#starlightinthewild

[13eyond13]

Oh unpopular opinions! This will be fun: I don't think Soichiro is a bad father, and in fact I think he's a fairly moral person. I know people like to make him a shitty dad but I think it's it's more interesting if he's a stand up guy in a situation he's not equipped to handle.

I also think one of my favorite things about Light is his lack of tragic backstory. Adaptations that attempt to make him sympathetic and more like a normal person take away an interesting part of his character.

"Soichiro is not a bad father and a fairly moral person" opinion:

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I think he's doing his best most times under extremely difficult circumstances. Obviously he can be a bit wild and harsh at times with his reactions and decisions as well, but I also think we are seeing him in one of the most stressful worst case nightmare scenarios he could ever be put in, too.

--

"One of my favourite things about Light's character is his lack of tragic backstory" opinion:

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

Yes! He doesn't have that excuse to fall on for his bad behaviour, and it's more interesting to me in this particular fictional scenario to think about how Light maybe got that way due to things that you can't easily see as tragic/traumatic 'n' such.

[send me opinions and I'll rate them]

[secondtolastrow]

Hello! This is that annoying person leaving comments on your fics on Ao3 lol. I wanted to talk about your characterization of Jon and Damian because I love those two so much! Especially I like your view of Jon, because I do think sometimes people make him a little too sweet, and honestly I think he should be allowed some bullheaded and bitchy moments and, like, be a (half) human with his own flaws and not Manic Pixie Dream Boy.

I also love how you phrased Damian whose experienced big dramatic things all his life but now has to be a person about it. I think his best moments are just small details of his life, like enjoying art and manga and loving animals. being a person! Anyway I can rant forever about these two and the ideas I have about them that will probably never make it to fanfic lol

Oh no you’re not annoying!! Please keep it up I love talking with you

Yeah I mean the thing with Jon is that he is a very nice and gentle and smiley person. But also he’s a stubborn little asshole and it’s when you forget that that things start going wrong imo—I also have to direct you over to this post (which I think says more about The Thing than I could actually get to this late at night)

Yeah!!! Damian is just. He is literally just a kid. Like that scene in batgirl (2008) of Steph taking him to the moon bounce is just. That’s the thing the way that the idea of personhood and being able to have it is stitched into him (and that and the constant conflict between Bruce and Babs in batgirl (2000) about who Cass is going to be and the way that Bruce stopped being a child when he was eight and Damian started being one and. Yeah. There’s a thing there)

[skyward-floored]

Brethren In The Cradle Ask: Does Wild have any experience with babies? he seems to take to ember naturally, though he wasn't exactly around babies a lot in botw.

Two reasons I had him be pretty good with babies:

Totk probably ruined this, but I had it in my head that after Wild and Zelda beat the calamity, people started having more kids, so as the two of them travel around afterwards, they see a fair amount of babies. Which Wild likes to hang out with because tiny human??? So tiny??? He’s never seen a human this tiny???

And secondly... Wild is implied to have a sister you know. He seems to be a fair amount of years older than her based on the concept art, which means he probably helped take care of her as a baby. So it’s a little bit of long-buried memories helping him out there.

[rawrlight]

@starlightinthewild this is too good to be left in the tags!

death note headcanons part 2 (because i have too many thoughts rotting in my brain):

-l has a high degree but refuses to wear glasses bc the texture's weird. he wears contacts instead.

-misa uses children's toothpaste bc adults' is too spicy.

-near gets cold really easily and secretly wears foot/hand warmers wherever he goes. the task force has to supply him with soft asf blankets whenever they gotta go somewhere.

-light listens to taylor swift's music and actually likes it---emo, breakup songs peppered with lyrical metaphors seems like his shit. argue with me on this.

