Allies or Enemies by The Crane Wives is sooooo lawlight. Specifically L POV directly after Light regains his memories

“Are we allies or enemies? This will be the death of me

Remember when I could tell you not to smile when you were mad? And you would always crack And we’d both be laughing in the end Now you’re not so quick to forget”

Like AUGH. yep! Not sure what’s gonna happen next, who’s gonna do it, is he gonna die? He knows that someone’s not getting out of this alive. Is he dying literally? Or a metaphorical death of like. If you were here when I discovered phantoms by mariana’s trench know I’m obsessed with like. Them still “dying” when they have to go on living without each other. and like. The remember part being L reminiscing on when he and light. Well. They didn’t get along. But they had to work together and clearly they got along well enough to share a living space for however many months. Whereas now light remembers being Kira again. And so he’s not intentionally acting different but L can tell, L can read him to know how he holds onto resentments more, how he remembers more. OUGH. AUG. OW. I’m hurting myself. Actually wait I started in the middle but let’s go over the beginning too.

“The words I speak are wildfires and weeds They spread like some awful damn disease I swear I didn’t mean what I said I swear I didn’t mean it

Now listen close, you owe me ears for dropping eaves Forget it all, you caught me in a moment weak Sometimes I just can’t help myself Sometimes I can’t help myself at all”

You have to stretch your imagination a bit but this is very rain scene and a bit foot scene. You know from the anime, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t in the manga but idk I haven’t gotten to that part of the manga yet. Anyway! L being unsure of his words and thoughts, a moment of weakness, Very much that part of ep 25 when they’re on the rooftop in the rain and also a bit L in the infamous foot scene, though it’s not quiiitee right for that. Or we’ll everything is good for that but like there’s not Enough for that. There’s a lot going on there. But that’s what the rest of the song is for! Ok now back where we left off at the start of the post.

“Are we allies or enemies? This will be the death of me This will be the death of me All is fair in love and war, but I can’t fight with you anymore This will be the death of me”

Aaaaa. He wants to stop but he knows if he does he’s dead. He wants to just keep playing his games with Light, but he knows they’re at the finish line, if they keep playing they will reach the end and someone’s gonna die. He doesn’t want to stop playing, but he either stops now and whatever Kira is planning takes him out, or he keeps going an either he dies anyway or light does. The game is ending soon but he just wants to keep going, but he can’t, he can’t fight with light much longer, and he’s not even sure whether he wants to, if that’s the game he even wants most, but it’s the only one he has and there’s no other options. Someone’s gonna die and it’s probably gonna be him.

“What happens now? Do we have another go? Do we bow out and take our separate roads? I’ll admit I’ve had my doubts But I want to be let in, not out But I want to be let in, not out”

he’s not sure what’s gonna happen next. He’s not sure what he wants to happen next. he’s had his doubts about the Kira case before, but now he knows he’s right, and he doesn’t wanna stop just cause he’s confident he’s right, because he knows there’s more, he knows they’re more to see and understand, things he’s never even considered possible, and he wants to know and understand everything. He needs to know everything there is to know about Light and Kira, and he’s not sure which intrigues him more, but he’s not ready for there game to stop, for them to part ways. But he knows they will, he’s to smart to think this ends any other way. One of them is dying. He knows himself, and he knows Kira, and so he knows that this cannot end with both of them still standing.

I’m obesssedd with them!!! New song for my lawlight playlist aw yeah. Also the song is really good I’m gonna listen to more of the band this is pretty cool

Deke Sharon talks to Todd Wilson about Pentatonix, Home Free, tips for aspiring vocal arrangers, the evolution of the music industry, and more...

Todd Wilson had a chance to interview Deke Sharon for our email newsletter. Todd is one of our founders and serves the Nashville Singers as Executive Director and Artistic Director.    

