First off: new Lunargyros page! ...Well, not quite, actually it's just a cover for chapter two. But part of it was me messing around in Painter Effects. It's a fun program and can do all kinds of cool things that PS can't, but it doesn't seem to like dealing with large files like I'm used to working with. D: I'll need to play around with it more.

Ohhhh! I SO FINALLY FINISHED that KH AMV that I'd been wanting to make forever and ever and wasn't able to because I didn't have the correct file formats! With huge thanks to voodoobob, who deserves a thousand years' worth of cookies, I was able to get those files and finish it! *CELEBRATION* You can see the finished AMV here.

My new job started on Monday (technically Friday kinda, but that was more just intro and seeing how things worked). It's working out fine so far, as well as a reception job can, anyway. I just wish it didn't go until 6:00, since then I don't get home until around dinnertime and since after-dinner is usually "wind down" time for me in terms of art stuff -I like to go internetting or draw on fannish things during then- it's a little tough trying to fit in all the other drawing stuff I need to do. I've been slacking on stuff like revising those pages so that I can send them away and gift arts...but I must remind myself that the faster I send arts away and see if publisher-persons like them, the faster I get a job I like! I just wish I had the same energy when I get home as when I start out the day...

So I barely got any comic reivision work done between lawling my face off at KHFFR, aaaand I FINALLY FINISHED DEATH NOTE OMG. YESSS. Read the last four chapters!

And now, since I have at last finished, here are my thoughts on yaoi Death Note:


I'd basically stopped right at the part where Light admits to Near and the rest of the dudes that he's Kira. Right up to that whoooole point I was on the edge of my seat with suspense. So I basically just read the fallout from that moment. And I loved this whole exchange:

Light: So I am Kira! But you can't kill me! I am a god of this world! I am justice! Everyone loves me! Now there's no more crime or war on earth because I am just that awesome! >:D BWAHAHAHAHAHA
Near: No, actually, you'll just batshit insane. :/

Of course, Light had to die. Considering the whole set-up, it really couldn't have happened any other way. And truthfully, I'm pleased with how he did die: sniveling, wailing, begging and throwing a hissy fit the whole way. It was totally the fate he deserved: feeling the same thing that all of his other victims felt, except with the added agony of knowing that he only had a few seconds to live and could do absolutely nothing about it. And yet, despite the fact that he knew all of the rules by heart, he still tried to talk and weasel his way out of it. It was totally believable that Light had spiraled so deep into madness that he honestly believed that he was immortal, or at least deserved immortality. So Ryuk went up about 50 cool points for me for that entire scene. Ryuk is awesome. ♥♥

However...well, there was some of the philosophy of the whole thing that didn't sit right with me. Or at the least, it came off to me as a tad preachy. To be honest, I didn't like the idea that all humans go to nothingness when they die, no matter what they've done in life: the idea that there is no divine justice, and that it doesn't matter how you treat others in this life. The idea that Light, as a worldwide mass-murderer, gets the exact same fate as the nun in the convent around the corner just feels...Nietzschesque? That's probably not the right word or philosophy for what it is, but regardless, it's not something I agree with.

Obviously, Light is about as far from divine justice as I am from Jupiter. But Near's whole speech on how what he was doing was wrong because "he doesn't have the right to tell people how to live their lives," coupled with how Light believed he was a god, smacked of anti-Judeo-Christian sentiments. After all, you don't have to be religious to try and shove your beliefs onto others. Why couldn't Light simply be wrong because he was a mass-murderer and more than a little whacked in the head? I also got the vague sense that the story was poking (maybe not) fun at people of faith for believing in a benevolent entity, because really what we believe to be a god is actually just a crazy freak who stumbled across a supernatural power and used it to make themselves into a god. Phillip Pullman, is that you?! The EXTREMELY CREEPY ending kind of confirmed this, what with Light actually achieving his goal in some form: he became a god, at least to a group of devoted followers, even if he wasn't allowed to actually see his "faith" spread in person.

I suppose the ideas presented were that humans should be kind to other humans just for the sake of being kind, not out of fear of reprecussions from a "divine" killer. And while I believe this is something good that we should all strive for, and while I do believe that most people have good interests at heart, I do also think that humans' first instinct is to act selfishly. If the belief, even fear of something greater than themselves will help people think of others before themselves, I don't see how that's a bad thing. But perhaps the whole reason faith in something greater than ourselves exists can be proved by Death Note: in the hands of a human, divine power can be a terrible weapon of mass destruction, and in the end Light was just as mortal as everyone else. It would take something beyond the scope of a human's thoughts and wishes, however cunning they might be, to actually deliver true divine justice.

Ehh, my thoughts are kinda jumbled on that matter. I'd probably have to go back and reread the ending (I read it kinda quickly) to get the full jist of it. Maybe I'm just also disappointed that my prediction didn't come true: that Light's fate (instead of going to Heaven or Hell, as Ryuk says) would be to become a Shinigami himself. Then the great irony would be that he is stuck killing humans for all eternity: when before he was doing it to relieve his boredom, and now killing humans just makes him as bored as the other Shinigami. Buuut obviously that's not the message they were trying to go for. :P It was still a great irony, just a different kind.

Other things: I really, really missed L. After we discover that Near might have ended up using the Death Note in order to catch Light, I lost a little respect for him, just as Matsuda felt the same. Of course, Mello was just completely crazy, but at least before Near was trying to stay within the realms of morality. Near was right in that he and Mello together were able to surpass L, but they still weren't able to do it with the same sense of integrity that L had, and that's what I missed most about L. It was kind of a sad message that L was unable to use his own skills and knowledge to defeat Light, while Mello and Near succeeded only by using Light's own weapon against him.

I felt most bad for Matsuda, and he kind of made me realize that (again, ironically) in this whole fiasco, it was still the innocent who suffered. Matsuda not only trusted Light, but actually liked him as a person, and he was the one I was feeling for most when Light blatantly betrayed that trust. It was fitting that Matsuda would be the one to actually shoot him (that, and perhaps his tendency to do things without thinking through actually came in useful for once...) but I still felt so bad for him.

I'm not usually one for "sad endings," or to buy something where I feel shaky on its philosophy, but I enjoyed Death Note enough as a story and as an extremely well-drawn manga to keep buying the graphic novels as they come out. (That, and certain roomies will kill me if I don't. XD) And I wonder if, as is oft to happen in animes, if they'll change the ending in the anime. I still need to see the Death Note live action movie!

Aside from all that, I still adore Ryuk. I want to see someone cosplay him. (And then someone else can cosplay Rem and it will be awesome!)

Oh, and I need some Death Note icons. :O


Urk, that was long! But with that kind of story, I guess I can't help but be talkative. XD NOW HURRY UP AND FINISH THE REST SO I CAN TALK WITH SOMEONE ABOUT IT, ghettopeach and sir_snarksalot!

Drawing: Revised more of LG! Also worked a bit more on the doujin yesterday.

Writing: Haven't had the chance to write much yet, but maybe a sporking's on the horizon?