#starting... on the endar spire

[domwho11]

Revan sat on a stone chair. His wrists and ankles were bound by chains of light. Before him three figures appeared; one light, one dark, and one grey.

- The trial of the one known as Revan will now commence. said the grey figure.

The dark figure glided forward. Red eyes burned where its face should have been.

- The one known as Revan is responsible for numberless deaths. said the figure.

Revan saw the Mandalorian War unfold before his eyes. Every death, every planet burned, every heart broken. All the horrors and destruction that he and the Revanchists had wrought. He saw Meetra screaming as she activated the Mass Shadow Generator. He saw himself and Alek swear allegiance to the Sith Emporer. He saw himself at the Trayus Academy on Malachor, watching impassive behind a Mandalorian mask as Jedi were tortured and broken. And finally he saw a younger version of himself on a grassy planet promising a girl with brown hair and blue eyes that he would always come back to her.

Revan sobbed and doubled over. Tears dripped from his face. Then he became aware of a golden light. The light figure moved forward, illuminating the space.

- Revan is also a hero. she said.

- His actions saved the galaxy.

Revan saw himself on the Endar Spire, when he had still believed himself to be just another soldier. He saw Trask's sacrifice, and Carth, and Mission, and Zaalbar, and T3-M4, and Canderous, and Juhani, and HK-47, and Jolee. And Bastila. He saw her beautiful face as she guided him through his Jedi training. The long conversations they had, the secret kiss they shared, the love they had found. He saw Bastila sacrifice herself so that he and Carth could escape from Malak. He saw her on the Rakatan Temple, and on the Star Forge. He saw the love of his life reject the dark side and return to him. He saw Alek as he died, and himself apologising to Alek for starting him down the dark path. He saw himself hailed a hero by the Republic. He saw himself and Bastila welcoming their child into the world. Revan felt peace within himself for the first time in forever.

The dark figure glided forward once more. Revan saw himself slipping away from Bastila in the night, and boarding the Ebon Hawk one more time. He saw himself on a jungle planet with HK-47 strapped to his back. He saw himself and Meetra on two mountaintops; himself generating a gigantic ball of light and Meetra creating a titanic well of darkness. He saw an indescribable monster, who Revan knew to be one of the True Sith, be ripped apart by his and Meetra's powers. He saw the people of that planet dying in agony, even as he told them that he had brought them peace. He saw the Mortis gods - for that was who these figures were - pluck him from normal spacetime and deposit him here. Revan awaited their verdict.

- Have you anything to say in your defence? said the grey figure.

"What I did, I did for the sake of the Republic and its people." said Revan.

"I stand by my actions, both good and evil."

The three figures appeared to shimmer and fade slightly. Then the grey figure spoke again.

- Revan, we sentence you to...

The figure toppled over. An ornate dagger was embedded in its back. As Revan watched, the dagger slashed the light figure's throat and stabbed the dark figure in the forehead. The three Mortis gods faded from view. The dagger then severed Revan's bonds before flying into the hand of an old woman wearing a hooded brown cloak.

Revan's eyes narrowed.

"Kreia."

"Come, my greatest apprentice." said Kreia.

"We have much to do."

[darthsassacre]

cold is the morning (warm is the dream)

DARTH REVAN is dead. Killed by a Republic strike team in a daring maneuver, the fearsome Sith Lord has been forever removed from power.

DARTH MALAK rules the Sith Empire now with an iron fist, eliminating all who oppose him. The Republic grows desperate as the ruthless Sith destroys all in his path.

The ENDAR SPIRE now seeks to complete a critical mission: to deliver Jedi BASTILA SHAN to the front lines, where she can use her prodigious power to turn the tide of the war in the Republic's favor...

[attonposting]

Okay, so Carth keeps coming up lately, both by people who love him and people who don't, and I thought I'd throw my two cents into the ring.

People complain that Carth is sexist, a lot. And I get where that's coming from, I've got the same issues with his romance as anyone else. I love the bones of Carth's character and remember him very fondly – he's tied for my favorite character from KotOR I, even! But the writing is... flawed, to say the least, and in a way that goes past just 'poorly aged.' I don't think his lines themselves ever go worse than awkward, but there's some more fundamentally unhealthy stuff written into his relationship that I suspect wasn't intentional.

What I find interesting, and what a meme just very succinctly pointed out, is that many of the same people who have beef with Carth are cool with Atton. Who is definitely the more sexist of the two, both incidentally and deliberately. And it's a really interesting differentiation between the two pilots/f!PC love interests/earlygame buddies, because I think their palatability comes entirely down to how the games portray that sexism. So this is my attempt to figure out why one thing works and the other kinda doesn't.

Carth Onasi is introduced as a stand-up guy. He stays behind as long as he possibly can to save other survivors on the Endar Spire; he believes in the Republic wholeheartedly, he serves to protect and approves when you do the same, and other characters sing his accolades. He's supposed to be wholesome, but with PTSD-related trust issues that cause friction between him and you.

Atton Rand is the opposite of that. You find him in a jail cell, he's untrustworthy and a cad, at any given moment he's either abrasive or lying through his teeth, he complains when you help people, and when you get to the bottom of his trust issues, you find out he's a worse guy than you ever could have imagined.

It's much too oversimplified to say that Carth is supposed to be a good person and Atton is not, that's not where the problem comes from, but it will become relevant later.

When Carth starts flirting with you... okay. The biggest, most obvious problem is that the game wants you to be into it. Carth flirts and continues to flirt after you can tell him to stop. Sure, whatever; that's not egregious. You can respond to Carth's flirting positively or negatively, and that's great... but when you do respond negatively, the game loves to pull you into these playful insult exchanges where your PC shouts and pouts while Carth taunts you. There's where the issues start. Even when the player is trying to shut him down, they get dragged along for the ride anyway, and the narrative decides that this is also romantic. Thus KotOR I only has a shallow understanding that it's presenting a situation a woman may want nothing to do with. It's kind of impressive that you can actually call Carth sexist in-game, and yet it doesn't feel like the game actually understands that he is in fact being sexist.

Actually, no. Maybe I'm reading too deep into this, maybe this is why I'm so forgiving to Carth as a character, but I don't think the problem is Carth, I think the problem is that the game is being sexist in this particular spot. I was more annoyed by my own return dialogue options than anything Carth said to me - especially the ones where I was being mean. It felt like f!Revan was being pigeonholed hard into the writer's idea of 'women', that it was not an especially flattering or nuanced view, and there wasn't anything that I actually wanted to say. Definitely the writer did not understand my perspective as a player – but that's not a problem unique to K1 and it's one even the sequel is super guilty of at times, so I'll move on for now.

When Atton makes skeevy remarks, you always have at least one dialogue option to call him out for it, and you cannot ever react positively to what he says. Either you smack him down or you ignore him. This is extremely important. Yes, you could argue that it's not as accommodating to how different players might react... but what this establishes is that the game is self-aware. It does not think what Atton is doing is in any way attractive, or that it should be interpreted positively. Instead it acknowledges what a lady's probable reaction to his unwanted advances would be and encourages the player to express it, and the way that's written isn't a playful back-and-forth, it's the Exile snapping at him and Atton backtracking. Atton's being a piece of shit, but instead of stirring up chemistry, the narrative goes out of its way to mete out karma – hence everyone else on the ship mocking him, or the comically topical details like him being an unwashed loser who smells terrible and scratches his junk in public. Whether you like Atton or not, the game wants you to know that it thinks he sucks, and you are never left feeling like there is an unsettled score.

On the contrary, this lack of self-awareness is what makes Carth's romance in K1 hard to swallow if you didn't start out receptive to it. When you can react negatively to Carth's comments, it doesn't feel like you can do so in an intelligent way. The tone is very “Ugh, MEN, amirite” rather than “I don't like the turn this conversation has taken and would like to just be your colleague again” or just “Stop.” - which is probably what you wanted to say if you were just platonically enjoying or less-amicably bickering with your dorito-jacket companion when the gorgeouses started coming out of left field.

Worse, when you actually can shut Carth's romance down, it involves being a dick to him and stomping hard on his personal issues. Like I'd understand if a player was angry with him at this point, because again, you've been forced into a romance arc even when you were telling the game no as much as it would let you - but there's a huge difference between wanting to tell a guy to back off and wanting to shit on his dead wife or his Sith kid or his blown-up planet. I dunno, I'm not that vindictive! I think there's only a couple of options at the very end of his romance tree where you can turn him down... not even amicably, it's still rude, just without being a Grade-A asshole, and by that point, you have been through a lot of flirting you presumably didn't want to be involved with. Generally, the game won't let you break things off with him without being a dick, even if you never agreed to board that train in the first place. Now loop back to the way that K1 unfailingly portrays Carth as a great guy, whose flaws have nothing to do with his upstanding sense of morality, and there's where the dissonance comes from. Not only does the game push you into his romance after you said no, it makes you the bad guy for trying to get out of what he initiated.