You can subscribe to our newsletter by texting the word SINGERS to 42828

Published October 30, 2017

TW: What started you down the path of making music? DS: My parents tell me I sang myself to sleep before I could utter a word, so it was perhaps always inevitable. I joined church choir at age 5, the San Francisco Boys Chorus at age 7, and by 9 I was singing in operas and touring the US. From there I had no desire to slow down. TW: The number of descriptors about who you are and what you do seems to grow with every passing year - singer, arranger, composer, director, producer, teacher, leader, promoter and author. Two-part question: Which of these pursuits brings you the most personal satisfaction? Which of these pursuits has provided you with the greatest personal challenges? DS: Ooh... The greatest joy is in impacting people's lives, which I see and feel most directly when I'm coaching groups. Movies and television reach more people and get them excited about a cappella, but it's when I'm in a room with them that I feel I can best inspire them. As for the biggest challenge... editing a book is thankless, eye-crossing work. Imagine rereading something you've written ten times, and imagine that thing you wrote was 400 pages. Ugh. TW: Some a cappella" authors have described you as "the father of contemporary a cappella." That has to be rather humbling. Knowing your direct knowledge of the many movers and shakers in the world  of a cappella, who do you think is most deserving of earning the title of "mother of contemporary acappella?" DS: That's tough. Current title holder would likely be Amanda Newman, owner and producer of the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella, High School A Cappella, and the new tournament open to anyone (called, appropriately enough, "The Open"). We make the Best of College A Cappella and High School A Cappella compilations together each year as well. Before her it was former CASA president Julia Hoffmann, who for many years steered the non-profit side of our community brilliantly. TW: Your time with the Tufts Beelzebubs seems to have been quite transformative. What are your fondest memories of your college days? DS: It's the little things: the in-jokes, the vocabulary, the four hour album title discussions, getting breakfast on a groggy Sunday morning before a twelve hour drive back to campus. It was the greatest thing about college, and a big part of why I started CASA was so that more people would have that opportunity. TW: You founded the House Jacks in 1991 and traveled all over the world with the group. How did you come to the decision to leave the group in 2015? DS: I honestly never thought I'd leave the group. i figured I'd be like he old, white haired guy on the end of the King's Singers who hangs in there until they put me out to pasture. Thankfully my career took off like a rocket, and yet I was having to sub out of over 1/2 of all gigs because of movies, television, and other impossible-to-turn-down-opportunities, so it seemed the only reasonable, fair thing to do. TW: I read somewhere that you have completed 2,000 vocal arrangements so far. When do you sleep? Seriously,  when did you complete your first vocal chart. Do you remember the name of the song? DS: Indeed! It was "When I'm 64", junior year, for my barbershop quartet in high school. I wanted to start singing pop songs in addition to barbershop and doo-wop, but nothing was available, so I had to figure out how to do it myself. That drive to always sing the latest music in the most compelling way is what drove me to start integrating instrumental vocal sounds in college, and when other groups heard what I was doing my phone started ringing. By the time I graduated, I was making enough money from arranging that I never had to work a day job, and for the next fifteen years pretty much every group that wanted a modern contemporary a cappella arrangement (and didn't have their own arranger) called me, so I was doing arrangements during every spare moment (my max: five in one day). Plus, I had a staff of arrangers who did the ones I couldn't handle. By the time the internet took off and others started advertising that they were arranging, I was exhausted, too busy, and tired of managing so I focused elsewhere, to the point that now when people contact me I almost always have to say I'm too busy. TW: Do you ever encounter writer's block, times when your creative juices are not flowing adequately enough to get an arrangement started? If yes, how do you usually overcome that situation? DS: Of course. The way I get over it is by reminding myself that arranging is a craft - an art with a specific function - not a purely artistic endeavor, and these people have a need. The most useful analogy I have come up with is that of being a chef: sometimes you want to be Thomas Keller creating a gourmet, world-attention-getting meal, but most of the time people