harder, I'm sure, than it seems

Laura moans about formatting and the trials of life.

As said, I've been writing this damn endgame thing for about 6 or 7 years on various phones, tablets, and computers, and using different fonts and keyboards, so some of the quotation marks are the wrong type. The straight ones. They should all be curly and whimsy. Does anyone care? No. It's just an annoying formatting issue and formatting isn't a strength of mine. Neither is punctuation, but I've embraced that through basically making up my own way of dealing with long monologues and dialogue generally. My beta, Jess, helped A LOT with everything! ♥️ There are horizontal breaks regularly, which in my mind are 'tea break time and live life opportunities' for any poor soul reading it. Please take every opportunity or you may well go a bit nutty.

Any translations are hopefully correct, but since I'm essentially a monolingual "Where is the bathroom, please?" sort of useful touristy stuff + random insults and slang person, I'd appreciate any corrections. Many thanks to Bleu for the Japanese and French check.

Now, The Temple of Lies is a real place (!) and that's what it really is known as now. It was also called 'Bra Temple' but not so much now. Urban explorers might be aware of it, but there was a big fraud scandal and the site was abandoned in the early 2000s. I changed the location to Gunma Prefecture because they're very cagey about the actual location, since they don't want arseholes visiting it and settling fire to it and just being weird leaving bras and dolls everywhere. So, I initially had trouble finding the location, and by the time I did, I'd already plopped it in Gunma because I have no patience.

One of the main buildings where Light hears noises and sees the figure is sadly no more now due to arson since I wrote this. The insane steps, red lanterns, barbie dolls, and bras are also a feature of this place, and there are videos of it by urban explorers on YouTube, if you're interested in it. It's pretty cool. You can't imagine how excited I was to read about it, because I needed a setting, preferably a real one. Yes, I am that nerdy.

In a way, I'd like to preserve it, because that particular shrine building probably won't be around much longer, it's so delapidated now.

Anyway, disclaimer, Gunma is apparently beautiful (it looks beautiful), and a lot of people visit it. Ignore Light.

I have a lot of photos of the actual site, and as I find them I'll post them here. The building the main action happens in is a lot bigger than it is in real life. Artistic licence all over it, dude, but you can see the basics and get the idea.

Translations, etc.

1st Song: Yo soy aquel - Raphael (should have won Eurovision way back when imo).

Yo soy aquél que cada noche te persigue

Yo soy aquél que, por quererte, ya no vive

(Translation:

I am the one who follows you every night/I am the one who, because he loves you, no longer lives.)

Yo estoy aquí, aquí para decirte

Que, como yo, nadie te amó

(Translation:

I am here, here just to say to you/That no one has ever loved you the way I have.)

2nd Song- Happy Heart - (preferably) Andy Williams (it's so damn happy it's frightening. Also thanks to the Shallow Grave film because using this song it messed me up for life and this is the resulting tribute?)

3rd Song - Les feuilles mortes - Yves Montand

Toi tu m'aimais, et je t'aimais, nous vivions tous les deux ensemble.

(Translation: You loved me/and I loved you/we lived together/just the two of us.)

"Quiero un jamón ibérico de bellota entero con un jamonero para llevar."

(Translation: 'I want a whole acorn-fed Iberian ham with a ham holder to take away.')

"Je suis immunisé contre tes petites magouilles de narcissique, pauvre connard pathétique."

(Translation: "I'm immune to your petty, narcissistic schemes, you pathetic bastard."

Note: "a thrush in a bush is worth two in a paddock" is a nonsense proverb I made up and it's a family favourite.

“L’avenir appartient à ceux qui se lèvent tôt."

(Translation - "The future belongs to those who get up early.")

Traditional French Proverb.

"Tu es tellement beau à mes yeux je vais devoir te tuer."

(Translation - "You are so beautiful in my eyes, I’m going to have to kill you.")

Gaijin hunter/gaijin hantā/外人ハンター

a Japanese person who targets foreigners for whatever reason.

Gaikokujin aite no danshō / 外国人相手の男娼

Lit. Male prostitute who services foreigners

‘La plus belle des ruses du diable est de vous persuader qu'il n'existe pas.’

(Translation: 'The devil's greatest trick is convincing you he doesn't exist.')