But there's another issue in the timing of the Carth relationship. He starts his flirting while he's expressing intense distrust and standoffishness with your PC. With Carth's nonstop skepticism about your trustworthiness, and constantly bringing up his issues with you... at least during Taris and Dantooine, it comes off more like his attraction to you is superficial and not as a result of him growing to like you, something that's pushed by how it's always focused on shallow hooks like your appearance or your 'cute' attitude. It's very awkward. I do not think this was the writer's intent. I think Carth's supposed to be captivated by what he's seen you do, and that's just going in recursive loops in his paranoid little brain and making things harder for him. By the end of the romance, it's extremely clear that Carth's into you for you. But it's clumsily handled at the start.

Contrast this with Atton, who starts off aggressively sexist towards a female Exile, fifty times more offensive than anything Carth ever does. Literally the first line he gets is leering at the PC's forced state of undress, mocking her vulnerability, and he continues in that vein for much of Peragus. He creeps on your nudity at least four times off the top of my head, he ogles you, he complains about women, he tries to hit on you, he even contemplates the possibility of Sexy Kreia (which is a level of dickery I can scarcely comprehend.)

But that tapers off and disappears around the time he starts showing actual romantic interest in your PC, like when Kreia threatens him and it's revealed how much your opinion matters to him, or when he asks Bao-Dur for advice. And a female PC never sees it again. This creates the opposite impression – that Atton's attraction is a result of your time together. Sure, he's still a pig, but it follows that he wasn't making serious passes at you on Peragus because his behavior now that he is actually interested in you has changed. And it implies that in an actual relationship, that would not be how he'd view or treat you, which I think is crucial for how willing people are to ship Atton with their Exiles.

Now, this is all a product of how K2 did not actually answer that question and let you romance Atton, because with Carth, it's the opposite and you see exactly how he behaves once he gets into a serious relationship. It involves spanking. Things could be very different if K2 actually had fleshed out romances. It's hard to say, because both the PC and the crew were very thoughtfully written (I will take a bold step here and say that K2's characters were on the whole written much better than K1's), but on the other hand, Atton is still the worst and I'm pretty sure the game would want to remind you of that if you agreed to play tonsil hockey with him. And it may have crashed into the same pitfall that Carth's did; if the game railroaded your interactions with Atton up to some point, it'd leave a bad taste in anyone's mouth who wasn't already signed up for the ship.

With the way things are, Atton not only gets a free pass to be interpreted as generously as his fans want and easily ignored by those who weren't keen on him, he even gets an interest boost from this because people will always want what they can't have.

Anyway. With a male PC, you'll continue to see Atton make sexist remarks towards other female characters and can even have a wingman chat with him that is entirely him projecting his issues all over women. He doesn't make these comments with a female PC, suggesting that he's on his best behavior... but that he'd still totally be a leering asshole if he wasn't trying to impress you. With a male PC and Carth, his sexism is nonexistent, again probably because he was never intended to be sexist and it's a product of clumsy/oblivious writing.

There's an additional layer with Atton and the question of how much anything he does is an act, but that doesn't exonerate him from any of the crap he says. I could write a separate essay on Atton and his relationship with women, but the guy is very much a womanizer who's terrified of the idea of intimacy and has a lot of shitty opinions that stem from his defensive need to believe that nothing emotional is ever real or relevant to him. He might've been casing the Exile on Peragus, but his chauvinism is genuine.

But I digress. The tl,dr; is that Atton acts less sucky the more he crushes on you and Carth acts more. Combo that with how their respective games make Atton pay for being creepy but give the strong impression they want you to go along with Carth's nonsense, and it's a little less mystifying why Carth gets so little benefit of the doubt while the King of Trash enjoys fandom sexyman status. His romance is almost predicated on the fact that he's a scumbag, where Carth's is very confused to whether the awkward parts should exist or not.

There's a bit more that kinda hurts Carth. The flirting... well, from what I remember it just got “wow, okay then” later on, and I found it way more silly than offensive in any way, but him repeatedly bringing up how you remind him of his dead wife doesn't help the relationship much and suggests that Carth may be projecting someone else over you. I can live with that, drama's tasty and it doesn't prevent a real connection from burgeoning. You can make the exact same argument for Atton anyway, and I think his is way worse. My major issue is at the end of the game. Mr. Trust Issues does not react well to the events on the Leviathan, when it turns out he was right to have kept an eye on the PC all along. It's great payoff! And I absolutely adore his discussion after that, when he admits his struggles to reconcile you and Revan, how he tried but he can't hate you, how helping you gave him something real when revenge only left him hollow. Seriously, for all the shade it gets, there's some really great stuff in his romance too - you just have to stick it out long enough to see it. But then, on Rakata Prime, Carth seems to reconcile his crisis of faith and finally, wholeheartedly decide to love you in a way that falls flat on its face. He confirms you're a good person because you're not Revan anymore, like Revan is some purely evil part of you you've now cast off, when... that really seems more like denial than anything else, and not the foundation for anything healthy.

Seriously, I wish they'd handled that with more nuance. It would have counted for so much in my books.

All of that said. I know I just went after the man like a vending machine with a stuck bottle of chocolate milk, but I think the sexist vibes in Carth's romance are worst at the start and that he does not deserve the sheer amount of flack he gets. I've seen far worse offenders in the world of video game romances, and this might drive some controversy in and of itself, but I vastly prefer Carth x f!Revan to Bastila x m!Revan. There's a whole 'nother pile of issues in K1's other official ship (f in chat for Juhani), and I think those are much harder to deal with than the ones here. If anything frustrates me with Carth's romance, it's how unnecessary all of the bullshit is. I really want to get into it! The concept is perfectly fine! I love the character! There's good stuff in there! And when I replay KotOR, it's not that difficult to close my eyes to the bleh parts and enjoy the rest, especially once the first couple of conversations are past. Again, all Carth needed was a more conscientious writer at the wheel.

I'd be really interested in hearing other people's takes, both on how they interacted with either of those romances or where their interpretations differed from mine. I only have my own perspective and that of a few people I've talked to over the years, and I'm given to understand this is something of a fandom hot topic!

[thatwitchrevan]

I just deleted half my other games and a bunch of photos so I can download KotOR OTL

[kitkatt0430-recommends]

My perusal of old FFnet favorites continues on. I've been pretty pleased to find so many cross posted to Ao3, though occasionally I'll find one that started to get cross posted and, sadly, was never completed. But I can still bookmark the completed external version and keep an eye on the incomplete versions in hope that, one day, they'll get the rest of the chapters added after all.

Double Crossing by JessaLRynn - Ten and Rose run into Seven and Ace at a Star Trek convention. Throw in some actual aliens, a missing prince, and disguised weapons dealers and it's just another Tuesday for these four, really.

A Ten/Rose (with some Seven/Rose too) fic now with a follow up Eight/Rose story. Double Crossing shows as much love to Star Trek as it does Doctor Who and it's a wild ride from start to finish. I was glad to find it over on Ao3 where it's rated T.

KOTOR: Revan's Second Chance by VMorticia - Revan remembers who he is after the escape from the Endar Spire; not everything, but enough. And while he no longer has the ambition to be a Dark Lord of the Sith, Revan knows two things. Admitting he remembers who he is would be a terrible idea and… what happened to Malak is his mess to clean up.

It's an unusual premise (especially for a fic following the game's light side path) and one I really enjoyed. Revan can be at times charming or an ass, but he does care a great deal about others. So it's easy to see the Jedi he used to be and the Sith he became in the person he is now. I was unable to find it on Ao3, so this one is linked to FFnet. It's rated T and the ship is eventually Bastila/Revan.

The Adventures of Ten, Rose, and Jack by SanguineInk - The series starts with Two Months, in which the Doctor and Rose show up before the ghosts start showing up and run straight into Torchwood One. Which is when Jack shows up, just in time to help fight some Torchwood One flunkies and some Cybermen too.

A four part series with Ten/Rose and Ten, Rose, and Jack friendship that starts as a Doomsday fix-it and grows from there. It's a lot of running, drama, and fun, so it really captures the feel of the show. I read the first three over on FFnet years ago, so I'm thrilled to find there's actually a fourth fic in the series now that I've rediscovered it on Ao3.