[13eyond13]

In your reply about how L is written without a lot of inner world for lack of a better term, I totally agree. I think L is genuinely a hard character to write because he's both an enigma and highly specific in his mannerisms and speech. It's easy to both go really overboard with how he's strange and off putting and at the same time under write him as a person with ideas and desires. When I see L being essentially written to revolve around Light as either his gay awakening/nemesis/boyfriend/ force that shakes up his life I call it the inverse of a manic pixie dream girl. Depressed Goblin Nightmare Boy L who doesn't really want anything except Light and who exists to do something for Light's character growth. I personally love when fics take the time to give him a past, and a life outside of Light and expands on him as a person and not just a detective. This is a long ramble but anyway, do you have any head canons about L's past?

Depressed Goblin Nightmare Boy ahahaha so true

I think part of the issue that shippy fic writers might run into with L is kind of also that he's not the focus of the source material in terms of like. Having a character arc that needs to be satisfied somehow, really? It's not about L having an emotional journey because it's about Light having one, and L is almost more fun in some ways when he DOESN'T change a whole lot as a character (he's fairly iconic in how stubborn and arrogant and seemingly unmoveable he already is). He's there mostly to oppose Light and make things really difficult for him, as well as to represent things in the story that come up as part of the themes and ideas and whatnot - an equal/intellectual rival that Light can actually feel threatened by and come to respect, a person who already reached the peak of power for his job of bringing criminals to justice and yet does so without necessarily adhering to any sort of noble ideals or worrying about whether or not he's being moral or a hypocrite of some kind, etc etc etc. And a lot of the appeal of his character in canon can also be how vague and cryptic and difficult to fully know he is as well, hahaha. So you're right, he's pretty difficult to fully flesh out in terms of his life outside the Kira case and so on, especially if you don't find him easy to intuitively read.

In terms of headcanons about his past, I feel almost as though it might not be totally set in stone and change a bit for me just depending on what kind of fic I was writing? I might give him certain life experiences and memories and beliefs and so on that would serve a certain purpose in the story, like contrast or parallel things that Light has experienced or believes in or whatever else. So unless I have a specific story in mind I'm not sure I have a ton of them that I'd stick to absolutely no matter what.

However the broad strokes of things we were told about L's past and childhood in the one-shots do make for decent scaffolding to work from for L to me. Like I DO think he probably made himself useful and interesting to Watari at a young age with his smarts, and that he never quite knows if he would have been taken care of or protected or had his needs met properly if he wasn't exceptionally talented in some way, which would definitely be kind of fucked up for him emotionally to dwell on a bunch. I headcanon that he doesn't really like to dwell on the past or the future a whole lot maybe in part because he finds it pretty depressing stuff to contemplate, and that living in the moment is by far his favourite thing to do.

And I for some reason feel like he isn't maybe an orphan in the sense that he has no living relatives left so much as maybe that he was given up or abandoned by them at an early age or taken away from a rough/abusive home life of some sort, and maybe was thought of as much too difficult to care for by them. I think the tension between L's extreme and more difficult traits being both his biggest asset and thing people admire about him most, and also the thing that causes him the most alienation and trouble in his life, or his own belief/understanding that this is the case, might for me be the most interesting stuff to explore more thoroughly with him.

[13eyond13]

L For the Headcanon ask meme 7 Travel: What do you think are his favorite places to travel 24: Orientation: I liked how you wrote about Light not being oblivious about being Gay. What do you think was L's relationship with his sexual orientation? 26: Beauty: This is not something that gets associated with L often, so I threw it is as a curveball. Interpret it as you see fit!

L + Favourite places to travel:

I don't really have anything like specific countries in mind for this, but my main thought was that he is sort of a more indoorsy/man-made entertainment kind of tourist rather than a natural beauty tourist whenever he's travelling for fun. I could see him liking going to major cities with lots of interesting museums, theaters, concerts, and exciting thrill-seeking things to do, like skydiving and riding rollercoasters... very much like that one-shot that shows him doing all of those things on a day off by himself, haha:

L + Orientation:

I feel like L is not straight and also has long been aware of that and is casually accepting of it about himself, but in a way where he probably would not announce it outright to anybody unless it blatantly comes up and he has a good reason to mention it. Possibly in a way where he's never even discussed it with anybody else before (if you think of him as somebody who's never been sexually/romantically involved with anybody, which I can see about as readily as I can see him as somebody who's had a bit of experience). I could see him as bi, but gay also works okay for me as well, considering in the manga he never actually really showed sincere attraction to a female character (the anime sort of made him seem more attracted to Misa with a couple added-in little moments than the manga ever did, imo). My main reason for this comes from how suggestive and teasing L can be with his behaviours toward Light at times without ever outright saying anything about himself or his preferences in canon.

