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sneakyscarab · 10 months

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another day, another touhou off the list, although this time its far from being an easy experience.

nina's thoughts on Touhou 15 - Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom

Legacy of Duelist Kingdom features Yugi and the boys back at it again to defeat Pegasus! wait, thats not right… Legacy of Lunatic Kingdom features Reimu and the girls back at it again to defeat... somebody! LoLK is a very unique entry, having one of the biggest new 'gimmicks' of any of the touhous ive played so far.

LoLK's big new feature is a completely new way to play the game, the exciting PointDevice mode! (really just rolls off the tongue). as opposed to the standard touhou gameplay loop (which this game does have as well, under the name Legacy mode) PointDevice mode makes the game play sorta like doing a tool-assisted speedrun, apparently being inspired by I Wanna Be The Guy. in PointDevice mode, lives are removed, so if you get hit you're out, but as a tradeoff the game is filled with numerous checkpoints that you can infinitely continue from, for example pretty much every individual spellcard/phase of a boss is a unique checkpoint. this basically means you have infinite tries for every single spellcard but you HAVE to do each one no-hit (you get bombs to ocassionally cheat, but not very many and they never refresh since you never actually die).

this sounds like it would make the game super easy since you can just infinitely practice every section until you get it right, and you would be correct! unfortunately, ZUN was aware this made things easier, so the general difficulty of patterns and enemy spawns was jacked WAY up. i… really do not like this compromise. spellcards move way faster now and often require far greater perfection than usual once you get to the lategame, with multiple regular spellcards being pure survival sections where the boss is invincible, things usually reserved for climactic final phases. theres also a much higher amount of 'jumpscare' spellcards that suddenly kill you if you don't already know theyre coming, which in a normal run would be complete bs, only being justified here since you can just go again. ZUN definitely succeeded in making it feel like I Wanna Be The Guy, but thats not the kind of game i want to play. getting wiped by BS spellcards and having to do them over and over again got me genuinely mad at times, which has happened a few times in previous entries but it was typically me being mad at myself for screwing up, not being mad at the game itself like this one made me.

besides that, the gameplay is mostly similar to DDC, although once again they have changed how life/bomb pieces are dealt out. after each 'chapter' (basically wherever a checkpoint is in PointDevice mode) the game ranks you based on how many bullets you grazed multiplied by the % of enemies you killed, and if you got enough points you get a bomb piece in PointDevice mode, or a life piece in Legacy mode. this is probably my least favourite method of the ones that have been thrown around, since its really hard to organically tell when youve grazed enough, and during stages its hard to tell when a chapter will end. it incentivizes you to not kill enemies since you want more bullets to be onscreen so you can graze more, but at the same time if you miss killing an enemy and it goes off-screen then your chapter score goes down making the extra grazing still not add up, its a lose/lose either way.

for playable characters, we got Reimu and Marisa of course, Sanae is back (yay!), and Reisen appears as a playable character for the first time outside PoFV. Reimu and Marisa play exactly the same as their B movesets in DDC, so nothing new there. Sanae uses her two movesets from UFO but stapled together, so she shoots frogs unfocused and snakes while focused, which is maybe a bit lazy but i liked both of those weapons so im totally fine with it. Reisen has a strange weapon that has random angle spread shots unfocused, and heavy piercing vertical shots when focused. her most interesting feature though is her bomb, which gives you brief invincibility on activation, and then applies 3 shields to Reisen that block a death, although offer next to no i-frames. her bomb is probably really good in PointDevice mode, but i only had the patience to try that mode once and i went with Sanae. clearing PointDevice mode counts as a 1cc, even if its pretty much impossible to lose unless you just give up, but i dont think i care to try for a win in legacy mode. if you're curious. my retry total on my PointDevice run stacked up to 547 lol.

for the new characters, my favourite addition is probably Clownpiece. more faeries are always good, and Clownpiece is a pretty interesting one since she's a Hell Fairy, whatever that means. for some reason shes themed after the USA, wearing a star-spangled jumpsuit and featuring the stars and stripes in her spell cards, and holding an eternally burning torch similar to the statue of liberty. the concept of the fairy of hell being an American clown who drives people insane is somehow kinda fitting lmao, even if its completely absurd.

besides Clownpiece, i can't say i really cared for the other characters. the rabbits and lunarians weren't very interesting to me in Imperishable Night and they still really aren't now. Doremy is intriguing, being a ruler of the Dream World, but her stage and fight really didn't sell me on the concept of it being a dream. if you took the dialogue out i dont think anyone would assume the level was supposed to be a dream reality instead of just, flying through real outer space to reach the moon.

so that was LoLK. definitely my least favourite one so far, and by a pretty wide margin. i like what ZUN was trying to do here, and maybe with better tuning PointDevice mode couldve been a really fun new way to play the game, but it just made the game a slog of trying nigh-impossible spellcards over and over again until you get it right. i might come back and try a 1cc on Legacy Mode, but having experienced how insane the lategame gets im not exactly chomping at the bit to go back for another round. this game almost feels like karmic punishment after i got a little too comfortable with the last 3 games. if theres one good thing about PointDevice mode, at least its that your victory is inevitable, so i can stop playing.

i hate for the tone of this review to be so negative, but i just did not have a good time with this one. i wanna do something to lighten the mood though, so heres a silly doodle of clownpiece i made in ms paint :P

#grimoire of nina #touhou #touhou 15 #touhou LoLK #legacy of lunatic kingdom #touhou project #clownpiece

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imagine-loki · 4 years

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Atlas: Space, Moon

TITLE: Atlas: Space

CHAPTER NO./ONE-SHOT: 5/12

AUTHOR: fanfictrashdump

ORIGINAL IMAGINE: Imagine narrating episodes of Loki’s life with the Avengers based on the songs from Sleeping At Last’s “Atlas: Space” album.

RATING: T-M

NOTES/WARNINGS: Welcome to my Sleeping At Last’s Atlas: Space challenge, aka Another writing project I do not have time for, but my brain insisted on doing.

This series will be less like a multichapter fic and more of a one-shot compendium, but that they all interconnect in one way or another. It will revolve around Loki and Becca’s relationship (Taking Turns, Glow, Helmet Heists–don’t worry, more Loki-Charlie stuff will be along) and I will use those one-shots as reference to the timeline. Each chapter will be one song, used as inspiration for the story.

