catboymettaton

as someone who goes by multiple names I spend a lot of time wondering what counts as a "true" name for death note purposes. this is the result of that wondering. originally written november 2024

Mello struck a cunty little pose and flipped his hair.

Near WISHES he was half as sexy as Mihael Keehl.

He picked up his cross necklace and clasped it behind his neck.

The only reason L didn’t pick ME, Mihael Keehl, to be his successor is cause he never saw me in person. If he’d seen me the charisma would’ve been overwhelming and he never would’ve thought about Near ever again. He would’ve gone “Ooh, Mello, it’s gotta be Mello!” and Mihael Keehl would’ve been the winner.

He bucked his belt and left the bathroom. The morning ritual was complete.

No one knew exactly how Kira’s powers worked. Obviously, he needed a name to kill. But what sort of name?

If aliases worked, L would’ve been fucked in the ass the second Kira ever saw his face.

(L had probably gotten fucked in the ass anyway but that was neither here nor there.)

(Both metaphorically and literally.)

So it couldn’t just be the name people called you. It had to be some sort of “real” name, a “true” name.

What the hell did it mean to have a true name?

Wammy’s house hinged on the principle that you couldn’t trust anyone at all, except for yourself. And so they had to use the names Roger gave them. But living under a fake name was dangerous. Spend too long with everyone calling you Mello and you stop thinking of Mello as a stupid pseudonym. You become Mello.

And that was why Mihael Keehl had to remind himself who he was every single morning.