#they weren't my intentions but the whole sequence feels like it definitely

[iftitah]

accidentally opened lj's whatsapp chat from april 2023 and almost kmsed reading 2 texts couldn't even scroll above

[yazthebookish]

This might be a bit long but the Gwynriel Reddit thread inspired me to let my thoughts flow about Gwyn and Azriel.

P.s. this will include some HOFAS spoilers.

I've said this before but SJM choosing to end Azriel's chapter with Gwyn is a choice. It's the beginnings and the endings of a chapter that authors tend to put a lot of thought into—so her ending the chapter which felt like her nudging readers' to Gwyn's direction is intentional.

Gwyn was not just a random addition, given their interactions throughout ACOSF their scene in the bonus chapter didn't feel out of place (even if readers' didn't expect to see her in it).

People try to invalidate the bonus chapter as much as they can but HOFAS had proved once again that they are important and canon (though I do think SJM and her publisher need to include these in the main books because they are crucial).

"You depend so much on a bonus chapter that a lot of readers don't have access to"

True but that doesn't mean the next book can't fill in the blanks because Azriel and Gwyn were already interacting in ACOSF, so having that romantic development in the next book (and the possible reveal that they're mates) + ON PAGE will still make it up for the readers that never read the bonus chapter. Like, CC4 will definitely bring up the fact that Ruhn and Lidia got married (despite it happening in a bonus).

I always considered the bonus chapter as a teaser for what will happen in the next book, Sarah confirmed she sprinkled little crumbs and I quote "I want to hear all your theories after you read the book and his [Azriel's] bonus scene, the crumbs have all been scattered, little bread crumbs everywhere" and it will keep readers guessing until the next book is out. So you won't know for sure how relevant or significant the bonus chapter is and the crumbs she scattered until you read the next book.

With that being said, Gwyn's cameo in the bonus chapter didn't come without some interesting clues: Azriel's shadows didn't warn him she was around, they were curious about her and she smiled at them, they danced and sang around her, Azriel revealed he sings because she asked, she thanked him with a smile and he felt settled even his shadows calmed.

We never saw his shadows react to anyone the way they did with Gwyn. They seem drawn to her, they danced, they sang, and while there are many theories about it but I absolutely do think if the shadows would be drawn to someone it would be Azriel's mate.

"Azriel and Gwyn had no romantic development and he didn't think about kissing her and all that"

But did every SJM couple start that way? No. And someone expressing the desire to kiss and hook up with someone is not always an indication of endgame (I can count multiple couples who kissed but weren't endgame).

The crumbs we had of them in ACOSF sets the groundwork for a romantic relationship to build in the next book—because who doesn't want to read about them both falling in love on page?

And yes, Sarah is capable of writing a love story from scratch in a single book (e.g., Tower of Dawn). Another example is how ACOMAF started with Feyre being in love with Tamlin and halfway through she started to really fall in love with Rhys.

The whole Azriel/Elain/Lucien triangle is messy as it is, so I don't think SJM would turn it into a square by inserting Gwyn. SJM could've chose not to give Gwyn and Azriel any ties in any way whether it was him rescuing her, him training the Valkyries, and again, including her in his own bonus chapter (hell even her boss:guardian Clotho made an appearance).

But she did and based on her pattern with her male love interests in particular, she doesn't really insert a new female or have females fight over the male love interest. I don't ever see Elain and Gwyn fight over Az, each might have an issue with Az on their own but do I see them argue with each other over Azriel? Absolutely not.

And if you look at the sequence of the scenes in his chapter, it gives a better idea of how it was planned:

1. Starts with Azriel reflecting on his loneliness while everyone left.

2. Elain shows up and they interact, Azriel gives her the necklace and they almost kiss.

3. Rhysand interferes and Az stops the kiss and tells Elain it was a mistake.

4. Az and Rhys argue and ends with Rhys ordering him to stay away from Elain and dismissing him.

5. Az leaves to the House of Wind wanting to work off the frustration but finds that Gwyn already occupied the training ring.

6. Gwyn and Az interact and he leaves the scene feeling settled down and his shadows calmed.

7. He wakes up, goes to the River House and finds Elain's necklace, he pockets it with the intention of returning it to the shop after the snowball fight.

8. Instead of the shop, he goes to the library to ask Clotho to give the gift to Gwyn and refuses to leave with it.

9. Going back and forth, Clotho eventually agrees and said she will tell Gwyn a friend gave it to her and she thanks Az for the joy it will bring to Gwyn.

10. Az leaves but the mention of Gwyn's joy sparked something in him that it brought a slight smile to his face, he buried the image in his chest where it glows quietly.

Both interactions with Elain and Rhys ended with him feeling miserable, but both interactions with Gwyn and Clotho ended with him feeling lighter and better—and to me that shows me how intentional SJM was with creating these parallels (including the shadows skittered back vs the shadows danced and sang).

Instead of Gwyn and Clotho we could've had Mor or Nesta or Amren, but SJM chose Gwyn and Clotho. Like, it could've ended after Rhys's argument but again, it's a writer's choice.

That's why no matter how many times I reread ACOSF my mind doesn't change much because SJM is not that subtle.

[animehouse-moe]

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2 Episode 6: Shibuya Incident 2

I'm actually thoroughly surprised. It's a bit hard to explain, truthfully, but this episode does surprisingly well on the whole. But I suppose that is owed to the star studded staff that came out of the woodwork to work on this episode. Anyways, I won't spoil the fun, so let's get down to brass tacks before I let the cat out of the bag.

Mahito vs Kokichi. I would say I'm.... satisfied. Though I suppose that might be a bit of a crazy statement to make considering the fight. It's just... I'm not quite sure how to explain it. A lot of the added scenes were great, and it's not quite that they felt piled on, but that they weren't really put together well?

We got all sorts of crazy scenes and even a Gurren Lagann reference by the man himself. But how much is a pile of art worth, truly? How much motion, movement, shading can you imbue a moment with before it tips over the edge? I feel very strongly about how Vincent Chansard approaches animation with his OP cuts at times, and I just feel like that point's been reached with sequences here. I know, crazy thing to say, but it's just.... not quite lost the plot, but maybe the purpose?

Tengen Toppa Jujutsu Kaisen is cool, but it ignores the purpose of the original sequence in the manga. A do or die moment for Kokichi becomes a grand stand of overpowered individuals that stretches the fabric of the fight itself. Very Gurren Lagann in that sense, but this is Jujutsu Kaisen. I love the reference with Kokichi going on to stab Mahito, and I think Mahito drilling through to Kokichi is a cool change up. But the middle parts? While cool, end up excessive and misrepresented.

It's the dangerous game of giving an anime powerup, that does have me concerned as to how fights moving forward will be handled. Mahito's powers are limited, and he himself expresses that in S1 with the weakness of certain forms. His fleeing from Kokichi (which was horribly marred with ghosting and dimming) expresses the limits of his abilities incredibly well while providing an insanely well done original scene to the fight. This last piece with Mahito vs Kokichi though? It pays no attention to the limits of Mahito's soul, or the rules of his abilities. It extends past the reason and fairness that Gege put in place to provide a grand stand in the end. Is it cool? Definitely. Do I mind it being in the episode? If you're a manga reader, not really. For anime onlies though? Gives the completely incorrect intention with the character.

For reference, this is all that happens during that whole break in sequence in the manga.

Returning to the fight at large, it's pretty clear to see that the animation is carried through by a few of the key talents working on it. Not all sequences outside of the handful are terrible, but a good number lack any sense of pace or weight. I don't know if I'd be as harsh on them as I am if there weren't as many great cuts, but such is the way things go.