Shadows of the Future by stormqueen873 - After losing the duel on Mustafar, Obi-Wan wakes in the past right as Anakin walks into his life for the first time. And Obi-Wan is determined to ensure things won't happen the same way around this time.

While this did start to get cross-posted on Ao3 back in 2016, looks like it was never completed there. The version I've linked to is on FFnet, which is complete. While I do wonder why it didn't get finished when crossposted to Ao3, I'm glad the FFnet version is still around because this is probably my favorite time traveling Obi-Wan fic out there. It's rated K+ and is gen, with a focus on Obi-Wan's relationships with Qui-Gon and Anakin.

Fools Rush In by LoveSupreme - X-Men AU where Erik runs a coffee shop and has a bit of a crush on a handsome man who passes by every day. It wouldn't have come to anything, until one day Annoying Cappucino Lady drags her cute friend Charles into Erik's shop.

It's on Ao3 now and has a whole series!!! I don't remember this one strongly but I do remember it being cute. So having even more story now makes me pretty excited. It's not rated on Ao3, but it's probably about a T? I don't remember anything warranting an M in there, though I could be wrong. And the ship is, of course, Charles/Erik.

Charlotte Francine Xavier by Blind_Author - A rewrite of X-Men First Class, where Charles Xavier is now Charlotte. And though much stays the same… so much is changed too.

I was excited to find this one on Ao3 too. A lot of the beats here are the same as in the movie, but the fic also does a good job of distinguishing itself from the movie's plot too. Obviously its a genderswap fic and the ship is Charlotte/Erik. Rated Explicit and I do remember it earns that rating pretty hard and it has some darker elements to it than the movie did.

If I Knew You Then: Part 1 by Ruchira - When Tom and B'Elanna meet at the Academy, years before Voyager is lost in the Delta Quadrant, it completely changes their lives.

The first of four fics following Tom and B'Elanna from the Academy to their eventual arrival on Voyager; while they end up stranded in the Delta Quadrant on Voyager in the end, just like in canon, how they get there changes radically. It's Tom/B'Elanna for the ship and all the fics are rated T. I wasn't able to find them on Ao3, but they're all still up on FFnet.

[allronix]

Carth and Force Sensitivity (crossposted from Reddit r/kotor)

This is for @k-she-rambles:

Okay, so while we're shooting the bantha crap over on KOTOR fan theories, u/134340Goat mentioned my all time favorite "Have you been chewing spice?!" fan theory when it comes to KOTOR: Is Carth Force Sensitive?

So this one starts with a story. I mentioned my brother in law, who is pretty much Keeper of the Jedi Archives. Seriously, he's an English teacher and my sister is a librarian. They met at a sci fi convention and their first date was Phantom Menace. We're taking not just geeks, but geeks who can throw the damn bookshelf at you. Brother in law bought KOTOR on the day it launched and turned it into a week long binge watch at his house. And because brother in law is that kind of geek, he's translating the characters into the West End D6 system. I'm watching him do a playthrough, and he's got Canderous and Zaalbar at Ajunta Pal's tomb.

Allronix: Huh. That's odd. Why aren't commenting on anything when Ajunta is speaking?

Bro in law: Oh. They can't even see Ajunta. You have to be Force Sensitive to see a Force Ghost The stronger your Sensitivity, the better you can see it.

Allronix: Really? Then how come Carth can see it?

Bro in law (gets the "holy shit, I gotta confirm this" look): Really?! He just sees something out the corner of his eye or something?

Allronix: No, he sees Ajunta just fine. Understands what the dude's saying too.

Bro in law instantly rolls back to his last save, swaps Zaalbar for Carth, and sees the bit in question.

Bro in law: Oh. Dear. (Goes over to make some quick scribbles on Carth's character sheet)

Okay, so maybe that was a lore fail. I didn't really think about it too much until I hit that False Level Up glitch and ran around with Carth and Mission as Sentinels. Now, while I couldn't really see Mission as a Sensitive, that little bit with my bro in law nagged at me. And became a "once you see it you can't unsee it." Apologies to TV Tropes, where some of these were my additions to the Wild Mass Guess entry on this topic.

Any one of these on its own is pretty easy to blow off. After all, man is career military, and knows All this Shit is Weird. I also like to think of Sensitivity as a spectrum and not a switch. If all life is connected by the Force, then all life would be Sensitive to some degree or another. It’s just a matter of to what degree. It’s only as the list gets longer and longer does the case start looking damning...

What are the odds of surviving that attack on the Endar Spire, getting to the escape pods, sharing the last escape pod with the mindwiped Sith Lord, piloting through the chaos, landing in what passes for the "good" part of town, remaining uninjured, pulling the badly injured mindwiped Sith Lord from the wreck, evading Sith detection while all this is going on, and just happening to find a dump of an apartment where the landlord's not asking questions? That is one amazing string of coincidences and good luck. Get that many in Star Wars, and it's definitely The Force sticking its nose in things.

Piloting the escape pod to land in the Upper City, piloting the Hawk through the Sith Blockade of Taris, the random Sith patrols, the escape from the Leviathan, and the fleet around Lehon along with the crash landing that left the ship easily repairable. Now, compare to Atton who we know to be an excellent pilot and drawing on The Force who still manages to crash the ship at least three times.

He's a scary good judge of character if you're interacting with other NPCs. If you watch him with other NPC characters, he's got a pretty good compass as to which characters are being helpful and which ones are full of shit. The only one he calls incorrectly is Rukil, who is probably also an untrained Sensitive (the age, the "marked" comments) and half senile, which is probably throwing him.

Related to that, his distrust and wariness about something not adding up with the PC, the Jedi Council feeding the party a line of bull, that things just aren't adding up. And on all of it? Dead on. He's 100% right about the Player Character, he just expected something a little less crazy than "that's Darth freaking Revan."

If you play Female Revan, then Carth's the one who gets fried in the torture cages on the Leviathan. Saul comments how strange it is that Carth takes so much punishment and still remains conscious. Now, this is a low level thing, but in lore, Force Sensitives have drawn on it to keep them alive or conscious under duress. Explicitly, the first sign we got that Leia was a Sensitive when she withstood the Imperial torture droid.

Another of his scary ass judge of character feats? In the comics, Zayne (who is on the run from the Jedi, who framed him for the murder of his classmates) has a vision that Mandalorians are coming for Serroco. Saul? Laughs it off, throws Zayne in the brig. Zayne's own friends don't even believe him. Carth gets one of those creepy hunches and starts calling in "duck and cover" sirens as far as he can broadcast, which sends seventeen cities and millions of people heading for shelter. It saves their lives and Carth is called a hero for it. Armed with another hunch, he disobeys Saul (remember this is before Saul nukes Telos) and lets Zayne "escape" from custody. Mind you, not even the Jedi or his party members believed Zayne. Carth did.

Carth makes a lot of creepy weird offhand predictions about the future. He says he knows on some level he'll be there when Saul dies. That certainly pans out. He makes an offhand prediction that the Jedi have set the party up to take a fall. Right again. He tells a female PC that she'll have to make a choice soon, one she can't walk away from. And then we get the temple top. He even blurts out that "I sensed you would have to make a choice soon, and that was it*, I can feel it!"* If you specify a LS Female Revan, his recording for T3-M4 says he's had a hunch Revan would leave without warning. Again, spot on.

Specify a LS male Revan, and Carth will remark to Bastila that seeing the Exile reminds him "there are worse things to lose." The only other people who can see just how screwed up the Exile is are the Jedi Masters, Chodo Habat, and the Force Sensitive party members.

Specify a LS female Revan, and Carth will insist that he would know if Revan were dead (again, scary ass intuition) and that there's an "emptiness" where she used to be. Now, remember one of the things about a broken Force Bond? It would simply be "empty, a wound."

You know how your party members in KOTOR 2 feel upset or even horrified as they realize they feel compelled to protect Exile and can't being themselves to leave, even when said actions are kicking puppies? And how they swing wildly from being crazy, almost stalker level possessive of them to being scared out of their wits and clamming up when you try to pry anything out of them? And the more potent (and untapped) their Force Sensitivity, the more they get hammered with the effect? (Mira and Atton in particular) Yeah. Now, Carth's "I don't wanna talk" looks a bit different, doesn't it? It could also account for that romance arc, especially if you roll a DSF Revan and go for that "everyone dies" ending.

