New Game, Same Toys

Hey, is it just me, or did they completely cut the "YAHOO" song from this chapter? Like I'm pretty sure there was a twistune and the boys akwardly singing at the end, but there was nothing in the English version? What's up with that??

thinking about Matsuda in the epilogue. The manga epilogue chapter, set a year after yellowbox, where Matsuda and Ide discuss Light and Kira, even though the world’s mostly gone back to pre-Kira. And it’s clear from Ide that Matsuda’s theories around what happened on the 28th come up a lot. Matsuda thinks that Near used the notebook on Mikami, and that he fed Mello the information he needed to manipulate him into kidnapping Takada and proving the notebook as fake. And it’s so, so painfully clear that Matsuda is desperately clinging onto anything that would make Light seem more sympathetic. That all the cards were stacked against him, that Near was secretly evil and self-serving too, that maybe Light didn’t even have a choice in what happened at Yellowbox. Because, as Ide said, Matsuda cared about Light. More than the others. He’s wracked by guilt over what happened- who wouldn’t be? Matsuda’s light-hearted, optimistic personality he even managed to keep during the whole Kira case is reduced to a facade, a mask of his old self. He’s depressed. He’s angry. He’s grasping at straws to justify the past five years of his life spent devoted to and admiring a serial killer who saw him as nothing more than the dirt beneath his boot. Someone he thought he could trust. Someone he literally risked his life to protect, when he told Mello he was acting as L, so prevent Soichiro from having to expose Light’s identity as L. Kira may be evil, but Light was good, right? So Kira couldn’t be truly evil, because Light wasn’t; couldn’t be.

i’m thinking about Matsuda in the epilogue.

this meeting could have been a massacre

General Audiences | 7,977 words | read on AO3

Mikami is late. They’ve been waiting in the Yellow Box Warehouse for hours and their guest of honor is late. With nothing else to do and no guarantee of when he’ll arrive, the task force and SPK all decide to go out and eat together at a nearby café. Light is certain this is all some trick, but in his defense, how could he have known to plan against a team lunch?!

killer within game workshop

Fan Fiction: Noel

Fandom: Death Note

Pairings: None

Rating: T

Summary: Almost two years after the arrest of Kira, Near has finally succeeded L, but his reign hasn’t gone unchallenged. Faced with an unsolvable string of murders threatening both his position and his life, the third L must seek help from an unlikely (and unlikable) source: his imprisoned predecessor, Light Yagami.

AN: As some of you may remember from *coughs in embarrassment* three months ago *cough*, I ran a contest in which the top three finishers were promised short fic as a prize. Since I am trash at long last rediscovering the glorious concept of “free time,” I’ve finally had time to sit down and work on the promised prizes.

First up: swordsinthesnowdrift–who’s ending up with quite a bit more than she bargained for because “Light survives the series and ends up in Near’s custody AU” just so happens to be my favorite AU as well, so what was supposed to be a one-off is instead Chapter One of at least a twelve chapter saga with alternating Near/Light viewpoint chapters. I’d say I were sorry, but I’m not. At all.

Read it on ff.net || Read it on AO3

touta matsuda

discuss

omg YES ty! This is gonna be a long, disorganized ramble, so bear with me!

Touta Matsuda. My blorbo, skrunky scrimblo, love of my life, etc.

There are so many things about Matsuda's character that I could talk about. His impulsivity, his loyalty, his uncertainty... All of it makes a very real and very interesting character. And I think that a lot of his traits shine in one of the most horrifying scenes from his perspective: the Yellow Box Warehouse.

Like, let's take a step back and look at the numbers here. On one side of the warehouse, we've got a guy claiming to be L, and the three members of the old Kira Task Force that he brought with him. On the other side, we've got a different guy claiming to be L and three members of the SPK that he brought with him (oh. and the guy from the Task Force that got kidnapped in the mix). Outside, Kira's accomplice is lying in wait. So we've got ten people in all who are ready for the final showdown. The reveal. The evidence that will finally end this years-long nightmare and point to the true identity of Kira.

And of those 10 people, only one of them doesn't have a clue who Kira really is.

Light is Kira. Mikami is X-Kira and finds out who Kira is as soon as he looks in the room. Near and the SPK are all on the same page. Mogi and Aizawa know. Ide's a bit more on the fence but he wasn't completely in the dark. So Matsuda is the only one who goes in totally blind.

