Death Note fans know when Mello was born - December 13th 1989.  Today, had the larger than life, Mafioso character lived, he would have been celebrating his twenty-sixth birthday.

Instead he died at the wheel of a stolen lorry, clutching his rosary and taking Takada with him, their bodies consumed by the inferno (metaphorically as much as literally) and his fractured reputation consolidated as a Wammy House hero.  Illuminating so many clues with his  purpose driven suicidal stunt, that Near could denounce Kira on behalf of them all.  Mello died in Tokyo on January 26th 2010.  He'd just turned twenty-one.

All this we know about Mello's death. But where was Mihael Keehl born?

Author Tsugumi Ohba never said where Mello's birth actually occurred, just when it did.  The earliest location for the Mafia boy was Winchester, England.  Mello was an orphan raised as L's successor at the Wammy House for Gifted and Talented Orphans.  Dodgy place that it was.  But those children were rounded up from across the globe.  Mello doesn't necessary need to be English to wind up in Winchester.

In short, the field is wide open for head canons galore and fan-fiction writers to run rampant in answering the question of Mello's birthplace for themselves.  Me included, though there was method and research behind my own designation of Yugoslavia for Mello's country of origin in the It Matters series.

When I'm not here blathering on about Death Note, I'm a historian.  (To be fair, I'm still a historian here too, just not so obviously.)   Which means that I have research means, programs and the such like to provide me with data to play with during historical query. Or more pertinently here, genealogy.

I strive for  realism in my fan fiction, insofar as it's possible with killer notebooks, shinigami and genius orphan trafficking rings going on in the actual canon background.  So when it became imperative to reveal Mello's nationality, I took the clues at hand and interrogated them to see if clues to Mello's country of birth could be discerned.

Item one was to look at Mello's real name.  Historically, were there any Mihael Keehls anywhere in the world, as discerned via my genealogical databases?  YES!  And he lived in California.  True story.  Travelled there from New York, which he entered in 1870 by ship, then continued on west.  Not quite our Mihael Keehl, but a real one in existence once, and spookily in the right place.

Oh!  And a century earlier, there was another Mihael Keehl holed out in Sacramento, California.

However, US data isn't fabulous for working out surname (and first name) origins, particularly geographically, unless they happen to be First Natives of the Americas.  The USA is a nation of 'huddled masses', which fundamentally came from elsewhere.  Unfortunately no-one noted where Kern, California's Mihael Keehl came from, just where he caught the ship.  Britain.  But Mihael Keehl is not a natively British name.  Nor was he the only Keehl ever to emigrate to America.  The New York port records can give us a run down.

But they are just the Keehls who went to the USA.  Not those staying put wherever they were around the world.  Though before we leave the States, it was amusing to spot Mello in the phone book.  Kira and Near should have just looked there.

Next up was to see where lots of Keehls congregated throughout history.  I had several choices there - Prussia, modern Germany (where it became Kohl),  the Netherlands, Hungary, Slovakia and the former Yugoslavia.  Blond hair and blue eyes points to a Germanic ethnicity for Mello, so the first three were strong contenders.  But where in the world is Michael most usually rendered Mihael?

One quick internet search later and my list is getting narrower - Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, but mostly from countries which formed part of the former Yugoslavia.  Which also featured on my surname list.

So could a native Yugoslav look like Mello?  I searched digital images with the tag 'blond' + 'male' + 'Yugoslav' and somewhere in the mix, I discovered Andrej Pejic (now Andreja Pejic, but still physically male at the time of my search).

Thereon, it was just a case of working out which former Yugoslavian country was the birthplace of Mello in my fan-fiction stories.  I checked out them all on Wikipedia and landed upon Croatia, because it has a sizeable Catholic population.  With all those rosaries, Mother Mary portraits, icons and the such, there's a case to be made for Mello's Catholicism.

And there you go, a credible place of origin for Death Note's Mello.   So where would you have had him born, in your head canon, on December 13th 1989, 26 years ago today?