So, once more to reiterate, I'm rather satisfied with this stretch of the Mahito vs Kokichi fight. Undoubtedly carried by the star performers, the fierce individuality brought by each can clash with both one another and the source material at times to make the fight more than a little challenging to follow. Certainly far better than what I was expecting though.

Though respectfully, what is this? The difference in the hands between the cuts is rather painful, and just the way it is in movement compared to the re-used cut of Mahito's initial domain expansion from season 1 makes it feel so wrong. The epitome of S1's flirting vs S2's sexual harassment.

Talking the episode as a whole, before moving on to Shibuya itself, it was arguably the most consistent of the bunch we've gotten for season 2 so far. Sure, the lows stick out like even more of a sore thumb than before, but the highs are far stronger, and the character designs remain largely consistent throughout. I think my only complain is how out of place the background characters for Shibuya can look in comparison to how the actual cast is drawn.

Like... I just don't really know what to say. Did they even try to match the art style? Even worse is the fact that when they're dealing with characters that did exist in the crowd, in the manga, they're able to style them properly? Like, the above image of the people in the crowd to this one, would you believe that they're from the same series?

Aside from that, I don't really have any complaints with the rest of the episode? It's exposition heavy, but the character designs are surprisingly solid, with Kusakabe arguably being the best adapted from Gege's style. He is missing a lot of the real charm to his character that's expressed through his design, and much like Megumi his hair differs to the manga, but there's something about it that feels much more "right" than other first time designs. Does make me question just what went on with Yuko, Yuki, and the other characters who have been appearing for the first time through this season though.

Will say though, they've nailed the new cast of voices coming in. All have the right vibes and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they can do with their respective moments in the series.

This episode certainly has me less worried than all of Gojo's Past for how Shibuya will look. Gosso's involvement feels far less heavy handed, and while the individual freedom afforded by that may be detrimental at times, it feels like the far better decision for an arc like this. It won't be on Park's level, but I'm starting to think that there'll be potential, just have to see if things end up out of hand or not.

[foxingpeculiar]

FF7 R&R:

Okay, so I'm at the point in Remake where the plate has just come down. Which is about the end of act 2 (act 1 goes through Mako Reactor 5, I'd say).

How did Aerith get out of her house before I did? She must know a shortcut.

I like that we get little glimpses into the history of Midgar as Aerith and Cloud make their way back toward Sector 7. But I have a lot of questions. Why, for example, would they build the support pillar so that there's an option to destroy it? Was Shinra (since it was Shinra who built the city) planning on maybe having to do this? Was the Sector 6 plate dropped intentionally also?

Okay, so Wall Market is definitely the horniest section of this game, and is somehow even hornier in this version than it was in the original, despite the sequence playing out very differently (no ambiguous encounters in a bathhouse, for example). Instead, we get a dance battle, which is pretty hilarious. As are some of the encounters in this area: the teacher from the Leaf House as a HoneyGirl, Johnny... just kind of in general. The Materia Guy saying "Stop saying 'The Sauce.'" Johnny telling Cloud to "Grab it and whip it out" at the vending machine. Etc.

Chocobo Sam has kind of a Sam Elliott vibe to him, and I like the dynamic between him and Madame M. This game is good at that, those small interactions with characters who don't really play a HUGE role in the plot, but add color to the world.

It's fun that they worked in Hell House, which is definitely one of the weirder enemies in the original game, and remains so here. And yet, there it is. They never really explain... what its deal is, but that's fine. It's a "just go with it" kind of moment.

So the scene where Cloud first sees Aerith after Madame M makes her all up. Literal fireworks (my man is cuntstruck, right there, you can see it on his face). But they're really playing up the weird polycule angle here with Cloud/Aerith/Tifa. Cos it's Aerith who's the one that wants to go after Tifa in the first place, they have a couple of sexy rescues with each other, make that shopping date in the sewers. If it weren't for the... y'know, terrorism and ancient magic and stuff, they could be a fun little throuple.

I love the reactions to Cloud being basically forcefemmed for this sequence, too. Like how at first Tifa doesn't recognize him and when she does, he's just like "I nailed it, I know. Moving on." (Also, in Corneo's mansion: Aerith from the corner with a steel chair!) Am curious how the later scene with Corneo in Wutai will play out (cos he's a really good sleaze in this version).

Once they realize the pillar is coming down, Aerith tells Tifa "the future isn't set in stone," which feels like a really important line for this version especially because of the whole Whispers thing. They're actively working to keep the story on track--they intervene to kill Jessie and Biggs (or have them killed), prevent the team from stopping the pillar collapse, etc. Again, I'm really curious how they're going to follow through with that idea across the trilogy.

So, Rude is an interesting character. He specifically saves Tifa from Reno, but then he's the one who actually presses the button to drop the plate. I remember Aerith saying he's "not a bad guy," so it feels like an intentional choice to have him be the one to do it--complicating him as a person (as opposed to Reno, who's just an asshole: "two birds with a shitload of bullets" and all).

Also forgot Cait Sith shows up in this scene. Like he doesn't say or do anything, but he's there. And we already saw Reeve (and maybe it's the name, or the beard, but he does have some Keanu vibes), so they're seeding that.

I love/hate that Wedge died trying to save some cats.

But okay. On to Shinra HQ. Eventually.

[loveisneurotic]

Kaguya-sama Blind Reaction/Analysis: S1E1

Hello everyone, this is my blog which I am currently using to react to and analyze Kaguya-sama: Love Is War much more seriously than I should analyze any romcom.

I have only seen the first episode of the anime, which this post shall explore using far too many words. If I'm feeling particularly motivated, I may read the manga as well.

My analysis will contain spoilers. If you're thinking of watching this show and haven't seen it yet, I recommend you at least go check out the first episode yourself before reading any further. I don't know what the rest of the show is like, but what I've seen so far has been both entertaining and thought-provoking.

I'm going in mostly blind, but not entirely blind. There are a few images of the anime and manga that I have been exposed to, although without the attached context. Due to cultural osmosis and the sheer popularity of this work, perhaps that was almost inevitable.

Figure 1.1.1: Why did this guy write an essay about a single episode of an ongoing romcom?

Kaguya-sama: Love Is War

Season 1 Episode 1

I Will Make You Invite Me to a Movie / Kaguya Wants to Be Stopped / Kaguya Wants It

Power dynamics in relationships

Figure 1.1.2: Immediately, the mangaka's tastes become clear.

I heard a saying once that really stuck with me: "The partner who cares the least has all of the power."

In the world of dating, I often sincerely believed this saying. You may yearn for someone's affection, but the other person need not give it to you until they are willing and ready. No matter how much you want it, you can't make someone more interested in you, unless you resort to being roundabout, such as adding some mystery and intrigue to your courtship. But is that excessive?

I once felt a potential lover slipping through my grasp, and before I knew it, I found myself chasing after them. As I was yearning for their attention, I felt as if I'd lost my dignity. It was humiliating. Painful. Was it just that they weren't the right person for me? Or was I not funny enough? Not charismatic enough? Not interesting enough? Too clingy? Too talkative? Should I have been more distant and given them more space? Did I seem too weak? Too eager? How should I have maximized my desirability? Regardless, I had surely lost. Perhaps they wanted the satisfaction and validation of conquering me. Playing me for a fool and asserting their superiority by being so distant. Isn't that right? Or is that just insecurity speaking? At what point is it ideal to cut one's losses and walk away?

If someone desperately wants the object of their affection to desire them, does that make them pathetic? Does it make them a loser? If you show more vulnerability and desire than the other person, does that truly make you the weak one in a relationship?

These questions plague our two protagonists and seem to be a driving force behind the main conflict. Since I have also grappled with how much to reveal my own feelings of desire, I find Kaguya-sama: Love Is War to be a particularly fascinating show.

