It looked a mess. Hundreds of older articles and posts were affected - sometimes whole months worth left unreadable - which was a) annoying to anyone wishing to peruse them; b) disappointing to those wanting to link them elsewhere to win arguments against other people being wrong on the internet; and c) a terrible slap to those writers who had created them in the first place. 

Some of the latter were guest contributors, for whom we do have a responsibility to be respectful of their work.

Finally, the Death Note News readership is growing so fast.  Some 3000 page views (with 400-500 unique visitors) a day is becoming the norm, when we'd only just got used to last month's norm of just over 2000 of the former, 300 or so of the latter.  Many of these people are finding us through historical links appearing in searches or passed on, word of mouth, via social networking. 

Can you imagine having that many visitors turn up and the place is looking like a mess?  Our mothers didn't raise us like that. They would be mortified!

Nor do we want to know said visitors were left disappointed, because the page that enticed them here was, in all likelihood, destroyed by the redesign.

As far as we're concerned, all of the Death Note News archived articles are perfectly formatted, legible and each of their elements are arranged in optimum order to be enjoyed.  We won't be tatting in there as a matter of course anymore.

Naturally, there will be something missed, overlooked or which reasserted itself into chaos the second its fixed version was republished.  We'd appreciate any feedback if you spot anything awry.

Though be gentle in telling us.  We're all still twitching.  Wrap the head's up in cake or something.  In fact, just send the cake!

And thanks.

You may be forgiven for wondering if you've entered the Twilight Zone, or some bug is running rampant through our site.  When the Death Note News summary is showing current articles alongside those dating months or even years back, then something is clearly going on.

It is.  Me.

When the Death Note News website updated its look, some of the more ancient articles wouldn't render.  The sparkling fresh design left them greyed out, so visitors couldn't read a word. Or else rearranged each element, so they made less sense than usual.  Often both.

Why this should happen for some articles (or blocks of months) and not others remains a mystery.  We'll be sure to pass it onto a Wammy kid, next time we see one still alive.

In the meantime, as part of our ongoing maintenance, our staff are revisiting all those old articles and fixing them.  Taking the time to also check that they're all tagged and categorized correctly. Moreover that every image has the associated text needful for them to be accessible for those using sight accessibility software to browse the web.

So far every article from October 2o14 to the end of June 2015 has thus been dusted off and cleaned. Each one completed then gets a pin on Pinterest, so those boards may be called completed by the finish of this endeavour.  Hence old articles appearing alongside the new on our streams.

Right now, every old Death Note News article should be readable, though we can't guarantee all elements in order.  If you spot one missed, or want to link to one as yet unfixed, then shout up and it'll be sorted out for you.

Thanks for your patience.

What have you got?  Bring out your fan-art; your links to the stories; your cosplay photographs, tutorials and places to make or buy.

Death Note academics!  Have you ever pondered a point, or thought it would be good to investigate and report back upon something within the genre?  This is your big moment to drag that vague musing out into the open and let the rest of the fandom share your findings.

Musicians!  Has something or someone in the manga inspired your compositions?  Do you have a kick-ass cover version of a theme lurking in your video channel?  Share with us. We want to hear!

Cooks, chefs, cocktail mixers and bakers!  Have you ever knocked up a Watari salad or a Sachiko Yagami soufflé? Bring forth your recipes, let us nom.

RPers unite! AMV collators, please link! Death Note video short makers, why have we not yet seen your stuff?

Do you run a community, group, channel, stream, website or whatever else focused around a single character?   We want to know about that too!  Promote your place; publicise your event; bring us cyberspaces where we might gather, met and love what you have laid on for Death Note fans to enjoy.  No-one's precious here. Here is no rivalry. Think of us as your curators in this regard.

In short, if you've got it, we want to see it; if you make it, we want to wow over it; if you can conceptualize it, then this is show and tell time right here.

Come on, Death Note fandom, bring us what you've got!

