) perhaps the task of every Piscean is to come to terms in some way with the transpersonal realm, and to have the courage to be its mouthpiece.  Here we find the poets and musicians, the great actors and playwrights, the visionaries and mystics who attempt to bring to ordinary life a glimpse of something else.
Pisces is the sign of the mystic.  And this mystical streak means several things.  For one thing, many Pisceans are deeply religious - although not necessarily in an orthodox way.  But they have a longing for, and a sense of, some other reality, something transcendant, magical, elusive, that makes ordinary life seem drab and meaningles
As @lux-mea-lex demonstrated it many times, Light broke his own fate. He wasn’t destined to fall. The Drama provided an excellent take on this: Light is tempted to end his own life after the first murder. This is perfectly sound to think so - Light knew he acted on his feelings, that he was weak, that Soichiro Yagami was right and that no man should decide to judge humanity. Light’s sentiments were dissonant. It contradicted all he had been taught.
But Light’s feelings are the core of his actions. He is intelligent, yet, how often does he end up being betrayed by his own irrationality? Pisceans are prone to emotional outburts they fail to understand themselves. Light is his own worst enemy : he knew he couldn’t continue on his killing spree, his brain, his soul would suffer (why is it so often downplayed? 
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And then came Kira. Light threw himself in the arms of Kira, the God people wanted, because it gave him a cause. It made his suffering worth it: he was a martyr, he was a saviour, “the God everyone wanted”. He was a Chosen One, just so. How romantic is that? How Piscean are you, Light.
And Light voluntarily put his life, his soul, his emotions on hold (as much as he could) in order to become that God (the one everyone wanted - this phrasing is telling) Everything about this analysis fits our Pisces archetype : the need to sacrifice oneself, the chameleon aspect, the connection to the Martyr.
Pisces is the last sign, the completion of the cycle.  Every sign leaves its trace in Pisces; there is not so much a particular Piscean dilemma as that Pisces embodies the human dilemma.  In this last of the zodiacal signs is represented all of man's helplessness, his longings, his dreams, his needs, his powerlessness in the face of the universe, his delusions of grandeur, his longing for love, his sense of a mystery or a divine source which he strives for, yet cannot wholly reach without great sacrifice.  
To understand Light, you have to reconcile idealistic memoryless!Light and cynical Kira!Light. The worst cynics are made of the same fabric as wide-eyed idealists: both refuse to see the world as it is. Light is one of those. I wrote once something along the lines of : “the world could never be as tidy as his mother’s home”. Light has a tangled state of mind from the start, he was bound to be disappointed someday but the fall wasn’t destined to be fatal. Ohba says that he would have worked with L, in the end. The Death Note gave him the opportunity to work with L, to become L, and to fall all the same. Let’s put it that way:
You might say that in every Pisces, symbolized by the two fishes trying to swim in opposite directions yet bound together by a golden cord, there is this dilemma of the meeting of two dimensions.  There is the ordinary mortal side, which is used to facts and realities of a tangible kind.  Eat, sleep, make love, and die - or bread and circuses, as the Romans used to say.  And there is also a melusine - or, in the case of Pisces women, the masculine equivalent - which inhabits the dark depths, and which occasionally flashes its tail above the water, catching the sunlight, entrancing the mortal on the shore.  How this meeting is dealt with is the story of each Piscean life.  Some Pisceans simply follow the mermaid down, forgetting that human lungs cannot survive underwater.
Light drowned for 12 volumes. This is why I associate Light to the most beautiful part of Lorenzaccio: “I, during all this time, have dived; I have plunged into this rough sea of life; I have traversed all the depths of it, covered with my diving-bell; while you were admiring the surface, I saw the debris of shipwrecks, the bones and the leviathans”.  The mistake is to analyse Light’s motives rationally. Intelligence does not mean coldness, or rationality. Light becomes cold, never rational. His actions are rooted in all kinds of deep, powerful feelings: despair, pride, mostly despair. He will never stop for as long as these feelings live within him, and anyway:
The Fish is a creature which lives underwater.  And Pisces does too.  He moves in the depths of a world which is difficult to fathom if you are an airy, earthy, rational type.  Everything is seen double, or in quadruplicate, nothing is ever simple or clear.  Every thought and action has thousands of associations which ripple out into infinity.  Pisces does not understand boundaries (…) Everything to excess.  It's because he doesn't really understand how to discriminate, how to limit, how to choose (...)  What he has to compensate for this rather disturbing failing is a boundless imagination.  For here too, the Pisces has no limits.  He can envision anything.  Einstein was a Pisces, and a good example of where a brilliant intellect can go when it is not hidebound by conventions and dogmas.