Desire without action

Figure 1.1.3: Our protagonists are gifted with impressively high academic intelligence paired with impressively low emotional intelligence.

The show wastes no time in introducing us to our two main protagonists. Kaguya was born into a family of high stature (and says "ara ara" frequently enough to power a small country of weebs), whereas Shirogane is a "commoner" (Kaguya's word, not mine) who worked hard to reach the pinnacle of the student body. Like timid schoolchildren, they're crushing on each other, and yet they refuse to admit it due to their pride. Instead, they focus on getting their "opponent" to confess their love first.

What stuck out to me immediately is how they both have different ideas of what their relationship would be like. Shirogane envisions Kaguya as blushing, shy, and conventionally cute, whereas Kaguya (thankfully) envisions herself taking absolute dominance over Shirogane (which plenty of people should see coming as a character trait after the anime's very first scene). The bad news about this is that their two fantasies are at odds. The good news about this is that the mangaka has fantastic taste -- you can learn a lot about a storyteller based on the characterization of a love interest or lead character of the author's preferred gender.

In the event that the two of them become an actual couple, I wonder how on Earth they'll reach a compromise as to how they'll treat each other. Perhaps they will have to figure that out before they can even get that intimate.

I appreciate that we get to see both of their perspectives. It hammers home how everyone has a different truth in regards to what they desire and what they experience, and the show does not hold back when it comes to showing just how different these truths can be -- such as a certain lunch-themed sequence that I will talk about later. This works to great dramatic and comedic effect.

That said, when you spend your time fantasizing about what could happen instead of actually taking action, time is not so friendly to you.

Half a year passes.

Figure 1.1.4: Two geniuses dedicate their pride to wasting their life and energy.

Immediately, I got the impression that whoever wrote this segment of the story knows what they're doing. This is too real. And by "too real", I mean I very much appreciate the realism. How many of us have waited for ages (or for eternity) to confess our feelings to a specific someone?

This is the curse of having a crush and being incapable of acting on it. It's also why I hate having crushes.

Manufacturing affection in others, AKA the extraction of vulnerability

Figure 1.1.5: A plan is devised to weaponize jealousy in the name of affection.

To express your truest feelings means being vulnerable. That implies taking a risk and feeling responsible for any potential consequences of rejection, as well as putting our dignity on the line. It would be so much easier for the object of our affection to make themselves vulnerable instead. So instead of being direct and honest, we act indirect. We drop hints. We act suggestively, but not explicitly. We may even place them in situations where we think they are more likely to confess. If they don't pick up on it, we can pretend we didn't mean anything by it. That way, we don't have to risk our dignity. We can just wait for them to make the move.

It sucks.

Incidentally, it sucks even more when both you and your love interest are thinking that way.

It sucks infinitely more when both you and your love interest are COMMITTED to thinking that way.

Someone has to break the deadlock, whether that's immediately or eventually.

If this show isn't one of those romcoms where the status quo never changes ever (judging by the quality of writing, I have faith that it isn't), then at some point, either Shirogane or Kaguya is going to have to be explicit about how they really feel. And it's going to feel scarier to them than anything else they've ever done.

It's gonna be great.

If we could all grow up and live in environments where it's safe and encouraged for all of us to be honest about how we feel and what we want, surely love would be much less painful for so many people.

Chaos theory

Figure 1.1.6: If your prospective lover won't protect you, then your friend definitely will.

Chika is the ideal wild card and agent of chaos in this arena of love.

From a writing perspective, Chika is immensely useful. The mangaka probably could have gotten by without a third character in the mix, but she serves as a catalyst and an unknown element, able to create unpredictability and subversion of expectations. For a comedy-oriented story, this is invaluable.

Blissfully unaware of the mental turmoil that plagues our two lovesick dorks, she is able to unintentionally invalidate whatever schemes that Kaguya or Shirogane spent so much mental energy on, which adds extra comedy and tension for the audience. She is also an effective vehicle for Kaguya's jealousy and projection, as seen in the lunchbox scene which I have so graciously foreshadowed.

Figure 1.1.7: We have confirmed visual on an unidentified fourth person. Chekhov would love this. From their posture, I wonder if they'll be a gloomy character?

Misunderstandings and assumptions

I've heard that most interpersonal conflicts in life emerge from misunderstandings. In the absence of communication, assumptions are born and give rise to misunderstandings.

You may know where I'm going with this. Let's talk about the lunchbox sequence.

Figure 1.1.8 (not pictured because tumblr wishes to deny me of my image spam): Kaguya is too prideful to admit she thinks that a couple is doing something cute.

Figure 1.1.9: Pride is considered a sin for a reason.

From a writing perspective, I was impressed by the lack of romantic intentions in Shirogane in this whole sequence. Not once did he try to get Kaguya to show vulnerability to him. Instead, Kaguya is the only one spinning the situation in a romantic way, while Shirogane's driving force is the misunderstanding that Kaguya is looking down on him for what he eats. Because of this misunderstanding, Shirogane doubles down and makes his food even better, making the situation even more complicated and more stressful for Kaguya. This was definitely my favorite comedy sequence from the first episode.

I appreciate that the show has demonstrated the ability to create these scenarios where one of the characters doesn't even have love on their mind, but there are still romantic thoughts coming from the other character which drives the drama. It gives me a lot of faith in the variety this show will have to offer, and makes me excited to watch more.

When it comes to comedy rooted in misunderstandings, it is important to have miscommunication or lack of communication. In order to resolve a misunderstanding, you need to talk about it. For a pairing as dysfunctional as Kaguya and Shirogane, expecting healthy communication sounds highly unreasonable, which makes them prime material for a whole world of misunderstandings.

Misunderstandings are rooted in assumptions about what the other person meant when they said something or made a certain gesture or expression. When Kaguya glared at Shirogane and his food, he didn't even think to ask "What's the matter?" He just made an assumption about how she felt. I wonder if trying to understand Kaguya's feelings would be considered a sign of weakness by Shirogane?

A prerequisite to initiating an emotional conversation is the desire to understand or be understood by the other person -- assuming that your assumptions haven't already built a narrative for you. It is far easier to make assumptions than it is to attempt any sort of understanding.

In the end, Shirogane fled, unwilling to confront or attempt to understand the intense and passive-aggressive Kaguya. Kaguya feels that she cannot directly ask to try his lunch, so perhaps this is the closest she can get to initiating such a conversation with him at this time. Despite their mind games where they imagine the reactions of their opponent, they still have a lot of difficulty understanding each other.

I am curious to see if this prospective couple's communication skills and emotional intelligence will improve over the course of the story.

The burden of potential romance

Figure 1.1.10: Even the infallible genius Kaguya succumbs to superficial jealousy. It's "mind over matter" versus "matter over mind". That's how the saying goes, right?

Chika is a free spirit, able to ask Shirogane for whatever she wants without being neurotic. That is the power of not being bounded by a crush. Kaguya, who lacks that degree of freedom, briefly loathes her for experiencing something that Kaguya cannot ask for. It's amazing how much someone's feelings for a friend can change without a single word being spoken between them. All it takes is an action, unintentional or not, combined with the raw strength of insecurity. Just as quickly, the status quo can return back to normal too, with the act of properly making up.

To Chika, asking for food from someone doesn't mean anything at all, whereas with Kaguya, it is an admission of defeat. In that sense, a relationship that will only ever be platonic brings peace of mind, whereas a relationship that can be potentially romantic brings leagues upon leagues of anxiety if the outcome is of great concern.

Love is neurotic.

