What I said about Ryuk last chapter notwithstanding, it's still fun to write him tooling around and hunting for apples. He's still a character, and characters gotta have some initiative.
--
Canon doesn't focus nearly as much on Saiyu's MLG Call of Duty career as I'd like. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not mentioned at all. But Light clearly doesn't play video games—he's much too serious and grown-up, of course, not to mention that he snubs Ryuk's interest—so clearly this is the only remaining hypothesis.
Saiyu's gamertag is xheadshotgurl23x. She plays professionally for a team whose name translates to Blood Legion, and the other members of her team are afraid to anger her because the last unlucky person to be on the receiving end of her wrath stopped showing up to team practices.*
*Due to an unrelated incident, but Saiyu just went with it.
--
We're seeing an inversion here where L knows about the manipulation part of the Note but not the part where it makes you eat something. (This as opposed to canon, where L initially knew it killed you but not that it could manipulate you).
--
L's test for determining whether Angel is only targeting criminals seems incredibly weak, given that it's dependent on the victim using their real name (and not using a face mask, for those of you who've read Hidden Faces. Uh, spoilers). However, L noticed (of course) that criminals who used an alias weren't targeted by the Angel, because he's L. Thus, his tests were already designed with that fact in mind.
See, he told Angel that Angel had given him everything, but he wasn't specific about what Angel had actually given him. No, I did not leave that purposefully vague to give myself more room to work with later.
--
I'm questioning whether Light is really a rationalist. On the one hand, he's working logically from the premises he's working on. On the other hand, he's really bad about questioning those premises in the heat of the moment, at least for questions like "Is this person really smarter than me?" or "Do I really know whether this person is guilty?"
'Cuz what's the point of character flaws if they don't actually make your characters flawed, amirite?
--
Lind L. Taylor was a finalist in the show Hottest Pastries, but ultimately the judges thought the kiwi frosting on his cupcakes was too sweet, deciding in favor of his rival's soufflé. In another world, he went mad with jealousy and murdered her, leading to his execution at Light's hands.
--
A couple general observations:
- This chapter is made of several quick scenes and moves pretty quickly. That's the way it turned out, and sometimes it's unavoidable, but if I do this again, please yell at me.
- I have literally typed the word Angel as Angle every goddamn time except for in this sentence.
- There are times when my mind drifts off and I chase squirrels driving trains of thought. After I return to writing, I see the name "Angel" (dammit! again!) and have to convince myself I'm not writing Buffy fanfiction.
--
Next update will probably be this upcoming Saturday, April 12. But as we've seen how good my powers of prediction turned out to be, take this particular prophecy with a grain of salt. Inasmuch as salt is good for this sort of thing. I never figured that out. Anyways, until next time.
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
Sunday, March 30, 2014
The Banquet of Life: Chapter 2 Notes
Fun fact: originally, "Hunger" on Light's List of Problems was supposed to be crossed out, but ff.net doesn't like extra formatting. If I really had to choose, I'd actually say erasure would be more Light's style, but the list looked uninteresting with just the single words. Having both his original idea of hunger and then the more general concept of scarcity made the list more organic-looking, which made the scene a little more human.
--
Light doesn't have to do his homework because he did it all at the beginning of the year. This explains why he's so bored. Thus, if he had not done his homework ahead of time, all the crap with the Note wouldn't have gone down. The moral of the story, then, is that procrastination can literally save the world.
--
One interesting difference between the Food Note and the Death Note is that the Food Note is far more humane, and thus Light comes off as a far more benevolent god as the Angel than he did as Kira. Consequently, his services to society are much less morally ambiguous. But as we saw at the end of the chapter, that doesn't stop L from finding something to ding him on (although if you ask me, L's just mad that the Angel is stealing his turf). On the other hand, there's no guarantee that Light's use of the Food Note will necessarily stay humane, so watch out for that.
--
I like the research journal sections because the narrator doesn't take Light nearly as seriously as Light takes himself. And yet somehow I feel that it's more difficult to take him seriously in the journal sections.
--
Normally you just see Ryuk floating around making snide comments and chuckling that humans are interesting. I wanted to try a different approach here and make him more of a force of nature (because death is really easy to accept unless it's your own).
On a side note, the bit about Ryuk writing Light's last meal was required by parallelism with canon, but the implications are far more hilarious than anything I could have come up with from scratch. Depending on if Light dies by the end, we may or may not see what role this last meal performs.
--
For some reason, the line "Who taught you to read?" was inexplicably hilarious to me. Then again, it was 4am when I wrote it.
--
I like that L gets introduced while doing statistics. Canon!L, and everyone else in canon for that matter, seemed to make do on ridiculous intuitive leaps. That's why they all burned in Statistics Hell after their untimely demises.
--
Next update will be when I last said the next update was going to be.
--
Light doesn't have to do his homework because he did it all at the beginning of the year. This explains why he's so bored. Thus, if he had not done his homework ahead of time, all the crap with the Note wouldn't have gone down. The moral of the story, then, is that procrastination can literally save the world.
