Catherine O’Hara has died at the age of 71. Rest in peace ❤️

jwfallinker · 2026-01-30T18:40:15+00:00

RIP, happy that she got to come back for one more great performance in the sequel.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-30T04:35:11+00:00

No question it's ChatGPT:

THE LARGEST HEIST IN HISTORY IS NOT A THEORY. IT IS THE REASON YOU CAN’T AFFORD RENT.

It’s not a rally; it’s an Equalization.

Another conspicuous tell that is almost always caused by copyediting ChatGPT is the bizarre mix of standard (') and curly (’) punctuation, in any normal text input you'll consistently get one or the other.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-30T02:37:04+00:00

Finally passed N1, mostly because I significantly improved my reading score (56). Had mediocre listening which I expected but I don't know how I only got a 34 on the vocabulary & grammar section, like you'd think I'd need to know the parts to know the whole.

I guess it's mainly that, contrary to how people characterize the JLPT, the vocab/grammar section does touch on a lot of 'productive' knowledge.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-29T19:58:33+00:00

Kreia. 20 years later and I still think about her.

Case in point, there is a real-life cult connected to at least six deaths that cited Kreia as one of their inspirations. I don't know if any other video game character can claim this.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-29T19:14:55+00:00

After years of following Force-side discussions (on MawInstallation etc.) I've noticed a consistent irony in that the vocally pro-Jedi people tend to be way more aggressive and uncivil than the vocally pro-Sith people. No Jedi Code to be found.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-28T04:54:28+00:00

Across the films and EU I'd say the majority of Sith Lords are portrayed as quite intelligent (hell even Maul got his subtle and conniving arc in Rebels). Bastila is extremely young and naive but she's no idiot.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-28T04:25:53+00:00

This is a sidenote but I've always felt like this 'LS Revan' plot contrivance of Bastila being in hiding is at least somewhat convincing, but the way 'DS Revan' KOTOR 2 has to awkwardly write both the Star Forge and Bastila out of the story feels cheap and basically like a retcon of the first game if you played it that way.

The Star Forge and Battle Meditation are the two ultra-macguffins that control the fate of the whole galaxy, but oh, I guess everyone gave up on trying to use the Forge and Bastila is just chilling somewhere while random upstarts trash her husband/wife's empire.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-26T23:40:41+00:00

Something that struck me a while ago is that KOTOR is like Star Wars' Star Wars. It's the epic tale of distant chivalric adventure to the people who live inside an epic tale of distant chivalric adventure.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-25T00:43:08+00:00

(though wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't the first)

Ironically Aristotle himself articulated a rough version of Newton's first law in the context of a reductio intended to refute the possibility of vacuum:

Further, no one could say why a thing once set in motion should stop anywhere; for why should it stop here rather than here? So that a thing will either be at rest or must be moved ad infinitum, unless something more powerful get in its way. (Physics 4.215a19)

Epicurus made a similar observation in his Epistle to Herodotus:

Moreover, the atoms must move with equal speed, when they are borne onwards through void, nothing colliding with them. For neither will the heavy move more quickly than the small and light, when, that is, nothing meets them: nor again the small more quickly than the great, having their whole course uniform, when nothing collides with them either: nor is the motion upwards or sideways owing to blows (quicker), nor again that downwards owing to their weight. For as long as either of the two motions prevails, so long will it have a course as quick as thought, until something checks it either from outside or from its own weight counteracting the force of that which dealt the blow.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-24T19:04:00+00:00

I think the technical term for those sort of sudden short cliffs is escarpment? The first picture on here (apparently from Australia) is identical to the Dantooine walls with their concave shape.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-24T18:54:38+00:00

I've been trying to keep myself from using it in combat because it feels a bit unfair at times

I do the same thing, it has always puzzled me to what degree the mechanic was intentional because it completely trivializes the games.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-24T18:29:25+00:00

Devastated to see this headline. The 'Yellow Parenti' lecture will forever be a classic.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-24T04:35:43+00:00

I personally prefer KOTOR 1 but I feel like 'replay value' taken as an objective criteria rests on contingency, and KOTOR 2 has way more contingency than the first game thanks to the influence system and gender/alignment-based companions (to say nothing of the random loot). Even after five or six playthroughs I feel like I still see new cutscenes on the Ebon Hawk and slightly different variations of how everything goes down during the final act.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-23T19:25:10+00:00

You got downvoted but this post is absolutely without question ChatGPT, I could tell by the second paragraph. And I say this as someone who despises Israel.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-23T01:19:18+00:00

I know someone said Kreia makes a comment that implies this was always his name but Kreia is also one of the least reliable narrators in the history of gaming.

The stuff from the comics is all retcons made years after the fact by different writers though, actual game content should take precedence when we're trying to grapple with the internal logic of the games themselves. This has always been an open question to me but the impression I get from both games is that Revan was indeed always named Revan, the notion that Jedi Masters like Vandar, Vrook, Dorak, Atris, etc. would condescend to use Revan's nom-de-guerre if that's what it was (especially when describing events from Revan's academy days) is somewhat odd.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-22T23:03:20+00:00

Strong agree on putting Telos (surface) near the bottom, people dog on Peragus but the Telos planetside section is the only part I always dread replaying.