This might be the crucial part: Light does not follow a strict guideline; Kira, to him, was an excuse, an opportunity, a miracle. The gateway he needed not to kill himself after breaking a sacred rule. Kira was never, ever, synonym with a dogma. He inflicted one on others, because that was his role as a godly figure. Light himself, though, he was never coherent. It is most telling when Light says Kira will become Justice when his opponents are all dead. Mikami and Takada already think Kira is justice : Kira is inherently good and just to them, there is no discussion! They are ideologues, they follow a strict guideline. Light, deep down, knows the truth: Kira is not the incarnation of Justice, or Humanity’s new saviour. Kira is is personal saviour, the one who rescued Light from death and self-loathing. Nothing more, nothing less.
How could I put it in fewer words?
Pisces has a real problem coping with reality.  That is, with the one bound by time and space and structure and facts.  Although his intuition may be lightning-quick, and his intellect brilliant, he will often overlook something simple, like the electricity bill.
Light is willing the overlook Kira’s true nature for his own sake…oh, and humanity’s too, because part of him surely believe criminals deserve to die. But that was never the point: Light could have murdered as many criminals as he wanted without creating a pattern. 
He wanted people to NOTICE him. He had to, because that gave him legitimacy, a status, a role to play. As a solitary criminal no one noticed or remembered or named, Light would have ended up killing himself. So he welcomed the name Kira, with all the contradictions it entails (”Killer”), and used Light Yagami as his best weapon. After all, Pisceans are masterful when it comes to hide their passionate, emotive nature. They tend to be ashamed of it, even, and young Light certainly knew how to hide beneath his good grades before the Death Note:
Many Pisceans simply cannot accept the size of the challenge.  And, after all, who can blame them?  It is not easy to make peace with melusine; and our education does not help us, since it tends to emphasize that anybody with the secret life of the Pisces must be at best a lazy daydreamer, and at worst emotionally disturbed. (…) Pisces is more easily distorted, more easily pressured by a hostile environment, than any other sign.  So the melusine calls unheard from the depths of the soul, and the average Piscean disguises himself from himself by a rationalistic attitude toward life.  
Light perfected the role of Kira, he embraced it because he relished the influence he could have on a world so hostile to him. Also, Pisceans are attracted to godly motifs:
The Fish is one of the great symbols of Christianity; and in this symbol can be found many important themes that pertain to Pisces, both in this broad way and in the individual life of the person born under the sign.  Firstly, there is the aspiration.  Before the coming of Christianity, man and God were two different things; there could be communication between them, there could be enmity or friendship; but man was not like God and God was not like man, and never the twain could meet.  But one of the essential meanings of the Christian myth is that God incarnates as man:  that there is a halfway point, an intermediary, a bridging of the two worlds.  We are back to our friend the melusine here.  But, instead of melusine, read soul or spirit.  So, we can, if we want to consider the religious aspect of Pisces, say that there is a strong awareness in many Pisceans, especially the more mystical ones, of themselves - and the whole of mankind - being some kind of halfway house between animal and divine.  
Be attentive of what-ifs when analysing a character. Why if Light had stopped killing after the first murder? After all, he was tempted to at first. He could have continued on his path, with acute awareness of the psychological impact of suppressing a human life. He could have made himself a better person out of this experience. That is without counting on one pivotal aspect of Light’s personality, something strongly linked to his Piscean nature:
Pisces may often be found searching desperately for a cause to which he can devote himself, even sacrifice himself. (…) Pisces is also an incurable romantic.  He may have many defences to hide this innate tendency, but romantic he was born and romantic he will die.  And romance doesn't just mean about love affairs.  It means about everything.  The house he lives in must be a castle, with moat and drawbridge; the car must be exotic, the bed revolving with platforms and coloured lights….well, you get the idea.  He lives in his imagination.
Light couldn’t face the real world, hide underwater, drowned. The Dreamer ruined himself. That’s all you need to know.