Take yourself over to the Death Note News contact page.  There you will find a form to email the editor with smaller items like links, information etc., or else discuss with her an idea that you have for the Month of...  event.

You will also discover a ready-made FileDrop box, wherein larger media - art, music, videos et al - may be submitted for inclusion in the feature.  They will be picked up and sifted through by the team here, then posted publicly for your fifteen minutes of fame and glory.   Probably on an 'as they come' basis, with no real waiting on ceremony.

Expect all the diversity in our collective scope and vision.

And if you really do have nothing, then please contribute anyway in comments and support.

It's anticipated that many of those sharing their work or thoughts with us aren't used to doing so in such a public forum.  They may be nervous as Hell and hoping just that someone reads, and comments, and likes it.  That's you, in the frame.

Good luck, good fight and off you go!

What's up people?  I hope you're all beautifully recovered from whatever decadence and over-everything your Midwinter festivals produced.

I'd like to say that we are fighting fit and raring to go here at Death Note News.  But the truth is that most of us are dying of various strands of flu. Hence the slow start to the season in New Year 2016 news about Death Note. Nevertheless, the stories, columns and articles are stacking up behind the scenes and it's about time that us editorial types crawled out of our beds to post them. Matti here, on the case. *cough*

So what's happening on Death Note News for 2016?  In addition to the usual columns, features, editorials and up to the moment news about the franchise and its fandom as it occurs, we do have plans for new stuff, which all hope that you'll find rather exciting.

The first addition will be On This Day in Death Note - a new feature which, in theory, alerts you daily to what each day brings in terms of celebrations, anniversaries, birthdays, memorials etc. You will also be able to look up dates in advance, thus forever knowing what happened in the Death Note universe on your birthday and that of all your friends and family.

It is all coming soon.  It would have been here already, but production on the calendar collapsed under the aforementioned plague epidemic assaulting our editorial staff.

Fact and fiction alike are included. We are scouring canon, plot-lines, reference guides and biographies to create something as comprehensive as possible, spanning all media in which this story has been told.  That's important dates within Death Note as a tale, and also those pertaining to its creators, actors, producers etc.  A resource for you all.

Related to the above, we're going to declare a Month of... at each appropriate juncture of the calendar, wherein we'll invite folk to submit anything pertaining to that character.  Be it fan-art, links to fan-fiction, one off articles, musings, essays, cosplay photographs etc.   As long as its clean and family friendly, this is your big moment to have your work, guest blog or whatever in the spotlight of Death Note News.

This is in addition to the general articles, which our team will be writing as normal in and around all the focused rest.

We're planning to begin in February with Light Yagami.  Therefore if you have anything to say, investigate, report, write, draw, link or otherwise contribute on the subject, please do start putting it together now.  Contact us for discussions in advance if needful and/or details on how to submit.

And yes, your stuff is good enough. As Walt Whitman so eloquently put it, 'the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse'.

Much else that is planned for the website early in 2016 is cosmetic.  With the new theme fully installed, there's tatting in the archives to ensure all is working well (feedback greatly appreciated if you find something awry); plus organising navigation to make it all appear more user friendly and easier to find content.

However, there are some hangovers from last year which need completing.  Notably the last in the Sachiko Yagami articles, plus our analysis of the final episodes of Death Note 2015 TV drama.  Both of which were woefully edged out by festivities, or else accidentally overlooked for the back end of the previous year.  They will be put in place.

We also need to bring you up to date with The Cosplayer Chronicles - details of which have been sent, just not published.  Squad Six Cosplayers HAVE completed their Death Note panel and it was - by all reports - quite wonderful.  As for the other columnists, there's more from Nathaniel's philosophical overview of Death Note to post, plus another article from Tarot Mikami taking a more esoterical perspective in Death Note Tarot Tales.

Expect more too from Lucas King, as well as on-going Focus on a Fan community features.

If you'd like to participate in the latter, or indeed if you have an idea for a column which you would like to write/see written, then please do run it past us. This could be your year for fame and glory in the franchise or at least, the fandom.

