Good Cop, Bad Cop, Introduction and Chapter 1

[pargoletta]

It's here! What better to celebrate American Independence Day than . . . posting a fanfic about an anime series set in Japan? Oh, well. Here's my foray into the world of Death Note, as I take on one of the show's many raging plot holes. Blame valmora for encouraging me in this pursuit.

Title: Good Cop, Bad Cop
Author: pargoletta
Fandom: Death NoteMain Pairing

Comments

[valmora]

In fact, Light often found himself admitting that, despite being L’s mortal enemy and firmly committed to the cause of seeing him dead in what he hoped would be the very near future, L was the most interesting person he had ever encountered.
I don't know why, but this made me laugh. A lot.

Matsuda, perhaps you’d better go home and read up on interrogation procedures.”Aww. I like Yagami-san here. He's just so...benevolently and responsibly clueless. And L is just like, "LALALA I PRETEND I DON'T KNOW AND MEANWHILE I SCREW WITH YOUR HEAD

[pargoletta]

And L is just like, "LALALA I PRETEND I DON'T KNOW AND MEANWHILE I SCREW WITH YOUR HEAD!"

And it's so clear when he's doing it, too. That was one of the little details about the show that were kind of . . . I don't know. L totally gets this weird little tone in his voice whenever he's being disingenuous, and the police are just dumb enough not to notice it.

Also, THE COWBOY IN THE WHITE HOUSE.
(and the war on terror! I sat there and went, YES. YES YES YES.)

This being the early fall of 2006 (based on the nice weather and school starting), it's probably a couple of weeks before the electorate delivered that gigantic smackdown to the Current Occupant, turning Congress Democratic and forcing Rumsfeld to resign. The Current Occupant was acting especially irresponsibly at that time, as I recall, which is part of what contributed to the Election Day smackdown.

Light is just a kid - a very smart kid, clearly, but just a kid nonethelessThis just makes the police's ongoing failure even more embarrassing. And contributed to my desire to

[valmora]

L totally gets this weird little tone in his voice
Interesting. I didn't hear that in the Japanese, but then, it's not like at the time I understood any (I still don't, really, argh). I mostly look at his facial expressions, which DEFINITELY change.

but didn't want to admit it because it would mean losing his only friend.
To my regret and probably also yours, the author of DN has stated unequivocally that L never actually considered Light his friend because he suspected him, and that when he said Light was his friend he was lying. It's in volume 13 of the manga, the encyclopedia volume.
I personally have difficulty believing it but have to accept its canonicity because any arguments I find not to believe it hinge upon its out-of-the-actual-work status, which would mean that I also couldn't acknowledge the canonicity of Dumbledore being gay for the same reasons.

Could you wait on your thing until September, when I'll be back in the States and ready to answer questions and read your story?Ahahaha! Of course, although it's not

[pargoletta]

Interesting. I didn't hear that in the Japanese, but then, it's not like at the time I understood any (I still don't, really, argh). I mostly look at his facial expressions, which DEFINITELY change.

It may be only on the dub, which I watched because it was what was available on YouTube at the time.

L never actually considered Light his friend because he suspected him, and that when he said Light was his friend he was lying.

Ding! And we go into bonus rounds in our latest edition of "Find the Plot Holes in Death Note!"

Write character study, gen, non-gen, something completely off-the-wall, whatever you like. Just wait till I'm around to read it!

[valmora]

It may be only on the dub,
It's probably in the Japanese but my Japanese isn't good enough to tell (put it this way: I can't find my way around the city without the handy English-text signs, and if I didn't have the signs I would never be able to get anywhere because my Japanese is only good enough to ask where something is, not to understand the reply).

bonus rounds in our latest edition
Exactly. Depending on the audience, I either put it down to incipient brain death due to lack of actual nutrients and lack of sleep, or I say L was really gay for Light and it compromised his impartiality.
Being me, I'm quite partial to the latter, of course, since I have characters who do pretty stupid stuff and the only logical explanation for their reactions is that they're in love with each other. But with me, it's deliberate...

something that should come into existence anyway,
If you have AIM, we should at some point hang out online and talk through something like that and collab it, for serious.

[pargoletta]

I either put it down to incipient brain death due to lack of actual nutrients and lack of sleep, or I say L was really gay for Light and it compromised his impartiality.

Not that these two things are mutually exclusive. And either one of them is a better explanation for why Death Note lasted more than ten episodes than canon. Hence this story. I mean, really. Light is only a teenager, and the NPA is damn good at getting confessions out of grownups -- they have to be, since prosecutors tend not to touch cases that don't come with confessions. Even a bright, manipulative teenager would not stand a chance against the interrogation methods that the NPA has been known to use, as per that Amnesty International report.

Alas, I don't have AIM. We'll see what happens in September. I have a major comprehensive exam, and I'll be co-coordinating a university workshop and probably TAing again, but we'll see.

[valmora]

Not that these two things are mutually exclusive
You might even be able to make a case that one could be caused by the other.

Even a bright, manipulative teenager would not stand a chance against the interrogation methods that the NPA has been known to use, as per that Amnesty International report.
Yeah. Oh, author's convenience. If Light had caved under interrogation, though, it would have been a very short manga...giant plothole. I mean, L would have no compunctions against using those methods, probably, given his willingness to sacrifice lives in the pursuit of Kira. But on the other hand, he might be more like Near than we want to think - he doesn't do it the easy way because it's easy, because being easy makes it not worthy of the situation.

Alas, I don't have AIM.
Nor Skype? (the IM function) I know that once the school year starts I'm going to have zero time to be online, so that wouldn't work at all.

[pargoletta]

You might even be able to make a case that one could be caused by the other.

Sure. Why not? It's as good an explanation as any.

he doesn't do it the easy way because it's easy, because being easy makes it not worthy of the situation.

Which is exactly why people like that should not be allowed to lead murder investigations. Their goal is to extend an entertaining game, rather than apprehend a murderer and save lives.

I don't have Skype, either, that I know of. And in a couple of weeks, I'll be heading off to a place where I have no idea what the Internet access situation will be. They keep saying "No internet access in the university or the military academy dorms!" But they keep saying this by e-mail. . .

We'll see what happens when September rolls around.

[valmora]

Their goal is to extend an entertaining game, rather than apprehend a murderer and save lives.
I think Peter's Evil Overlord List has something like that in there....I think L's psychology is helpful if you want someone who's going to figure out who the murderer is - but then to prove it, it should probably go to other people, I agree. Which is what you're writing, basically.

that I know of.
If you don't know you have it, you don't have it. You'd have to download it free.
Maybe once you got back we could just start up comment threads of doom, or something.

[pargoletta]

This is why SVU has a psychologist character who only does profiling and the occasional Meaningful Conversation with suspects and victims. The actual detectives actually do the actual detective work, which includes making arrests.

Comment threads of doom are fine things in life.

[pargoletta]

And the Matsuda/Aizawa idea may well be something that should come into existence anyway, regardless of whether or not it's connected to Good Cop, Bad Cop.