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stvlti · 7 years ago
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♕  MISA-MISA皇后到着!  ♕
the following notes were originally hosted under the URL @stvltiloqvent.
Queen Misa-Misa Arrives
In celebration of Misa’s birthday (25 Dec!) here’s a summative mix for Misa's life story. This mix is mostly based on manga!Misa's hidden depth (as I interpret it), as well as anime!Misa's song and death.
01. Fucked My Way Up to the Top - Lana Del Rey // 02. Still Sane - Lorde // 03. Bubblegum Bitch - Marina and the Diamonds // 04. Bad Girls - M.I.A. // 05. (One of Those) Crazy Girls - Paramore // 06. Bloody Mary - Lady Gaga // 07. 小團圓 - Ivana Wong // 08. Candles - Daughter // 09. 27 - Fall Out Boy // 10. Carmen - Lana Del Rey // 11. Valley of the Dolls - Marina and the Diamonds // 12. 小團圓 (from Octave the Musical) - Ivana Wong // 13. Little Susie - Michael Jackson
► LISTEN ON:  8TRACKS | SPOTIFY | TUMBLR (defunct)
(There is now a "sequel" to this fanmix! Check it out HERE.)
Notes and additional meta under the cut. Content warnings: referenced sexual abuse, alcoholism, drug use, suicide mention and linguistic ableism
May 2020 update: I finally found my translation notes for the Ivana Wong track! now added under the cut as well. and as per my other fanmixes, the Tumblr player option is no longer live. 
  01. Fucked My Way Up to the Top
When i picked this song i didn’t mean for the chorus to be understood literally - Misa is probably the least promiscuous person in the series. However, Misa certainly does in some way hustle in (as in, put a lot of effort into) her modelling work. Obviously, the refrain, “this is my show,” is also an apt literal description for Misa’s work in the film industry, aside from describing her work as Second Kira.  
  02. Still Sane
(CW: potential linguistic sanism in the lyrics)
After setting a bombastic intro with LDR’s song I thought it would be a good idea to examine Misa’s humble beginnings. Hence, a more honest song from Lorde (whose real-life rise to the top of the charts at age 17 might as well mirror Misa’s hardwork as a teenaged model). Check out the second verse:
All work and no play Never made me lose it All business all day Keeps me up a level
Like I said, hustle.
The song starts off admitting the speaker’s apprehension towards the entertainment industry – both in terms of her own success thus far and also her adjustments to such success:
Today is my birthday, and I'm riding high Hair is dripping, hiding that I'm terrified But this is summer, playing dumber than in fall Everything I say falls right back into everything I'm not In the swing of things But what I really mean is Not in the swing of things yet
I’d like to comment particularly on the line, “everything I say falls right back into everything I'm not”. A bit of a fanon interpretation that’s perhaps not too far off the canonical mark: Misa probably went through a lot of trauma, seeing as she canonically witnessed her parents’ murders, whose perpetrator went unpunished (before Kira came along); she also almost died at the hands of a murderous stalker, which led directly to Gelus’ death and her possession of a Death Note. So, as fanon interpretations go, Misa’s cheery exterior is only that – a front she puts on. Everything she says is everything she’s not on the inside.
I'm little, but I'm coming for the crown I'm little, but I’m coming for you I'm little but I’m coming for the title Held by everyone who’s up
These lines that I’ve highlighted on the mix could be taken both literally or not. When Lorde penned these lyrics she most likely meant her age by “I’m little”, which could apply to Misa too. But of course, Misa is also physically quite small.
Only bad people live to see their likeness set in stone What does that make me?
“Likeness set in stone” means statues or sculptures; Lorde is asserting that only “bad people” see statues/sculptures made for them while they are still alive, most likely because they will be the one to put the statue there (see: narcissistic and power-hungry people). However, “bad people” takes on a different meaning in the context of Death Note, as the Kira’s are supposed to be superior to the “bad people” they judge. Yet, here the speaker is obviously reflecting on their place in this pair of binary opposites – just as anime!Misa does starting from Misa no Uta, in which it is implied that she is aware of the moral greyness in her work as Second Kira.