"Juste ferme ta putain de gueule."

(Translation: "Just shut your fucking mouth.")

Notes

Light vaguely references the Jonestown massacre, and not for the first time.

Ok, so the thing with Those!B is that he's a truthteller but also mad. That's good to keep in mind

The “concrete block” monologue is a critique of British tabloid fear-mongering and true-crime mythologising, with a vague reference to the murder of Lucie Blackman and an extremely abstract reference to serial killer Dennis Nielsen. Of course the media exploited both cases massively, and the monologue is deliberately inaccurate, exaggerated, and rooted in how crime narratives become distorted, so the victims become lost in sensationalism. The result of the media effectively 'choosing' stories to cover is influenced by systemic bias, societal prejudices, and the devaluation of certain lives. B takes it up to 11.

"Ambushed by a cake" is slightly tweaked but based on something said during the Partygate scandal in the UK in January 2022. It was leaked that there was a party in Downing Street in June 2020 during the height of Covid and its strict restrictions, which were enforced by arrests and fines on everyone apart from politicians and other so-called 'elites', apparently. People were very annoyed about it, understandably. An MP defended Boris Johnson (Prime Minister of the UK at the time), saying that Johnson had been “ambushed with a cake” for his birthday, implying that people simply surprised him with a cake and he just happened to be there, it wasn't his fault that they were breaking the rules, etc., blah, blah, political twaddle.

The "Oh, hi Mark" is hopefully recognisable dialogue from Tommy Wiseau's masterpiece which is The Room.

Lots of call backs in this one because the plot demands it and I'm a sucker for a circle back. There's the alleyway scene in Chapter 8 and the signing of Light's candidacy papers for PM scene. Quite a lot of call-backs to chapter 10 and the first arc in particular, but a bit of everything. I'll try to catch them all like Pokémon but sometimes I can't remember which chapter they're from exactly.

Harold Holt was indeed an Australian PM in the late 60s (I'm think 1969 but please don't quote me, and I'm too lazy to check) who disappeared while swimming, assumed drowned, never found his body. My Aussie friends here will know all about it, for sure. 😄

Prompts:

day 1: death's beloved / rose

day 2: watchful / eye deal

day 3: bone and dust / everlasting

day 4: fashion / break all the rules

day 5: pretty lies / inked

day 6: murderer / all the way alive

day 7: borrowed time / happy ending

Always found this so interesting that Light channeled the hurt and disappointment he felt from the criticism into equal passion for the ‘correct response’ his father expected to hear. When he is recovered and lying, he shows his face to Soichiro. And when he was alone with Ryuk who knows the truth, he had nothing to say, face obscured once more. We see another instance with Sayu, face hidden and a non-comittal response:

It was painful to have his own family misunderstand him but that was a cost of being Kira, and he’d pay it until he could convince them. I think he believed that as the world came to accept Kira (as much of it did over the years) his father would come around too. Light pays close attention throughout the manga about the overall opinion of Kira— it matters. Of course, Soichiro died before Light ever got the chance to convince him, which makes a scene with Matsuda shortly after more tragic through his eyes:

This conversation sounds somewhat rehearsed from Light’s end (and once more we see his face/emotions hidden). It is nearly out of character for Light to offer up such pro-Kira opinions around the Task Force, but I believe he does so due the the timing— his father just died and this is what he would have like to have said to Soichiro. He can understand the conflict Matsuda has, of being a cop meant to catch Kira vs. having doubts that Kira is only doing evil. Those panels also illustrate Light’s paradoxical opinions about his own righteousness and capacity for evil acts, how much the acceptance matters to him, how he thinks of himself as a martyr, and how the end result/greater good justifies short-term evil.

But anyway, this is the conflict he wanted to see in Soichiro, that thread he could have gently pulled at until his father became convinced or at least understood him. Instead, Soichiro dies believing the same thing he stated to Light here:

And we know this because despite taking the Shinigami eye deal and saying he could and would use the Death Note to kill, when it came down to it, he couldn’t do it.

Which makes Light thinks ‘you fool’.....Soichiro would rather die than take a life, even that of a criminal. Soichiro made a mistake Light couldn’t understand, and to him, ended up dying ‘for nothing.’ It’s all about results.