What She Says: I'm Fine

Licking the chocolate until it melts and then eating it with gloves still on… what a fucking freak

the girls (everyone dies instantly)

(I'm just foolishly joking)

...

(it looked funnier in my head)

(possibly a bad translation)

So I’ve been thinking a lot about the popularity of Matt as a character, which is something that is met with a lot of ??? by those in the fandom who aren’t matt/mello shippers or generally don’t like the second arc of DN (which is… reasonable in and of itself but not something I’m gonna get into atm). And I think that most of the Matt love comes from an initial love of/identification with Mello. Mello on his own is kind of a tough sell - he’s a vain, selfish, manipulative, murdering asshole - he’s insecure, gaudy, self-loathing, and can’t control his emotions. Which, like other than the murder part, there’s a lot going on here to see myself in, whether I want to or not. And that’s where Matt comes in.

Ohba made Matt specifically to give someone for Mello to bounce dialogue off of, and though I’m sure this was done as a throw-away thing, Matt as a sounding board for Mello as a character is something that extends into fandom as well. I’d say that it was that tiny act of establishing Matt as a Wammy’s kid in HtR13 that really did it though, as it establishes a past between the two and mobilizes a dozen drawable conclusions about their relationship. Suddenly we have this character who canonically knows Mello from childhood, and thus can be understood to readily know what a crap person Mello is, but chooses to be a part of Mello’s life/weirdo anti-kira operation even after all these years. Is this loyalty? Friendship? Love? Boredom? Who is this ride-or-die kid in a stupid furry vest?? Whatever way you spin it, Matt is a character who puts up with Mello and his bullshit, and coupled with the blank slate of knowing literally nothing else about him, he’s the perfect projection ground for wish fulfillment/validation. Mello represents a lot aspects we hate about ourselves (don’t even get me started on the queer coding) but Matt redeems him. Matt as established in fanon (and squint-and-you’ll-miss-it in canon) says you’re still lovable! You are worth sticking by and coming home to! Mello’s kind of scary to identify so fiercely with but Matt makes it safer and softer and draws the poison from it.

Thanks for coming to my TED talk

have some

Now, I'm not an astrology person, but I got curious and looked up Matt and Mello's zodiac signs and Matt's an Aquarius and Mello is a Sagittarius. So I looked up "Saggitarius soulmate signs" and Aquarius was one of the signs.

Ohba's accidental soulmate coding of MelloMatt means the world to me now.

was watching part 2 with my bf has anyone done this yet

the women of death note deserve better

so i just finished death note. i have Thoughts about the show. some good, some bad. its not the type of show i'd usually watch but there was something in it that kept me watching. but there was one aspect of the show that bothered me to no end, one that made me consider dropping the show more than once. and that's its treatment of its female characters.

now i know shonen isn't exactly known for writing women well. this isn't to say ALL shonen is like that, but the more popular ones definitely have this problem. the women are either sidelined, reduced to love interests, or aren't allowed to reach their full potential, and this can really be seen in the women of death note. for a show that prides itself on having complex, layered characters with depths that keep people talking two decades later, it sure does drop the ball when it comes to writing women. so here i'm gonna go through all the women of death note and how they were done dirty. keep in mind this is all referring to the anime, i haven't read the manga.

naomi misora

starting off with the one that pissed me off the most. naomi had me intrigued from the moment she first appeared on screen. she was a former fbi agent who left her job because her asshole fiance convinced her it was too dangerous, and then blew off her suggestions (which ultimately lead to his death which. el oh fucking el). she was able to piece together that kira could control how his victims die. she could add a lot to the story given that she previously worked with L. she could've been a part of the task force and would help them piece together clues that would pin down kira. does she do all that? LOL NOPE. the writers decided she was too powerful and killed her off within two episodes of her introduction. now i know this is death note and a lot of characters die. but naomi's death pissed me off the most. here was a woman who had so much potential and could solve the case within two episodes and she's killed off. oh but at least she stars in a spinoff novel half the fandom won't read! isn't that just GREAT? look how much we love women guys!

yeah all this time later and i'm still pissed off about how they did her. naomi bby you deserve so much better.

misa amane

OH BOY GET READY FOR A BIG ONE. so misa was actually the reason i wanted to watch death note because she's fucking gorgeous. i didn't have many expectations about how she'd be written considering this is a popular shonen, but even then i was disappointed. misa is the main female character of death note. she's presented as the second kira who has shinigami eyes, which gives her the power to see a person's name and lifespan by looking at their face. she was saved by a shinigami who was in love with her and got his notebook, and her current shinigami rem (more on her next) also has feelings for her. she worships kira because he killed her parents' murderer. she finds out light is kira because her shinigami eyes don't allow her to see the lifespan of a death note owner and as such asks him to make her his girlfriend.