Moreover, we've made a long list of people to contact in order to expand another neglected part of the website - our Death Note Interviews.  Keep you posted, should anything more come of that. 

2016 promises to be a big year for Death Note. The fandom has already swelled with its Musical and TV adaptations bringing our story to ever wider crowds, then two live action movies are going to see those numbers explode.  Are you ready for it? 

As for the burgeoning volume of fans in the Death Note community, we've certainly witnessed it in our readership of Death Note News.  Check out these stats for the past month (ignoring the dip at the end, as it was screenshot first thing in the morning when no-one had time to read anything):

To put that in context, this time last year, we were receiving less than 500 page views per day.  Now that number has quadrupled. It will be quite amazing to watch what happens on Death Note News in 2016.  For now, let us all enjoy the ride!

Our ap0logies - it seems that we disappeared for the holidays along with a whole section of the questions for our Incredibly Hard Death Note Christmas Quiz!

No idea what happened there, other than the formatting was being a bit funky and was completed in a rush (after spending weeks collating the questions...).

Section 11-20 was present and correct at one point, but must have been accidentally overwritten and nobody noticed in the chaos of pre-Xmas preparations and partying.

I hope you all had fun anyway, fitting your own questions to the answers given at the end.  However, if you'd still like to try your luck with those set by us to tease your Death Note trivia knowledge, then the Incredibly Hard Christmas Death Note Quiz is now updated and complete.

Happy holidays all!

Are you loving the Death Note Christmas gift shop gif that's over there on the sidebar being all festive?  Wonderful, isn't it? 

Orangepunch created it for us and it's been gently snowing away in that corner, calling people in to remember that seasonal Death Note decorations do exist and all that.

Whilst also reminding me that I never did get around to finishing half of the stores that it's inviting people in to visit.  Plus some of them went up with way too big images attached to every pretty product, rendering them too long to load for the average sense of patience to withstand.  If it doesn't crash the prospective buyers internet first. 

What can I say, I was young and foolish, followed by forgetful and lazy.  Swiftly introducing, 'Oh no! All of that should have been fixed months ago!' *cue pulling an all-nighter* into the bargain.  One unfathomably long night later, we have a much improved Death Note Gift Emporium (though granted, that might have been more useful a few weeks ago BEFORE you bought all your Xmas presents), plus some new departments entirely.

You will still find flaws in there (size of pics in DVDs and books pages, we're all looking at you), but I also found something quite intriguing to bring to the table.  Plus some gossip.

First let me run you through what's changed and sparkly new in our Death Note shopping area, plus a 'to do' list of what's coming up, so you can check if the issue you've found is already known.  If not, then naturally we'd be very grateful to get the heads up. 

The front page (screenshot above) got a redesign.  The thumbnails were all much reduced in size, in order to boost the speed at which the page loads.  Hopefully it is much more navigable now.

In addition, every Death Note merchandise page has been reconfigured with funky tabs - making finding things at a glance much easier and again dropping that load time a lot!  Check them out in any department clicked below.

GOSSIP STOP!  In filling up those cyber shelves, I found several new Death Note tribute tracks by other artists, including two available for pre-order on release dates later this month or January.  They are both in our gift store now, but I will be hunting down the musicians and featuring them as separate Death Note News reports.  Death Note's 10th anniversary, TV drama or upcoming movies, appear to have inspired a veritable flood of them!  Happy days.

These next two kick start a whole new category in Death Note memorabilia - collections based on merchandise for Death Note characters.  I'm sure that most people choosing which characters to begin would have gone for Light and L.  But I know my readership.

Anyone want to prod us towards which character to compile a collection for next?   If there's no broad hints in any other direction, we'll default to Light Yagami and work through the series from there.  Though I'm half tempted to be perverse and go Sachiko Yagami instead!  Reckon there would be anything out there to buy in honour of Light's mother?

But this brings us nicely to the salient question with which I led.