Again, Ajunta Pal. Seeing a Force Ghost? Yeah. Some degree of Sensitivity needed. Understanding what he's saying? Yeah. Takes a bit more than that. And Carth makes a weirdly insightful comment about the Dark Side on top of it.

Notice that this a wall o text argument already, and I'm now just getting to the "Yeah, his kid is able to throw around mid-level Dark Side powers and packing a red lightsaber." Given the jawline and the muleheaded attitude, no way Morgana was fooling around with the pizza delivery boy. That's definitely Carth's kid, and that's definitely Force Sensitivity. Now, while it can skip a generation (see Theron Shan), it tends to run pretty heavy in families.

Lastly? Gee. He comes from a planet settled by and heavily populated by descendants of Force Sensitives who failed their training. I'm also willing to bet some bastard children of Jedi get passed off as "foundlings" and "orphans" and dumped there, too. Jedi are forbidden attachments, but not sworn to celibacy, so...yeah, bastard kids are gonna happen. There's probably a Jedi or two in that family tree. It's circumstantial evidence at best, but it still supports the case.

Now, any arguments I missed? Counterarguments?

And the million credit question: If there's a character who gets to break this news to poor Flyboy, who do you think would actually take that on? How do you think Carth would take that kind of news? And what, if anything, would come of it?

I kinda figure Jolee might be the only one nuts enough to poke that with a stick...I also kinda figure "Sentinel" would fit best. Consular? Hell no. He hired Mical for that. Guardian works with the feats, but the whole "ferreting out deceit and injustice?" Yeah. That's Carth.

[lavaeolus]

Jedi Shadow: beating KotOR with as little killing as possible

For a game with such an array of skills, Knights of the Old Republic is very willing to just let you charge in and clear out dungeons with your lightsaber. There's about one point where Stealth as an option is explicitly acknowledged, and it's on the Endar Spire. From a player's perspective, it's an odd investment: you could slowly sneak in and bypass foes or set up mines... or you could just charge in and collect that sweet, sweet enemy XP in a flash.

Still, it did get me wondering. How viable is sneaking around? And in a game that pats you on the back for mercy and de-escalating conflicts, how much combat is unavoidable? Neither of the Old Republic games would support an outright pacifist run, but how well would the game react to us eschewing its main gameplay? Let's go on a journey together, people, a quest to save the galaxy with a minimum of whoosh-whoosh pew-pews.

Enter my character, a Scoundrel. I wasn't sure what approach would be best for this run, but I figured the class that starts with stealth and gets a buttload of skill points would be a good choice. I decided I'd take the extra effort to grab 14 Intelligence, even though in the harsh world of the first game that equates to a whopping one extra skill point a level. Given the goals of the character, it felt fitting enough to go for a more defensive Dexterity-focused build. Would it be enough? Let's find out.

Oh, and this post is pretty long. Just a warning.

The Endar Spire

Look, I'm not gonna sugarcoat it. For the Endar Spire we're in full tutorial mode, and that means you're gonna learn how to combat. You can mostly leave Trask to it, as you sit in the corner mourning Sith, but your hands will get dirty.

A bloody, bloody time. I counted 16 people in total, including 5 I electrocute with a computer. Keep that number in mind for later! It's a very murdery tutorial.

Taris

Would you believe only 2 kills?

Well, sort of, but that's a charitable count. First, it doesn't count the ships in your first mandatory turret sequence. Second, a specific rakghoul needs to die before Mission will spawn -- but it's the one who attacks Hendar, so if you charge out and take hits he can land the final blow. It's also ignoring Davik, who we technically never lay a hand on: he just gets crushed by rubble mid-combat with us, thanks to the Sith bombardment.

Brejik, then? You win the swoop race, but Bastila (not yet part of our party) breaks out of her own accord... and can easily handle things by herself. You're obligated to kill zilch.

So who are our lucky two victims? It's an assault droid in the Sith Base and the Sith Governer. All other combat kills can be avoided by stealth, by hacking computer terminals to open doors and shut down turrets, or -- more than I would like -- by running away from people while screaming. Let's call it 1 person, 1 droid and 1 creature.

Dantooine

Dantooine doesn't get much time to wrack up a killcount. We talk down Juhani and become a Consular, then head to follow a vision. The only necessary kills are 2 droids guarding the Star Map. Even then, you don't need to take them out in *combat*. You can stealth past them, use the computer to unlock the seal, and then just run back into the main room. Do so, however, and they just... inexplicably explode when you open the door to the Star Map. C'est la vie.

Still, here's something fun. You know the beasts attacking the runaway droid? You can run up to them, lure them away, then break line-of-sight and return to the droid to talk to him. While I don't know if that's intentional, it's cool it works as a solution.

Tatooine

You do need to get a Sand Person disguise, and those are dropped by the Elite Warriors who form part of each desert ambush. Otherwise the game auto-kills you when you pass by the Sand People's turrets. So we kill this Warrior, but let the other two ambushers live.

Since we'll go light-side, you might think that's it: Sand People negotiations done and killing's solved. Alas. We have to take part in a krayt dragon hunt, and that means luring some banthas as bait. To finish luring the banthas, we're forced to kill four more Elite Warriors who attempt to stop us.

That makes 5 people and 1 creature (the krayt dragon) in total. Calo Nord tries to ambush us but we can... literally walk past him without triggering combat? A bounty hunter for the ages.

Korriban

Home of the Sith, and a multiple-quests Prestige system! We sweet-talk our way into the academy and do most of the non-combat stuff: recite the Sith Code, reveal Yuthura's betrayal, get the info from the Mandalorian (and fake his death while we're at it), fetch Ajunta Pall's sword. You might recall in that last one, a Sith student tries to get the relic off you. We refuse to give it to him but run past him; any overt trickery would get him killed.

But count that up. We need five Prestige points, and I listed *four* things. We're left with a sadistic choice. To get our last prestige point, we must either:

Rat out Kel Algwinn to Uthar, which technically keeps our hands clean and avoids combat altogether. But Uthar is implied to kill the young apprentice.

Help the renegade Sith students escape: they just need a Terentatek killed.

Head into the Tomb of Tulak Hord and either let the hermit kill Mekel, or help Mekel turn the tides against him.

In the end, I went with killing the Terentatek. This way we can say with some earnesty that, hey, did you know you only need to kill one person on Korriban? A crack stealth squad of me, Mission and Juhani (remember: she has a stealth ability!) went into the caves, just barely eliminated the beast, and reported its death to the renegade students. It's not an easy task at level 9, but when you're loaded up with determination and adrenals, there's nothing you can't do. (You can get the Qel-Droma Robes without actually killing the beast, for the curious: they're on remains nearby, so you can grab 'em with stealth.)

Technically I cower in a corner, stealth, and just let Yuthura solo Uthar. In this case my character walked in knowing there'd be a conflict, and I did poison him to weaken him, so I'm still going to count that as a kill. Yuthura is spared but, sadly, not redeemed -- we need peace with the academy so we can convince a Sith duelist to free the academy's captives. (He assumes it's all part of a powerplay by an in-hiding Uthar.)

So there you go. Korriban: least bloody planet so far. 1 person and 1 creature.

Manaan

It might seem sneakier to use a passcode or passphrase to enter the Sith Base, but that actually results in a fight the moment you enter. If you go to the Hangar, however, you can just sneak aboard a transport and arrive at the back of their base, avoiding combat altogether. At least initially: we'll still have to trigger the fight when exiting the base, but at that point we can just run through the front door. Sadly, the dialogue doesn't change to acknowledge your relatively softer methods.

Three Firaxan sharks must die to clear us a path in our first sea floor expedition, followed by two more sharks in our second. It's a shame because in principle, these sharks don't need to die -- but I couldn't figure out a realistic way of avoiding their aggro or their attacks.

So that makes 5 creatures. Manaan, with its cold war and courtroom drama, was almost our first pacifist planet completion. Alas.

Kashyyyk

I, er, actually don't have much to say! You're not on Kashyyyk for long, and here's the secret: we're not going to be doing the core of it. This whole Chuundar vs Freyyr civil war thing? Seems like that's something for the wookiees to solve. We just get the Star Map and leave. Sorry, Big Z!

Oh, but the trick with the droid earlier works here as well: we can lead the two Mandalorians attacking him away, peacefully saving Grrrwahrr. Beautiful name. All-in-all, we finally completed a planet without having to kill something and all it cost was one of our companions.