This scene is probably the most helpful one to me for deciding how I'd characterize him in a fic about it:

He's getting outright accused of not being straight in a homophobic way because of his suggestive behaviours there, but he doesn't say anything like "I'm not into guys that way" or try to change anybody's mind about thinking of him as possibly not-straight. He kinda just avoids the subject altogether, even when saying he's not doing it because he wants to. I feel like L would also tell people he wasn't straight if he had a reason to do so, but that most of the time he doesn't really see the point in even bringing it up or want to divulge that kind of personal information, and he also just kinda likes to be withholding of information that he feels like people are fishing for from him as well.

L + Beauty:

I think he's somebody who would say he doesn't particularly value physical beauty as much as he does stuff like intelligence and hard work and moral fiber, and would say it's only skin deep or something along those lines, which is part of the reason he puts so little thought or effort into his own appearance. HOWEVER he also is a bit of a prideful stubborn sour grapes character to me too, and I think he likely sometimes avoids focusing on or trying to learn things that he feels he is just not naturally really very good at or would easily be the winner of, and would secretly be a bit embarrassed to be forced to try. Though it might never become a huge priority for him to focus on his own appearance more or anything, I could see him learning to really admire and appreciate different types of beauty more in general if somebody else introduced him to it in a way that interested him and made it seem more important to him. And then I could see him finding ways to surround himself with it more often once he develops more of an eye for it (like, say, has a partner with a good aesthetic sense who can help him decorate his room with a bit more pizzazz).

[headcanon asks]

[aeghina]

Similarly, everyone had three faces.

I kept this saved to reply but forgot! So here, have something I wrote five minutes ago xD

Alright those go to five people and somehow tumblr crashed just before I posted so trying again! @starlightinthewild @waterspoutskies @a-little-bit-of-ravioli @crazylittlejester @catreginae

Last sentence tag game

RULES: Post the last sentence you wrote (fanfic / original / anything) and tag as many people as there are words in the sentence.

Thanks for the tags @mistresslrigtar and @dubiiousfood !! Here is what I have, from the next of the depths:

Losing his arm had been a shock, but the loss of his gear was devastating.

Tagging: @flutefemme @leiladebees @louwhose @cooking-with-hailstones @embyrinitalics @ladyhoneydee @hyylia @aurathian + anyone else who wants to play!

[13eyond13]

Oh I have another unpopular opinion: I think it's really irritating when people portray L as worse than he is or just as bad as light as it is irritating when people make him unambiguously good. Like L isn't a super moral person but I don't think he's more than "a little bit" evil. I don't think he enjoys hurting others like Light does at points. I don't think it's even his first instinct in normal circumstances. The Kira case is so unique that he simply "does what he has to" but he's not an equally evil person so much as Amoral and results driven. And I think people play up that part of him to avoid making him The Good Guy but it still kinda simplifies him in the other direction.

strongly agree | agree | neutral | disagree | strongly disagree

I agree so far as we know about them and their actions based on what we see of them in the canon story, basically. I think it'd be silly to see Light murdering thousands of people, sometimes gleefully, and then declare that L is obviously morally worse than Light, but that it would also be silly to witness everything L does during the Kira investigation and then think he's not ever a sketchy person morally himself. AT THE END OF THE DAY THOUGH I feel like I'm just bored of nitpicking all of their morality in general now hahaha, so I might not be the best one to analyze the minutia of how and why they are bad and/or worse than the other ones in great detail anymore

[13eyond13]

in Honor of Light's Birthday: is he the kind of person who celebrates his birthday? Or is it just another day for him?