Chapter 5: Moon

Summary: Hell hath no wrath like an out-of-the-loop Tony. Are you ready for this to get kinda soft? Because it gets kinda soft. (Happens previous to Taking Turns.)

Warnings include: Language. Loki wishing heat-stroke had taken him, soft and vulnerable frost giant fluff, and two idiots who just need to fucking kiss already.

[Instrumental track-really good reading music, btw]

Loki groaned pitifully as he awoke. His whole body felt like it had been dipped in lead and tossed to the bottom of the deepest ocean where he fell into an ever-deepening trench. Except he wasn’t dipped in anything. He wasn’t in the ocean. He was in the Med Bay, after, most likely, being pulled out of the mission, and, after the humiliation of passing out, he just wished he was drowning.

He tried moving his fingers first, opening and closing his fists tentatively to gauge the ache. He found the dull throb a reminder that he was, indeed, an idiot. His skin looked pale–well, paler than usual–and several lines seemed to have been placed directly into his veins with fluids. He wondered how Banner had even managed to get the needles to pierce his skin, but that was neither here nor there.

A noise of pages turning beside him, rustled. Loki bargained with the universe to end his miserable existence now, rather than have to face the person he knew was occupying the chair beside his bed. The universe denied his plea, as it always did. He wondered why he even bothered asking, anymore.

Becca looked about as tired as he felt. Though her hair was tied up in a sleek braid that was draped over her shoulder, and her clothes looked fresh and kempt, her eyes had dark bags beneath them. They were also rimmed in red. She had been crying. Surely it had not been over him, had it? With a groan, he sat up.

“Welcome back.” Her voice was soft, though hoarse and her face was littered in small, half-healed cuts. He must not have been asleep for too long. He was almost hesitant to break the calm quietness of the moment, though that was quickly solved.

The sound of Bruce repeating Tony’s name in a plea echoed in the empty medical facility. A second later Tony, red in the face, was in front of Loki’s cot, pointer finger gesturing the Prince.

“Do you have any idea how fucked we could have been because of your little stunt?” Loki had the good sense to look down in shame, hair forming a dark curtain around his face to hide the flush creeping up his neck. “If Becca hadn’t been in position to get to you, we’d be retrieving your corpse right around now. Do you understand that, Loki? Dead! You would survived every other fucking thing the Universe had thrown at you and you would’ve bowed out because of fucking heat stroke!”

He growled, seemingly no longer capable of speech and knocked over a tray, making both Becca and Loki start.

“I had to pull Thor from his assignment because I had no idea if he was going to pass out, too. We had to scramble the whole roster to finish the mission because you weren’t bothered to tap out when you reached your limit! We nearly fucked this whole op because of you. You are in such deep shit, Mischief. I swear to God!”

With that sentiment hanging in the air, Tony turned tail and stomped his way out of the hospital room.

Loki turned to Becca, his eyes looked pained as he took her in. “I’m so–” She raised a finger, wordlessly telling him to hold his thought before she pointed back at the Med Bay entrance where Tony was rushing back in. She seemed almost amused by the man’s predictability. In reality, she was just used to seeing this song and dance routine being done with Peter.

“A frost giant in 110 plus degree heat? Really? You should have told us, Loki!” He roared and Loki stilled as his blood ran as cold as his species name. “You should have told us the second you started working here. Let me be clear. I don’t give a shit what the hell you are. You can be an ice giant, a fae princess or a goddamn opossum–you don’t keep that from us!” He raked his hair frustratedly, trying to swallow the rest of his yelling and barely succeeding. “I would have given you a different beat on mission. I would have given you both a different beat.” Loki opened his mouth to protest, but was promptly cut off. “Do you think I don’t know you went on that mission because of Becks? What kind of a moron do you take me for?”

“Not a damn word, Loki,” Becca warned, smirking. “This is not the moment to be clever.” Loki pressed his mouth to a thin line, glaring shortly at the woman for denying him his only defense mechanism at present.

Tony rolled right through the joke, too keyed up to be amused. “You are grounded, do you hear me? Grounded! No more missions until I decide that you’ve learned your damn lesson. No more leaving the compound for pizza in the city. No special passes to Asgard. Completely grounded. Am I understood?”

Loki surprised himself by nodding effusively to the demands, back pressed against the headboard as though he intended to meld into the wall behind him. Tony stomped back out, muttering out loud about idiots who were going to give him a heart attack. Loki glanced back at Becca, who was sitting crisscross, book abandoned on the portion of her thighs left bare by her shorts. In the scratchy paper gown Loki felt entirely out-of-place in her presence. Still, he couldn’t find it in himself to want to leave.

Despite her neutral expression, he could see something akin to hurt lurking behind her eyes. “I didn’t tell–”

“It’s fine,” Becca cut in, waving him off. “It was none of my business. I get it.” She sniffed delicately, her eyes dropping to the checkered floor of the hospital as if it help some great secret.

“Rebecca…”

She glanced up and unwound her legs, reaching forward to ruffle his hair. “I’m glad you’re OK.”

When she made to leave, Loki wrapped his fingers around her wrist and held her still. “It wasn’t because of you or because I didn’t trust you.”

The woman looked like she debated not arguing but thought better of it at the last moment, letting the frustration pour out of her every pore. “That doesn’t change the fact that I was the one who watched you almost die without knowing the reason.”

“I didn’t want it to change how you saw me,” he explained for reasons he could not comprehend.

Becca scoffed, leaning down to get eye level with him. He could feel her breath on his face and at any other point in time, he would have celebrated being in this position. Something in the back of his head told him he shouldn’t cheer this time around. “Literally no one gave a shit what you looked like as we dragged your giant-ass, blue body onto the jet. We only prayed you wouldn’t die before we hit ally airspace, you fucking moron,” she explained slowly, voice trembling and eyes watering. “We work with a bioengineered, sentient gem–you’re not that fucking special.”