Is love worth the pain? For some people, it is not. For others, the reward is immense -- but only if you can make sure your relationship with this person doesn't end up being a nightmare for your emotional health.

Love and self-identity

The final scene of the episode surprised me in a good way. It's a brief departure from the comedy, and reveals a more heartfelt side of the show.

Kaguya's servant asks her an insightful question. It is substantially more insightful than I would expect from any romcom: "If you fell in love some day, would you wait for that person to confess their love, like now? Or would you confess your love?" I found myself immediately curious to hear Kaguya's answer, since I knew it would be highly informative about her character.

"If that time comes, I would consider the risk of someone stealing him first and come to the one rational conclusion." Even in the realm of love, Kaguya seems precise and calculating. It's as if she hesitates to give a straight answer, but then she confirms: "Of course I would go."

Figure 1.1.11: "Please understand."

It is not embarrassment or rejection that Kaguya fears; it is the absolute destruction of her identity and sense of self. Kaguya is the daughter of a family that practically runs the country. In her mind, everyone yearns for her and wishes to serve her. Turning that around and reaching out to another person to express her own desire would be a direct contradiction of that. It is probably a similar situation for Shirogane, where the infallible self-image he has built up is being put at risk during his romantic duels against Kaguya.

Kaguya clearly feels trapped. She and Shirogane see each other as threats to be conquered, but in reality, they both share a mutual enemy that is much more imposing and insidious: their own simultaneous disgust at the idea of vulnerability.

Their freedom is dominated by their insecurities, and so, even despite their impressive stature, they are still very human. Their upbringing that has lead them to become so accomplished may be more of a curse than a blessing, due to the resulting pride and self-image they likely feel pressured to uphold.

It is hard to cast aside a lie that you have bought into for your whole life.

If our two protagonists wish to have a chance of establishing a healthy romantic relationship, they have a lot of their own demons to overcome first. If they cannot set aside their pride and reach mutual understanding, they have no hope.

Until then, they will both remain trapped in a hell of their own design, however tragically comedic it may be.

My hopes for this story's future

I can tell that the mangaka, unlike far too many writers all over the world, actually seems to have a solid understanding of romance and the conflict that arises within. I've watched too many anime that place huge focus on the "will they or won't they" crap which never runs any deeper than one or both of the characters being too embarrassed to just say what they're thinking, without any sort of convincing mental blocker. In that case, it's clearly just manufactured drama which is designed to pad out the story and waste your time rather than pose interesting questions and themes. In the case of Kaguya and Shirogane, the two of them have substantial communication issues which are depicted in a comedic yet mature way, which I have found engaging.

I very much hope that the show will more deeply explore the themes and questions surrounding the ideas of vulnerability, emotional intelligence, and superiority within relationships. Kaguya and Shirogane have been set up to be great vehicles for such exploration, and I hope the mangaka can capitalize on that, especially if our protagonists can confront these issues directly.

My impression is that the ending will make or break this story. If the mangaka can pull it off well, I can already believe the payoff will be hugely satisfying.

Of course, in order to get to that point, we'll have to see a certain something. It has to do with the most sacred word amongst romcom enthusiasts: "progress". Indeed, after spending chapters upon chapters watching two characters bumble around amidst the same exact status quo, those little signs of advancements in a relationship are highly rewarding.

Underneath all of their aggression, if we can see Kaguya and Shirogane slowly open up to each other and realize the benefits of vulnerability, I think we could witness something really beautiful and really emotionally cathartic.

I've still only seen one episode, but I believe the mangaka has laid a fantastic groundwork for a series and can do a great job developing upon what I've seen so far. On that note, I will surpass our prideful protagonists by opening my heart to this story and entrusting it with my vulnerability, believing it can deliver satisfying development and resolution. You can do it!

Closing thoughts

I did not expect to write so much about a single episode of an ANIME of all things, but here we are. If only I could conjure this kind of power back when I actually needed it in high school English class!

The first episode alone is already so rich with characterization and themes that I managed to find quite a lot to talk about. Given how much I found myself relating to the characters and some of their situations, it's clear to me how this show became so popular. Not only are the animation, direction, and writing excellent, but also many people can probably relate to love feeling like a battlefield.

I do not want to believe in the idea of winners and losers in relationships. That idea creeps into my head whenever I'm having trouble keeping the interest of a new date, and I find myself wondering where those thoughts even come from. Lately, I have been reflecting on the way I relate to other people. Perhaps I've started experiencing this show at a time in my life when I most needed it, and that's why I felt driven to write such a large analysis.

This show poses some very interesting questions about romance that I do not actually know the answer to at the time of writing. I do not know yet how much the show is actually going to explore these themes. Regardless, I appreciate how this show is helping me reflect, and I am curious to see if and how the mangaka will answer some of the questions brought about by the story's themes.

This is a show that I'll most likely have to pace myself with. There was so much to process in this first episode alone. If I went any faster, I'm not sure if I'd even catch all of the details and character moments. I'm excited to move onto the second episode soon.

A highly subjective footnote about my cultured tastes

I'm glad that Kaguya is a sadistic dom with a gentle and vulnerable side, solely on the basis of that being my favorite personality type in a love interest. It also helps that it makes Kaguya's fantasies that much funnier with Shirogane acting so out of character. I feel like this show was made for me.

What was I writing about again? Oh yeah, writing a gigantic wall of text about an anime romcom. Somehow, I spent an entire day on this essay. Hopefully someone got a kick out of it.

[dustedmagazine]

Listening Post:  The Fall Singles Box Set

Over nearly four decades, 32 studio albums, around a dozen labels and a dizzying array of line-ups, the Fall has been a source of endless fascination, amusement, irritation, astonishment and enjoyment to a healthy minority of Dusted writers.  Centered around the irascible,unpredictable, absolutely inimitable Mark E. Smith, the Fall has been churning out singles since most of us started buying them, and, unlike other youthful obsessions, continues to do so, right up to the current moment.  So, when we heard that Cherry Red was putting out a massive seven-disc, 117-track singles collection, we were intrigued.  We were also a little daunted.  We decided to listen to it together, or at least at the same time, as much as we could, and talk about it in this listening post. As usual, some of us were long-time fans, others were new to the Fall and a couple were, shall we say, not convinced. Contributors included Jennifer Kelly, Bill Meyer, Justin Cober-Lake, Ben Donnelly, Ian Mathers, Mason Jones, Michael Rosenstein and Marc Medwin.  

Jennifer Kelly:  Hey, so I thought I'd kick this thing off book club style with some discussion questions -- though of course, as in any book club, you are free to ignore the questions and talk about other stuff as long as you don't get too loaded on white wine.  

So how are we feeling about the size and scope of the box set?  I think for the vast majority of people it will seem like a LOT of Fall, but a couple of die-hards in my circle are mad because things are missing.  (One of them owns NINE separate versions of "Hit the North," just to give you an idea of the scope of the thing.)   

The first two discs are, in my view, a pretty superb greatest hits collection (with some caveats because some of their great songs weren't  A sides or even singles).  I knew most of this stuff already, but had never heard the first two ("Bingo Master's Break Out" and "It's the New Thing") and a couple of the others.  I guess I'd vote for "Cruisers Creek" as my favorite of the old favorites, how about you guys?

I'm also struck by how great the Brix years were.  How much impact do we think band members besides MES had on the music, and which were the most important?

Bill Meyer: These are excellent questions and I will get to some of them in the next couple days. “Bingo Masters Breakout” is a singalong song in my house, my wife has been fond of that one since we first heard it c. 1983.  

Crain Scanlon's rhythm guitar and Steve Hanley's bass kept the Fall honest through some pretty grim production decisions in the mid1990s. Hell, Scanlon's hacked up guitar — which was the most battered thing I've seen on stage except for Terrie Ex's guitar — was a totem of humility. It was a sad day when Scanlon figured out how to play anonymous, competent lead guitar. 