  03. Bubblegum Bitch
Ahh, if I could c+p the whole Electra Heart album onto this playlist I would, as the eponymous character from the concept album simply resembles fanon!Misa too much (self-centred, vain, and a heartbreaker who eventually breaks her own heart). Electra Heart’s invented personality (as seen in the music videos) especially reminded me of my own interpretations of Misa’s gender performativity – that her fitting Ohba’s patriarchal archetypes of feminine fickleness and irrationality coincides with a decided adoption of certain traditionally feminine traits is not unlike Electra Heart’s own experience.
But, more to the point, parts of her femininity is also genuine – take away her miniskirts and chirpy voice is her tendency to let her emotions get the better of logic, which is mirrored in Electra Heart’s demise (and is only to be expected of any human being, really).
By the way, the notebook pun is wholly intended in these lyrics:
Oh, dear diary, I met a boy. He made my dull heart Light up with joy. Oh, dear diary, we fell apart. Welcome to the life of Electra heart.
  04. Bad Girls
Live fast, die young Bad girls do it well
I was looking for more Rem and Misa-specific scenes to add to this playlist when I remembered this song. These lines, as I intend, are to be associated with Misa’s torture in L’s captivity. Just before Rem erases her memories, she begs for Rem to kill her while she’s still young. But the “bad girls” part of the refrain also fits Misa, as this song is about girls going against ingrained patriarchal traditions that seek to keep girls silent and without agency (questionable stereotypes included).
Looking in the rear view swagger going swell Leaving boys behind cause it's legal just to kill
This is a continuation of the theme explored in Electra Heart, where the female protagonist claims to go through (relationships with) boys and coming out the unharmed one (because she is the heartbreaker). But, here the metaphor extends to murder, which might just be a tad too literal in Death Note context.
What we got left is just me and you But if I go to bed baby can I take you?
The second line reminded me of Misa’s sexual advances on Light starting from the Yotsuba arc, lol.
 05. (One of Those) Crazy Girls
(CW: linguistic sanism)
I deliberately placed this song a few ones after “Still Sane” because ~character progression. In its original context the song’s protagonist goes from being sure they’re “not like those crazy girls” – girls that are driven irrational and stalkerish by their love” – to becoming “one of those crazy girls”. And so does Misa appear to be emotionally unstable when she first introduces herself to Light: driven by devotion she is willing to kill her friend who sent her Sakura TV tapes off for her, and in jealousy she threatens to kill Light’s other romantic interests.
The key similarity is in the chorus, where the lyrics go, “Baby, are we over now? / Maybe I can change your mind?” It reminds me a lot of the way Misa compromises with Light’s conditions at first (e.g. only meeting each other once every other week) despite her infatuation, but it is a compromise that erodes as time wears on: her second visit happens way before their scheduled meeting, and her efforts in getting Light to go on a date night with her parallels the sentiment, “maybe I can change your mind”.
 06. Bloody Mary
Ahh yes, here’s the religious symbolism we’ve all been waiting for. The song on its own is written about Mary Magdalene as a figure of prophecy and loyalty to Jesus – or as Lady Gaga put it, the ultimate “rockstar’s girlfriend”. “Love is just a history that they may prove / And when you're gone I'll tell them my religion's you,” these lines that I have quoted on the mix illustrates Misa’s loyalty to Light beautifully.
When Pontius comes to kill the king upon his throne I'm ready for their stones.
Whether as Second Kira or without memory, she is willing to risk her safety for Light. As Second Kira she nearly commits suicide in captivity rather than to sell him out; without her memories, she says yes to L’s Yotsuba-infiltration plan without a second thought for her personal safety because she’d like to help memoryless!Light catch Kira.
I won't cry for you I won't crucify the things you do I won't cry for you, see When you're gone I'll still be Bloody Mary
Throughout the series, whenever Light as Kira is incapacitated and “gone”, Misa is there to be his voice and prophet. And she won’t crucify him, because she is his biggest supporter.
 07. Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown On A Bad Bet
Originally, this song illustrates a wife’s infidelity, written from the PoV of the other man. However, specific lines of the song just resonate so well with Misa’s character, and it’s not as if her relationship with Light is a healthy one anyway. Think just after Yotsuba arc, when Light and Misa get engaged.