aren't expecting or wanting that, they just want a meal, especially for the kind of college and high school groups who don't have their own arrangers (which is to say newer, less experienced ones). Not fllet mignon, but a burger. And I can make a really delicious burger, quickly and easily. So, I just jump in, tell the "artiste" in myself to shut up, and start cooking. TW: What advice could you give to aspiring arrangers? DS: Repetition, repetition, repetition. It's like Ira Glass says: you start with great taste but not great skills, and the difference between what you love and what you can do is deeply troubling. Don't let it stop you, just keep creating, and you'll get better. Moreover, don't try to make every work a Picasso, with your groups highest and lowest notes, and some crazy overarching leitmotif. Arrange a simple song well, one you can learn in a rehearsal and sing the very same weekend. Get good at making burgers before you try to make filet mignon. You're not gonna want to, and you're not gonna listen to me, but after you turn a couple nice pieces of meat into a rubbery brick you'll step back and enjoy the process of working your way up. TW: What are your thoughts on the evolution of the music industry and songwriting over the course of your lifetime? Are you happy with this evolution? DS: In short, no. Whereas there are some great modern songwriters (Ed Sheerin comes to mind), it has been a downward journey. The Great American Songbook was born of a time when everyone had their specialty: One person wrote lyrics, another wrote the melody and chords, a third arranged, a fourth lead the band, a fifth sang the melody, and so on. The sixties brought the singer-songwriter, which gave us more personal and unique songs in some cases, and allowed for more socially and politically impactful statements, so that was perhaps a net gain, but then the Eighties destroyed everything, as those solo artists were prized for their image and dance moves more than their voice and songwriting ability (Madonna, for instance). The universally singable song became a personal statement and furtherance of a brand (have you every heard a compelling cover of Michael Jackson's "Thriller"?) Nowadays, songs are created initially by a producer who creates a four chord loop in his synthesizer/computer program, and then someone sings a melody over the top of it. The result is a batch of songs so repetitive and mundane that I feel bad for my kids (who eschew EDM for classic jazz and the songs coming out of musical theater, which remain well crafted). Oh well, we lived through the clumsy, four-chord songwriting of the 1950s and early 60s when rock and roll was being figured out, and I have faith that at some point this clumsy robotic technology-driven pop will eventually give way to a rebirth of great songwriting. TW: I read on your Wikipedia page that you were able to convince Home Free to pursue a path in the direction of Country A cappella. What inspired that thought and what was their initial response to this suggestion? DS: The guys had come to every Sing Off audition, and by Season 4 I felt a little bit bad as I had a feeling I knew that once again they wouldn't clear the bar, but they had two guys with Southern accents and a country rock swagger (Austin and Tim), so we simply asked if they could come back the next day with a country song. We did this all the time with groups we liked but didn't feel they'd lived up to their full potential, as NBC wanted clear stories and styles rather than a dozen groups who all sing pop songs. Little did we know... TW: You made a splash on TV with your behind the scenes involvement in the Sing-Off and on the big screen with Pitch Perfect. Now Pentatonix is winning Grammy Awards. Are you surprised it took so long for a cappella to become more mainstream? DS: Back in 1994, when The House Jacks were being pursued by a couple of different record labels, an A&R guy told me "You know, there are two kinds of music that everyone loves, that always draw a huge crowd at festivals, but no one knows anything about: reggae and a cappella. Sure, there's a group or two that are well known, but it stops there. You guys could be the next big thing, no doubt"... but we weren't, for the reason that our college agent pointed out: "People need to see you. If they just hear you, they can't tell it's not a band with instruments. You need a way to get in front of people." We were ahead of our time, clearly, but as technology caught up, as collegiate a cappella grew to the point the media took notice, as YouTube made it possible for a cappella groups of all styles to reach people in their homes, a cappella got the recognition I knew it could. It was an overnight success, 25 years in the making! TW: Speaking of Pentatonix, do you have any inside scoop on their quest for a new bass to replace the departing Avi Kaplan? DS: Indeed! Their new bass for their