Loki swallowed thickly, suddenly terrified of the burning rage reflected in her warm eyes. It was bright, beaming, smoldering fear that fueled it. Fear that she would lose him before they managed to land somewhere that might have been safe to intervene on him. Fear that she would lose a colleague, a friend. Fear that she would never make him pay for keeping her in the dark for so long. Loki felt every last bit of that fear, magnified tenfold to become his own.

He leaned his forehead onto her clasped hand. “I didn’t want you to know who I really was and chance scaring you off.”

“Are you dumb or what?” She snapped, gritting her teeth in an effort to contain her tears. “Why would I judge you over something you have no control over? After all we’ve done? All we’ve lived? I thought I showed you who I was a little better than that.”

“It wasn’t about you–”

“Evidently it was or you wouldn’t care if I saw!” She snapped before sighing, brushing his tangled hair back with her free hand. “You worried me a hell of a lot.” There was so much held back in her voice, he could tell, but he was not about to try his luck and pressure her into revealing her secrets.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca.” Loki had never apologized for a damn thing in his life, but he couldn’t help but let the words slip now, as she watched him with worry in her eyes and hurt in her soul.

“Scoot over, Evil Smurf,” she teased softly, and the words landed as painfully as if she had called him my love. He wanted this. He wanted this playful pain, but he couldn’t reason to himself why.

Swallowing a groan, he shifted over in the hospital cot. Becca clambered in easily and draped her arm around his shoulders, feeling him tense momentarily. After a second, the warmth of her digits seeped into his skin, and he melted into her side. When he let out a small sad whine, she pressed a kiss to his temple and allowed him to hide his face into the crook of her neck. Whether their silent agreement to shelve their discussion was due to shock of their mutual vulnerability or pure exhaustion, it was unsure. They merely accepted the conditions and sat tangled up, with only the sound of their breathing.

That’s how Bruce found them, asleep, an hour later when he went in to change Loki’s IV bag.

#Loki #Lover #Angst #Others #Submitted fic #submission #atlas space #moon #chapter 5 #Fanfictrashdump

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hexxwhat · 6 years

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Hello friends, now that I have seen The Last Jedi twice and had time to process it all I thought I would give you all my thoughts! First things first, let me just say that I am not down for the visceral way Star Wars fans are lashing out at one another over this movie? Like if you liked it, good that’s valid! If you hated it, good that is also valid! But targeting other movies or other people’s opinions to just be nasty is so petty and so exhausting and I am just not for it. So if you’re not open to having critical dialogue about a film, or if you’ve already decided how you feel about the movie and aren’t interested in other people’s opinions then don’t even waste your time reading this? Because at the end of the day it’s just a movie and it’s supposed to be entertaining. And I am saying that as someone who has invested way too much time over the course of her entire lifetime to the Star Wars franchise, the EU and the general meta of the series.

No Star Wars film has EVER been perfect; every movie has its flaws. Let’s not act like this is news.

Now TL;DR version right up front: I didn’t hate it but I thought a lot of it was rushed and Rian Johnson just really disappointed me.

Now, spoilers below the cut of course.

Let’s get to my biggest issue first shall we?

The entire plot line between Holdo and Poe was extremely frustrating to me. Not just because of the way it portrayed Poe as an impulsive and insensitive child (I’ll get into that in more detail later) but because miscommunication as a driving plot point is one of the laziest tropes ever and I am so, so sick of seeing it in film. PLUS! It goes against how information was shared by the Rebels as established by EVERY ONE OF THE PREVIOUS STAR WARS FILMS??? Like in every single other film where there was a rebellion present (and therefore excludes the prequels) whenever there was a plan that affected the entire rebellion, every member was told about it.

To prove it, here are my sources:

· A New Hope: When everyone was sitting around reviewing the Death Star plans and talking about how people were going to blow it up, the whole rebellion was there. Not just the officers, not just the pilots, everyone. Including Han Solo who was not a member of the rebellion and was really just there hanging out at the time? Han was informed of the plan for the Death Star even though everyone knew he and Chewie would be leaving. Nobody was kept in the dark about the plan!

· The Empire Strikes Back: Everyone is getting ready to go fight the Empire’s forces landing on the surface of Hoth and everyone is standing around in a circle listening to Leia tell them their orders. Everyone heard everyone else’s orders, even if they didn’t apply to them. Everyone knew what everyone else was supposed to do so that nobody was confused, left in the dark and so nobody would get in any body else’s way!

· The Return of the Jedi: Everyone is sitting around in a circle listening to Mon Mothma explaining about the new Death Star and what the plan is as a whole and then listening to all the other little plans! Everyone hears about what the plan is with Lando and his squad. Everyone hears about what the plans are with Han and his ground troops. Everyone knows what part they are playing in this grander scheme so that nobody is just standing around being wasted energy and nobody will be doing anything reckless that gets in the way of the rest of the mission!

· The Force Awakens: Everyone standing around that glowing map once Han and Finn get to the Resistance base and Poe takes Finn to Leia. Everyone hears what Finn has to say about Starkiller Base. Everyone gets to hear what the plan is that they set up. Including Han Solo, who even gets to provide input to the plan even though he is clearly not an official member of the Resistance and has in fact been off dicking around for a couple of years not helping at all. Even he got to find out what the plan was. Again.

· Rogue One: When the team finally got back to Yavin IV and was talking about the Death Star plans literally everyone who wanted to be was crammed into that room around that glowing table having a say and or hearing what everyone else had to say. Even Jyn and Bodhi, who by rights were not part of the rebellion and if anything they probably should have been super suspicious of Bodhi because who knows he could have been a double agent? (it hurts me to even say that of Bodhi but still) Everyone who wanted to know what the plan was, what the Rebellion’s next step was, was able to find out. Was able to hear and know.

So when Holdo took command of the Resistance and was standing there in the center of the circle with the entire remainder of the Resistance watching and listening…the fact that she didn’t say shit about the plan is bullshit. It was bullshit, it was lazy, and it was straight up the thing I hated the most about this movie. Hands down, no question about it, the worst piece of nonsense. There is a precedent for how this Resistance is run based on how the Rebellion is run because Leia was the bridge between the two movements. And it was already shown in TFA that she kept the whole ‘let’s share information thing so nobody feels lost’ movement alive. So if Holdo was so trustworthy and close to Leia then why the fuck didn’t she just tell everyone the plan? Things would have been so easy if she had just done what every leader before her had done when standing in a circle surrounded by the people she was supposed to lead! Ridiculous.