misa misa misa. my gorgeous goth girl. you deserved to be written so much better. a second kira who has shinigami eyes? she could've been so cool. but the writers made 90% of her personality revolve around light and treated her as this dumb, impulsive girl who worships the ground light walks on. and light doesn't even treat her that well. he just uses her and takes his frustrations out on her. oh, and don't get me started on this bullshit

look, i get that misa is a killer and had to be restrained. but WAS THIS FETISHY CRAP NECESSARY?? WHAT WAS THE POINT OF THE FUCKING CROTCH STRAP?? when light was imprisoned he wasn't tied up like THIS. this is just another case of shonen authors being fucking weirdos with their female characters.

and in the end she kills herself because light dies. instead of letting her heal and live her life the author decides "welp, the man we based 90% of misa's character on is dead, time to kill her off too". just absolute bullshit. she deserved so SO much better.

rem

rem, my gorgeous butch shinigami. she became my favourite character when she was introduced. i was actually surprised by how direct they were about her feelings for misa. i'd seen bits and pieces of remisa before and i thought it'd be one of those ships the writers dance around but they explicitly had her say she has feelings for misa. i was so surprised and happy at that. but of course, this is a popular shonen so i shouldn't have had high expectations. my problem with how they treated rem comes in her death. she dies after killing watari and L to extend misa's lifespan. if a shinigami extends a human's lifespan they die. now, i'm not gonna say her death is an example of bury your gays because gelus, the male shinigami who saved misa before, met the same fate. however, i will say its very Interesting that the only canonically lesbian character who explicitly declares her feelings for another woman dies BECAUSE of those feelings. and then she isn't even acknowledged by misa which is so weird considering how much rem helped her. there's no scene of misa even mentioning rem or mourning her death. she dies without anyone knowing. i do enjoy the doomed yuri aspect of remisa but i really do wish they'd have misa at least acknowledge rem's death.

wedy

wedy, aka merrie kenwood, is a spy who joins the task force in the yotsuba arc. she's an expert at getting through security and is crucial in helping pin down higuchi as kira as she's the one who installs the bugs in yotsuba's meeting room and higuchi's cars. another cool female character with a lot of potential. you know what that means. TIME TO KILL HER OFF! wedy doesn't get much screentime and then dies within eight episodes of her introduction. which is slightly better than naomi. but still. i won't say this is also a case of misogynistic writing as aiber also dies. however, there is a pattern of having a female character with potential, not giving her enough spotlight, and killing her off shortly after her debut.

sayu yagami

sayu, my poor bbygirl sayu. she's introduced as light's bubbly little sister. in the timeskip she goes to college. her most significant role is getting kidnapped so her father could give up the death note to mello's men, making her the classic damsel in distress. and the poor girl is so traumatized that she's in a catatonic state and has to be wheelchair bound and taken care of by her mother. oh, and there's also that weird comment matsuda makes about her which... really dude? sayu isn't AS badly done as she doesn't play much of a role beyond her kidnapping. but still, she also deserves so much better.

kiyomi takada

i didn't think i'd be as pissed off about how they did a female character as i did about naomi and misa but BOY they proved me wrong. takada was light's girlfriend in college but she doesn't play a major role until the timeskip where she becomes kira's spokesperson. like misa, she worships kira. she's happy when she finds out light is kira and would do anything for him. so another woman who worships the ground light walks on. how original. she's supposed to be smart but they never demonstrate it. and need i mention that rivalry between her and misa? making two women catty to each other over a man who isn't even all that, how very typical. but what pissed me off the most was her kidnapping. that scene where mello asks her to take off all her clothes, and then she's left with nothing but a blanket? so fucking weird, i don't care if she's kira's spokesperson. this show has a history of treating its women weirdly and i'm not gonna believe this was anything but the author being weird once again. because what even was the point of that? and then she's killed by light to destroy all evidence. i'm saying this a lot at this point but takada also deserves better. she deserved to live up to her potential.

halle linder

out of everyone, halle is treated the best and that's not saying much. she's a double agent serving as takada's bodyguard and a spy for the spk. she's also the only woman besides sayu and sachiko who survived till the end and wasn't killed off. which i just realised. out of all the women in this show, only THREE survive till the end. isn't that something? i think my only issue with halle is the lack of spotlight. which is a theme with these women.

i thought of adding sachiko but she isn't much of a character. but there you have it. i'm not sure how bad it is in other popular shonen. but death note is full of women who had potential but the author squandered it for the sole reason that they're women. and its so jarring because people can write essays on light, L, near, mello, etc. even MATSUDA had more care put into him than any of these women. which is a damn shame. these women deserve to be in a show that actually cared about them, where they can actually live up to their potential.

i don't dislike death note. it definitely has its strong points. but the treatment of its women is something i take issue with, very strongly. if the author wasn't a weirdo and a nasty misogynist i feel like these women would've been the complex characters they deserved to be.

"Mello would be so judgemental of his partner based on their looks/hobbies/personality" If that's the case what the fresh fuck was he doing dating this guy;

ID [Screenshot of Matt from the Death Note anime. He is sitting and playing video games on a brown chair, hunched over]

Knowing this is how he dresses????