Since then, the kittens have a travel case so lovely that they doze in it all day in the house and enter it willingly for any journeys out. They've also been to the vets and had their first immunisations, plus flea and worm treatment, and an appointment made for them to be micro-chipped.  Two thirds of that was paid for in Mello and Matt fan-fiction commissions (give or take the couple about EHC members).  Thank you all!

(And this is still on-going.  There's still the neutering/spraying to happen, and the boa constrictor needs a larger vivarium. *sobs*)

I've also been really touched by how many people, in donating to the cause and providing me with a remit for their tale, wanted it set in my own Mello/Matt universe.  I didn't expect that.  I'll be honest and say that it made things a lot easier in terms of speedily getting these stories written and out.  But I anticipated all kinds of AUs and/or alternatives from the canon.  Not so much Matti!Canon, coupled with (so far) unanimous permission from all commissioning tales, for those stories to be shared with everyone else.

Lots of happy tears here.  Reading compliments and requests, feeling so honoured to be entrusted with long-treasured plot bunnies and witnessing readers of my work wanting to add their own chapter in my voice to the MelloxMatt Matti!canon.  Absolutely thank you all. 

Shadow Riso EHC symbols, inspired by MRSJeevas One-Shot Laughter in the Darkness

These stories belong to those who bought them.  However, everyone so far asked that they be shared.  They are supposed to be drabbles (or one-shots), but since when was I able to be that succinct.  One is currently in the process of becoming a novella. 

As one-shots, they usually first appear in the relevant sub-forum at He Moves Me Differently:  Matti!Canon Mello/Matt One-Shots  Those with an account registered at the forum can subscribe at the top, in order to be notified of any post updates.

My stories eventually turn up in the library too.  That may be located on my MRSJeevas fan-fiction website, also called He Moves Me Differently.  It could be practically simultaneously.  It could be days later.  All depends on when I log into my ftp server and upload them there too.

However, I will link you directly here to the most recent additions, as posted onto the forum:

Mello Festival.  Can you imagine it?

A bunch of cosplayers amalgamating in one place to create a sea of blond bobs and feathered leather coats.  Appreciative Mafiosi staging a mass event to honour their most famous son. Or the boy Himself organizing a convention whereby the world's chocolatiers meet together to display their best and favoured products.

Sadly none of the above, though the reality does look rather wonderful!

Mello Festival is a real thing.  It's a brand, new music festival being staged at Throckmorton Airfield, in Britain, during the 2016 May Bank Holiday weekend.  Its first headliners are The Levellers, The Blockheads (of Ian Dury and the.. fame) and Lemur.

Nothing here of more than passing interest for Death Note fans, though it does an almost unceasing source of amusing webpages and articles for those deliberating blurring the festival with the character.

Take, for example, the information page (screenshot on November 20th 2015):

There was you thinking that the best way to find Mello was to check for large chocolate orders in the vague vicinity, then follow the delivery van home.  Poor Near.  He just had to do an internet search and the address was right there.

And if only Kira had read that last part, he could have found Mello quickly, thus negating the entire second arc!

Though both parties might have been a little confused to find 'Mello - the biggest chilled festival' rather than Mello - the most incendiary firebrand to ever march out of Wammy's House (and surround himself with Cosa Nostra) in pursuit of detective prowess and megalomaniac serial killers.

Rather than this one.  Who was in LA.

Ever wanted to see what MRSJeevas would do with your plot bunny? Or how she might write your pairing, if she could ever be persuaded to slip off the Mello/Matt 'ship? Well, here's your big moment!

For a limited time only, MRSJeevas will write to your specification in return for your contribution to her pet fund.

Call it a dollar a drabble; more for a story; riches for research; you'll need to take out a mortgage for a full-length novel. Send your donation and idea(s) for delivery of your very own Death Note fan-fiction. It's yours. Post it where you will, or keep it private, just for you. Stick your own name on it, if you wish. Your personal ghost-writer will never let on that you didn't write the poem, prose or whatever else resides inside.

And it's all for the good cause of needful kitten torture and the rehousing of a boa constrictor.

Tinkerbell is a teenage boa constrictor, currently going through a growth spurt and plagued by kittens.