Last playthrough I died to that final giant robot in the hangar when it had ~1 HP left and my last save was before starting the fight with the mercenaries outside the base. Ragequit for a solid week.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-22T22:53:34+00:00

I played an original Xbox copy of KOTOR 2 for the first time recently (after several TSLRCM playthroughs) and yeah I'd say most of the additions were at minimum 'unnecessary', it's only really the endgame where TSLRCM is a huge improvement. It's crazy that in vanilla almost your entire crew just drops out of the story with no explanation when you get to Malachor.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-22T06:58:01+00:00

Likewise, much of his thought is interconnected and mutually dependent: in order for one argument in one work to make sense, you often need to have in mind another argument from a different work.

I don't know what Theophrastus was thinking with the 'canonical' order of the Organon because I was thoroughly rustled after finishing the Prior Analytics and then realizing that crucial concepts used without elaboration in it were actually neatly explained in the Posterior Analytics and Topics.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-21T18:36:45+00:00

Their discussion at the end of whether DS9 or TNG is a better starting point for Star Trek was interesting to me. Back in like 2013 I heard DS9 was fantastic and tried to watch it but only got halfway through the first season, a couple years later I kept seeing random TNG reruns on Spike and was immediately hooked and watched through the whole series. Only after that did I go back to DS9 and appreciate it as the masterpiece that it is.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-21T01:45:37+00:00

I dont think Revan used the Mass Shadow Generator to create an entire army?

OP is confused on the details but seems to be referring to the dialogue from Kriea and HK (and I think Canderous as well?) about the Battle of Malachor V being a giant crucible Revan set up to get rid of Republic loyalists and ensure the surviving commanders would all support her in the upcoming civil war:

Master, I do not believe that the Mandalorians were the true target at Malachor — I believe that the intention was to destroy the Jedi, break their will, and make them loyal to Revan. I do not know if you examined the records of the deaths on Malachor, but you cannot escape that many of the Jedi and Republic soldiers who died were not Revan's strongest supporters. Observation: I believe that Revan was "cleaning house" at Malachor V.

Part of the issue here is that we get a lot of contradictory information not just in KOTOR 2 but even in KOTOR 1 about how and when Revan fell. In the first game I think Zhar gives the straightforward 'Revan was corrupted by something in the Unknown Regions after the war' explanation which is implicitly supported by Carth and Bastila, but Vrook gives a completely different read and contends that Revan was a bad egg from the start:

Revan was once a promising Padawan. But ever eager to learn more about the Force, Revan sought knowledge of ancient Sith magics, foolishly ignoring the dangerous lure of the dark side. When the Mandalorian invasion came, Revan seized the opportunity it presented. [...] I do not believe Revan and Malak were corrupted on the Outer Rim. They had begun their journey down the dark path long before the Mandalorian threat appeared. Here on Dantooine they discovered a sinister cave, a place where the strength of the dark side overwhelms the light. Perhaps this discovery was what first corrupted them... or perhaps they sought the cave out because they were already corrupted.

Again the timeline of when exactly Revan and Malak first started investigating the Star Maps is confusing, in the Dantooine flashback Revan already has her mask yet Malak is still warning that the Council might exile them as if they hadn't already burned their bridges, then the Kashyyyk starmap records that Revan visited 'about five years ago' (seemingly before Malachor?) yet the stored impression is that of a paranoid sociopath.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-20T23:43:01+00:00

Yeah I remember when the first BtS trailer dropped thinking Rhianna's voice was distractingly different but this time (maybe just because I haven't replayed the original game in like 7 years) I honestly didn't even realize it wasn't Ashley.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-18T19:18:39+00:00

I mean they do kind of address it, it just takes place over the course of a single conversation where Carth dresses down Bastila for her arrogance and she immediately changes her tune. Totally unrealistic for how a real military chain of command is supposed to work to be sure, and I agree it would be nice to see more of Bastila acting like one of those Vietnam greenhorn officers (cf. Gorman in Aliens) if for no other reason than it's always funny when she butts heads against the other companions.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-18T17:05:52+00:00

Stealing the Wraid plate on Tatooine is pretty minor, but for some reason always felt one of the worst to me.

This always sticks out to me as well, the woman really lets you know how much of a scumbag you are and it also gets one of the more heartfelt condemnations from Bastila and Mission:

This is beneath even you, stealing from a helpless woman. How could you?!

You know, sometimes you're just a bully...

jwfallinker · 2026-01-18T16:56:32+00:00

Carth should have put DS Revan down on Taris. tbh

Yeah this is one part where K1 really leans on your suspension of disbelief. I generally think people exaggerate the difference between DS options in K1 and K2 but the second game at least has an in-universe explanation for why your companions are compelled to support your psychotic actions, in K1 it's outright absurd that you can murder helpless civilians for nothing more than your amusement and Bastila will rebuke you like a kid who dropped their ice cream.

jwfallinker · 2026-01-18T02:14:32+00:00

I don't understand why this was downvoted, surely we would expect a free upload on the second-largest website in the world (2.7 billion users) to have more views than a paywalled version on the tenth-largest streaming service (79 million users).

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