That being said, Holdo’s final moment was incredibly bad ass and visually stunning. Cinematically that cut to silence was so impactful and heart wrenching. Holdo was clearly a woman with a strong will and convictions and I honestly wanted to like her more but I couldn’t because RJ was like “Do you know what we need in a time of crisis? For the leadership to be petty and condescending to one of the main characters.” Like…it was so lazy. Holdo deserved better, Rian Johnson is invited to my funeral as a pall barer so he can let me down again when I die.

Which loops me around to my second biggest issue with the movie which is the Character Assassination of Poe and Luke and to an extent Rey. Now, anyone who knows me well knows that Characters often matter more to me then Story/Plot. I have read some awful books and watched some shitty shows and movies just for the sake of a character that I really love and identify with. So when I see writers and directors really misinterpreting characters, it bothers me. Because it is often purposefully done for the sake of ego. How hard is it to look at someone else’s work and be faithful to it? Why do you have to change character’s behaviors for the sake of doing something different or edgy? It’s exhausting and Rian Johnson really tried it with me.

Poe Dameron is a risk taker who often time puts himself into incredible amounts of danger for the sake of the cause. This is seen in TFA when he goes on a mission alone, it is seen in the short story released about his life prior to the start of TFA and it is seen in his solo comics run. Poe is reckless with himself. Not with others. The opening battle was actually brilliant, it made me feel a lot of things, and it also showed the toll of war. People always die in Star Wars movies. In a New Hope only about 3 members from Red Team made it back to the base on Yavin IV. The toll has always been high. And all the background evidence Disney and LucasFilms has provided for us up until TLJ came out showed that not only is Poe entirely cognizant of the cost of war, he is respectful of it. To turn Poe into a, and let us quote “A trigger happy fly boy” is degrading. Poe is part of the Resistance because he values people and he is living up to the memory of his mother and the sacrifices of his father. To turn him into someone seeking glory at the cost of others is honestly disgusting to me. And while his coup was conducted with the right intentions at heart, it shouldn’t have happened at all because to circle back around, miscommunication as a plot device is lazy as hell and I thought we were better than this. That being said every interaction Poe had with Finn was golden, his entire bond with the droids in his life is charming and pure, and the way he slams his hand against the side of his ship before doing a sharp turn at high speed to keep from slamming his head into the glass from the force of it all is one of the best subtle acknowledgments of physics in space that I have ever seen.

Now…let’s talk about Luke shall we? Luke Skywalker has been one of my favorite characters from the time I was five years old and can remember watching Star Wars for the first time with my Uncle and Mother. My first piece of Star Wars meta that I owned was a chapter book about Luke that took place just before A New Hope started and my mother used to read it to me while I was in the bathtub so that I would actually sit still in there. My Harry Potter phase was nothing really, I didn’t even read past book 3 until I was almost a High School graduate and I really don’t think the series is as good as people romanticize it. But the reason for that is because Star Wars was my Harry Potter and there was just no room in my heart for anything to be nearly as big. Luke Skywalker is one of the single most important characters in fiction to me. He is my hero, he is my moral line in the sand. He is someone with great power who was given the choice to rule or to lead and he chose to lead. And that is an incredibly important distinction. He is an optimist about everything and everyone, but he is also confident and self-assured. He is a loving person who cares and bonds with others despite what the way of the Jedi had said because he understood the value of people. He is dramatic and thoughtful and dedicated to being a balancing act in the universe. So it meant a lot to me that I was going to get to see Luke on the big screen. I never got to see that growing up. I was seven years old when episode I came out and I have seen every Star Wars movie that has come out in my lifetime in theaters, usually more than once. But I never got to see Luke until now and I was so very excited. And while Mark Hamill’s performance was stunning because he gave everything he had to give…you could tell in parts he was just as disappointed with the way Rian Johnson wrote Luke as I was. Now in the EU, Luke did at one time just straight up leave everyone. This was after his wife was murdered and he left after looking into the future and seeing that if he took vengeance for her death he would become a Sith and be pretty much unstoppable. And because Luke Skywalker is such a good and pure soul, he said ‘nope, not going to subject the universe to that’ and left! But him going away and turning into a grumpy old man who hates people is bullshit. Him not coming back because Leia called for him is bullshit. Him closing himself off from the Force entirely and therefore not having felt the exact moment when Han Solo died IS BULLSHIT! Also, Luke trying to rebuild the whole Jedi Order as it was when it was destroyed is nonsense. Luke Skywalker was a Gray Jedi who disavowed just as much of the teachings of the Jedi Order as he did of the Sith. So that was nonsense.

Luke Skywalker never would have taken a lightsaber down to his nephew’s tent. He learned the lesson of choice in Return of the Jedi and if he saw darkness in Ben he would have done something else about it. Anything else about it. But again it was Rian Johnson using miscommunication as a plot point which is once more…lazy af.

That being said, there were moments when Luke was Luke and it tore my heart to pieces.

Luke on the Falcon and his interaction with R2-D2 was incredible. And leave it to R2 to take such an effective low blow. What good timing and sense of human guilt that droid has.

Luke and his reunion with Leia was beautiful. The fact that it was apparently written by Carrie just adds to the pain of it all. But it was beautiful and also one of the only moments the movie got to take to breath. The rest of the film was so jam packed and rushed that we never got a chance to really appreciate the toll all of this had on people. So that scene was beautiful and emotional and perfectly illustrated the whole point of Luke never placing his ego as a Jedi before the safety of people.