She's precisely the same height as Matt from Death Note, according to How to Read, only Tinkerbell does it horizontally. (If we're insisting upon vertical, then she's about 2 inches, with a 5ft 5" waistline. At the same level as her head.)

She's also got much the same interests as Death Note's Matt. Here she is joining Anonymous.

Though perfectly fine just now, she'll need a new vivarium early in the new year. Just so she can stretch out and do snake-y things. Like parties. Or preparing for her part-time job as a boa worn during lounge-room renditions of Shirley Bassey songs. (It's been known to happen.) Or whatever else Tinkerbells do. Flutter to Neverland and stuff.

Or, as she's doing right now, curling up, blind and asleep under her basking lamp, while she sheds her skin in order to grow some more.

New vivariums to fit - as she heads upwards towards 6ft and over - cost between £200-£345, depending upon how fancifully it's fitted, and if it includes a fully stocked bar, high speed laptop, en suite bathroom etc. One mod con that we would love is a stand to get her off the floor, where it's cold and prone to kittens.

Talking of which.

Yow needs his balls cut off. Probably to a given value of 'need' and not one subscribed to any male, least of all Yow. But apparently its fashionable to do so to baby boy kittens before you let them play outside.

He also - along with his sister Jiji - needs to have all his inoculations, and be dewormed and deflea-ed (if such things are necessary), before Christmas. So he can come on a nice car ride to Matti's Mum and Dad's house, where turkey and being spoiled rotten will be a thing.

They also need a travel box/cage/thingie, so they don't run wild around Matti's car in a wild panic over moving so fast and far from home. Thus forestalling an horrific car-crash when they claw the driver to death.

In addition to the above vaccinations, travel kit etc, she needs to have her uterus ripped from her body. Coz babies. Brother. Coming of Age. Things like that. I don't know. I'm just told these things by Orangepunch and really should question them more.

Either way, all this costs money for the vet which we haven't got. So a dollar a Death Note drabble anyone? Contact me privately to find out how.

- All of the owners of these Death Note fan-fiction stories have given their permission for me to make them public. They've all been written by me over the past two days.

* Bubbles, Storm Blown
* Big Sleep at the Speakeasy
* An LA Fantasy Tagged Matty
* Laughter in the Darkness

Could he have had much more confidence in his own abilities?  L would quite happily instruct world leaders, decision makers, law enforcement agencies and other powerful people the world over, and feel himself entitled through dint of superior intellect to do that.

It's often played bordering upon arrogance.  Criminal arrogance at that, when we factor in his propensity to order the televised death of one prisoner (Lind L Taylor) and torture of others (Light Yagami and Misa Amane). 

Also in Another Note, Mello implies that L was responsible for the demise of several private investigators - not only the trio named, but hundreds casually collated as a number - as he took their detective codes.  Am I the only one who read that as physical killing?  Or otherwise causing to stop breathing?

Add eleven years more to that mindset and I can see only one of two options - either L's confidence crumbled under the rigours of life and perspective, or it grew into yet more terrible proportions.  There was always little difference between himself and Kira, with regard to their worldly outlook and serial killer tendencies, which is what made the battle between them so intriguing.

If your head canon allows for Kenichi Matsuyama to remain as L for the rest of his life, then we can imagine how the Death Note detective might age.  At least until thirty years old, because that's how old Kenichi is now.  Just watch the actor age, then extrapolate six years more.

Assuming that L's survival meant that he beat Kira, then the world would be his oyster - even more so than at 25, when he could command Interpol and Japanese police officers for the asking.

Yet success in that case couldn't have been easy.  I'm not talking about the clash of minds itself, as L appeared to be thoroughly enjoying that, right up until Kira cheated via deployment of a suicidal shinigami.  I'm talking about the terrible cost of succeeding in such circumstances. 

L would have had a taste of meeting a mind akin to his own.  Then losing it.  What happens after that?

Victory might feel rather hollow without the thrill of psychological battle and a strange kind of kinship.  It could leave him regretting emerging quite so triumphant, and that's a potential dent in his confidence.  If nothing else came along quickly to fill the void, then life might seem to have lost its sparkle.  Demotivating L to the point of potentially throwing in the towel on his detective career.

