#number 20

#20: I Don't Have A Problem (S3E12)

Clear. 🤩 One of The Walking Dead's best episodes for many reasons, but especially for the beautiful seeds it planted between Rick and Michonne. The fence is where their lives became interlocked, and Clear is the start of where their hearts became interlocked. And in this scene right here, Richonne became absolutely inevitable...

It’s got the whole family in it! And a big Miss. Miller moment you won’t wanna miss!

Welcome to A Gathering of the Greatest Gumshoes! During this month-long event, I’ll be counting my Top 31 Favorite Fictional Detectives, from movies, television, literature, video games, and more! Today, the countdown enters the Top 20!

SLEUTH-OF-THE-DAY’S QUOTE: “Kill me if you can!”

Number 20 is…L, from Death Note.

So far, all of the detectives on this list have been protagonist figures. Not all of them have been the MAIN protagonists (although the grand majority have been), but the focus in every situation up till now has been on the detectives trying to solve the cases. This, of course, is not always the case: not every protagonist is a hero, not every antagonist is a villain, and there are two sides to every story. While antagonistic detectives are somewhat rare, they do exist, and in various forms. Most I didn’t feel deserved placement on this countdown, however, due to one or more of the rules I established at the start. This character, however, is an exception.

“Death Note” is a highly-acclaimed anime and manga franchise, which sort of toes the line between crime/mystery drama and supernatural horror. The plot focuses on a Villain Protagonist: Light Yagami, a.k.a. Kira. Light is a precocious young man with a lot of high ideals: he sees the world as a corrupt place, and wishes there was a way to right the wrongs and bring true justice to the people. This desire gets twisted and warped when he comes into possession of the titular Death Note: a notebook with a very dark and dangerous magical ability. Whenever someone’s name is written in the Death Note…they die. And the person who writes the name down can even choose how and when they die, if they so wish. Light realizes the book has the power to grant him the justice he craves so much; consumed by the Death Note’s power, he goes mad and becomes the serial killer “Kira,” using its power to destroy anybody he deems unfit of living in the world he wants to create…or just anybody who gets in his way.

Light does not go unchallenged in the series, and this is where our contender for today comes into play: a mysterious private investigator known simply as “L.” This young fellow is a foil to Light, in a lot of ways: Light is seemingly normal, well-spoken, clean-cut, and conventionally attractive. L, in contrast, is a reclusive little hobgoblin obsessed with computers and candy. What both share is the fact they are each geniuses, both wiser and more clever than their youthful years would indicate. L becomes determined to solve the case of Kira, and it’s his actions and choices that create much of the conflict Light must face on his self-righteous and deadly quest.

Much of the show revolves around the concept of a single word I’ve used here already: “justice.” All of the major characters have their own philosophies and outlooks on what “true justice” really is. Light believes justice is as simple as punishing the guilty; as he is corrupted by the power the Death Note brings to him, he comes to think that the only way one can achieve true justice is to eliminate all of one’s enemies, so that those you care about can be rewarded and saved. L believes much the same, but he sees it from a different point of view: he believes Kira should be punished for his crimes, because that is what “true justice” is, regardless of his motivations. However, L is not a pure and simple hero in this story; he does things that are legally and ethically questionable in his pursuit of putting Kira behind bars. His ideal of justice is set up by the precedent that murder is wrong, and therefore catching murderers is just; how one actually goes about doing that is not something he really cares about on the whole.

Another thing that makes L interesting is his relationship with Light: while the two are dead serious about destroying one another, each comes to see the other as probably the closest thing either has ever had to a real, true friend. Indeed, there are, one could argue, subtle implications of romance between the pair. This makes what happens to L later in the manga and the anime even more tragic, because – SPOILER ALERT – in both, L does not survive the entire series. However, even after he dies, he’s far from done with Light Yagami, as things L did before his destruction ultimately do lead to Kira’s downfall. In the words of a different story, “Neither can live while the other survives.” Their twin paths ultimately result in mutual destruction, which is wonderfully poetic. I would argue the musical of Death Note (yes, there IS a musical, and it’s actually pretty good) does this even better than either the anime OR the manga…but that’s another story for another time.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 19!