The entire fight scene between Luke and Kylo Ren was honestly golden. The outfit Luke showed up in was perfect and harkened back to his Return of the Jedi look. The ease with which he did everything, the shoulder brush after the First Order shot at him, the way he just dropped backwards and spun away from Kylo when he tried to half in the first time. The audacity to throw Han’s death in Kylo’s face right before utterly and fully humiliating him in front of the entire First Order. THE ABILITY TO ASTRALLY PROJECT HIMSELF THERE JUST TO TEACH KYLO ABOUT HUMILITY AND TO SAVE THE RESISTANCE WAS SO GOOD! Like there was the characterization that was missing. There was Luke Skywalker standing on the plank of Jabba’s skimmer saying ‘Free us or Die’ with the nonchalance of asking a neighbor if you can get a ball out of their back yard. There was Luke Skywalker, with a great big FU to the fascists of the Universe that I grew up cherishing. The only thing that would have made that scene better was if he was using the green saber that he made for himself. Because it honestly didn’t make sense for him to be using the saber that Rey and Kylo had literally just destroyed. That was the biggest ‘wait’ moment of that whole scene and kinda took away from the impact of the whole ‘I’m not really here, haha!’ moment.

I’m okay with Luke dying. I really am. But only if he comes back in Episode IX as a Force Ghost. If he doesn’t then Rian Johnson really and truly wasted the gift he was given.

Rey stealing the Jedi Texts was brilliant, Rey learning how to figure out the Force based on what she was given by Luke was great. REY’S FIRST INSTINCT WHEN THE FORCE BOND HAPPENED WAS TO SHOOT KYLO LIKE GOD BLESS. But the cave scene was a huge let down. I was expecting something closer to when Luke said ‘nah Yoda I’m going to go into the sketchy part of the woods’ and he fought himself as Darth Vader in episode V. Instead we didn’t really get anything? I expected more from a sketchy portal in the ground that lead directly to the dark side TM. Reducing Rey’s journey to understanding and the Force into just redeeming Kylo is trite. And beautifully summed up with her whole ‘please don’t do this’ and look of utter disappointment after the fight scene with Snoke’s guards. (That Fight scene was very good! Very good! All the action scenes in this movie was very good!) Rey not letting the fact that Luke was being obstinate get in her way of her own training was good because it really shows that she values herself, she values the Force and she values what she can contribute to the Resistance. Rey’s arc stumbled in this movie but it was still good, and her optimism in Kylo was just as valid as Luke’s optimism in Vader.

Question, why was Yoda like that? He was like…a CGI version of his puppet self from The Empire Strikes Back and he was a weird kale green color? They gave up on his iconic speech pattern like real quick. I was mostly unsettled by the fact that he was entirely wreathed in flame for 80% of the time he was on screen like some kind of goblin. And honestly I really wish it had been Obi-Wan who showed up to talk to Luke since out of the two of them Obi-Wan was the one most similar to Luke in how he conducted himself. That being said I was very happy to see Yoda, because it was a nice call back to how the Force Ghosts operate. Which also gives me hope to Luke being a Force Ghost. I’m really clinging to that guys.

LET’STALK ABOUT LEIA AND THE FORCE BECAUSE THAT WAS SIMULTANEOUSLY ONE OF THE MOST SATISFYING AND VALIDATING THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN WHILE BEING EQUALLY FRUSTRATING!

Leia has used the Force in every movie we see her in. She generally only used it to sense others, mostly Luke, but that was because at the time Leia didn’t understand that feeling for what it was. Also if you watch Return of the Jedi when she is strangling Jabba in one shot the chain moves by itself and that is obviously Leia exerting her will over it with the Force as she viciously chokes the life out of the slug man. Leia doesn’t start to open herself up to the Force until after she finds out that Luke is her brother and Vader is her biological father. (I say biological because Bail Organa was Leia’s father and he deserves to be respected) In TFA she talks about the Force with the confidence of someone who has used it, and it is obvious that she is much more in tune with it then before when she feels Han die. So it was very satisfying to see her use the Force in such an overt way because it really shut up all the Fake Star Wars Fanboys who were always arguing that Leia never had any Force Sensitivity whatsoever. She had Skywalker blood in her. The fuck you mean Leia can’t use the Force. That being said…the science on what happens to an organic lifeform in the vacuum of space is pretty clear. So the way RJ decided to show Leia using the Force was just…silly. It was more funny in the moment than anything else. Like really…she’s turning to ice, she had no oxygen, she dead…but okay. I’ll take it because Leia could have been a Jedi if she had made it to Obi-Wan and we all know that’s the real reason why Bail sent Leia when he could have sent anyone.

Snoke and Phasma were wasted, let’s not pretend that they weren’t. The Phasma / Finn fight should have been longer, more fighting, less one liners. I loved the fight scene, I just really wanted more from it because like….she raised and trained all the troopers, you would think she would have been a bit more brutal? And Snoke?? Why did they even take the time to build him up the way they did if we were never going to find out jack shit about him? Like come on guys what was that? But like also Snoke’s robe was fabulous and I kind of want it? The color was great and the neckline was great. The costume designer on this movie did a hell of a job. I loved it.

RIP the boyfriend jacket, lost in space when Finn and Rose changed into the Imperial Uniforms on Snoke’s ship. Rose never got to wear the jacket which is a tragedy since everyone wore the jacket in TFA.

Side note, Disney is a pack of cowards for not giving us Gays in Space and trying to shoehorn the Finn/Rose romance in at the last minute. Like bless them for an interracial couple that didn’t include a white person in it but Finn/Poe is also an interracial couple that doesn’t include a white person. But Rose Tico is a gift and anyone who shits on her for the sake of a ship is a child and can leave. Like she is a passionate and dedicated part of the Resistance. She is down in the metal and the dirt making sure the ship is running and people are being honorable. She lost her sister to this fight and she was ready to keep fighting regardless. She gave up the one token she had for the sake of the mission because she is a selfless hero. Rose Tico is a gift, we don’t deserve her vicious little spirit. I just thought the kiss came out of nowhere and was unnecessary? Her line was beautiful. Saving what we Love is at its core the whole point of everything in the Star Wars Universe. But they didn’t need to kiss. And this isn’t just because I prefer Finn/Poe. It just wasn’t necessary in that moment.Also I can not wait for the part in EP IX when Rey and Rose meet and become best friends BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH SUCH VICIOUS LIGHTS OF HOPE AND LIFE AND UGH I LOVE EM.