All kind of directions open up then.  He might take refuge in simplicity.  Becoming a doorman like Christopher Langan - US man estimated to have an IQ as high as 210, thus too clever to tie up his time doing a job that denied him time to think upon his own current interests.

L might sink under cynicism.  Seeking something and finding nothing to the point when the pressure causes his psyche to collapse under its own negative perceptions.  Whole plot bunnies here in L becoming a parody of Beyond Birthday's own dark parody of L himself.

Or he could strike off in another avenue of inquiry and become a brilliant scientist, theologian, philosopher or emulate Wammy as an inventor.  Any number of possibilities here, limited only by his imagination, as delineated by the fan fiction writer.

But whichever way he turns, trouble is being stored up in the background.

It's one thing telling a bunch of 12-14 year olds that they're being trained and competing to become L's heir and successor, but what happens when they're 22-24?

Particularly when they have the intellect to potentially hold the L title in their own right.

We have a precedent in reaching adulthood as a Wammy kid, being told that your only reason to be is to wait in line as L's back up.  Beyond Birthday turned serial killer in an attempt to lure L out.   A took his own life.

So what of those remaining at Wammy's House in this alternative Death Note universe, wherein L didn't die and therefore Near, Mello and Matt emerged to take over the Kira case? 

It ended badly for A and Beyond Birthday, but they were both working alone.   Near and Mello have already shown that they can 'surpass L', if they join forces.  They just have to mature enough to put aside their manufactured rivalry as a distraction from their own enforced position on the detective code conveyor belt.  Mello and Matt have already proven that they can work together.

Whether singly, in pairs, groups or en masse, surely L is going to suffer an onslaught of grown up Wammy kids rebelling against their childhood rendition and expected adult position; stepping out of the fold, or else buying into it and seeking him out with the succession in mind.  Regardless of whether their predecessor still occupies the position into which they've been raised to succeed.

After  all, L's own benchmark was to take the code, no matter what and - if the implications in Another Note hold true - those Wammy heirs have been tutored from childhood to consider cheating and/or murder a valid avenue to winning.  The back up(s) are coming to bite him in the precedent.

Those are my musings.  What do you think L and his world would look like, if he had lived long enough to celebrate his 36th birthday today?

Ever puzzled on how to pronounce a Death Note Wammy kid's name?  Worse still, there is no anime to fall back upon if you're stuck on how to say the name of an original character from the Wammy House.

A few individuals from the He Moves Me Differently forum (Mello/Matt fan-fiction community) met up in Skype last night.  That was the subject which soon emerged, particularly from Lua, who understands a dozen languages and therefore is quite keen on getting these things right.

The upshot was a video guide, which has just been uploaded onto YouTube to take the mystery out of pronouncing Wammy House names. At least as they appear in the It Matters series, though a fair scattering also turn up in Death Note, whence they were lifted in the first place.

Even if you don't know the stories wherein many of these characters derive, you may be able to correct the pronunciation of their names, particularly if you speak Congolese-French, Azerbaijan, Greek, Croatian and one or two more.

How would you like to help fan fiction about Mello and Matt win the top spot?

Not mine this time, but Rhiannon D'Averc's brilliant Kriminalist  in the running for Inkitt's Fandom completion.

The winner can expect assistance in publishing their original novel-length composition as a real world book. In addition, digital trophies will be awarded to those authors ranked first, second and third with their stories.

Those finishing in the topmost 10% will receive a cyber badge reflecting that achievement. Plus, you know, glory and greatness all round.

As Death Note fan fiction goes, the multi-chaptered Kriminalist is one of the long term classics in Mello and Matt fandom stories.

It takes place in an AU universe, wherein neither are killed but suffer the indignity of watching Near take down Kira in the Yellow Box warehouse.

After spending most of their young lives chasing L's killer, in order to become his acclaimed successor, they've lost. So what now?