Another notion to consider - Over the evolution of the Fall, there have been hard reactions AGAINST the influence of group members. I think that Brix was an antidote to the influence of Marc Riley. The late 1990s resurgence was a response to the departure of Scanlon and Hanley. And the relative anonymity of early 2000s bands was, I think, all about Smith not letting a band have too much ownership of the sound. 

I realize I'm talking about the Fall, not the singles set, but I'll get to that soon

Justin Cober-Lake: Speaking as a casual fan with just a few scattered albums, the size and scope of this box are intimidating and a little perplexing. The Fall have always been prolific and, especially with the lineup changes, it's hard to keep up with them in any sort of knowledgeable way unless you're committed. Getting this many tracks at once is overwhelming. That said, why complain about too much music. This box isn't meant for me (I'd be well served by a two-disc set with a quality essay in the liner notes). But I imagine it's pretty great for the people it's for, unless they have most of this material already. 

 The ideal listener for this set would be someone who knew just enough about the Fall to decide they wanted to jump in all the way, but didn't want to pick up old albums willy-nilly. What you need is here, covering about 25 years of music. Getting through it all in a way that gets me a better understanding of the band has been a challenge; the ability to listen to lots of Fall without repeating stuff has been a treat. I haven't found my era, my lineup or my 45-minute mix, and I doubt that I will, but that says as much about me as it does about the set. 

Bill Meyer: Yeah, this thing is immense. I've been on board the Fall wagon since 1981, and it's still kind of overwhelming, but that is because it is just so big. The Fall has used the single format intensively since about 1978, that's a whole lot of singles. And because they have been around so long, your mileage is likely to vary drastically according to the era.  

Jennifer Kelly: And I've run into a couple of people who find this set entirely insufficient.  

Hard core Fall people are a special breed. 

Justin Cober-Lake: This is maybe starting to shift away from the music, but from a collecting/curating (and marketing) point of view, would this material have benefited from getting, say, three separate boxes, each larger than 1/3 of this one, to get in those various mixes? Would that benefit fans or the sets to be more complete and in chunks, or would that have just served a tiny handful of fans with no real audio benefit. As fun as demos and properly alternate versions are, I've realized I'm seldom interested in hearing the radio edit that's exactly the same but missing three seconds at the end, even for my favorite acts. If this is a set specifically targeting hardcore fans, maybe it's an error not to be truly complete, even if that would have many restructuring how the material was compiled.

Bill Meyer: We definitely want to balance the "why, I was listening to this when I still had my first set of adult teeth!" opinions with some fresh reactions.

Jennifer Kelly: How many sets of teeth have you gone through, Bill?

Ben Donnelly: Mark E Smith has gone through one, at least.

Bill Meyer: That's between me and my dentist. But I did have a conversation recently with a guitarist who has had records on Homestead, Thrill Jockey, and other labels who shared that they are on their second round of implants.  And one thing I wrote about in an earlier Fall review - maybe the Peel Sessions box that I covered for Dusted? - is thinking that I heard Smith take advantage of the looseness of the fit of his plate to get a certain kind of slur.

He had enough left, at least until this past year, to hang his plate on. I gather that the health problems that led to the cancellation of American dates this summer and Euro/UK dates this fall started with a tooth removal that led straight into respiratory problems, which are still keeping him off the stage as of November 2017.

Jennifer Kelly: The last few records have definitely upped the spittle factor.

Bill Meyer: Very true.

Justin Cober-Lake: Maybe as a way to invite new listeners in and to orient our readers, how would some of you more experienced Fall fans recommend approaching this breadth of music? A quick survey of a few tracks of each disc, trying to cover various eras? Put the whole thing on shuffle? Dedicate a few dozen hours to watching the group move through its decades?

 Jennifer Kelly: The first two discs are all the A-sides, so that's a pretty good survey of the best and most listened-to material the band's done.  

I would pick one or two that you like (or hate) and talk about why. 

Bill Meyer: Disc three is A-sides too, beginning in about 1999. I've particularly appreciated it because I stopped getting Fall 7"s a little before the start of disc three, so there are songs or at least mixes that I've never heard. "Theme From Sparta F.C. #2" turns an already punchy song into a proud, rocking anthem. I might never feel that righteous about a football club, but when this song is on I want to. 

The clock restarts with disc four, tracing the history with b-sides. I haven't really digested the more recent stuff, but disc four has songs that stand among their very best. "I'm Into C.B." is masterpiece of building tension with a rumbling groove, shards of guitar, and untouchable lyric about the causes and consequences of mundane obsession. In more recent decades Smith's let himself get away with incomprehensible bluster, but back in the early 80s he was a potent and economical lyricist.  

Per Justin's question, I think that there's no perfect way to collect this music, because the perfect form is the original single. So forget about perfection; the sequence of discs one-three makes unassailable sense and charts the band's progress over time quite handily. It's an incomplete story because some of the Fall's greatest songs are pretty long, and some of their albums benefit perversely from fucked-up antics that don't make it onto a-sides very often (although you'll definitely get the idea of what I'm talking about from "Distilled Mug Art (mix 15)."  

Ben Donnelly: My hints for cracking The Fall, because they are a bowl of nuts with hard shells and lots of bitter pith that requires some work to crack and enjoy.   

Dive in anywhere. The continuities to their sound — twangy garage riffs, glib synthesizer textures — make shuffling through their catalog less jarring than other bands that have passed through these decades. As Justin observes, the material can be scattered, intimidating and perplexing, so popping them out like bingo balls isn't going to violate the intent. One of the cliches about the band that holds up, stated by John Peel: "They are always different; they are always the same." 

The lyrics may seem improvised and stream-of-consciousness, but Mark E Smith is adamant about the work he puts into them. The longer you inhabit his world of language, the more the language starts to click. Here's the lyrics for all the singles, as best as fans could transcribe them:   http://thefall.org/discography/singles.html

 Wire, the other long-running and perpetually creative art-punk band, deconstructs rock —  creating mannerist investigations, commenting on commentary. There's a temptation to draw parallels. But The Fall is not a meta-rock band. They are not deconstructing rock, even if they frequently sound like they're coming apart at the seams. They're just a rock band, dedicated to singles alternating with albums, frequent cover versions of old pop, and the commitment to a line up of guitar, bass, drums and keys. Albums have hooky numbers, experimental digressions, and winding epics, like very mangled versions of Sgt. Pepper's, White Light/White Heat or Station to Station.  

One of the other cliches about the band, stated by Mark E Smith, is "If it's me and yer granny on bongos, it's The Fall." Which implies it's all about MES, but collaboration is key to how he's kept the operation running. I don't think many of the dozens of Fall members would describe him as a generous collaborator exactly, but his method of creation depends on others. You never get unadulterated Mark E Smith. There's always admixture.

Eric McDowell: As an uninitiated Fall listener, it's pretty great to find myself privy to this discussion. I especially appreciate the permission to simply start listening without overthinking it, since my obsessive completism has definitely had me trapped between wanting to hear the whole Fall discography in order and feeling completely overwhelmed at the prospect of undertaking that project.  

To be fair, caving to compulsion, I did start with disc one. So I can only speak to a small part of the collection so far. But what I had somehow underestimated was how damn fun this stuff would be to listen to. Maybe it has more to do with letting go of my usual habits — or the fact that this is a set of singles, without the regulated ups and downs of album arrangement — but to my ears, it's just good listening. Gonna try to keep the baggage at bay while I move on to disc two...   