In case you're wondering about my order here: by leaving this planet completion last, we can avoid the Star Map's droid fight without getting any dark side points. But I'm simplifying things. Technically I went to Kashyyyk, picked up Jolee, took him to Manaan and dealt with Sunry, *then* came back to wrap things up. The XP from the Sunry trial is too important to pass up.

0 kills!

Leviathan

Mission's the pick for a bloodless rescue, in my eyes. We invest a point into Carth and Bastila's stealth skill and equip them with basic stealth generators, just barely giving us some wriggle room to work with.

Of course, there's the Saul Karath boss fight and his minions. That's 7 people in all! Weep.

After that, though, we can get through without killing any other Sith while on the ship, although leaving begins the second mandatory turret sequence. How many die there? I still don't know. One for each ship at least. Maybe they're drones. We live in hope.

Unknown Planet

Starting this begins our third and final forced turret sequence. But we don't actually have to kill anyone in this One vs Elders war. Rescuing the Elder scout from the One requires he set the beasts on you, but once that cage is open all you need to do is find that Elder and tell him to get a move on.

But we don't manage to complete this planet without some death. In the catacombs, the door to the tile puzzle's room actually won't open until our party takes out the 2 droids in the map. An attempt to proof the tiles against NPCs walking on them, perhaps?

That's it, though. Sorry: we'll be staying on the light-side rather than murdering Jolee and Juhani. I know it'd be funny to do a dark-side pacifist run, but alas, here it's not really viable. Maybe in KotOR II.

Star Forge

This is it. Our journey's complete. No more level-scaling any more and we do have some mandatory fighting. But it's also the last of any significant XP gain from objectives. So where did we end up?

Level 13. That's not good. That's not good at all! Bastila and Malak are level 20, so our Force powers won't work. And it's not that I haven't been completionist, either! If a sidequest didn't require killing, it was done. Oh well.

We run past most of the Star Forge. We have to kill three Dark Jedi to progress, but the first real obstacle is Bastila. Still, give it time and we wear her down. Fortunately, we manage to give her a quick pep talk and avoid having to deal a fatal blow. She is Good once more.

Malak's another matter entirely. Now, I tried various ways to cheese him: my accumulated mines, kiting, etc. But in the end, it's not enough. Maybe if I'd been more prepared: if I'd optimised a little better, if I'd remembered to get that Crit-Immunity belt. Alas. I have to turn the difficulty from Normal to Easy. Importantly, that neuters his crits.

That done, I decide to go the extra mile. On Easy mode, Malak can't realistically kill me so long as I'm pumping medpacs. Thanks to stealthy looting, I have about a hundred of these things. I decide I'll take on Malak out without personally killing the Captive Jedi. It's less impressive than it sounds; Malak makes terrible use of them, draining them when he takes only a bit of chip damage.

And with that, down he goes. Peace in the Republic is restored. The full gang reunited, heroes of said Republic.

Wait, are we missing someone?

Final tally and thoughts

So that's 34 people, 8 creatures and 5 droids. Thank the Force we could spare the droids. But wait. That means just under half the people we killed were on the Endar Spire. I told you tutorials were dangerous! Obviously you can quibble with that count a bit. There's also the ships we blew up, and we turned the tides of a war and were complicit in the Star Forge's destruction. Still, there's the broad strokes of it all.

I really wasn't sure how this run would play out. How much XP would we get on Taris? How many Jedi levels would we be able to get? Had I a more solid idea it would've changed some of the things I took for granted. I managed to fully restore HK-47 before the Leviathan, but only just; I just assumed I'd get Master Valour at some point, but that power's not available until character-level 15! Stealth is more finicky in the early game, and there's a few annoying encounters on Taris who have +60 Awareness. But there comes a point where you can reliably count on it letting you delve through a dungeon, looting what you want.

In hindsight, I wish I'd repaired more droids. I avoided it because I didn't want to start fights, but had I realised that every little XP would matter come endgame, it definitely would've made sense to optimise them but not put them in patrol mode. I did all sidequests I could, but squeezing out the maximum XP wasn't something I prioritised early on. I also avoided XP leeching (e.g. triggering Canderous to fight against the rakghouls), which probably would've bumped my level up... and in turn, given me a free ride from character level 6 to 7 at Dantooine.

But hey. We did it. The constraints proved interesting enough. Did you know you can't access Yavin's shop after you get your fifth Star Map? There's also equipment that's useful -- but only available by killing. Goodbye, my Circlet of Saresh. But with a hundred medpacs and a bunch of drugs, no Sith Lord is completely invulnerable.

Originally posted on my Reddit, I’m now crossposting here for prosperity.

[cliocodex]

Tipsy Kisses

I blame @arturas-writes <3

Set in the KotOR Rock AU from a part yet to be written....Meetra & Atton of course.....

She’s probably had a bit too much to drink. But it’s the sort of pleasant buzz where everything feels right with the world. Not the sort of half-drunk that happens when you over-indulge to forget, to stop feeling. That’s something she knows a bit too well - that blurry numbness.

But maybe that’s all in the past, the running, the trying to forget.

Because now….now she wants to remember, to savor this moment and so many others. It’s just an ordinary night. No gala, no show. Just the two of them in PJs (ok underwear and his t-shirt but whatever), a few bottles of wine, and a 20 year-old video game they can’t seem to stop playing.

They’re curled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, the glow of the laptop Atton’s holding the sole source of light in the room. They’ve just started a new game (how many does that make?) but Meetra’s hardly paying attention…at least not to the game. It’s not the fault of the wine (a very nice Rosé with a lovely dragon label) so much as it’s Atton.

She’s still a bit baffled by how lovely it is to rest her chin on his shoulder. How nice it feels to trace fingers through his hair. How much she just loves to smell him.

Ok, so the wine is making her a tad sentimental.

But really… the “this is not working” face he makes from time to time is just too adorable not to be sentimental about.

He’s making that face now. “Why the fuck won’t this door open?”

“Hmmm??” Ah, the game. They are definitely meant to go to the cantina or rather the player character is. But Atton’s right and the door won’t open. “Is it bugged?”

“Dunno?” He’s clicking on the door over and over like somehow repetition will fix the problem. Surely, they’ve got the damn game memorized by now and for sure this door should open.

Maybe they’ve both had too much wine.

Meetra’s half curious about why the door won’t open, wonders vaguely if they’ve fucked the game with the mods they decided to try this round. But her lips are suddenly too close to Atton’s ear to carry the thought to completion.

Just a nibble. A slightly tipsy but very sincere one.

He grins but keeps eyes on the game, still clicking around the damn door. “Are we forgetting something? Maybe we’ve got to go to the lower city first?”

She lets her tongue graze the edge of his ear….just a bit. “Nope. One of the ways to get there is to get the party invite from this cantina.”

“Yeah, right.” There’s just the slightest hitch in his breath, the slightest press closer to her, but his eyes stay on the screen. “Maybe I should save and quit and reload?”

“Sure babe.” Her lips have found his neck now, just light little kisses from beside his jaw down to his shoulder. Their bare legs tangle tighter under the blanket. “Load the last save just in case.”

“Sadly, I didn’t save since the Endar Spire.” At that he turns to look at her, the grin a bit bigger.

Nothing to do but kiss that grin. “That was rather foolish, love.” Her hands tangle deeper in his hair.

“Maybe.” Atton’s put the laptop aside because clearly who cares about why the door won’t open. He pulls her onto his lap or maybe she moves there of her own accord, her knees locked around his hips, bare skin against bare skin.

For a moment they hang, nose to nose, breath mingling, lips just barely-not-touching. And then they are kissing again, deeper this time. A long, slow kiss - slightly tipsy - but definitely meant.

She could stay here for ages.

There’s just something about the way his head tips back against the couch, the way he sighs into her mouth, the way his hands run down her body and pull her closer. Then there’s the tease of his fingers at the edge of the shirt she’s wearing, the way he finds her bare skin, the way she sinks harder against him.

It’s a moment to savor.

They’ll stay like this a while, she knows, kissing, tasting of each other, running hands along bare skin. That slight buzzy haze enveloping them both. And then eventually they’ll pull each other off to bed, to carry out the tease, to fall asleep tangled in each other, to wake to do it all again.

But right now they are lost in the kisses, tipsy ones to be sure, but oh so sincere. Meetra wonders how it’s possible to pour yourself into a kiss, to melt so completely into someone else.

But it is.

And she loves it.

Loves him.

As he loves her.