Head like a steel trap Wish I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I didn't I don't just want to be a footnote in someone else's happiness
As previously mentioned (see Kim/@casuistor’s meta), anime!Misa knows there are cracks in her and Light’s relationship. And like her state of understanding in Very/@dressed-to-keehl’s fic, she knows she will never give Light as much happiness as someone like L/Ryuzaki or Takada could, mainly because she is aware of the differences between their intellectual capabilities. And so her engagement/wedlock is like a steel trap.
Does your husband know the way that the sunshine gleams from your wedding band?
This being a rhetorical question, it is pointing out that the husband fails to notice the small details that speak of her loyalty.
Peroxide princess shine like shark teeth It's a sign (it's a sign) It's a sign (it's a sign) It's a sign - what if you peaked early?
“Peroxide princess” denotes the peroxide used to bleach one’s hair bottle blonde (i.e. Misa’s hair). To shine like shark teeth, however, implies trouble – that peroxide princess Misa’s appearance can only bring trouble. The next lines explain why: just as her artificial appearance may eat somebody else alive, it may also be a sign that she’s peaked early. She made huge success with her efforts in the entertainment industry, landing roles in American films during the second arc, but because of her early engagement with Light and her willingness to do as he wishes, she abandons further potential developments (both as an actress/entrepreneur and also as a Kira with powers of the notebook and eventually the eye, when she forfeits her memories). As such, she’s already reached her peak.
Keep a calendar, this way you will always know
Pertaining to the context of infidelity, to “keep a calendar” is to keep track of your lover’s times and schedules, so you’ll know if they start cheating on you. This sadly applies to second-arc!memoryless!Misa as Light starts seeing Takada.
this entire section is now redacted as I have later removed the song from the tracklist. this song felt much more shoehorned in than the other tracks as its lyrics didn’t focus on Misa’s POV enough.
 07. 小團圓 (Little Reunion)
Full lyrics translation is hosted here.
Flipping open your novel mirth   which chapter did it subside?
Opening with this very provocative line, this track introduces the start of the second arc in Death Note, the point in Misa’s life where all the happiness and mirth begins to subside, and all that is left are hard times ahead. It marks her regaining her memories and becoming Kira again, and the resumption of her relationship with Light as one purely based on their Kira partnership and not on any underlying goodwill Yotsuba!Light had shown towards her while he was memoryless. The rest of the track goes on to compare the ups and downs in life to an autobiographical novel from an introspective POV. 
To know to bear   settle for wear   keep one’s calm   in the worst of times In truth, you fear both pain   and bitterness too   no wonder you make a slightly dumber decision then imperfections will seem rounded then life will be a better play
The core idea of carrying on and enduring it all despite the ups and downs encapsulates Misa’s entire character in the second arc. For one, she definitely plays dumb and chooses the “dumber” decision even when she starts to suspect infidelity on Light’s part.
It is worth noting that the song title, “Little Reunion”, is likely an homage to the romance novel of the same name, penned by famed Chinese author Eileen Chang. In the context of this fanmix, this the reunion between Misa and Light as Kira, although their reunion is only in name to help Light keep up appearances.
  08. Candles
(CW: referenced sexual abuse)
On its own, Lorde’s first lyric, “Today is my birthday and I’m riding high”, would not have made sense in relation to Misa, but this song answers the idea of a birthday and ties it neatly to the idea of an abusive relationship.
I'll do whatever you say to me in the dark Scared I'll be torn apart by a wolf in mask of a familiar name on a birthday card
This song focuses on the abuse from Light and imposed upon Misa towards the second arc, because as we all know in canon, it was Misa who threatened Light into a relationship at the start. However, without the presence and guaranteed protection of Rem, Misa is much more vulnerable and susceptible to abuse and manipulation. In this context, the metaphor of the big bad wolf and the little red riding hood is adequate. And the mentions of birthday and birthday candles continues throughout the song, signalling an end to innocence and blissful ignorance on Misa’s part – because, as noted earlier, she becomes aware of the cracks in her relationship with Light.
I personally do not believe Misa would ever suffer from sexual abuse at Light’s hands, because she seems canonically to be the allosexual counterpart to Light’s (grey?)asexuality. However, the metaphor still applies in whatever other abuse she suffers – emotional, verbal, and so on.
Well I have brittle bones it seems I bite my tongue and torch my dreams Have a little voice to speak with And a mind of thoughts and secrecy
Though Misa may have her own thoughts, they are to be kept in secrecy, because she needs to “do whatever [he] says to [her] in the dark”. Instead, loyal as she ever is to Light she must torch her dreams, abandon her career at Light’s first request.