Bonus; I think Light wouldn't care about zodiac but L would tell him being a Pisces increases his odds of being Kira just to see him get so. Angry. He's cute when he's angry.

I feel like he was probably quite excited about birthdays when he was younger because he's sort of the type who is always trying to grow up as fast as he can, and probably normally felt older than his actual age due to his smarts and whatnot as well. I feel like once he was a teenager/young adult he'd be fine with birthdays, if not exactly ever like STOKED about them? I think he'd get fussed over quite a bit by his family and teased/fussed over a bit by his classmates as well. He'd just be like "yep haha" and casually go along with it all, taking all the positive attention a little bit for granted, then go up to his bedroom afterwards a bit worn out by all the socializing and just like meh, that sure was another birthday, I suppose! Not one of those Riverdale Jughead "do NOT EVER wish me a happy birthday" angsty folks, but not one of those "EVERYBODY WISH ME A HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOW" in the group chat at midnight on the day of his birthday folks, either. Haha, I can't see Light putting much stock into the Zodiac either, but it's funny to imagine L using that as a profiling technique. I sort of headcanon Near as doing things like that in all seriousness, actually... he's already into tarot cards and whatnot in canon, wouldn't seem too far-fetched to me

[13eyond13]

So, not an ask for any game in particular, but do you know if there's a credible source on L being a very cleanly? I swear I read The TV Tropes page for him, which is of dubious trustworthiness, lists him as a clean freak and in certain adaptations being concerned about illness. I don't have the manga so I can't corroborate if this is true, and it doesn't have a source listed. I know some people interpret him the other way as being bad with cleanliness and hygiene. I am aware of the human washing machine but I'm pretty sure it's a gag. As the leading L historian, what are your thoughts.

Hahaha, the leading L historian! I'm honoured though unsure about that, but I will do my best to answer your ask... Well, I think of him as a bit of a clean freak rather than a grubby person, and apparently Ohba does as well. This is how Watari describes L in that infamous "human washing machine" panel from the one-shot that describes a day in the life of L: "He is rather fastidious and bathes himself often."

If we look up the word "fastidious" it sometimes means "very concerned about matters of cleanliness:"

Though I don't think L ever mentions anything along these lines about his hygienic habits or preferences in the manga, I feel as though he can suggest this vibe with his habits and mannerisms at times.... such as how delicately and fussily he holds most objects, the generally hermit-like way he normally lives his life, and the impersonal way he handles most social interactions (eg. using a proxy much of the time, or having his suspects restrained and filmed so he can observe them from afar without interacting with them personally himself, etc.)

However, the fact that he's a fairly shabby-looking character who wears the same thing every day and has a lot of self-indulgent, antisocial traits can also mean people read him as the opposite easily as well (just another one of those tightropes of extreme opposite traits L ambiguously walks as a character)... and there are certainly panels in the manga that make him look like a bit of a slob at times too, particularly when it comes to his food (eg. crumbs from his snacks on his chin, or licking out the wrapper of his cupcake in a way that makes somebody else watching go "eww" lol):

Overall I tend to believe he's more along the lines of somebody who is rather fussy and particular about being clean, though I also don't really take that one-shot about him bathing in a washing machine too seriously as canon either, hahaha. I kinda just take the vibes from that one-shot about his personality into consideration and then make the particulars of it a little more realistic in my mind. Like yes, he does insist on bathing frequently and being very clean, but he probably is not particularly vain or elaborate about his routine. The way I interpret it is that he sees a lot of self-grooming and self-presentation chores as boring and tedious "necessary evils," and prefers to outsource them to Watari or find other kinds of time-saving shortcuts to get them over with as quickly as possible (like having several sets of the same clothes that he already knows he likes, using 2 in 1 shampoo and conditioner type products, or avoiding getting haircuts until he absolutely has to, that kind of thing). I think it's mostly just because he IS a hygienic person that he can't eliminate that stuff from his life altogether, but if he could he would, because it's just not at all entertaining or interesting to him.