I’m not here to talk about Kylo Ren, Reylo shippers or any of that. I’m too much of an adult to have a problem with people who like villains and people who ship the villain with the female protagonist. Like leave people alone. Don’t be coming into people’s DM’s acting like liking something in fiction automatically means they are okay with it in real life. Don’t act like this whole shipping the hero with the villain thing is new. It’s not, it happens, people always wants a redemption arc for the villains even if they don’t deserve it. Let people live. I don’t like Kylo Ren, I don’t ship him with Rey. I’m not here for that discourse.

I am here to tell all you assholes who are going hard on Adam Driver for his portrayal of Kylo and his appearance to step the fuck off. You all need to learn how to separate character from actor. And you need to learn that insulting someone’s appearance just because they are the bad guy is hypocritical to the whole body positivity movement that most of you people are praising with your second breath. Adam Driver is an incredible actor, you know why I say that? Because if he wasn’t such a good actor then we wouldn’t have the violent, deep rooted responses we have to Kylo Ren. Adam Driver doesn’t deserve the shit you people throw at him. And that’s fact.

And lastly….I really don’t like the Porgs. I don’t and I’m sorry. I now understand how my dad feels about the Ewoks, I get it. I mean they were cute like the first few times I saw them but then they just…got obnoxious? It was too much to the point that it got stale. My dad is really bothered by the fact that they are birds but they have fur and like honestly that doesn’t bother me. It’s just the noise they make, it pierces my very soul and I just…I’m sorry but the little furry penguins didn’t do it for me.

….I loved the Crystal Critters tho…

But the overuse of the Porgs brings me to my biggest issue with the general humor of the movie. A lot of it got repetitious and was just not funny to me. The movie never took the time to slow down and take a breath like previous films, it was just constantly go, go, go. Which meant at times the jokes butted up against serious moments in a way that just didn’t work for me. They seemed ill timed and just didn’t always land with me.

The hardest I laughed was when Rey threw the lightsaber to Kylo and he used it to kill the guard that was choking him out. I saw the movie twice and both times I fucking died laughing at that part. That was funny to me and it wasn’t supposed to be, which really tells you something about the humor of the film.

But yeah…so if you made it all the way to the end of my long ass complex dissection of the Last Jedi, congratulations. Feel free to message me if you want to talk about anything in more depth. I am happy to talk about anything as long as it’s respectful. If you didn’t agree with something I said here, let’s talk about it. Let’s just be civil about it mkay?

Thanks friends. Here’s hopping Episode IX is better.

#Use the Force #Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Star Wars Spoilers #The Last Jedi Spoilers #THIS IS MY OPINION

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airadam · 6 years

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Episode 102 : Play With Joy

"Give me a minute, I'll give you my spirit."

- Konny Kon

Another month, another mix to keep your ears nourished! Listen out for Juice Crew appearances and connections throughout the selection, after Manchester witnessed them tear up the stage this month. We've got some soulful numbers, turntable wizardry, and quotables for days. Let's get it started...

Twitter : @airadam13

Playlist/Notes

Cesar Comanche : A-Game

With the intro and all that, this is a track that needs to be at the start of a mix, and as such I've been saving it for quite a long time. One of my favourites from the original days of the Justus League, this track is from Cesar's second album "Paper Gods", and is a great ode to working hard in music and not being a hanger-on or a daydreamer; as the title suggests, bring your A-game. 9th Wonder is on the beat, slapping that snare as always!

Kev Brown : The Beat Tape (Instro)

One of the instrumentals from the "Selective Hearing" LP; nothing super complex, just a good example of doing something funky with a handful of elements. The insertion of that "yeah" sample is worth the price of admission!

Kool G Rap & DJ Polo : Letters

Another one I've had in the "to play" list for ages, it's a straight mic workout for G Rap taken from his final album in collaboration with DJ Polo, "Live and Let Die". As an aside, I didn't realise that the album was shelved some time after initial release because of the controversial cover art! Luckily, it got a re-release so you should be able to find it - there are some excellent tracks on there. As with most of the rest of the album, Sir Jinx, best known for his work with Ice Cube, handles the production; a nice funky soul sample forms the basis of the track.

Wordsworth : Feel Me

Hadn't given "The Picture Album" a listen in a long time and had totally forgotten about this Ill Poetic-produced track - I was looking to include something featuring Masta Ace but this got the nod instead, as it were. "Feel me internally"? Hold that thought, we're coming back to it later in the show...

Bumpy Knuckles : Lazy

One of those tunes you can drop on a mixtape or in a club night full of real heads. DJ Premier on the beat with a meat-and-potatoes drum pattern underpinning a disjointed string sample, and Bumpy going in on the mic straight line style. Bonus points for him impression of crying MCs in the intro :) We will definitely return to the "Konexion" album again!

Big Daddy Kane, Jay-Z, ODB : Show & Prove

The full version of this tune from the 1994 "Daddy's Home" album is long! Coming off a loop of the DJ Premier beat, I actually missed off the first three verses (Scoob, Sauce Money, and Shyheim) and jumped in at Kane's appearance. A then mostly-unknown Jay-Z can be heard here with his old style, and ODB shuts it down on the final verse, overwhelming the track with sheer force of personality! Three Brooklyn kings, no question. The sharp-eared amongst you will find the last word on the tune very familiar...

[Pete Rock] All City : Priceless (Instrumental)

I played the vocal version of this many moons ago on episode 12, and Pete Rock's beat fits brilliantly here - a bridge between the explosion that ends the previous cut, and the tempo of the one that follows...

Top Rawmen : Symphony 3000

I'm amongst friends here, so I can admit it - at least partly due to cultural differences, I didn't realise for years that this turntablist crew's name is a pun! Yeroc, Nando, Nomad, Mike c, and Jay Slim brilliantly execute the concept of a turntable version of the Juice Crew classic "The Symphony" on this selection from "Return of the DJ, Volume IV". The beats are sampled/cut/reworked from that 1988 record, and several quotes from the track get sliced and diced here too.

Camp Lo : Cookers

This Ski-produced B-side (you know the deal) from the "Trouble Man" single bangs hard in a specific way that often makes it tough to fit into mixes, but I think this is a good spot for it! There's a detail worth noting on this one - check how Sonny and Geechi start each two-bar phrase of the first verse with their syllables landing dead on each hit of the kick drum.