--
One interesting difference between the Food Note and the Death Note is that the Food Note is far more humane, and thus Light comes off as a far more benevolent god as the Angel than he did as Kira. Consequently, his services to society are much less morally ambiguous. But as we saw at the end of the chapter, that doesn't stop L from finding something to ding him on (although if you ask me, L's just mad that the Angel is stealing his turf). On the other hand, there's no guarantee that Light's use of the Food Note will necessarily stay humane, so watch out for that.
--
I like the research journal sections because the narrator doesn't take Light nearly as seriously as Light takes himself. And yet somehow I feel that it's more difficult to take him seriously in the journal sections.
--
Normally you just see Ryuk floating around making snide comments and chuckling that humans are interesting. I wanted to try a different approach here and make him more of a force of nature (because death is really easy to accept unless it's your own).
On a side note, the bit about Ryuk writing Light's last meal was required by parallelism with canon, but the implications are far more hilarious than anything I could have come up with from scratch. Depending on if Light dies by the end, we may or may not see what role this last meal performs.
--
For some reason, the line "Who taught you to read?" was inexplicably hilarious to me. Then again, it was 4am when I wrote it.
--
I like that L gets introduced while doing statistics. Canon!L, and everyone else in canon for that matter, seemed to make do on ridiculous intuitive leaps. That's why they all burned in Statistics Hell after their untimely demises.
--
Next update will be when I last said the next update was going to be.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
The Banquet of Life: Chapter 1 Notes
I cannot confirm nor deny that the new Hannibal show inspired the chapter title.
--
It's going to be a lot of fun to play around with the Food Note in upcoming chapters. I haven't quite decided on the rules yet (beyond the ones written in the chapter), so it's entirely possible this chapter will end up presenting plot holes. In any case, if Light is creative about it he could end up being able to accomplish the things canon!Light did. It seems to me that the main benefit of the Note is its ability to control its victims rather than the fact that they die afterward. On a completely tangential note, I just realized that Lelouch vi Britannia would be Light's worst enemy—not only is he a scheming chessmaster of at least equal skill, but he also habitually wears a mask and can still do the whole mind control thing whether he's in character or not. None of this using-blood-for-ink stuff.
--
For some reason, I'm really tempted to pursue this Illuminati thing. Besides supernatural powers, what else could possibly produce mind control technology?
--
The funny part about the testing scene is that Light actually misspelled the hobo's name and that whole data point was, in fact, a coincidence.
--
The last section ("The Facts") shamelessly ripped off The Book Thief. I maintain that it's a gesture of respect. And I like the effect.
On a side note, Statistics Hell is a real place and you will go there if you do not work out your salvation with fear and confidence intervals.
--
Next update will be Saturday, April 5.
- Gonzalez
--
It's going to be a lot of fun to play around with the Food Note in upcoming chapters. I haven't quite decided on the rules yet (beyond the ones written in the chapter), so it's entirely possible this chapter will end up presenting plot holes. In any case, if Light is creative about it he could end up being able to accomplish the things canon!Light did. It seems to me that the main benefit of the Note is its ability to control its victims rather than the fact that they die afterward. On a completely tangential note, I just realized that Lelouch vi Britannia would be Light's worst enemy—not only is he a scheming chessmaster of at least equal skill, but he also habitually wears a mask and can still do the whole mind control thing whether he's in character or not. None of this using-blood-for-ink stuff.
--
For some reason, I'm really tempted to pursue this Illuminati thing. Besides supernatural powers, what else could possibly produce mind control technology?
--
The funny part about the testing scene is that Light actually misspelled the hobo's name and that whole data point was, in fact, a coincidence.
--
The last section ("The Facts") shamelessly ripped off The Book Thief. I maintain that it's a gesture of respect. And I like the effect.
On a side note, Statistics Hell is a real place and you will go there if you do not work out your salvation with fear and confidence intervals.
--
Next update will be Saturday, April 5.
- Gonzalez
Overview: The Banquet of Life
I return, triumphant, from many long years of not writing! Stories, that is! And we're kicking things off with something I believe might be classifiable as a crackfic. I'm not entirely sure what a story has to do to technically qualify as a crackfic, so take with salt.
Basically, I'm going to make a new post for each chapter, then put a link to those posts on this page. That way you can just keep coming back to this page.
The Banquet of Life is a Death Note fic exploring the consequences of a slight alteration to the starting conditions of the plot. Death Note characters, etc. are used without permission and not for profit. Link to the story here.
Commentary by Chapter:
Chapter 1: Marinade
Chapter 2: Preheat
Chapter 3: Hors d'Oeuvres
(You've reached the in progress point. Banquet of Life is currently on hiatus, and will return hopefully before Spring 2014.)
Basically, I'm going to make a new post for each chapter, then put a link to those posts on this page. That way you can just keep coming back to this page.
The Banquet of Life is a Death Note fic exploring the consequences of a slight alteration to the starting conditions of the plot. Death Note characters, etc. are used without permission and not for profit. Link to the story here.
Commentary by Chapter:
Chapter 1: Marinade
Chapter 2: Preheat
Chapter 3: Hors d'Oeuvres
(You've reached the in progress point. Banquet of Life is currently on hiatus, and will return hopefully before Spring 2014.)
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