[rprambles]

i’m replaying kotor bc kotor remake hype = hyperfixation

and i have hit dantooine and i thought

wouldn’t it be funny. if the mindwipe failed and revan just... pretended it did. and just was looking for a chance to escape but the jedi have bastila on watch to make sure revan is no longer revan.

and then the endar spire’s attacked by the sith and revan’s like ‘well this sure is familiar’ and starts looking for an exit, and ends up in the pod with carth, who saves their life upon landing on taris, and sure revan’s a sith lord but respect for not leaving me to die and also you’ve already caught on that something’s off, you’re sharp i gotta keep things close to my chest here. so how do we get off world?

oh

rescue bastila

of course.

[azems-familiar]

WIP Whenever!

i was tagged by the lovely @sleepswithvillains for this! currently i don't have a ton i can share pieces from, so i'll bless you all with a small snippet from the first part of the next chapter of my kotor novelization!

(A woman stands before her, brown hair and grey eyes and a vivid yellow dualsaber clenched too-tightly in pale hands, bodies littering the floor on either side of her. Some are soldiers, some wear robes; all are inconsequential. This woman, though, tinged red as though seen through a pane of transparisteel, is not - is the opposite of it, burns bright and fierce and glittering in the Force. She takes a step towards the Jedi, all calm confidence and steadiness in her layers, and there is something so, so important about this moment, the galaxy balanced on the edges of a knife, the Force holding its breath. This moment is hers, crystalline and bloody, is the moment the galaxy will know its loss and bend its knee to her - and then the ship shudders around her, an alarm screams, the woman’s face becomes a kaleidoscope of color from turbolasers and fire, and she only has time to spin towards the threat and put up some kind of instinctive shield before there is nothing at all.)

… 

Wakefulness hurts.

Shala groans as she cracks her eyes open, squinting into nothingness until they focus on a drab grey ceiling above her head, a light in the middle of it currently turned off. Her entire body feels like she’s been trampled by a herd of fathier, and the back of her head aches with a dull viciousness she knows is likely to stay for a few days, and her throat is dry as the Tatooine desert, but she’s alive, which is almost more than she’d expected. 

She faced down a Dark Jedi in the Endar Spire’s escape pod bay, and not only did she survive, but for a moment she held the upper hand. It shouldn’t have been possible.

There’s a glass of water on the table next to the bed she’s been laid out on; Shala levers herself upright into a sitting position and reaches for it, takes several long, slow swallows, though she has to make a face at the faintly metallic taste to it. Still, it’s enough to quench her thirst, and that helps the headache more than she expected, enough she almost feels comfortable standing and moving around.

She’s in her t-shirt and her uniform pants - her uniform jacket has been stripped off, and her boots are at the foot of the bed, along with her socks - and her weapons are gone, who knows where. Shala takes a moment to don her socks and boots, sitting on the edge of the bed for it, and then straightens and pushes her braids back over her shoulder. The motion tugs on something at the base of her skull and she reaches back to find a probably-expired kolto patch; she works it off, carefully, grimacing at the sticky flakes left behind. Dried kolto and blood have almost definitely seeped into her hair, which was already starting to frizz and grow out, but she’s not going to have the time to undo her braids, wash them, and redo them as long as they’re on Taris (assuming she could even find the supplies for it), so she’s just going to have to deal with the unpleasant feeling.

There’s a dried kolto patch on her shoulder too, where she’d gotten shot, and she peels that one off too, drops both into the wastebasket in the corner of the room. Her shoulder is still sore, she notes when she rolls it back and forth, but she’ll be able to fight with it. Assuming she can find her weapons.

She takes one more look around the bedroom, with its two beds (the other one mussed, as though someone has been using it), and then heads out into the main room of the apartment through the door on one wall. It’s sparsely furnished - a small kitchenette in one corner, a couch against one wall, a workbench of some kind in a corner, and another door she suspects leads to a fresher - and the couch, as it turns out, is occupied by both Carth and Trask. The latter is focused on a datapad he must’ve acquired somewhere, scrolling through something with a grim look on his face; the Spire’s captain is nursing a mug of caf and jiggling one foot up and down as he watches Trask like he’s waiting for something. Both of them glance up at her when the door closes behind her, and there’s clear surprise on Carth’s face.

“I wasn’t sure you were ever going to wake up,” he says in greeting, and Shala raises one hand to the back of her head, runs her fingers lightly over the tenderness where her head had made contact with a pod’s controls. He’s studying her with a narrow, focused look. “What’s your name, soldier?”

“Shala Dral,” she says, recognizing the question for what it is - a test. “Sergeant, assigned to the Endar Spire under Captain Carth Onasi and Ops Commander Bastila Shan. The Supreme Chancellor is Tol Cressa and we’ve been at war with the Sith for three years. Satisfied?”

“Second Impact Syndrome can be deadly,” Carth says, not even attempting to make an excuse. “Neither of us are trained in more than the basics of field medicine, and I wasn’t sure what condition you’d be in when you woke up, if you did. Your memory being intact is a promising sign, though I’ve never seen anyone recover from a concussion that nasty this fast.”

Shala shrugs, spying her vibroblade and its sheath laid out on the workbench against the far wall, and heads over to them, strapping the sheath back against her leg where it belongs. “Call it a special talent. What are you two looking at?”

tagging: @ipreferfiction @darthmarrsgf @tarrevizsla @darthsassacre!

[morfinwen]

5, 8, 9, 17, 34 for the ocs from stories we don't share (lauren, ian, etc) :)

I don't even want to know how old this is, but here's the long-awaited answer!

5. On an average day, what can be found in your character’s pockets?

Chris: Keys, wallet, phone, pocket knife, ticket stubs, a small pen or pencil, gum, anywhere from one to ten dollars in change and small bills, guitar pick(s), string, blurry bits of musical composition written on a napkin or the back of a receipt.

Reagan: Keys, phone. Stretching this to include purse: wallet, lip balm she never uses, pens, and a knife.

Neal: Keys, phone, wallet, receipts dating back several weeks, one or two odd items (bottlecap, glove, AA battery, candle) that he picked up at some point and forgot about.

Angie: Nothing. In her purse, keys, wallet, phone, lip balm, gum, small notebook, pen.

Elarin: Identification, whatever kinds of keys they have, several credits, some kind of tiny datapad with random notes on it that make no sense to anyone but her.

Meaghan: Identification, spare credits she forgot she still had, small rocks or small carved item that feels good rubbed between her fingers.

Avery: It’s random. On one day, nothing; on the next, exact change for that set of armor she’s had her eye on and a roll she grabbed at breakfast but forgot about; on the third, enough herbs to fill her herb drawer because they went outside the city walls and she harvested everything in sight; on the fourth, nothing again.

Leah: Her bag is always stuffed full -- spare clothes, food, scrap, medical supplies, weapons, ammo, etc. Some reliable things are a comic book (she enjoys Grognak, but prefers Astonishingly Awesome Tales), Blamco Mac and Cheese (irradiated or not, it tastes like childhood), at least four different guns, and a haphazard collection of toys she’s recovered from burned down houses, trash bins, the ocean, etc.

Ian: Wallet, keys, phone, random bits of change, and a button, inexplicably.

Lauren: She keeps her phone and keys in her pockets. In her purse, wallet, lipstick, lip balm, lotion, nail clippers, tweezers, backup phone (cheap disposable with all her contacts in it), change purse, napkins, tampons (all times of the month), Swiss army knife, hand sanitizer, small sewing kit (buttons, needle, thread, patch), and anything else she suspects she might need. She’s not paranoid, she’s prepared!

Kira: If she picks something up for any reason and gets distracted, there’s a better-than-50% chance it will end up in her pocket, and Kira picks up a lot of random junk and gets distracted easily. Each day’s assortment is different, random, and largely useless.

Darcy: Pencil and paper.

Susanna: Don’t ask.

8. Has your character ever fired a gun? If so, what was their first target?

Chris: A friend in college took him to a shooting range once. Everyone present described Chris as “worryingly enthusiastic” and “alarmingly good”.

Reagan: Nope. Her aunt wouldn’t have let her growing up, none of her college or work friends are into guns, and she lacks the interest to find and shoot one on her own.

Neal: Never. He hates even being in the same room as a gun. His dad owned a handgun; when Neal was ten, he (his dad) developed a habit of cleaning it in the living room, and pointing it at people as a “joke”, increasing in frequency and aggression until Rigby “lost” it a few years later.

Angie: One of her relatives took her hunting when she was eight and, perhaps inadvisably, allowed her to fire one of his rifles. She can’t remember what she shot at, or how close she came, but she can still remember how loud it was.