While Mello freaks, Matt plans. A future is born in a brand new detective code to rival L's own. This time as a partnership, blooming in clues and cases, as well as deepening their dealings with each other.

Not your average romance, but one to delight those who ship Mello and Matt amidst the Death Note fraternity.

Here's how the author describes her MelloMatt fan fiction entry in the novel length (40,000 words plus) Fandom competition on Inkitt:

Kriminalist was recommended to me years ago. Waiting until the other night to read it was an error. I should have been in there when it was first mentioned.

This was one of those moments when I was half asleep and clicked on to the link 'just to see how it starts'.  Next thing I knew, it was several hours later - sleep now being a thing which happens to other people - and the whole novel was read. How could great writing like that be put down, until the tale was told?

I'm not going to tell you how to vote - that's for your conscience to decide

But if you want to read Rhiannon D'Averc's Kriminalist, in this context, you will find the opening chapter here.

It's currently placed at number 166 - with two votes - being beaten by fan fiction novels based on Twilight, Naruto, Pokemon, Supernatural and One Piece, amongst very many more.

Mello and Matt are being beaten by Twilight. Twilight.  Edward/Bella are pwning Mello/Matt.  All I'm saying.

Kriminalist is currently the top ranked Death Note fan fiction novel in the Inkitt contest. It may even be the only one, as I'm yet to find more.

Good luck, Rhiannon, and thank you for writing a tremendous MelloxMatt novel length fan fiction tale.

I've just been giggling and cheering my way through a most enjoyable set of academic Death Note articles.

Casuistor uses Tumblr to rant regarding realism in Death Note. Then occasionally dives into a subject armed with calculators, text-books and (one would presume judging by the narrative) some kind of medical qualification.

I'm a mere First Aid at Work certificate holder, and I was nodding away at the sheer blatant idiocy in some canon goofs pointed out here. Casuistor goes much, much further. The writer not only highlights what couldn't possibly have occurred as per plot, but explains what would have happened instead.

Fan fiction writer's fodder right there.

Which is pretty much how I found the first of these analyses on Death Note.

In my novels, I tried to keep everything within the canon universe. Even if, for the sake of realism, I had to do the writing equivalent of a few triple twist somersaults to turn those story-lines into something which could occur in reality.

However, the one notable place in which I baulked at the prospect was Mello's explosion injuries. I couldn't square the state of his face with him meandering into Hal's shower three days later.  So I inserted a random year into my fan-fiction timeline, just to give him some time to recover.

Casuistor covered the same improbable nature of Mello's ''tis but a scratch' attitude towards extensive third degree burns across a quarter of his body. Or, as the blogger puts it,

Which now has me dying to have Casuistor check out My Own Way, to see if I did better in fan fiction than Ohba did in canon. But I can't do that to the poor love. Some things can't ever be unread.

But Sacrifice should be read, with great enjoyment and a whole lot of enlightenment, wherein you'll find such gems as:

• Calculating Kira's Kill-Count in Death Note Canon
• Was Teru Mikami Schizoid?
• Light was not a Virgin

And a lot more besides.  You're welcome. Enjoy!

Happy October!  For those of you here solely to keep up with the news about my fan fiction, there's a big bit of news for you to kick off the month.

The latest instalment in the It Matters series has just seen its epilogue posted on the He Moves Me Differently forum.

Ghosting the Street is the sequel to Walls Came Tumbling Down, though it takes place two years after that story finished. 

This time, the only walls truly crashing are those around Matt's psyche.

We finally get to discover the secrets he's been keeping all this time. And it might alter the way you view every novel which went before.

At the moment, the forum is the only place that you may read it. This is because the chapters are still very much in draft form. They have been posted still filled with typos, and very much missing Sarevya's expert touch.  If only to maintain continuity.

What happens now is me starting from the beginning, correcting glaring spelling mistakes, checking continuity, answering comments left upon each chapter, updating the website/timeline/wiki for each new element, then gathering the completed version together for publishing in all the usual places.

In short, this is your big moment to influence the content of the latest MRSJeevas Mello/Matt fan-fiction novel, merely by commenting on chapters before I've had chance to amend them.

