Can you talk more about OCD Light Yagami? Not my headcanon,but the idea is intriguing and cool.
I would absolutely love to share the brainworms, actually. (Disclaimer I am not a psychologist etc, this is mostly based on my own experiences.)
The most painfully relatable part of Light in this regard, imo, is how absolutely desperate he is. There’s a need to be good that’s under all of his motivation, and we see through the story how he rationalizes that needing to be good and needing to be right under all of that talk of justice and helping the people. (I could probably make a whole other argument here about Light having high masking autism and the black and white thinking that comes with that feeding into his ocd, but that’s for another post.)
That need to be right, that need for balance, is something that has always been a key part of my experience. With that comes the compulsions - and Light’s seem to pretty clearly be rumination. Yeah, we make fun of his dramatic speeches about making a better world, but they also can slot neatly into the winding rationalizations that I myself have made to keep that sense of balance in myself. I’d compare moral ocd to standing on a sheet of thin ice with cold, plunging water right below you feet. You make your ruminations, your compulsions, to scrabble against the ice and keep yourself on your own two feet without cracking the ice and falling into the current below.
Another one of my compulsions back when i was really struggling was confessions, and while you could argue he steers away from that because it would be acknowledging how what he did was awful, he does fall into that at times. His speech to Matsuda about Kira. He’s acknowledging how what Kira does is evil, and at the same time he’s somewhat searching for absolving. Obviously, this is hindered by the fact that he’s hiding the fact that he actually is Kira, but the pattern is the same. He’s voicing his fears and his rationalizations - because in his mind, his ruminations, they just swirl and swirl without any sort of balance. I’m wondering if Ryuk was a sort of lifeline in that way, though obviously he wouldn’t absolve Light of his guilt in any way. Similarly, I wonder if Light ever gave his confessions and fears to L during the Yotsuba arc - if L somehow became the subject of his absolution. In my experience, they’re generally given to people you trust, but Light didn’t really have anyone he trusted during the Yorsuba arc. L was, unfortunately, the closest thing he had to a lifeline. Much to think about.
Anyway, most of this usually stems from high expectations of oneself and perfectionism combined with a colossal amount of insecurity (the water beneath the ice) (as well as a big imagination - to fit all of those ruminations in!). Sure, Light isn’t really shown to have insecurities at the beginning, but people raised to be perfect generally do - especially considering the fact that Light was hiding so much of himself. Who did he have to talk to? To go through his fears with in a healthy matter? They just sat, and sat, and swirled around like muck.
Sure, most ocd spirals don’t come from murdering two people. But that sure as hell could trigger it.
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