 09. 27
(CW: referenced drug abuse in lyrics)
I was not going to include this track as the next discusses very similar themes, but I realised Misa more or less dies at 27 and this song would be very apt. Pete Wentz writes about his own struggles in relation to the infamous Club 27 in this song, and I think the same themes of offstage hollowness, of desperation to feel the same high (either from being in the spotlight or from “sunshine” shot into the veins) and success other dead and “bottled” stars have felt, apply to Misa. All this comes back to the idea of peaking early (from “Headfirst Slide Into Cooperstown...”) and dying young, although of course it is not as glamorous as initially perceived (see “Bad Girls”). And it does not help that when Misa returns home she returns to an empty nest at best – certainly, if home is where the heart is, Misa is fucked, because there is no one there to return her love.
 10. Carmen
This song continues the sentiment in “27” but turns the tragedy up some more. It is also more specific to Misa, as Carmen’s character also has “cartoon eyes” that she bats when she is in the spotlight. Like Carmen, Misa is loved by all the boys and the girls, and like Carmen, she has become “famous and dumb at an early age” (dumb being a relative concept, of course, but she most certainly did not pursue further education).
She laughs like God, her mind's like a diamond
... A recollection of her earlier glory, when she was a God in her own right, as a powerful Kira. And her mind was as brilliant and strong as a diamond, although all that has passed.
 11. Valley of the Dolls
The ending of Misa is very much like Electra Heart’s. Though she has gotten quite far in her life, due to endless unfortunate circumstances (starting from the murder of her parents to the collapse of her relationship with Light), she dies the death of a shooting star: brilliant at her peak, but fading fast.
 12. 小團圓 (from Octave the Musical)
I included this variation of track 07 as a sort of reprise to recall the idea of Misa enduring it all even as life devolves into nothing but misery. As noted earlier, this idea is presented in the line, "在最壞時候懂得吃  捨得穿  不會亂" (in the worst of times, to know to bear [pain], settle for wear, keep one’s calm), which most poignantly is where Ivana’s vocals come in again after the piano solo in this version.
  13. Little Susie
(CW: discussion of suicide)
This is a requiem for Misa Amane. “Little Susie” was originally written about child neglect, but it applies pretty well to Misa as well, for she has been pretty much all alone (at least emotionally) since her parents’ death.
It was all for God's sake For her singing the tune For someone to feel her despair To be damned to know hoping is dead and you're doomed Then to scream out And nobody's there... 
She knew no one cared...
The repeated mention of Susie’s “tune” ties pretty well to “Misa no Uta” also. As said before, that is the first sign of distress in Misa’s character in the anime – it might as well be a cry of despair.
Susie’s death in the song is a fall down the stairs. Misa is implied to commit suicide at the end of the anime, so she too falls to her death.
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13eyond13 · 5 years ago
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Hahaha I get what you're saying a bit there @many-bees, stuff like how shitty Misa is sometimes actually makes her a more interesting character with more depth than she might have been otherwise and such. Most of the female characters seem like believable people to me, despite the stuff that bugs me about how Ohba writes and views women and girls. I think he's definitely got a lot of talent and is quite funny in a weird and dark way and great at writing certain stuff and certain genres, but Platinum End definitely made me question how much of DN's excellent writing was entirely intentional in some ways haha
Why is Takada hated when Light and Misa are both terrible people?? I know we're supposed to root for the main character by default but shit (plus Light and Misa's relationship is 1) completely one-sided 2) horrible)
I think it’s a mix of the writing and a bit of fan sexism probably… Takada’s character wasn’t onscreen as often and didn’t get to be as fleshed out as the other two, and she gets mocked fairly frequently by the main characters for things the male characters would more likely be seen as confident and impressive for. I’m thinking of things like Matsuda cheering Light on for cheating and everyone seeing him as super confident for his womanizing, whereas she gets flak for agreeing to see Light while he is still in a relationship with Misa (though he was constantly manipulating her and lying to her to get her to do it), and called trashy for being the one to ask Light out first, and mocked for being proud of her appearance and accomplishments by characters like Near. People also hate on her because she is the one who writes Mello’s name down… even though Light told her to, and Mello kidnapped her and held a gun to her head and made her strip. Anytime I see people being like “glad that bitch died!” about Takada I immediately feel like they’re someone I don’t want to talk to hahaha. Even if they only watched the anime, I just can’t figure out how you don’t feel a bit sorry for her at least because of all the shit she went through at the end.