Thanks to all who've provided such wonderful beta service thus far.

Apologies in advance for whatever is on these Annals of Fear audio files. I haven't actually listened back to them.  It's been four years, so I can't remember what was discussed in and between the readings.

Might be safe for granny; might be one long, sordid expletive fest.  What can I say?  Chaotic Neutral, according to all who know me.

God knows why he favoured that sidewards look, while keeping Takada under surveillance. Misdirecting her gun-toting louts into thinking he could see them too? 

Though it would explain how Matt was able to miss all of those wide escape routes in the spaces between encircling cars. For want of opaque side panels on fashionable googles, thus fatally assuming that he was surrounded.

There's also the friend cosplaying Mello, who emerged smug and filled with insights from a taxing day at an anime/manga convention. 

Though it had been fun, the organizers hadn't quite got the hang of crowd control - bottlenecks formed wherever the flow beached (regularly); heavy-handed security unsympathetically carried out long-winded checks at every juncture; rooms not allocated with any apparent common sense - and the venue became increasingly hot and stuffy. 

Moreover, food vendors were not spread out, resulting reputedly Hellish conditions, as people crammed into a single section of the arena looking to dine. Each of them subject to long waits in queues for food, tables or simply somewhere to sit.  Over-heating, factitious, shouted at by security.

Misa Amane always looks stylish, with her fashionable togs revealing random bits of her body to the rays of the sun.

So what would happen if she'd forgotten to apply the sunscreen before she went out?  Misa cosplayer Ayane Maro found out, when she did just that at Tokyo's Comic Market.

The full story (with pics) is told in Tweets above from the lady herself, or check out a version in English by Brian Ashcraft (Cosplayer Forgets Something Very Important (Kotaku, August 17th 2015)).

Got any Death Note cosplay tales of your own?  Or facets unknown about your character until you donned their clothes? 

Comment and let us know about them!  Such things are the fodder of fan fiction, entertaining in their own right and might even tip off new cosplayers in the Death Note community, before they make the same errors common to all who preceded them.

In the meantime, there's a collection of cosplay Death Note items available on our website for those perfecting or putting their costume together.

This will be old news to many of you, but I thought I'd better mention it again. Just in case someone was hiding under a rock, or otherwise out of the loop the first time around.

There is a sequel to Walls Came Tumbling Down currently being posted to my website's forum. 

Chapters are appearing on a daily basis, as per usual, giving a buzzing group of readers ample time to discuss each titbit and new development. Truly great conversations are inspiring me in turn to write the final part.

Those chapters are very raw - generally without titles as yet and without any proof-reading.  Around two years after the opening part was penned, things happened very fast.  I went from about twenty chapters to closing in on seventy in about three weeks solid.  (Then stopped dead, because of moving house.) 

We haven't even got to the bit where Sareyva ensures the continuity is kept, but forum readers are getting the full preview anyway. They seem to be enjoying it.

Ghosting the Street is set nearly two years after Walls.  It comes in the aftermath of a long, long battle to kick Seroxat for Matt, with recurring attempts at cold turkey having finally taken hold.  Mello is downright worn out with supporting him and things are more than a little desperate.

If this sounds like the most depressive novel I've ever written then ha ha!  My cunning feight worked.  In truth, it's probably the most feel good story of them all. Because when you're so far down that your toes are grazing against rock bottom, there's only one way to go.

What Ghosting the Street does do is tie together many loose ends, which you might not have even guessed were flapping.  I've left a lot of breadcrumbs throughout the previous ten novels, all of them leading to this.

In other news, the Wiki for my fan-fiction is back up and running again. The lovely Bubbles basically bought us a year's subscription, so all are currently rushing to update it.  You not only may, in the words of Uncle Walt, 'contribute a verse' - or add your own pages/references/amendments/edits to the Wiki, but you'll be loved to the very core of your soul for doing it.

Please do feel free to come and join us on the forum.  There's a lot of the old MangaBullet gang there already - if you were once part of the Guns and Games posse - in addition to newcomers to our circle.

All are welcome.  All are doubly welcome if you bring cake.