[aeghina]

The horse made a dissatisfied noise that he could understand even without shape shifting. “Don’t be like that.” Twilight petted the horse’s neck. “You know the horses here are hopeless, they’d run at the first sight of a monster or a cursed. Who else could we trust to take care of our big brother?”

Thanks for the tag! Hmm, let's see @crazylittlejester @isasan347 @catreginae @aurora-boreas-borealis @a-little-bit-of-ravioli @starlightinthewild and whoever else wants to join!

I’m a bit late oopsie

tagged by @appalesbian! Post six sentences of a wip and tag six people

“Oh c’mon Mako, you weren’t worried about them, were you?” Bolin poked at the firebender’s chest with a big grin.

Suddenly defensive, Mako brushed Bolin’s finger away. “No, no. All I was saying is that it’s good we made it out without a scratch. Is that such a bad thing?” Always with the jokes on this ship, he sighed.

“Stand down, Sea Salty,” Opal suddenly called from up in the crow’s nest, and Mako rolled his amber eyes at the nickname while Korra laughed lightly, “Bo’s just poking fun. But I wouldn’t get too ahead of ourselves. The stern actually did get clipped back there.”

Tagging @shadowlinktheshadow and whoever offers themselves up as tribute (no pressure though! Do what you want you can be lawless)

[13eyond13]

how do you think Soichiro and the task force would deal with a female! L? I think In canon Soichiro does grudgingly respect L and goes along with a lot of his insane schemes. I don't think Soichiro hates L as some people interpret their relationship, but I do think that he'd be a little more comfortable second guessing her and being protective of his own daughter. Especially if she suspects Light, he might accuse this of being more personal. I also low key think that since L is 24 the more bold guys on the taskforce might uh question why she isn't married and worry about her "Christmas cake" status which would annoy her to no end. Light encouraged this both to have fun messing with her rival and sew chaos in the task force (while secretly hating the idea of a man marrying L because only SHE is good enough for L!)

Another good question!

I am basing this mostly off my own idea of the characters and how I would write them in a fic or something rather than exactly how I think Ohba would write it himself, but I think after the initial surprise and slight gruff uncomfortableness that Soichiro would act fairly similarly toward fem!L for the most part. He'd maybe be one of the more respectful and less awkward of the task force about her not being a guy. I think he's fairly mature and compassionate and even fairly flexible at times about changing his views on certain things whenever he's challenged on his POV. I believe after the initial shock that he'd still try to be respectful and deferential to her as his boss, since the stakes are so incredibly high, and since she has proven herself to be the only only who can ever solve the unsolvable cases like these so many times before in the past. If he WAS at all a bit more sexist toward her at times, I think it would be mostly a paternalistic sort of sexism, where he sees her almost like one of his daughters and feels an exaggerated sense of worry about her safety/honour, and will yell at the other men for being rude/ignorant if they step out of line too much with her (like if say, Matsuda said something awkward and inappropriate to her because she was a woman). And yes, I think it would be mostly the rest of the task force that might have a harder time with a female L. I could see fem!L and Matsuda getting along even less, because he'd probably say and do all those things that are her biggest pet peeves about being the only woman in the group / in a leadership position with a team of all guys... I don't know if she'd really be his type necessarily, but he'd probably just be hyper aware of her gender and unthinkingly say his own clueless takes about women to her constantly, which would probably mentally exhaust her and annoy her to no end (he's just written to be that guy on the team who is always saying/doing the wrong thing and putting his foot in his mouth constantly, you know haha). Aizawa would probably be a bit awkward about it as well, and maybe question her authority and her trustworthiness even more than he already does with male L ... Can't really see Mogi acting all that different, he mostly just keeps almost 100% of his thoughts to himself. I had never heard of that "Christmas Cake" thing before, so I had to look it up, but omg I could definitely see that. Haha hopefully L would just take it in stride, but I would be cringing on her behalf nonetheless!