Bill Meyer: The Fall gained respect with good reason; they had great hooks, a bizarrely compelling singer, and a primitive groove that just would not quit from the get go. No need to lug baggage when you can just pick up on the songs. 

Mason Jones: I've never been a particularly big fan of the Fall despite appreciating the band's accomplishments. The approach has been remarkably consistent despite the changes, as others have mentioned, but somehow that hasn't resulted in the band sounding dated, which almost seems like an impossibility. Perhaps the primitivism that Bill mentions is partly responsible: when you start from a compellingly simple (yet so hard to get right) premise, layer on MES's uniqueness, and just run with it, there's no place to go except straight ahead. Yet a lot of bands have tried the idea of "don't mess with a good thing" and wound up left behind as times change. It doesn't feel like that's happened to the Fall, which is a bit mysterious. With all of these singles laid out now, perhaps their path will show itself, but I'm not so sure...

Justin Cober-Lake: Ben's points are very helpful here, and I think the Peel quote is spot-on. Fans and reviewers tend to talk in terms of the changes between albums or lineups, but it's that continuity of central focus that stands out. Listening to everything in order as presented by the box does start to highlight the overarching view. Going from one era of the Fall to another is far less jarring (or even noticeable) than going from, say, The Clash to Sandinista to Combat Rock. The MES Granny Bongos album isn't exactly Elvis Costello genre experimentation (and that's neither criticism nor praise). 

May as another way to get into things (and if this is derailing or tangential, feel free to delete/ignore and move on), imagine someone came to you and said, "So, the Fall is your favorite band? What should I listen to to understand why?" Is something like, "the first disc of this set" a reasonable answer? Is this a band that fans fell for instantly or did it take a lengthy of singles and albums for something to cohere? 

To be fair, anyone would answer similar questions with, "To get [my favorite band], you need to hear these songs, but don't forget how to this entire album fits in, and you only see what's really going on if you see the late stuff over here...." Some bands can be reasonably well captured by a single-disc "best of". Would that approach reveal the essentials of the Fall?

Jennifer Kelly: I think the first disc is a reasonable answer.  However, as Bill mentioned, these are singles and as a result, at least for the Fall, relatively tight, cohesive statements.  You don't get into the squirrelly bits as much (though they're there), and there are none of the long hallucinatory cuts that are also very representative of this band.  (For an example of this, I'd start with "Hip Priest.") 

The things I like about the Fall, more or less in order.  

The tight, rhythmic underpinning.  Whatever granny was playing on her bongos really moves, bass is almost always awesome, too.

The weird way of incorporating whatever's passing through musically -- punk, post-punk, pop, electro-clash, dance, rockabilly, literally anything, into an aesthetic that is completely recognizable as the Fall.

And in a similar sense, the lyrics, which weave so many cultural references in that listening to these discs is like an oral history, at least of the silly parts of the last 30 or 40 years.  

M.E.S.'s spectacular disdain, his ornery-ness, his willingness to bite the hand that feeds him, see "500 Bottle of Wine"  

I find myself laughing out loud about once every three tracks, because the Fall is just such a pisser, willing to say and play any god-damn thing, but completely what it is, regardless.  

Justin Cober-Lake: Just after I read this note, I laughed at "Marquis Cha Cha," and then realized that's probably a great example of what I like in the Fall, or what I would like if dug deeper and was more familiar. The track has a surprising groove to it, just hinting at a relevant globalism. Smith has some wry lyrics, and at least one moment that's genuinely funny ("You educated kids know what you're on about / You've been oppressed for years"), all of which disguises the song's disturbing elements. It feels particularly Fall-y to me, or at least does the things the Fall does that Jenny describes as the four things she likes about them.

Ben Donnelly: I was going to suggest the one with "Hip Priest" as well, Hex Enduction Hour, in part because they way "Hip Priest" was worked into the end of Silence of the Lambs makes it slightly familiar to most people, making it an example of the oddest aspects of The Fall planted deep in popular culture. But there's a whole bunch of good answers here, and I was content for a long time with owning one album (Bend Sinister) and one singles compilation (458489 A Sides). 

 My favorite LPs would be Hex, This Nations Saving Grace, The Unutterable, The Real New Fall Album.  

Ian Mathers: I haven't had time to get too much into this yet, but I do think the first 1 or 2 (or even 3, if you've got time and patience) discs make for a decent intro, although I might still direct budget conscious listeners to the two-disc 50,000 Fall Fans Can't Be Wrong: 39 Golden Greats compilation, which was the first time anything even approaching wide-ranging/definitive enough came out. But I honestly feel that, unlike most bands I like, nearly anything can be a good intro. To date myself a little, I read about the Fall long before I was able to find any of their work in stores (primitively enough, the only way I would have been able to hear them at the time). And even then, although I'd check every music store I went to for them, there wouldn't even be a title card for the Fall. Then one day one of those dodgy CD resellers that haunts university campuses showed up at my school with exactly one, battered, garish Fall CD in stock: 1992's Code: Selfish, represented here by the great political/dance-rock doggerel of "Free Range", track 13 of disc 2. It is not at all a terribly representative record for the band, but it's all I had to listen to and even though no other opening track of theirs sounds like a bunch of church bells tossed in a bin and chucked down the stairs (love you, "The Birmingham School of Business School") by the time music became more, err, accessible (and I moved to a place with better stores) I still felt prepared for the vast sprawl of their oeuvre. And now, in retrospect, I feel like I could have started from the grottiest, earliest singles here, or the bilious pomp of something like "Hip Priest", and been just as well prepared.  

And by prepared I mean both that the Fall's work seems in some way to be holographic - any small chip off the ol' block somehow recapitulates the whole - and that I kind of knew I was going to love pretty much all of it. There are some dodgy/crappy Fall releases out there, but I'm still basically/theoretically on board, or at least would rather listen to that than many other outfits. This box represents a mammoth investment of time, but for me it pays you back immensely - not everyone needs (to take some semi-random examples) "I'm Into C.B.", "No Bulbs", "Blood Outta Stone", or "I Wake Up in the City" in their life but I feel richer for it.  

To answer one of the questions Jenny asked earlier, probably my favourite of the old singles on those first discs is actually the first Fall song I ever heard and the only one I had the chance to hear before Code: Selfish, when I stumbled onto the video for "Hit the North" on TV.

I just love that farty synth bass/horn sound, and all the screaming. Really! And this also ties into the question of collaboration, because as much as I've liked songs from across the length and breadth of their music plenty of the people in the "Hit the North" video (and a few others) make up the core of what I'm always going to (unfairly?) think of as the "real" or "true" Fall, not just MES (a singular figure, and more on that in a minute) but Brix, Steve Hanley, Craig Scanlon, and Paul Hanley. In some ways this idea is a mirage, in multiple senses; not only are there others who contributed to albums during this period (Marc Riley, Simons Rogers and Wolstencroft, Karl Burns, special shout out to Dave Bush, later of Elastica, for his work on my beloved Code: Selfish), and not only is is doubtful how long that group of people actually worked as a functional unit and not only is the current lineup (who all joined in 2006) the longest-serving stable incarnation, the fact still remains that in not just the music but the pictures and videos I was able to find as a younger person getting into the band they're who I think of as the Fall. The "granny on bongos" comment is absolutely true for better and worse, but one of Smith's undeniable talents is in putting together good bands (or else he's just obscenely lucky). Yes, with almost any other vocalist many of these songs would be worse off, and it's the alchemy between MES as a sui generis front man and the music that makes the Fall what they are, but often thinking about the band mostly begins and ends with the front. 