Elarin: May have fired a blaster in the past she can’t remember. Did try firing one on the Endar Spire during its final battle. Her targets were invading soldiers. If she hit one, it was by accident. She’s not really a “blaster” person.

Meaghan: Started using a blaster after she got exiled from the Jedi Order. Her first target was a droid.

Avery: What’s a gun?

Leah: Yes, so many guns. Her first target was at a gun range.

Ian: If bb guns count, then a paper target his dad set up in their backyard.

Lauren: Never.

Kira: Nope.

Darcy: Nope.

Susanna: Someday (be very afraid).

9. Is your character’s current socioeconomic status different than it was when they were growing up?

Chris: He’s always considered himself to be in some nebulous position between middle and upper class. Based solely on net income, it’s been probably closer to middle both as a child and as an adult, as even on a lawyer’s salary living in New York is not cheap, especially with private school tuition, music lessons, and extra curricular activities tacked on. But as noted elsewhere, both of his parents came from wealthy families who were always willing to contribute money whenever asked. If he wanted, he could live with either of his grandparents and probably never have to worry about money again.

Reagan: Maybe slightly less middle class than she used to be, but not a huge shift. Neither she nor her aunt have ever made a ton of money, but it’s enough to keep her off the street and in a (mostly) decent apartment.

Neal: He’s doing better than his parents were. Which means things like “lives within a budget” and “doesn’t spend half his paychecks on alcohol”.

Angie: Depends on how you define her socioeconomic status growing up. Based on her mother’s income, she was lower middle class at best, and now she’s solidly middle class, so maybe.

Elarin: She’s still a Jedi, though what precisely that means has changed since she was a child.

Meaghan: Same as Elarin.

Avery: At one point, yes. She came back from an expedition with a considerable fortune that enabled her to buy back her mother’s old home, and her mother grew up as nobility. For several years money was not a concern. But while she’s managed to hold onto some of it, after everything that happens in Kirkwall, she’s more or less forced on the run, which is how she spent most of her childhood. At least it’s familiar.

Leah: She was raised middle class. She is now the head of the Minutemen and a valued member of the Railroad, manages more than two dozen settlements with their own economies, owns property in Diamond City, and regularly scrounges caps and resources from the wastelands. So, yeah.

Ian: Nope, pretty much the same.

Lauren: Nope, also pretty much the same.

Kira, Darcy, Susanna: Still growing up.

17. What was your character’s favorite toy as a child?

Chris: K’nex. His grandparents bought him and his sister multiple sets for a couple birthday/Christmas presents, and they would spend hours constructing huge contraptions in their apartment -- Chris would come up with the ideas and Marie would figure out how they could build them. It was sometimes exasperating to come home and find the living room had been renovated as an amusement park made entirely out of K'nex, but their mother was usually too impressed to scold them for it.

Reagan: Simon Says. She would bring it to school and challenge other kids with it, and routinely creamed them.

Neal: Remote controlled airplane. It didn’t last very long, but he and his brother got a lot of use out of it first.

Angie: A Winnie-the-Pooh stuffed bear her mother gave her when she was a baby.

Elarin: I have no idea what kind of toys Jedi children play with, but from what i know of Elarin, her favorite was probably some piece of scrap or tech she wasn’t supposed to have that she used as a jumping-off point for her imagination.

Meaghan: Colored blocks, made of wood or whatever they used instead of wood. She loved the texture.

Avery: Wooden sword. Her mother was not best pleased.

Leah: A dollhouse. A big, expensive wooden one, with an elevator, dozens of pieces of furniture, a car, a fireplace that lit up when you flipped a switch, and all kinds of other cool things. She almost spent more time setting up the rooms than actually playing with it.

Ian: Some kind of toy construction truck, highly-realistic looking and very movable. His parents are holding onto it and many of his other toys, as his mother hopes they might get used by grandkids someday.

Lauren: Her stuffed dog Patches. He’s lost a lot of his stuffing and has actual patches now from where he’s been repaired, but he sleeps on her pillow during the day and with her at night. Only Ian knows.

Kira: Her Barbies. At fifteen, she’s too self-conscious to play with them still, but she’s got a box in her room of the dolls and accessories she loved the best.

Darcy: Not that he’d tell anyone, because he gets called a nerd enough as it is, but he’d spend hours playing with his dad’s scientific and graphing calculators from college.

Susanna: Back in Kansas, her grandfather built a few playground structures for Kira, Darcy, and Susanna even before they came to live there -- a swing set, a tower that was both clubhouse and climbing wall/fireman’s pole, monkey bars, etc. They weren’t super fancy, but they were solid quality, and Susanna designed her own obstacle course around them. It was getting a little small for her when they moved, but she still misses it, especially since in their cramped Chicago apartment she's not likely to get a replacement any time soon.

34. Is your character more likely to keep trying a solution/method that didn’t work the first time, or immediately move on to a different solution/method?

Chris: Different, unless he really believes in the first method and can reasonably expect the failure not to reoccur.

Reagan: She’ll give the first method another try or two, then move on to something different.

Neal: He’ll usually approach the problem from a similar but noticeably different angle, and just build off from that.

Angie: Could try the first one once or maybe twice again or go straight to a different one, depending.

Elarin: Has never used the exact same method twice in her entire life.

Meaghan: The same method slightly different.

Avery: If the first one isn’t working, she’ll change to a new one right in the middle of it.

Leah: She’s got a couple different methods she cycles through, but won’t use the same one on a problem if it didn’t work.

Ian: Different methods, assuming he stuck with the first one long enough to give it a proper try.

Lauren: Modified same method.

Kira: New method.

Darcy: He doesn’t have that many different methods of problem-solving to try more than one.

Susanna: The same method, but harder.

Thanks for asking!

[lee-scribbles-and-doodles]

@allronix (tagging you because you specifically asked)

☆ Edit 4/1/21: One of their weights were incorrect so I went back and fixed it.

OK so the thing I want to do with my fic is actually have three recruits escape the Endar Spire with Carth, and have it be ambiguous which one is Revan for the first few chapters. It would be kind of hard to hide it for long, but I already have backstories made up for the non-Revan recruits that should be interesting. Also I l love Carth, Bastila, and Juhani, and I couldn’t pick which one I want to write a romance for, so I decided to use all my Recruit-Revan fan designs as separate characters.

Anyway, I spent the day drawing up character bio pages for them. Their faces are inspired by various heads you can give the player character. 

(Just want to note that the Skills and Attributes sections isn't game accurate because I decided to give them all 27 skill points and 78 attribute points each).

___

Gryphon Kalypso is a  non-binary human (ze-zir pronouns) from Deralia. Ze is pansexual and zir age is 31. Gryphon was recently selected to work on the Endar Spire as a reconnaissance scout due to zir variable skills.

::Character Starting Stats (Lvl 4 Scout)::

- Attributes -

Strength = 12 | Dexterity = 14 | Constitution = 12 | Intelligence = 14 | Wisdom = 12 | Charisma = 14

- Skills -

Computer Use = 4 | Demolitions = 5 | Awareness = 5 | Persuade = 6 | Repair = 5 | Treat Injury = 2

- Feats -

Uncanny Dodge 1

Implant Lvl 1-2

Light and Medium armor proficiency

Blaster pistol and Blaster rifle proficiency

Melee weapon proficiency

Flurry

Rapid shot

Empathy

Dueling

Two-weapon fighting

___

Next is Kaiden Whitedawn, a human man from Naboo who is demiromantic. He is 28, and was recently selected to work on the Endar Spire as a field medic and general doctor depending on the situation.

::Character Starting Stats (Lvl 4 Soldier)::

- Attributes -

Strength = 16 | Dexterity = 11 | Constitution = 12 | Intelligence = 12 | Wisdom = 15 | Charisma = 12

- Skills -

Demolitions = 4 | Awareness = 5 | Persuade = 7 | Treat Injury = 11

- Feats -

Light, medium, and heavy armor proficiency

Heavy Weapons proficiency

Blaster pistol and Blaster rifle proficiency

Melee weapon proficiency

Improved Power Attack

Power Blast

Empathy

Toughness

Two-weapon fighting

___

Last but not least is Umbra Fowler. She is human woman who is bisexual and hails from Nar Shaddaa. She's also the youngest of my recruit ocs at 25. (She's also the shortest but that just means she has less room to contain her passion and fury). Umbra is a skilled mercenary who was recently recruited as part of the Endar Spire. If she's not fighting in the field or helping a reconnaissance team, she's usually doing odd jobs around the ship.

