Leilukin's Hub

Changelog: 27 April 2024

2024-04-27T00:00:00Z

New blog post: Happy Lesbian Visibility Day and 1-Year Anniversary of Cassette Beasts.

Happy Lesbian Visibility Day and 1-Year Anniversary of Cassette Beasts | Blog

2024-04-27T00:00:00Z

26 April 2024 was a day of celebration for me, as it was both Lesbian Visibility Day and the first anniversary of the release of Cassette Beasts, my all-time favourite video game.

As a lesbian, Lesbian Visibility Day and Lesbian Visibility Week are an important annual event, as there can never be enough lesbians nor love for lesbians. It had been about 8 years ago when I finally realised I was a lesbian, and I am still happy and proud to be a lesbian.

Meanwhile, Cassette Beasts has become my all-time favourite video game ever since I started playing it in July 2023, to the extent I had created a shrine for the game on my own website. There are no words adequate to describe the depth of my love for Cassette Beasts.

As a lesbian fan of Cassette Beasts, I am also absolutely delighted by the fact that the initial release date of Cassette Beasts coincided with Lesbian Visibility Day on April 26. For bonus points, Cassette Beasts features not only LGBTQ+ representation in both the main and supporting cast, but also an actual canon old married lesbian couple in the supporting characters Ianthe and Wilma.

To celebrate both Lesbian Visibility Day and the 1-year anniversary of Cassette Beasts' release, I made lesbian pride icons featuring the Cassette Beasts logo as well as Ianthe and Wilma both individually and together, and shared them on social media accounts, including Tumblr, Twitter, Mastodon and Bluesky. I had also shared them in the official Bytten Studio Discord server.

My Cassette Beasts lesbian pride icons have been well-received, by not only other fans of the game, but also the developer Bytten Studio themselves. On Twitter, Bytten Studio not only retweeted, but also replied to my icons.

On Mastodon, Bytten Studio also boosted my icons.

Furthermore, I had set up my website's header to display the lesbian pride flag and a blurb about Lesbian Visibility Day, and my Cassette Beasts shrine to display a blurb about the game's release anniversary, both on April 26 annually.

In conclusion, this had been an exciting day for me as a lesbian gaymer.

On a somewhat related note, I love the fact that this week is not only Lesbian Visibility Week, but also has two of my all-time favourite games, Cassette Beasts and A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986 (which I had also created a shrine for), both of which happen to feature lesbian representation, celebrating their release anniversaries.

Happy Lesbian Visibility Day and Happy Birthday to Cassette Beasts!

Changelog: 21 April 2024

2024-04-21T00:00:00Z

New blog post: April 2024 Leilukin's Hub Overhaul with Eleventy.

April 2024 Leilukin's Hub Overhaul with Eleventy | Blog

2024-04-21T00:00:00Z

Leilukin's Hub just overgone a major overhaul: In April 2024, I have been rebuilding this entire website with the static site generator (SSG), Eleventy, often abbreviated as 11ty, and the process was completed on 20 April 2024.

After building this website for more than a year, Eleventy finally provided the solution for me to maintain, manage and update my website in more dynamic and sufficient ways to save time.

Challenges of Maintaining a Growing Website

Leilukin's Hub has come a long way since launch on 11 September 2022, from a small website with a few pages and a simple layout, to a full-fledged personal website with multiple articles, a blog, a couple of shrines with additional features such as sticky navigation bar, table of contents, etc. Meanwhile, I have also been learning web development, which helped to improve this website in multiple ways.

However, more content on my website also means more work to maintain. In particular, I have been trying to find ways to render components that share across multiple pages on my site, such as the header, navigation bar and footer, without having to copy and pasting the code of these components over and over whenever I want to add a new page. I had used JavaScript for this, but it is still not the best solution because I still needed to add a link to my JavaScript file in HTML. Thankfully, I eventually discovered Eleventy as the solution.

Why Eleventy?

There are many static site generators, so why I choose Eleventy over others? The main reason is Eleventy's flexibility. You can start building your website with Eleventy with something as simple as an index.md Markdown file.

In addition, Eleventy's own features, support for many template languages and plugins allow me to have control over how I build and customise my own website, some of which I will highlight as I elaborate the changes and improvements I had made to this website below.

New Features of Leilukin's Hub

Pagination

Leilukin's Hub blog and main changelogs page now has pagination, thanks to Eleventy's built-in support for the feature.

