the word father rotted in my mouth: i. tom stoppard, rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead. ii. nurnehpetsnur iii. anne carson, plainwater: essays and poetry iv. see notes. v. see notes. vi. genesis 4:9 vii. anaïs nin, winter of artifice viii. see notes. ix. slider.xxxxxxxx x. josh alex baker, death wish. xi. see notes. xii. eric larocca, things have gotten worse since we last spoke xiii. death note, c-kira one-shot. xiv. leah horlick, for your own good, xv. death note manga, L's death, mello's death. xvi. ocean vuong, someday i'll love, xvii. woyaocharlie xviii. death note short stories, a-kira one-shot. xix. anna belle kaufman, cold solace.
notes under the cut.
*iv. artist notoriously hard to track, there's several images on pinterest that are clearly the same style, tried with all of them and they all seem to come from a long deleted 2008 photobucket folder.
v. & viii. the oldest source seems to be long-deleted posts from this blog, which were re-posts.
xi. this is the only source i can find but i don't think it leads to the artist ): please hmu if you have any leads about all of these.
part of the mine and the bestie’s delusional headcanon that near and mello (& matt) did have somewhat of a mentor/mentee relationship with L (fuck them other kids….) whom although genuinely fond of them was a willing participant in the amoral watari industrial complex (did he care to be succeeded? did he find it amusing or an interesting long term project? were the tests and mindfuckery and hot/cold unpredictable behavior and purposeful sowing of a rivalry between them the only model of family and mentorship he knew and was capable of? did he ever really love them? will they ever know? etc etc etc.)
i’m handwaving away the “we only talked to L once” story as skillfully edited by near because 1. he loves to lie and 2. his complicated relationship with L and subsequent grief AND resentment is still wrapped in seventeen thousand layers of emotional repression and who wants to get into that. 3. also makes mello’s comments in LABB about not caring if near is hurt that he knows more about L than near does way funnier. sibling behavior
anyway the both of them have a brotherfatherhero complex the size of TEXAS but thankfully they can sublimate that in the bedroom through creative kinky means. i know the usual "don't ship them!" rethoric is that they're foster brothers but unfortunately that just makes them a billion times more compelling. to me
My personal headcanon is that “L” is his middle name. Given how the other names are formatted on fan wiki (I don't have htr13 so I am assuming they translated correctly), “Lawliet” is his last name.
I have never seen that Watari gave him a last name and even if it's canon I refuse to accept that — if he's reportedly giving a child a letter for a name, why would he bother with a surname? So, there must be some record of L's parents, or he himself remembers them (I have a whole different set of headcanons for L's parents but whatever. another time).
Given this, there must exist some record of L. It was probably later destroyed, but either there is a record of his first name or he himself remembers it. I don't know, I knew my own name at 5...
So then, when did L become “A nameless orphan”? Of course, when he came to Wammy's. There are so many problems with this institution and one is that it strips its children of an identity. “____ L Lawliet” had to die for “L the detective” to be born. Even not knowing he would be a detective at that point, he had to be some great genius, a saviour, and our saviours are a symbol. They are no longer allowed to be a person.
Would a genius agree to that?
A child would.
The other problem with Wammy's – if you lose your parents, your guiding figures in socialisation and life, at such a young age, then who replaces them? A scientist who sees children as projects? If that's the case, it's unfortunate, but you will still follow them because you've lost your parents and he is here to take you in.
I wonder if L was taught to forget his name.
I wonder if he forgot L was himself, too. Let it become those around him, every genius worthy of the title he thought wasn't his.
I like the thought of Mello having the habit of showing up unannounced at Matts doorstep at any hour, at any point in their friendship, bringing a (un)healthy dose of what the fuck in his life.
And besides, we all know what's probably in that bag.
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also idk how realistic it is but i think it is sort of cute if wammy's involves occasional educational trips here and there. like oh you can sign up for one little summer trip depending on your age group and then you go with a teacher and a handful of your classmates to some european capital and see art museums and go to the opera or to see an orchestra perform. you get a little bit of pocket change to buy a souvenir. everyone would think they were just a normal school doing a normal field trip but secretly all their passports are fake and some of the kids are horrible little pickpockets competing with each other to see who's the stealthiest.
"But I finished [Near and Mello] together as a set, and although they aren’t particularly laid out as such, I still feel a bit like they’re twins." —Obata Takeshi
whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same:
i. low sky, mahmoud darwish. ii. the world is a sphere of ice and our hands are made of fire, ritika jyala. iii. kadan, 2008. iv. the dreamers, gilbert adair. v. @nathanielorion vi. nagiko, 2016. vii. elektra, sophokles (tr. anne carson). viii. wishbone, richard siken. ix. inbred, ethel cain. x. the boy who, tirol. xi. monster portraits, del samatar and sofia samatar. xii. in the field, @nathanielorion xiii. death note, "use" ch77. xiv. gut symmetries, jeanette winterson. xv. mystic union; fire and wine: poems, john gould fletcher. xvi. @inukai_0055, twitter. xvii. the carnivorous lamb, agustín gómez-arcos. xviii. my sister, the serial killer, oyinkan braithwaite. xix. the beatrice letters, lemony snicket (text); a quiet visitor, holly warburton (art); @unpardonablesins (edit). xx. ada, vladimir nabokov. xxi. this is how you lose the time war, amal el-mohtar. xxii. the borgias, s3e10, showtime. xxiii. @antaarf xxiv. @vilicity xxv. @boymiffy