Diamond D ft. Kurupt and The Alkaholiks : We Are The People Of The World

Diamond just keeps on going - with a record collection and a mind like his, the beats will hopefully keep on coming for a long time yet! His 2014 album "The Diam Piece" is a producer-centred project where he brings in a star-studded roster of guests to bless his beats; on this cut, we get veteran West Coast lyricism from the 'Liks and Kurupt, keeping it positive. I do need to stop giving myself these awkward bar counts to mix with though...

J-Zone ft. Has-Lo : Caddy Coupe

I love seeing people win, so this track works on two levels; firstly, it comes from "Fish 'n' Grits", an excellent album from the latter phase of J-Zone's musical career, and secondly because of the story. I can totally get behind a real-life tale of a man treating himself to a bit of luxury after a hard working life; it's just a genuinely nice story. Philadephia's Has-Lo takes the second verse to expand the theme a little more, and Zone's production (in all senses of the word) is excellent and inventive as always.

Trifeckta : First Time (Janet Jackson Flip)

I wanted to bridge here with something having a bit of 80s style and also some soul, and finally found the right beat on the Producers I Know compilation "The 80s Beat Tape" - which I'm sure we'll visit again. St.Louis'/NYC's Trifeckta dices up some Janet Jackson and tops it off with some skilled drum machine work.

John Legend and The Roots : Hang On In There

Somehow the "Wake Up!" collaborative project slipped by me until recently, despite being years old! It's mostly made up of covers of old soul records, and they're done well. Here's one example, their take on the low-key 1972 classic "Hang On In There" by Mike James Kirkland, with a beautiful groove and a solid message.

Children of Zeus : Rock You Internally

Yet another great cut from Konny Kon and Tyler Daly, both of whom are in fine rhyming style right here - classic tag team vocal styles. No slouches on the boards either, they cook up a quality beat from a classic soul sample. "The Story So Far..." is an essential purchase...and that's just a collection of their past work. The album, when it comes, is really going to be something.

Ill Camille : Take A Ride

Ill Camille is an artist coming out of Los Angeles who gets much respect from those in the know. While her latest LP "Heirloom" is getting rave reviews, here we go all the way back to 2011's "The Pre-Write" for a track which I think features the sadly late Alori Joh ; they collaborated on a version of this track I've seen titled as "Take That Ride". Camille handles her business here lyrically, and the hook is very nicely done as a bonus. I've not got any credits indicating who produced it, but I do like the beat - incidentally, all that EQ/filtering going on towards the end is part of the track itself!

KING : The Greatest

I don't know how many times I've played this track this year, but it's a lot. Paris Strother kills it on this production (as she does on the whole "We Are KING" album), and on the mic along with the other two members for this ethereal and grooving tribute to the great Muhammad Ali. If you're hearing it for the first time, it deserves an immediate rewind - alternatively, watch the excellent 8-bit-styled video :)

Tall Black Guy : Sade's Taboo (Sweetest Taboo Blap-Up)

The brother from another mother (and father) once again shows you how he flips well-known samples into his own head-nodding, shoulder-slumping style!

Craig G : W.F.W.T (What's Fuckin With That)

Ending things on an up note, we take a track from the amazingly titled "I Rap and Go Home" album. The Juice Crew veteran gives you a small window into his life as a live performer..and he loves it! Again, I like to see people win and so it's nice to know that Craig's working life is pretty awesome. Vaporworldz isn't an artist I've heard of before, but this beat is on-point; a light, cheerful head-nodder with a little reggae seasoning in there. I hope Craig G and the rest of the crew left Manchester with happy memories - although we couldn't help much with the weather, sadly.

Please remember to support the artists you like! The purpose of putting the podcast out and providing the full tracklist is to try and give some light, so do use the songs on each episode as a starting point to search out more material. If you have Spotify in your country it's a great way to explore, but otherwise there's always Youtube and the like. Seeing your favourite artists live is the best way to put money in their pockets, and buy the vinyl/CDs/downloads of the stuff you like the most!

Check out this episode!

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ravingsofajunkie · 7 years

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“At least you’re still alive”. It’s almost as bad as “at least you’re sober”. I really have no idea what those mean to me. Alive…dead…sober or high, I don’t see importance of one state over another. Suicidal, I am not. I’ve been suicidal before because I thought that’s what you do when you’re depressed. A suicidal thought would cross my mind saying life would be much easier if I weren’t here. I would go with that thought believing it was real. But if there was any amount of known pain involved in a certain method of suicide I wouldn’t want use it. So the best way was Tylenol. Right? As if! Twice even!

My belief system had been this: I’m capable of thinking a thought therefore it must be true and I have no choice but to follow that one path. I really didnt know, deep down, I had a choice about everything…and I mean e-ve-ry-thing until about 2013. My first lesson was in 2004. Being sober for almost a year I found some solace at a Methodist church in the Lakeview neighborhood of Chicago. I attended an orientation class for those who were curious about becoming more involved with that specific church. The straight pastor who had been suspended from serving this church for marrying gay couples said, “we’re more universalist than Methodist here. Some of us actually believe that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead which doesn’t mean youre not a Christian.” I knew what he said was Truth yet still I was flabbergasted and gratitude radiated from my body like light from the sun.

The second lesson was in 2011. I had been using crystal meth off and on for about a year. My most personal and revealing tweak was carpet combing. I would spend hours (in total adding up to days and days) combing through my carpet to see if I or anyone else had dropped any crystal meth whether or not it was used in that part of the apartment. The sense of lack in my life was fierce. Lack of choices. Lack of friends. Lack of money. Lack of worthiness. I wanted more T and that shiT was expensive. Letting the cat out of the bag and revealing my tweak to a “friend” he said, “You have a choice. You need to tell yourself to get up off the floor and do something else. That shit is pathetic”. Why did he have to add THAT at the end? My sense of lack was so loud I had neglected my truer instincts.