With one already-oft-mentioned exception, I'm sure my favorite Fall LPs are pretty conventional within the world of Fall fans (no order):

Code: Selfish, Hex Enduction Hour (remove that pointless racial slur up top and this is basically perfect), The Wonderful and Frightening World Of... (the 16-track North American CD version with all the bonus tracks...), This Nation's Saving Grace ("Paint Work" might secretly be my favorite Fall song), and Bend Sinister.

 As for MES: Here's someone who on the one hand is probably one of the best front man of his era/generation, often super compelling when singing. And on the other hand it's impossible not to notice that he seems deeply unpleasant, has been accused of and/or gotten in legal trouble for domestic abuse, bullying, racism, alcholism, assault, etc. and none of its really ever made very much headway (although with him ailing recently, if we are witnessing the end of the era I wonder what kind of dam is going to break in the wake of his passing, whenever that happens). I fell in love with the Fall, and heard album after album, long before I heard of anything worse from Smith than just eccentricities, and while I admit these things are a big part of why I don't think I'd buy a concert ticket or provide other direct financial support in the future, this is a case where I seem to be unwilling to ditch the work (as opposed to my inability to listen to Swans in recent years, my complete lack of interest in revisiting Louis CK's work, etc etc.). You can find recent interviews with, for example, Brix where she doesn't shy away from describing unacceptable, abusive behaviour by Smith to her and others, but she also seems to love the band and her work with the band and doesn't seem to want anyone to stop listening.  

It's something I certainly wish wasn't true and something I won't defend, and it definitely has changed how and when I recommend the Fall to others, but ultimately aside from really blatant moments like wincing at "The Classical" it hasn't necessarily stopped me from listening myself.  

Bill Meyer: Yeah, MES comes across as deeply unpleasant, and for that reason I have not so far read any of the Fall books. It's interesting to note that people he has mistreated come back and work with him again. Prime example - his ex-wife Brix re-joined the band in the mid-1990s. I saw them then and she wasn't just a hired hand, she brought more energy to the performance of what I consider some of their more problematic material than he did. Smith is like David Thomas, Lou Reed, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis, to name a few other bandleaders who have treated their collaborators terribly only to have those people come back and play with them again, in this respect: they can know they are being treated badly, and feel very bad about it, but also know that they are part of something singular and great. They come back to be part of that thing, and they make it great by participating. When things fall out of sync (the first album after Marc Riley left, the last album with Brix before the divorce, the last records with Scanlon/Hanley, Reformation post-TLC) you get records that are weaker than the songs that make them up.

Michael Rosenstein:  I am just slightly scratching the surface here and find it all disorienting in so many ways. It is just not the way I am used to listening to music and not the music I am used to listening to. Sure I've heard about the Fall, but never, as far as I can remember, consciously listened to anything of theirs. My thoughts are based on a super-cursory listen which is really about all this musters for me. That is absolutely all about me and my musical tastes and not at all about the music. The first disc seems to stick the most with me, but really only because it sounds like what I expected them to sound like. It sounds very much stuck in the late 70s early 80s post-punk music that I have a passing familiarity with (The Slits, Pop Group/Rip Rig and Panic, Gang of Four ("Peel Sessions" or "Entertainment",...) though certainly messier than Wire. It hits all the tropes I would expect and does so with a shambolic energy that is passingly engaging. But by the time they are hitting the late 80s, they've lost me altogether. (The old man in me is starting to think "this all kind of sounds the same") and spot checking the third disc is a bit of a slog.  

It has made me think about how singles functioned in the late 1970s/1980s in particular, something that just wasn't on my radar because of what I was listening to at the time. I've been talking to friends who were grabbing these as they came out, searching out singles because that was the only way to get a glimpse of this kind of stuff in the US. That notion of the hard search for music being leaked out in small doses is SO different than how people listen now.  

In the end, this is an intriguing listening exercise for me but nothing jumps out enough to entice me to really dig in more deeply. I am absolutely not the audience for this box, and really wouldn't even be the audience for a single-CD very, very, very best of comp. Now back to looking out my window watching the snow and digging very deeply in to John Cage's "Winter Music" which is totally my jam.  

Jennifer Kelly: I think it's important that we are able to disagree civilly -- and I do disagree with almost everything in your post -- and I imagine we have some readers who do not like the Fall.  

The main risk is that MES reads your post and incorporates it into some sort of a song later, a la "Portugal."  

Mason Jones: I agree, I think if we can dig into more detail, this could be a valuable and interesting inclusion. I think I agree with some of your thoughts, and not others, since I'm not a Fall fan but do enjoy parts of the catalog.  

Bill Meyer: I certainly appreciate the inclusion of non-partisan and skeptical perspectives. The point about how people received music in the heyday of indie singles vs how they access music now - and also how the potential consumers of 7 CD archival boxes relate to other dominant modes of music consumption- that's best discussed when I am not typing with a thumb. Maybe later or maybe you can all take it past me.   

Michael Rosenstein: I’d be curious to understand the parts you disagree with. My comments are so casually subjective based on a cursory listen to music totally outside my wheelhouse. My guess is that any “disagreement” would be rooted in the fact that I did some lazy listening (which I completely agree with.)

Jennifer Kelly: Well for instance, comparing the Fall to the Slits.  The two bands sound completely different.  There's a lot of reggae in the Slits, for instance, and next to none in the Fall.  

Or the Pop Group, again, completely different thing, lots more chaotic and less rhythmic.   

Gang of Four, okay, maybe at the most superficial level, though if you listen to this stuff seriously that would be like saying that blue is sort of like green.  To me, they're both primary colors.   (Ed note: Jennifer Kelly is apparently not aware that green is NOT a primary color.)  

 Also yes, the Fall did seem to get looser and more distended as the years went on, but I would never attach the word "shambolic" to something as boxed in and paranoiac and just mental as later fall.  Shambolic, to me, means trippy and open-ended and accepting of whatever the path leads to, which is not a quality I would associate with the Fall at all.

 Michael Rosenstein: Got it. Yeah. That was incredibly lazy on my part and has everything to do my admittedly limited listening in this area. It is exactly the same as someone with minimal exposure to free jazz piano playing saying that some pianist reminds them of Cecil Taylor and Sun Ra (who have almost nothing, stylistically to do with each other). When I say that this is what I was expecting to hear, I only meant that it fit in the tiny little box that I have for that kind of listening.  

These are the concerns I have in having my comments included other than really saying that I took a listen, wasn't won over, and went back to my wheelhouse. Which really just proves my narrow listening habits more than anything else.  

Bill Meyer: But the Fall did record in the same or similarly appointed studios, worked with similar gear. Part of the sound we associated with late 70s post-punk has to do with gear and studio technique (or lack there-of), and the early Fall stuff shares the same cheap amps, cheap guitars, and cardboard-y drum sounds as a lot of other inexpensively recorded post-punk. What do you think, Michael, are you hearing that sound rather than genre elements?  

Michael Rosenstein: Thanks Bill - That gets to where I was going a lot more clearly. When I said:

The first disc seems to stick the most with me, but really only because it sounds like what I expected them to sound like. It sounds very much stuck in the late 1970s early 1980s post-punk music that I have a passing familiarity with

I was talking much less about stylistic synergies than about an overall sound. This for me is more about setting context than it is about any notion of "this sounds like that." There is a boomy quality and evenness of sonic field (with all of the instruments playing equally within the mix) that jumps out. While the way the groups operate are stylistically distinct, and the densities of sound are very different, listening to the way that the mix operates on something like Rip Rig and Panic's "Knee Deep In Shit" sets me up to hear "Roche Rumble."

 I'll stick with this:

But by the time they are hitting the late 1980s, they've lost me altogether. (The old man in me is starting to think "this all kind of sounds the same") and spot checking the third disc is a bit of a slog.