upcoming Christmas tour and album, is Matt Sallee, Berklee College of Music grad and member of both Pitch Slapped and The House Jacks. He's a great addition to the lineup, and my money is on him becoming the permanent replacement. TW: With your work in other countries like Sing-Off South Africa, the Dutch Sing-Off, Sing-Off China, and on the BBC1 show Pitch Battle, how does the audience response in those countries compare to fans of a cappella in the USA? DS: A cappella was the first music, and music the international language, so the love and joy that a cappella brings remains constant throughout the world. In South Africa, where a cappella is a big part of the culture, it was fully embraced. In the Netherlands, the reception was more cool and intellectual, as fits their culture. In China, a cappella - at least how we do it - was completely new, so people were as shocked as they were excited. We took old folk songs and Maoist anthems and turned them into modern pop, disco and the like, so the "wow" factor was as much that creativity as it was their first exposure to vocal percussion and the like. This summer, when the BBC1 show aired, I don't think a single person in the UK hadn't seen Pitch Perfect, so not only wasn't there any shock, people expected it to be a cappella... but it wasn't (there was a live band, with only one a cappella group each episode). The backlash was the #1 story in the media, as many were expecting and hoping for an a cappella show (with the title "Pitch Battle", with the riff offs, and with me behind the scenes as well as on camera). Looks like we need to create a new a cappella show, don't we? TW: Straight No Chaser garnered national attention with their appearances on PBS. What is your connection to the group? DS: Atlantic Records chair Craig Kalman roped me in to arrange and produce their second album ("Christmas Cheers") to make it more fun and energetic, along the lines of their original Twelve Days viral video. I also helped with their breakthrough PBS special, their first non-holiday album ("With A Twist") and a bunch of other projects. They're a joy to work with, much like being back in college. TW: In 2013, you published an article on the CASA website entitles Barbershop: A cappella's Martial Art. What are some of the groups that inspired you to reach such a notable opinion of this art form? DS: I'd always loved barbershop from my early high school days, but it was groups like The Gas House Gang, FRED, and your own Acoustix during the 90s while I was creating and running the CARAs (Contemporary A Cappella Recording Awards) that opened my eyes and ears to the new sound and style. TW: In 2016, you were bestowed with honorary membership in the Barbershop Harmony Society. What was that experience like for you? DS: Surreal. I was not expecting it, and am pretty certain I'm the least famous person to have ever been given the honor. I will do my best to remain worthy of it. TW: Is it just me or do you also see and hear the over-use of pitch correction by singing groups in the studio these days? If you had any advice on this subject, what would it be? DS: Of course, the "roboticization" prevalent in current pop music is frustrating, but I think it just drives more people into the a cappella, where they can hear and feel the honest human voice. Granted it is used in a cappella recordings as well, sometimes to extremes, but just as it took a little while for bands to figure out how to mix their albums in stereo (some Beatles albums remain awkward, with the guitar only in one ear and the drums only in the other), we'll get there. When used judiciously, it's a gift, just as photoshop can be used well or horribly. TW: With so many accomplishments under your belt, what is your proudest achievement to date? DS: I don't really know. I don't feel like I have great perspective down here in the trenches, I just keep digging. At some point I'll come up for air. TW: Do you have any hobbies outside of music? DS: Indeed! In fact I don't often listen to a cappella in my free time to stave off burnout. I read around 80 books a year, do all the cooking for my family (I love cooking exotic cuisines like Burmese and Singaporean), enjoy gardening, and for exercise hate the gym but love taking long walks. TW: What's the next item on your bucket list? DS: It was Broadway, but that's done thanks to In Transit ...and I'm back at it again with a new project that I can't announce just yet. Honestly, I don't think in terms of what I need, I think in terms of what will most benefit the a cappella community, and at this point we could really use a new show on TV to motivate new groups, help launch more future stars like Pentatonix, and show a new generation what a cappella can be. Then again, with a cappella seemingly everywhere, maybe they already know. Maybe I should take the weekend off. Deke Sharon http://www.dekesharon.com http://capublishing.com