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Absolutely here for the level of The Pole At The Star Wars Hotel memes coming out of Jenny Nicholson's new video

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Ok

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I also need to tell you about this lad, sorry

The other character from my younger days that I was excited to recreate was this fella, Zalteesh the Imperial Agent. There's just something inescapably cool about the Agent story, so I don't at all mind doing it again.

Way back when I first heard the male Agent's voice, it was so thick with Recieved Pronunciation that I knew I wanted to subvert the cliche by giving him south Asian ethnicity, to somehow play around with the trope of empire being all about white dudes doing white things.

Plus he got that funky twiddly moustache, so that's good too.

But somewhere along the way between the game's launch and today they revamped all the crafting recipes, and the imperial officer uniform you can make has significantly worse colours than the original. Boo! Luckily I still have the original iteration of the character, and he can still make the older version, which looks considerably sexier.

Anyway, it's fun to roleplay the Imperial Agent as well. I play him as reasonably patriotic, though more to the Empire itself than its rulers, who he considers a bunch of psychotic lunatics. But I have him being polite to everyone, as it's a bad idea to antagonise folks who can crush your trachea with a wave of the hand.

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Sorry, I need to tell you about this lad

So before I started my all-too-brief return to The Old Republic it was this guy I was most looking forward to creating. His name's Vildian, he's a Jedi Knight, and an absolute boss.

I've long wanted to explore the idea of having emphasis on the Knight part of the title, so made a vow that no matter what, he would never wear a boring monkish robe. Instead, he would have a more classical chivalrous suit of armour to charge into battle with, along with a cool knightly helmet.

The crossguard saber was a given from the start, but a browse of the Cartel Market allowed me to give him an almost Greco-Roman look without much difficulty. And boy is it sexy. The shiny metal breastplate, velvety shoulder cape, leather pointy bits and a matching helmet makes all the brown robes the game wants me to want look just so, so boring.

And this leads into the roleplaying part of the character. Vildian is very keen to do his part as a valiant defender of the innocent, and while this is all well and good on the surface, he's already starting to buckle under the immense pressure of not wanting to let anyone down. His bravery and talent are masking immense self-esteem issues that come to the fore whenever he's not able to protect someone or prevent terrible things from happening. The finale of chapter 1 was very difficult for him to process.

Hope he doesn't start slipping into fear and anger in chapter 2, guys! Fingies crossed!

Above: the original version of the character from... the best part of a decade ago? Yikes. I genuinely can't believe I ever thought that the blue dressing gown would look anything other than utterly dorky. And poor old Kira is dressed like a medieval nun, if that nun was also somehow a clown.

Below: the modern version. Just a more exciting and dynamic look all round. This is a lad whose career is going places. But in deference to his past, Kira has to wear a blue robe. But at least it's still better than the old one. And it's just her Padawan outfit. She can choose something else later, I'm sure.

I wanted to have him riding around on some kind of Star Wars space horse, but sadly there are no four-legged hooved mounts in the game. So he rides a great big glowing wolfie doggie thing instead. I'm very basic.

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My latest New Scientist cartoon.

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Horror music composer

(Source)

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I had a full week where I was able to get back on my proper PC, and decided to spend it diving headfirst into Star Wars: The Old Republic. It's a game that's definitely seen better days, but I still had a blast. I'm definitely looking forward to a proper return soon.

Also a massive backlog of cartel coins meant that I could go kinda nuts on the cosmetics...

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Doylist addendum: Star Wars was originally created according to fairytale tropes and structures, so wouldn't and shouldn't get caught up on logical snares. Luke wouldn't know the winner of a race from the Olde Dayes because it's not important. He has a princess to rescue.

Watsonian addendum 1: Skywalker may not be that uncommon a name on Tatooine. I vaguely remember some old EU book from years ago where a minor character from Tatooine had a similarly batshit daft surname and it was implied that Tatooine people are just Like That. Luke doesn't bat an eye on seeing another Fred Smith written down.

Watsonian addendum 2: A lot of people lost a lot of money on the Boonta Eve Classic that year. Most people put their money on Sebulba (including Anakin's owner). They might not be altogether keen to have it remembered.

Watsonian addendum 3: Is Luke actually that much into podracing?

It’s so crazy that Luke Skywalker thought his dad was just some freighter pilot and yet also claimed to be a podracing fan how did he not think to look at the records and see his dad was the only human to ever win the Boonta Eve Classic the legend who defeated the great Sebulba #FakeFan

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To-cat-ata in B by sympawnies

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Christian god: makes the face of Jesus appear on toast

Xiuhtēcuhtli, Lord of Volcanoes: hold my beer

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Peaceful Sunday afternoon with Flynn. He herded me over here & demanded we stop... who am I to argue? I flopped down on the lovely soft spring grass & was delighted Flynn chose to flop down right beside me, so we could soak up the sunshine & listen to the birds together. It still makes me incredibly happy to see Flynn happy, confident & relaxed about making physical contact like this, after he spent so many years being fearful. Love this pup!

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Hello depression. How have you been?

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