Jenny, it is interesting to hear you talk about them getting "looser and more distended". In thinking it through, maybe a better response to the earlier stuff for me is that I hear a rawness in it that isn't quite there for me in the VERY limited spot checking of the later stuff.

 Marc Medwin: OK, I was half thinking of not getting involved at all, OK, more than half, but a toe in the water:

I expected to hate this stuff.  I'm only listening to disc 1 now.  I'm smiling, grinning actually.  For me, the band that comes to mind is the Adverts, maybe it's already been discussed and not really that close at all, I haven't read back through all of these posts yet.  I find the keyboard hook on "It's the New Thing" absolutely irresistible!  

Just a quick bit of context: So far, my favorite song by the Fall has been “Pat-Trip Dispenser,” which, once I get it in my head, I find myself singing all day long, growling it in the shower, I think the lyrics are pure earthy genius!  From what I'm hearing now, I have a hell of a lot of catching up to do!!  

Jennifer Kelly: I've hit the last two discs this week, which admittedly, are not as fun as the first three, but I've been mesmerized by "Hittite Man," lately, and in looking up the lyrics, found this pretty amazing site called The Annotated Fall.  http://annotatedfall.doomby.com/

[droo216]

I was wondering if there was a reason behind the names you chose for the cursed names of characters in your OUaT reboot? I was looking at some that weren't already in the show and was wondering you chose those ones specifically?

OH YEAH. One of my biggest complaints about the real show is that Kitsis and Horowitz know nothing about fairy tales (or how to use Wikipedia tbh) and so they kind of just name their characters however they feel like, without giving the careful consideration they should. An example I’ve cited before was how it was Ginnifer Goodwin who pointed out to them that Snow White is sometimes believed to be based on the real-life Bavarian baroness Maria Sophia Margarethe Catharina, which actually makes the name Mary Margaret quite fitting. This was just a happy accident rather than being the intentional touch it should have. I actually wanted to change more of the names - David Nolan was Will Ferdinand for a long time in our rewrite - but in the interest of keeping the characters as recognizable as possible, we kept a lot of them the same. Here are some of the new ones (that we’ve met so far) and what their names mean:

Evelyn Oxford - “eve” for evening and oxford is a shade of blue, tying Storybrooke’s current mayor to her identity as the Blue Fairy

Sydney Glass - Uh, this is a boring one, but I just like this spelling better. I shuffled through several name options for Sydney, including using names like Lohr (the name of Maria Sophia’s town and her father’s mirror manufacturer) and Moroni Olsen (the voice of the mirror from Disney’s Snow White) as well as some other things that would be rather spoilery at this point… but as with David Nolan, things got too confusing when such a central character went through too much rebranding. 

Ruby Connor - means “wolf lover”

Widow Agatha Lucas - Angela Lansbury played the grandmother in the film The Company of Wolves, she is also quite famous for playing Miss Marple in The Mirror Crack’d, based on the novel by Agatha Christie. It’s a bit of a stretch, mostly I just like Agatha as an old lady name.

Helen Connor - Granny’s Storybrooke alter ego, Helen is related to “selene” meaning “moon,” suggesting her werewolf connection

Marco Collodi - The Adventures of Pinocchio was originally written by Carlo Collodi

Graham Buchanan - The huntsman in Disney’s version of Snow White was voiced by Stuart Buchanan

Dominic Leroux - I bet you forgot this character even existed… he’s there though, and his name does have meaning! I just can’t tell you yet!

Luciana - The name “Abigail” was particularly worthless. We gave her a Greek name, since her father is Greek, and Luciana means “light,” loosely connected to the gold nature of her myth.

Zoe Nolan - According to some accounts, Midas’s daughter is named Zoe! That name felt weird in the Land of Ever, so we used that name in Storybrooke instead.

Matthew Llewelyn - Matthew comes from Sir James Matthew Barrie, the author of Peter Pan, and Llewelyn comes from the Llewelyn-Davies family, on whom Barrie based the adventures of Peter Pan and the Darlings.

Ivy Langland - Ivy just comes from Robin Hood’s connection to the forest. One of the earliest mentions of the Robin Hood character comes from the poem Piers Plowman by William Langland.

Matilda Fitzwalter - Matilda Fitzwalter was an actual historical woman, on whom many legends of Maid Marian are based.

Judge Lyman - Oh wait… you don’t know who he is yet, do you? Not yet, at least…

Annie Orleans - Flora Annie Steel is sometimes credited for being the first user of the name “Goldilocks,” a character who has seen several different incarnations over the years. Orleans is related to the French word “or,” meaning gold, and I also was inspired by the person of Joan of Arc, aka the Maid of Orleans, for the character of Goldilocks.

Coquelica - Most of the names from the Land of Wonder were lifted from the Tim Burton reboot, but the princess that becomes the Red Queen is named for coquelicot, a shade of red and a French term for wild corn poppies.

King Hubert - The grandfather of Cinderella’s prince shares a name with a king from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty. I wonder why…

Prince William - Like I said, David Nolan was going to be Will for a long time until I decided it was just too confusing to rename such a major character. It’s just as well, because Prince Charming from Disney’s Cinderella was voiced by William Phipps.

Timothy Rupert - We let Timothy keep his name from the show, only because calling him "Christopher Rupert" felt too on-the-nose - because yes, the Rodgers and Hammerstein middle name for the prince is exactly where this surname comes from!

Ashleigh Glaser - I actually thought naming Cinderella “Ashley” was cute, I just liked this spelling better (same as the Sydney thing honestly). “Glaser” means “glass blower.”

Nancy Kennedy - Since Lady Tremaine inspired Nancy’s last name in Disney’s Enchanted, I used Nancy’s first name for Lady Tremaine’s Storybrooke persona. Kennedy is derived from an Irish surname that means “misshapen head” - inspired by the term “ugly stepsisters.”

Rhoda Kennedy - Rhoda Williams voiced Drizella in Disney’s Cinderella

Lucy Kennedy - Lucille Bliss voiced Anastasia in Disney’s Cinderella

Vladimir Mangiafuoco - Vladimir means “great, famous,” which makes sense for an entertainer like Stromboli, and in the original The Adventures of Pinocchio, the puppet master character is name Mangiafuoco.

Ryan Booth - Honestly, Ryan is taken from the guy Emma meets in the opening sequence of the pilot and Booth we just took from August Booth since that character wasn’t going to appear in our version. But Ryan does mean “little king,” so I wonder what that could mean for his future…

Sylvia Wren - One of my favorite names in the whole lot, Sylvia comes from Sylvia Llewelyn-Davies, the mother of the family that inspired the Peter Pan stories. As for the surname, in the original stage production of Peter Pan, the program credited “Jane Wren” as Tinker Bell, despite the fact that the character was just lights and sound effects, as a wink and a nod and a way to add mystique to the character. The best part is that H.M. Inspector of Taxes wasn’t in on the joke, and sent “Jane Wren” a tax demand.

Monique Hamilton - We’ll get there… her name definitely means something though!

Moira Henley - She takes her name from her great-grandmother’s middle name. Margaret Henley was a young girl who was an acquaintance of Sir J. M. Barrie. The legend goes that she called him “friendy” but could not pronounce her Rs, so she actually said “fwendy.” Allegedly, Barrie dropped the letter F and found his heroine’s name - Wendy.

Nathaniel Thorn - Who is he? I’ll tell you one thing: this name is the only one that means absolutely nothing.

And I think that’s everyone so far! Forgive me for indulging, but I really like questions like these. Also, I didn’t keep good track of where they all came from, so I had to do a little digging myself, which was pretty fun! I hope you like the new names, we put a lot of thought into them, and there’s certainly more characters coming still!