A Tithe To Hell
| Fanfiction | |
|---|---|
| Title: | A Tithe To Hell |
| Author(s): | ningenfucker (aka Aja Romano) |
| Date(s): | 11 November 2007 |
| Length: | 34,000 words |
| Genre(s): | Drama, Romance, Smut |
| Fandom(s): | Death Note |
| Relationship(s): | |
| External Links: | A Tithe To Hell at livejournal archive.org backup A Tithe To Hell at AO3 |
 Icon crop of fanart for this fic by marokura | |
Click here for related articles on Fanlore. | |
A Tithe To Hell is an L/Light Death Note fanfic written by Aja Romano under the penname ningenfucker (ningensucker on Fanfiction.net). In the author's own words, the fic was "an AU attempt to turn Death Note canon into my own kinky fairy tale".[1] Originally, the fic was also posted to FFnet, however, the author couldn't "cope with FFN's horrific formatting guidelines", and all that remains at the FFnet fic page are the author's notes and a link to the author's livejournal.[2] It was eventually uploaded to AO3.[3]
Summary
Light has 13 days to find out how it will feel, not just to kill, but to destroy. A Death Note AU. LightxL, set immediately after the Yotsuba arc. Warnings for angst, blood, and cake.[2]
A Tithe to Hell is a canon Alternate Universe fic which diverges from Death Note canon following the end of the Yotsuba arc of the series, after Light has gotten his memories back and reverted to his role as Kira. In canon, at this point the detective L gives up considering Light as his main suspect and removes the handcuffs that have kept them chained together. The fic is premised on the idea that instead, L the detective retains his suspicion and decides to test the fake rules Light makes up for the Death Note.
L devises a 13-day lockdown period for him and Light (still handcuffed together at this point) in order to test the fake "13 Day Rule" which says that the owner of the Death Note will die if they don't write a name down in the book for 13 days. Since the 13 day rule is Light's main alibi to divert suspicion away from him as the prime suspect to be Kira, he knows L's test is mainly a way of fact-checking his alibi.
Over the course of the 13-day period, Light, knowing that L will arrest him when the 13 days are up, begins to seduce L as part of his efforts to find a way out of his predicament. L seems to be falling for him, but is ultimately revealed to have been playing along with Light's game in order to trick Light into revealing too much about his suspected role as Kira. Another aspect of the fic is the concept of memory repression: the fic posits that Light-as-Kira represses all his memories of playing the part of a "good" character during the Yotsuba arc. These repressed memories then resurface at inconvenient moments, ultimately resulting in a breakdown when Light realizes he no longer wants to kill L.
The fic is widely considered a classic of the Death Note fandom.[4][5][6]
Popularity
As of December 2015, the fic had 930 kudos on AO3. As of September 2017, 80 comments on FFnet[2] and 507 comments on LJ (although about half of those can be attributed to the author).[7]
Related Fanworks
The fic was posted with embedded art by quaedam. The picture link in the artist's post no longer works,[8] but the art can still be viewed in the fic itself (NSFW Link).
Later, marokura created additional fanart for this fic. While this too was embedded in the story, the picture link no longer works.[9] A WIP version of the art can be viewed at the artist's deviantart, Archived version, and the author has a cropped version of it as the FFnet cover art.
Notes
- ^ ningenfucker (6 Nov 2007). "A Tithe to Hell. Death Note, Light / L." Archived from the original on 20 Oct 2017. Retrieved 2 Feb 2017.
- ^ a b c ningensucker. A Tithe To Hell, a death note fanfic. Published 8 Nov 2007, accessed 2 Feb 2017.
- ^ Aja. A Tithe To Hell. Published 6 Nov 2007, accessed 6 Sep 2017.
- ^ "Death Note Fic Recs". Archived from the original on 2022-05-20. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
- ^ "llawlietofficial Tumblr". Archived from the original on 2018-12-04. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
- ^ tl--dr. "Crack Van". Archived from the original on 15 November 2022. Retrieved 7 September 2017.
- ^ ningenfucker. (Day 1). Published 6 Nov 2007, accessed Feb 3 2017.
- ^ quaedam (25 Sep 2007). "Light/L again (in b4 gb2gurochan)". Archived from [fanart] the original on 15 Jan 2021.
{{cite web}}: Check|url=value (help); Unknown parameter|accesse-date=ignored (help) - ^ ningenfucker (6 Nov 2007). "Judgement". Retrieved 2 Feb 2017.
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