I have never understood concepts such as a God based out of major religions, baptism, funerals, I am supposed to give a shit about the plight of every human being (especially when I could imagine aspects unknown to my experience and without judgment), and the importance of “at least I didn’t die”. Gosh, I must be a heartless person. That’s not what most people have told me, though. My first sponsor (in AA) of eight years mentioned that I was very altruistic at least once in every conversation, always trying to affirm my worthiness. I had no idea what that meant, at first, so I looked it up. It meant I was a very giving person with no expectation of reward or reciprocity? Please. No one…absolutely no one I know is the perfect model of altruism. A reward always awaits in anything we do or are with the simple release of the feel -good-chemical dopamine. I had started to hate all people because I gave too much of my energy trying to be friends with everyone. I sat on the term, altruism, for quite a long time trying understand why he would say that. My sponsor also sat on a pedestal where i had placed him until it came crashing down during the “relapse” or “revolving door” years between 2009-2012. I recall six major flaws in our relationship. 1. He would always forget routine activities that had been happening for years. 2. When I started “relapsing” on Crystal Meth his ignorance and lack of curiosity of what I was going through climaxed with “you were gone for three months and you still have your teeth”. 3. He actually meant “intuitive” or “empathic”…not altruistic…u’s, t’s and i’s…I see it. (And yes ive had almost all UTIs…LOL) 4. The statement, “you are now a chronic relapser” stung. 5. I was way too sensitive. 6. I placed him on that damn pedestal…he’s not perfect.

In 2013 my experiences had been traumatizing enough to bring me back to sobriety and rehab for what I had thought would be the fifth and last time. I had been attending back to back workshops at Haymarket, the boot camp rehab center in Chicago’s West Loop (two blocks away from Oprah’s Harpo studios) for poor and mandated-by-court patients.The difference between previous rehab experiences and this one was I had sensed an overwhelming flood, an abundance, of worthiness with no external motivation but the observation of a few opinions being thrown my way. Id, ego and super-ego were bookended with the father, son and holy spirit in a matter of a couple hours. Accompanied by my “mind, body, and spirit” theories floating around in my head I had made the connection between the holistic, religious, and psychiatric examples. They’re all the fucking same. Fuckers. Everyone. The whole bit. We, as human beings, have come to a place of identification and political correctness, no matter how liberal or conservative, dividing ourselves into the most lonely of separation. It’s all the fucking same. We’re all the fucking same. A fun bitterness accompanied those thoughts and feelings…just pure instinct, knowing, curiosity, and worthiness. Or was I just close enough to the A-Ha energy emenating from Harpo Studios? Who cares?! Naturally, bitterness arrived in the grieving process of letting go of old conditioning, assumptions and ideogy later on but I knew I had touched on Truth. Without knowing I had set out on a mission to choose my own belief system. The excitement of a clear internal motivation allowed me to hear the quiet “no of all nothing” (e.e. cummings) and the little guide posts externally along the way, aka synchronicity. A common phrase in AA made more sense to me then and now. “These (ideas, thoughts, 12 steps, clichés) are merely suggestions. You can take them or leave them”. Now if they, as one example of a recovery community, actually knew how to do that I would still be involved.

Ironically, despite my internal spark, two pieces of advice that I can give anyone today to achieve this state of mind, of knowing abundance, are not of my own making.

1. Set a hoola-hoop around you on the ground. Whether or not you have done this literally or in your mind’s eye, the only thing you need to worry about is inside this hoola-hoop. Dudes…all that gobbledeegook out there, i.e. media, government, gossip, your neighbors, etc are mostly a distraction. Everyday, all day, little by little, I gave this thought and asked myself, “why am I doing this? What is my motivation”. I have a tendency to over do things but the importance of being able to take all of my attachments and examine them overwhelms me with gratitude. My goal was to identify and keep my sense of inner motivation. Ironically I discovered that abundance after quitting injecting crystal meth on my own yet still getting high as a kite. More on that later.

2. Get religion out of ‘spirituality’. I don’t give a fuck if you’re atheist, muslim, naturalist, scientist, evolutionist, creationist, christian, or a devil worshipper. It’s all the same and 99% of all people can relate to this definition. The most important thing next to feeling worthy is being able to communicate our worthiness to each other. Just retrain your brain. Easy, right? If you’re too lazy to do it, fine. Ive been super lazy about lesser important things about which most people have pigeon-holed me into a being bad person. True, external motivation/inspiration exists but I cannot give you your worthiness. You have to feel that all on your own. So, take it or leave it.

Spirit - that life-giving source…the spark of life…energy everywhere…infinite microcosm….infinite macrocosm…atoms…universes…the unknowable thing that makes you or me breathe or get up in the morning or feel or do or be or the fact that scientists say that energy cannot be destroyed.

—“I’ve got spirit! Yes, I do! I’ve got spirit! How 'bout you?!”

Spiritual - expressing that energy. For all people and things something is being expressed. Even a rock.

Spirituality - experiencing the energy from within and from without. The sharing of that energy. Giving and receiving. Selfishness and selflessness. Reciprocity. The flow. Not Aunt Flo….but…The Flow.

What does this have to do with the phrases “at least you’re still alive” and “at least you’re sober”? Because I feel that it’s all the same, life, death, energy. To say otherwise is to imply shame or that I am not as good of a person for being high or dead. I’ve given myself the chance (time and space) to experience where motivation, creativity, inspiration, passion, love, hate, boredom etc comes from. All of these are within the realms of the abundance and gratitude I feel. I think it’s a lot like the idea of Zen….that energy and motivation are coming from the “no of all nothing”. Relax and go. And it’s even okay to question it all because I am naturally human, merely a doubter, a forgetter, blinded by my ability to separate, organize and categorize. In that painful distraction I can experience an even more powerful understanding that “it’s all the same.” Through the Flow of every experience, high or sober… dying or living, I can allow my humanness to evolve into knowing a little better than the last time I forgot. I have come to accept that, over time, I have seemingly no choice but to evolve in any state of being through some higher purpose…or inner purpose…or. Maybe I’m limiting myself by saying I have no choice in the matter. But until that discovery my options seem endless. And only by experiencing and expressing will I be able to see and know those options.

I am existence. I am energy. I am expressing my True Self through the tool of categorization (aka the Ego or Original Sin) and with each glorious experience. I choose to believe in my worthiness through the abundance of my expression without as much filter of seperateness and as many boundaries as I need.

Life is a paradox. I am a paradox.

May The Force be with you.

#charity

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