Oooh, nice choices! Thank you so much for the request and I hope you enjoy the drabble!

*****

"Bucky! Be careful! You almost hit Vernon," said Sam, Bucky… confused.

“You know this Serpent Society crony?” asked Bucky, still throwing knives at the man dressed like a snake mascot (looking more like a lizard, if Bucky was being honest).

“No, my name’s Hubert!” said the crony, pinned to the wall now by half a dozen knives, Bucky basically playing with his food at this point, Hubert awkwardly waving as best as he could from the position.

“What? No. Vernon. Over there,” said Sam, Bucky desperately looking around for who “Vernon” might be, only to find… a bird next to the lackey?

“That’s Vernon? The bird?” asked Bucky, raising an eyebrow, throwing a knife near the beast of a pink bird, only for the bird to flinch.

“He’s a Roseate Spoonbill and his name is Vernon,” said Sam all grumbly (and cute), walking over to the bird - Vernon.

Bucky couldn’t stop watching the two of them, this weird interaction that came out of literally nowhere. Sam was making a series of clicking and honking and almost oinking sounds at Vernon, moving his body along with his vibranium Captain America wings.

And Vernon made noises and gestures back at Sam, the two giving off the vibes of two old ladies discussing gossip while the person they were talking about was in the room.

“Wait, are you two talking about me?” asked Bucky, absently throwing more knives to pin the Serpent Society henchman down even more securely, doing tricks as he tossed them, trying not to think about the nerves bubbling up, wondering when his boyfriend developed the ability of avian telepathy in his spare time, Sam and Vernon eyeing Bucky with judgmental looks before going back to their conversation, “What are you talking about? Sam, you’re telling him good things about me, right? Right?”

Vernon and Sam did a little dance and a lot of cawing that felt like Vernon giving Sam his sympathy for being stuck with Bucky before flying out into the sunset.

“Wow, I didn’t know Captain America could talk to birds!” said Hubert, looking like he would have clapped at the bird show if he could put his hands together.

“I’m a man of mystery,” said Sam, winking more at Bucky than Hubert, which was somehow still very sexy despite the man torturing Bucky with knowledge Bucky must know.

“Wait, what was that? What did he say?” asked Bucky, feeling the peak of his insecurities boiling to the top and overflowing a bit into his voice, hand flipping a knife just to have something to do that wasn’t thinking about what the bird and Sam were discussing about him just moments ago.

“It’s nothing,” said Sam, pressing his button to alert the authorities of an arrest, getting ready to fly off, “He just told me to tell you ‘You know what you did’.”

I got the R&M brainrot

I've been tuned into this season of Married at First Sight. I could give a whole speech on who I like and don't like but that's a whole different discussion. I want to focus on Karen, 30 and Myles, 26. They knew when they paired them together the age would be a problem but man are they trying my patience.

Before the wedding Karen said she wasn't a risk taker so this was outside of her wheelhouse but you signed up and went through all the interviews to get there. You were chosen now it's time to start the journey and I get fear and apprehension but you'll never know what love and lessons can be waiting on you.

The night before the wedding she got his name and found him on Instagram and was questioning if she wanted to marry him because he wasn't what she considered her "type" but it didn't seem physically driven, it was because he talked about his feelings and that wasn't what she considered to be masculine.

That irritated me because a man can be every bit of a man and still be emotionally mature. That's what I want in a man. Tell me about how your upbringing shaped you. Tell me about your growth in life and if you required therapy. Tell me about how you've always wanted a strong passionate love.

Communicate. Open up. Be emotional.

This is not to say I want a man crying every minute but if you need to break down I will not think you are less than a man because of that. I don't want anger to be the only emotion you feel comfortable sharing with me.

When I'm hurting, I want you there for me and able to help me instead of running away from the amount of emotion I show (which isn't alot).

I'm a tough woman and want a tough man that makes me feel safe and cared for but I'll be damned if we can't talk about emotions because that isn't "manly".

I'll take that emotionally mature man over a shell of a man any day.