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stvlti · 7 years ago
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On Feminine Representations and Misogyny in Death Note
the following meta was originally posted under the URL @stvltiloqvent.
“The paradox of [women’s] situation: they belong at one and the same time to the male world and to a sphere in which that world is challenged; shut up in their world, surrounded by the other, they can settle down nowhere in peace.” -- Simone de Beauvoir
  On Feminine Representations and Misogyny in Death Note [1/?]
i personally feel like the thing with misogyny in Death Note is that its audience (the first generation anyway, i.e. the ones that watched it when it first came out) is as misogynistic as Ohba is himself. in all honesty, Misa is not a weak female character at all - at least, not a traditional all-subservient female character - considering how she is a more “powerful” Kira than Light. and, for a female lead, she certainly subverts the feminine gender role a lot. 
according to the myth of the “eternal feminine”, a patriarchal society seeks to reduce women to the falsely dichotomised roles of virginal purity or hypersexuality. under the male-gaze, women can only exist in the fragmented roles of eroticism, maternity or chastity. in the other female characters, we see a sickening subservience towards such roles: Sayu, the virginal “good girl”; Sachiko, the maternal figure; Naomi Misora, who despite her badassery is ultimately characterized as a fiancée driven by love for her late fiancé.
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(cap from KissManga)
even with Wedy, we see her pigeon-holed into one of the roles – a role with erotic connotations (note her form-fitting and revealing uniform – which would have been associated with a libertinesque lifestyle).
De Beauvoir wrote that, under such roles of eternal femininity, women are reduced to static images and restricted from experiencing life as human individuals. this, I personally find to be one of the biggest flaws in DN: in order to ensure that the female characters’ eternal feminine is intact, they have been presented as caricatures, thus obscuring their potential complexity. (Which in my opinion is, one, lazy writing; AND/OR, two, easily leads to character hate among its audience.)
However, further to the eternal feminine is the idea of gender as performance – where Luce Irigaray has theorized that femininity is constructed upon the performance of male-defined roles, and Judith Butler has later supplied that since repetitive performance of such roles contributes to the existing (hetero)normative perceptions of gender, non-normative gender performativity (such as drag, or butch/femme roles in the lesbian community) is an active subversion that will demonstrate the artificiality of such gender roles.
of course, DN does not go that far with the subversion. even so, the idea of gendered identity as performance can be seen in Misa’s character as she is literally an actress. for all we know (since the entire narrative is Light-centric; or mostly told from a male PoV anyway) her revealing clothing and “kawaii-ness” may have all been just an act – a performance of gender roles assigned to her. And I certainly believe this to be the case. During the Yotsuba arc, we get a panel of Misa’s regular clothing when none of the other male characters are around:
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Her clothing consists of comfortable trousers and a plain tank top – nothing particularly feminine or revealing.
Also, her deliberate dressing up in a vaguely Gothic Lolita style during the scene for Misa’s Song, the ritualistic way she put on her costume and her makeup, also suggests a sense of theatricality to her gothic clothing – and like her song, her clothing choices are all a performance of the assigned feminine roles available in a patriarchal society.
even if it weren’t all just an act, the fact that Misa simultaneously occupies two conflicting roles of femininity – that of the erotic (her revealing clothing) and that of infantile purity (her pigtails, a hairstyle typically associated with schoolgirls) – is enough of a subversion of traditional femininity on its own.
Following this, if her subversion of gender roles is a conscious decision, it certainly gives her character much more agency than perceived at face-value, because as others have pointed out, her perceived femininity certainly paints her as less able-minded in the eyes of the Task Force and thus less eligible a suspect as the second Kira. It could be a conscious subversion and exploitation of the eternal feminine on Misa’s part, a clever way for her to avoid suspicion.
TBC.
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stvlti · 7 years ago
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[Ch. 025]
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purplink8 · 1 year ago
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You know, people say “How is that Light doesn’t even look at Misa, she’s so hot, I’d be obsessed with her”.
Could you really be bothered about a person’s appearance if they deeply annoy you?
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