If anyone were to re-write Death Note purely from Matsuda's perspective, the Warehouse scene would go from tense to horrifying. To (nearly) everyone else there, this confrontation isn’t meant to reveal an unexpected truth, it’s to confirm something that they already know. But for Matsuda? Near's request to meet at the warehouse is, at worst, a tactic to once again frame Light. Because Light obviously can't be Kira, right? Light will show Near that he's wrong, and the investigation will continue as normal until the real Kira is caught.

But then Near presents that irrefutable evidence, and everything that Matsuda knew for over five years comes crumbling down. Light starts monologuing about how the world had to be fixed and how no one could ever make it as far as he did. Kira and Light are one and the same. Matsuda always thought that Kira was a well-intentioned person who was helping change the world. Ide and Aizawa and Mogi believed that Kira was evil, they were much stronger in their resolve than Matsuda ever could be. But Light had confessed to him once that he too questioned if what they were doing was right. If Kira was doing right.

Light has always been Kira.

And then comes the absolutely tasty part where Matsuda shoots Light. I love how chapter 106 is called "Intent to Kill", because it reminds me of how Matsuda and Light are foils to each other. Better yet, they can be compared against a man they both held such deep respect for, Soichiro Yagami.

See, Soichiro threatens to kill people a good couple times, and even holds a gun to his son's face, but he never has any intent to kill. In fact, he's never killed anyone, as (I think) Mello points out. It's almost kind of silly. Like, Soichiro draws the line at firing bullets or writing full names in the Death Note, and that's it? Everything else is fair game? Weird line to draw, but go off I guess.

Light, meanwhile, justifies killing thousands. But only with the Death Note. With the Death Note, his intent to kill becomes a righteous one, another step on the path to becoming God of a New World. The criminals deserved to die. Those who get in Kira's way deserve to die. Because Light isn't a serial killer. He's doing the right thing! Crime is going down, war has stopped, and Light is the only one who could have possibly gone this far and done this much good.

And then we're back to Matsuda. I believe the mafia raid is the first time we see Matsuda using a gun, and we see that he's damn good at it. So good, in fact, that he's able to fire only non-lethal shots to get the Death Note back. (Also, fun tidbit: I'm pretty sure he's the only one who doesn't go into the raid with a rifle, he's just got like, a standard-issue cop pistol with a light on it.) The same thing happens in the warehouse, at least initially. He fires at Light's hand to get him to stop writing. Then he and Light yell at each other for a little bit about (who else?) Soichiro. Light demands that Matsuda shoot the others, because he's the only one who understands Kira. When Matsuda hesitates, Light resumes writing Near's name. Then Matsuda fires again and again and again. Anything to make Light stop. Anything to make it all stop. But it becomes obvious that he's not just shooting Light as a deterrent. What does Matsuda say as he's doing it?

"He needs to die!"

The others literally have to drag Matsuda away before he can execute Light on the spot.

Matsuda is a character full of contradictions. He dedicates over half a decade to fighting Kira, but he doubts the whole time. He tries to follow in Soichiro's footsteps but in the end makes the same justification that Light did when he first started writing in the Death Note. This man is a criminal. He deserves to die. The Yellow Box Warehouse not only exposed Light's true colors, but Matsuda's as well.

tag your results!

Ghetsis during BW: We must act with outmost caution. Our victory won't be secured unless we have enough of the Unovan population on our side as N claims the title as the strongest trainer in the region, and later, the world. Let's unleash our big stupid castle at the most opportune moment, mm? Ghetsis during BW2: *Hobbling about in front of his conspiracy cork-board* So if we find this big stupid fucking ice dragon you science idiots can plug some USB into it and fuck this pissy little shit region right in the asshole with an ice laser or something listen I don't fucking care just make them PAY, COLRESS HOW'S THE DEVELOPMENT OF MY AIRSHIP?? WHY CAN'T YOU DO ANYTHING ON TIME?? I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT THE LACK OF MONEY I'M OUTLAWED, FIGURE IT OUT IF YOU'RE SO SMART. Someone pour me like five glasses of wine I'm getting my strangly hands, and you won't like me when I get my strangly hands. When this region is nothing but death and ice I'm firing all of you. This is all N's fault. It's not easy being this right about everything literally all the time (where's my stress ball).

Day 6 & 7 of @dnrarepairweek | Prompts: PROXIMITY & JUDGEMENT

We interrupt this showdown to bring you an intervention ft. Near and Light who have a serious discussion about where their colleagues' priorities lie.