I know where my money is.  In fact, I've written twelve novels of Mello/Matt fan-fiction spelling it out - and one of them initially ran with the working title Cyberpunk.  Another had titles lifted from several Cyberpunk dictionaries and cultural references.  Matt in my universe ended up with a motorbike once, but we've barely seen it since.

Maybe that's because I've missed a trick.  In conjunction with most of the Death Note Matt fandom, I missed what was in plain sight, because I never thought to look certain things up.

Matt's gift shop was looking a bit sparse.  Mello's was jam packed.  I felt bad.  So I thought it would be a nice idea to hunt for that habitual Matt costume for Death Note cosplayers to buy, love and cherish.  After all, its probably the most ubiquitously seen, ordinary collection of clothes on any Death Note character. You could grab half the items in any given mainstream clothes shop.

Or could you?  It's harder than it looks, this cosplay malarkey.   I started with the gloves.  How do you search for those?  They're quite distinctive.  Racing gloves? Long, black gloves for men?   Finally, I found them.  They are officially known - in non-Death Note circles - as motorcyclist's gauntlet gloves,  or motorbike racing gauntlet gloves.

Next I went for the goggles.  Bog standard cyberpunk, I thought, with an option on steampunk, if that outfitting genre fell short.  Close, but no cigar.  Yet I was finding something similar, if not precise, in a whole new class of goggle sporting necessities.  Necessary, that is, if you happen to be a motorbike racer.  Like those wearing the gloves too.

Shoved some stripy, long-sleeved tops in and off into the jeans department.  Mmmm, several billion here, what to search in order to narrow this down?  Ribbed jeans?  Denim with circles around them? 

Turns out that there are some jeans created specifically with patchwork patterns surrounding each leg - just like Matt's wears in fact.  They're made especially for bikers.  Apparently it improves their saddle grip upon the seat.  Saves them slipping about, as ordinary jeans might.

So goggles, gloves and jeans all point due Matt the motorbike rider, with a strong nudge towards racing them too.  You going for that in your head canon?  Fan fiction writers, is that why he's beside a bike the first time we see him, and why Mello acquires one only after Matt's on the scene?  Death Note fan artists, what motorcycle does Mail Jeevas ride?  If this releases the throttle on anybody's muse, let me link the results, or show them  off here.

Or are you just going 'cyberpunk geek' like me, and dismissing this out of hand?  I'd be fascinated with your thoughts!

There's a lot of work to be done, if Squad Six Cosplayers are going to be ready to take the stage at Ichibancon - one of North Carolina's largest anime conventions - at midnight on January 1st 2016.  It's not only our Death Note panel in which we are performing, but out and about too.  On show just by being there, because we will be in full cosplay.

And those costumes need to be designed and made ahead of time.  We have a reputation to uphold.  It's not good enough merely to have those clothes fitting properly, we have to become the characters in our Death Note cosplay.  But in that, we've elicited a little help.

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

You might have noticed one or two changes around here.   Like the entire look of the place, and links in the store that actually go where advertised.

In truth, I'm going to have to ask you to bear with me, while I do much tatting in the background in order to achieve greatness.  Or at least a website which looks great and does all that you'd wish it to do.

You'll probably see things change several times over the next few days, as  test things out, tat with the CSS, play with pretty apps and basically find out what is the best I can do for you with the tools I have to play with here.

However, another way to look at this is your big opportunity to influence the way Death Note News looks.  A designer, I am I.  I can code you any algorithms; write you any number of articles. But ask me to work out which colours look most fabulous where and what font should accompany which section, and I'm crying for my Mummy. 

Who wouldn't help a great deal, as she's not an artist either.

If you know your hues and other aesthetics, or you're eagle-eyed enough to spot all the bugs, or you're just certain what works or doesn't work when you see it, then shout up.  There's a comment box below with your name on it (once you type it in), all opinions and advice gratefully received.

In the meantime, just know that great things are afoot in the background and please be patient if things aren't always as planned.