[13eyond13]

I love the idea that Fem! Light looks at Fem! L like a work of art. Especially because I feel like Female L would get a loooot more pushback and disrespect for how she acts and presents. Maybe subtly and not so subtly I think people would be harsh on her because she's not caring, nurturin, or demure. She's going to argue and insist she's right about everything, and be ruthless about solving this case. And normally with a hidden identity she won't get too much pushback but it's different working with people probably. As lonely as regular L is, I imagine Fem L is even more isolated. I think that would make the kinship and attraction to light all the more intense for her.

Yeees, exactly! The first time I drew fem!L I drew her flipping the bird because I 100% think she'd be a bit more overtly rude and aggressive and assertive than male L sometimes, simply due to feeling condescended to or underestimated more often. Male L can get his points across and get his way being a bit more sly and passive-aggressive most times, but I think she wouldn't bother beating around the bush as much. I DO love to imagine her as also having warm inviting traits to her as well (like that video I linked on my blog recently as fem!L inspo of Susan Kare explaining computers to the men...) I headcanon her having a very soothing nice articulate feminine voice like that and being very patient at times as well, sort of like a female English dub!L hahaha. Complex for sure, but definitely a bit more prickly and less accommodating of men sometimes than male!L in my mind...

[13eyond13]

reading through your fem! Lawlight stuff and so obsessed. I like fem! Light rocking suits... She would be this incredibly stylish butch and I feel like that's so cool. You rarely see butch girls being fashionable and the one with social graces. I love that Fem! L is universally agreed to have wild hair and look like a witch fresh from the woods. I honestly kinda see her as more "Fem" leaning than Light but not in a way that caters to what men find beautiful. Like the task force thinks she's a little scary but Light? She gets it. She's obsessed with it.

Hopefully this isn't random, I have so many thoughts about death note and Lawlight and the way they interact with gender

YESSSSS omg I love thinking about it so much... I feel like if DN was just like canon except with genderbent Light and L then fem!Light would do a slight transformation over time in the story, from fairly traditional-looking schoolgirl with a conventionally feminine prettiness, yet still semi masculine energy/vibes/behaviours/body language (she'd be the type of girl that guys still love and most people assume is straight by default, but that a savvy wlw might walk by and do a curious/hopeful double-take at like, "waiiitaminute, no straight girl would ever wear a big men's watch like that... my gaydar is tingling")... Once she meets fem!L, who is just completely herself with barely a thought to her gender presentation, unbeknownst to her Light would be looking and learning from her gnc vibes and appreciating her like a work of art of some kind silently all the while (I think fem!Light would especially find fem!L attractive for how powerful her job is and how smart she is and how non people-pleasing her behaviours are... like what, you can be a woman AND act like that and do whatever you want?? I'm obsessed). AND I think after the time-skip/L's death (when Light becomes a black turtleneck wearing widow in canon lol) is when fem!Light might fully lean into the slightly more stylish butch look and vibe with more intention... maybe cut her ponytail off and yes, also start buying and wearing some sharp suits, just like Light constantly did in canon near the end as well hahaha

[13eyond13]

Fem L and Light ask: do you think Fem L! Would discern Kira as a woman before zeroing in on Light specifically? I always think the task force would think of Kira as a man and Light would try to lean into that to throw off suspicion. I go back and forth on if it would be possible for gender to be discerned early on but since L does a lot of psych profiling she might notice patterns that point towards a woman being likely but do you think she would tell people that or keep quiet? Especially after she meets fem! Light and like canon L zeros in immediately on her.

That's a good question! I am not 100% what would tip off fem!L to Kira's gender just based on the information she'd gather in canon before she actually starts investigating the NPA's families, but it would definitely be a fun scene for fem!L to be the only one to intuit that somehow and to be like "what makes you so sure Kira is a guy?" during some initial briefings with the task force. I wish I had better thoughts to offer, but I'm kinda coming up blank about any specifics rn sorry

[13eyond13]

Hey, I want you to know I started reading Those Who Stand For Nothing/Hinterland Doctrine because of your posts and tags about it and I'm really glad I did because it's great! Totally get it's reputation. I love Those! L being the lady Macbeth behind Light who's just really entertainingly insane. Thanks for the rec!

haha, Lady Macbeth! Very glad you enjoyed it too, no problem at all