::Character Starting Stats (Lvl 4 Scoundrel)::

- Attributes -

Strength = 10 | Dexterity = 16 | Constitution = 10 | Intelligence = 14 | Wisdom = 12 | Charisma = 12

- Skills -

Demolitions = 3 | Stealth = 10 | Awareness = 6 | Security = 6 | Treat Injury = 2

- Feats -

Light armor proficiency

Blaster pistol and Blaster rifle proficiency

Melee weapon proficiency

Scoundrel's Luck

Sneak Attack 1-2

Critical Strike

Sniper Shot

Caution

Dueling

Gear Head

[maaruin]

Here are my wishes for the KotOR Remake. They will spoil the KotOR story, so if you haven’t played the game and want to experience it in the remake, better not read further.

The TL;DR is:

More dialogue choices for the player character that allow fleshing out their personality.

Larger maps.

A combat system with distinct light side and dark side playstyles.

Spoilery details under the cut:

More opportunities for character building for the player character in the dialogue choices. This is probably the main reason why I couldn’t get into KotOR the same way I got into KotOR II. I mean, when the player character learns that they are actually Revan, there is much time spend on what their crew members think about it, but almost none on what the PC thinks about this.

Less psychotic dark side options. Revan actually had an ideology, as we see with the test they put on the Star Map on Kashyyyk, and Kreia’s speculation in  KotOR II further elaborated on it. Revan wanted to conquer the Republic with his Sith Empire because he thought that a state under dictatorial Sith leadership focussed on military power would be more capable of defending against outside threat. Revan with their memories wiped should be able to go down the same path they went before. So starting with ends-justify-the-means-to-defend-the-republic and then moving towards maybe-I-should-be-in-charge-of-the-republic. At the same time, it should also be possible to explain the weaknesses of this approach when Bastila tries to convince them of going dark again. Rejecting the dark side for pragmatic reasons instead of moral ideals. I suppose all of this ends up with: more character building dialogue choices again.

More space on the maps. The old game was limited by the technology of it’s time, but now hopefully the planets can feel wide and the buildings big. My dream would even be for the entire Endar Spire to be accessible, but that is probably too much to ask. 

Overhaul of the combat system towards real time. I’m pretty sure they are going to do that. What I wish would be that playing light side and playing dark side has a different combat feel to it. I have some ideas for this, which might be better suited for it’s own post. When playing light side the combat should feel very deliberate, like in Dark Souls. When playing dark side the combat should feel much more aggressive, like in Doom (2016).

[catgirlmafia]

Snapshots of a Life: Odadia Khaal

Padawan: A young girl stands in a forest clearing, wiping tears from her eyes. Around her, her village's embers smolder and pop in the rain. Before her stands a kind woman, her face framed by a pair of long braids with golden bands. The rain collides with an invisible force above the pair. The Jedi offers the young girl her hand and asks her name. "Odadia Khaal" is the slowly given answer.

General: The Revanchist Jedi lead the charge into the Mandalorian horde, and the Jedi Knight once known as Knight Khaal leads their charge. She is Revan now. The rest of her people were among the first casualties of the Mandalorians' brutal campaign, and she would not use her name again until they were avenged. An old Mandalorian helmet covers her rage-filled face, and a heavy brown robe covers that. Her hands hold two lightsabers, ignited and trailing behind her, streaks of violet and crimson as her force enhanced speed blurs her form. She does not yet regret what she has done, and she may never get the chance

Dark Lord: Darth Revan stands on the bridge of The Khaal, her fearsome flagship in the Sith Armada created by her greatest discovery. At the Star Forge, she saw…. something. Something terrifying, something that shook her to her very soul. Something that was coming for her galaxy. Something that the Republic, in all it's slow and laborious bureaucracy, would never be able to stop. So the duty fell to her. Revan would unite the galaxy under her rule, and they would survive. Behind her, lightsabers ignite and she turns to face the Jedi strike team. Outside the window she just turned away from, her apprentice's ship The Leviathan turns to start a broadside assault on her own vessel.

Scout: Odadia Khaal wakes from a nightmare with a start. She's had nightmares every night since joining the crew of the Endar Spire, nightmares about a battle between a Jedi she somehow knows is Bastila Shan and a Sith Lord in a Mandalorian helmet who she cannot remember. But this was different. Last night she dreamed of a burning village on a rainforest planet, everyone in it either dead or taken by the Exchange's slavers. Everyone but her. And then she sees a woman step out of a shuttle and everything turns into white hot pain. She woke up crying but she doesn't know why. This never happened to her, did it? She was always an orphan. She never lived in a forest village. So why does it hurt so much?

Guardian: Odadia Khaal, Revan, the Hero of the Republic. Whoever she is, she sits on the swoop bike in the Ebon Hawk's cargo hold with her head in her hands. She still only remembers fragments of her real life, seeping in through the cracks in the false life the Jedi forced into her mind. She may be a champion of the Light but she is no Jedi. And she's certainly no Sith. The Jedi played with her mind, erased her life. And the Sith? Her only true friend during the war, her dear Alek? He had tried to kill her once, and then she'd had to kill him herself. So now here she was, alone in a ship full of her friends. An ex-Jedi, an ex-Sith, a woman without a path to follow.

[lonewolfel]

Thank You

“I might just kiss you.”

Revan/Carth

When the Jedi wiped Revan’s mind she became Elane. This also takes place on the third planet we visited after Dantooine. 

Carth was leaning against the wall of Elane’s room on Korriban. Elane is going to go into the tomb of Naga Shadow with Uthar Wynn and Yuthura Ban alone. Elane was meditating on her bed. HK was guarding the entrance to the room. 

Carth couldn’t help but be relieved that they had managed to convince Dustil to leave the Sith Academy. This left him to deal with his feelings towards the Jedi meditating. She was strong, kind, and perseverent. All of that on top of her clear power and abilities with the force, not to mention her leadership skills. Even on Taris he had to stop himself from falling for her. Elane has black hair, tan skin, and brown eyes with flecks of gold in them. She had an average height and broad shoulders. She was also muscular.

“Thank you.” Carth said breaking the silence in the room.

“What?” Elane asked, opening her eyes. Her brown eyes met his own. 

“Thank you for helping Dustil.” Carth said and Elane smiled slightly.

“It was no problem. I’m just glad I could.” Elane said and Carth nodded. 

“Elane, promise me something.” Carth said and Elane stood up. She walked towards him.

“What?” Elana asked and Carth knew that she wouldn't make any promises that she couldn’t keep.

“To be careful and return from that tomb.” Carth said and Elane flinched.

“Carth, you know I can’t make that promise.” Elane said

“I know, but I need you to walk out of the tomb.” Carth said

“Carth, you, Bastilla, and everyone will be able to complete the mission without me. After this one there is only one more Star Map.” Elane said

“That isn’t what I meant.” Carth said and Elane looked confused.

“I don’t….” Elane started, but Carth cut her off.

“I need you to come back from the tomb. Give me a reason to move past revenge.” Carth said

“I will do everything in power to walk out of the tomb. I definitely don’t want to be another skeleton on the tomb floor.” Elane said, smirking slightly.

“I’ll hold you to that. You know, it’s hard to believe that this crazy ride is almost over.” Carth said

“I know. It seemed like just yesterday we met on the Endar Spire.” Elane said

“What do you plan to do once this is over?” Carth asked and Elane shrugged.

“I don’t really know. I don’t plan to stay with the Jedi and I feel like there is something I have to do after this. I’ll probably wonder across the galaxy like I had before the war. What about you?” Elane said 

“I don’t know. I had never thought about it before. I just assumed I wouldn’t see the end of the war.” Carth said and Elane looked at him in concern. 

“Now you have your son back and the war is about to end one way or the other.” Elane said

“And I have you.” Carth said and Elane’s eyes widened.

“Me?” Elane asked

“Yes, I don’t want to imagine my life without you in it. When I see my future you are there.” Carth said and he grabbed her hand. 

“I would like that.” Elane said

“I might just kiss you.” Carth said and Elane smiled slightly and had a michievies look in her eyes.

“I might just let you.” Elane said and Carth leaned down and kissed her. Elane kissed him back. The moment was ruined when HK walked into the room. They pulled apart and Elane looked at the droid.

“Statement: Master, the meatbags have arrived to take you into the tomb.” HK said

“Alright, I will be right there.” Elane said to the droid. Carth wasn’t sure why Elane likes the droid. Elane walked towards the droid. Elane turned to face Carth. “I’ll see you once I get the third Star Map. Then we can see about that future.” Elane winked and exited the room. 

“I’ll hold you to those.” Carth said