And in other news, utterly coincidentally, we have two new writers coming on board for Death Note News columns. More about them in the upcoming weeks, but it should be wonderful!

The intrepid Mayagami contacted me recently to ask if it was possible to translate Death Note News into Bahasa.

Well, when I say recently, what I mean was she asked ages ago, but her email got caught up in my blocked contact form system. Hence I only read it recently.

Naturally I gave the nod and Mayagami wasted no time in translating Death Note News for her Indonesian readership.

You can read Mayagami's Bahasa Death Note News here.

Ooops.

Last night I finished writing my blog entry and went tatting around the lesser explored buttons on this site.

Imagine my shock, consternation and cringing when I discovered the contact form entry list.

i.e. Everyone who has tried to e-mail me using the bespoke form on the Contact page.

This shouldn't have been an issue at all.  I'm usually pretty good at replying to people reaching out to me, even if it takes me a couple of days to do so. But I'd received none of the e-mails on this list.

Some of them dated back to February 2014.

You'd have thought I'd have noticed, wouldn't you?  But there are several ways to e-mail me from this site and I've received plenty over the years.  No-one once mentioned that they'd tried to e-mail me and I'd maliciously and with intent ignored their missive.

I've glanced through and it's been illuminating.  Folk leaving me information which would have created the content for some fabulous (and exclusive) blog entries; people offering me book contracts; all sorts.  And also shame evoking. Folk locked out of my forum and desperate to get back in; those too shy to comment, but wanting to say hello, as I seem like a nice person.

Oh kami.

So what went wrong?   Pure and simply, I'm a nub.  I don't check my coding, when I'm seduced by the dark side into content management systems.  I'm quite capable of writing whole workable websites of my own.  But I didn't realise this particular site would end up being quite so popular, nor taking up a lot of my time. So I stashed it on a free Weebly 'colour by numbers' type affair.

Contact forms normally trigger an e-mail alert, because I  code it thus.  They should here too.  They would have done, if I hadn't stuck a typo smack bang in the middle of my e-mail address.

Like I said, I'm a noob.  With all due self-kicking in attendance.

Naturally, the contact form is working now.  Tested and double-tested.  Meanwhile I will go back through all those e-mails from the past nearly two years and answer them all.

*sigh*   I'm sorry.

Edit:  Several hours later:   Everyone should have received a personal response now.  If you haven't, then please contact me again, as more than the usual must have failed.

Matti clear.

Today, I set out to write three blog entries to post over the next few days, and to finish a chapter of Ghosting the Street.

What I actually did was spend half the morning lost in a labyrinth of Google.

(Remind me NEVER to answer their prompting to complete my Webmaster configuration. Now I recall why it was left it hanging uncompleted in the first place. It's still not fully done.)

Somewhere in that midden, it was suggested to me - via some otherwise incomprehensible tutorial - that Death Note News readers would love a site index. You would consider it a great kindness if I created one, as it would prove to be very helpful.

Hence the rest of the morning and the entire afternoon disappeared under a feverish hunting down of every page and link on our website.

Until at last I can finally unveil - *drumroll; fireworks; dancing people hi-kicking in perfect symmetry* - your SITE INDEX!  Tra-la-laaaaa!

Anything for you. You're welcome.

Feel free to start bouncing around with abject joy any time you soon.

You'd have preferred the blogs and fan-fiction, wouldn't you? -.-

Just to let you know that we are aware that He Moves Me Differently - MRS Jeevas and other Mello/Matt fan-fiction authors' site - is currently not loading. This is occurring our end, not yours.

Obviously I'm working on fixing it. But I also believe it's not an issue here either. It's further up the line with the hosts of my server.

Their website is also down.  I've Tweeted them for more info.  You'll get it as soon as I do.

Hopefully all will be back up and running soon, so we can gabble away as usual on the forum.

UPDATE:  And there it is fixed.  The company hosting my server reported a small issue affecting the DNS. It's now resolved and we're up and running again.

They thanked us for our patience.

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.