Estimated Reading Time for Articles and Blog Posts

Thanks to Emoji Read Time, a community plugin for Eleventy, my articles and blog posts now show the piece's estimated reading time before the main content.

Heading Anchor Links

For the articles, blog posts and some other pages that have headings, I have enabled anchor links on the headings by referring to the 11ty Slugs and Anchors guide from the website 11ty Rocks!, installing and configuring the markdown-it-anchor plugin.

Having a plugin that automatically generates heading anchor links also allows me to generate table of contents by installing the eleventy-plugin-nesting-toc plugin.

Content Categories

Eleventy's collection feature allows users to group site content by tags and create custom collections. This feature allows me to add categories to my articles and blog posts, and in turn allows visitors to browse my website by categories.

Archive for All My Articles and Blog Posts

Eleventy's collection feature also allows me to dynamically display links to my articles and posts when I make a new one, without needing to edit more pages to add the new links myself. Therefore, I took advantage of this feature by creating an [archive] page to display all my articles and blog posts.

Furthermore, my articles, blog and posts now has a right sidebar with links to my articles, blog posts as well as their archives and categories.

Breadcrumbs

Some contents on Leilukin's Hub now has breadcrumbs, which shows the locations of these contents within this website and provides another means for visitors to navigate this site.

Now Page

Inspired by the nownownow.com website, I have added a Now page to Leilukin's Hub. This page is about what I am doing and focusing at the moment. The page can be updated at any time, so feel free to check it out when you visit this website to learn what I am up to!

Improved Features of Leilukin's Hub

Blog

Leilukin's Hub blog was launched on 28 January 2023. Formerly, the blog was built with Zonelets; now I take advantage of Eleventy's flexibility by recreating Leilukin's Hub blog with it, thus using the main site's layout for the blog instead of using a different layout. This makes the blog actually feels like it is part of this website.

Site Map

Visually, my site map does not change much other than tweaking the spacing, but under the hood, I use the Eleventy's official Navigation plugin to generate the links to my pages in a hierarchical manner.

RSS Feed

I had created an RSS feed for Leilukin's Hub's changelogs and blog posts for a while, but previously I had to create new entries in the feed manually by using RSS Builder. Now by installing and setting up Eleventy's official RSS plugin, new feed entries will be generated automatically when I make new changelogs, articles and blog posts.

Other Notable Changes of Leilukin's Hub

The following changes are not related to any features inherent to Eleventy or its plugins, but they were part of my process of rebuilding Leilukin's Hub.

Direct Visit to Leilukin's Hub Home Page

I have removed the "launch page" that was used as the very first page you saw when you visited the link leilukin.neocities.org. Now when you visit the link to my website, you will immediately see the home page wihout any extra step.

My Creation Page Renamed to Projects

The page listing the things I have created has been renamed from "My Creation" to "Projects".

Site Updates being Blog Posts

Previously, longer site updates were made into their own pages, since Leilukin's Hub did not have its own blog when I made the first site update post. Now these updates are converted into blog posts.

Featured Articles being Party of Articles

Formerly, pages that featured my interviews were on their own page called "featured". Now, these featured articles are merged into the articles page.

Responsive Shrine Header Images

I have created two different resolutions of each header image of my shrines. Which version of the shrine header image gets displayed depends on if your screen is horizontal or vertical.

Scroll-to-Top Function

Previously, this site's scroll-to-top function was placed in the footer. Now, I created a scroll-to-top button in the bottom right corner of the page when you scroll down.

Site Layout

The main title of each page is now displayed above both the main content and sidebars, instead of just above the main content like in the previous layout. This change was made so when this site is viewed on mobile, the table of contents of the left sidebar will be displayed above the main content but still below the page's main title. Previously, I had to place the table of contents on both the left sidebar and the main content's body, and hide the sidebar table of contents when viewed on mobile.

I also use CSS grid to set the page layout in that the main content's width will remain the same instead of expanding if there is no sidebar on the page.

Use GitHub Actions to deploy Leilukin's Hub to Neocities

Eleventy is great for reducing many workloads in maintaining and updating my website, so how about publishing the website to Neocities? That is where the GitHub actions comes in.

Before I decided to use a static site generator to rebuild Leilukin's Hub, I discovered the GitHub action named deploy-to-neocities, which as the name suggests, allows you to publish your website directly from a GitHub repository to Neocities. I succeeded in deploying all the files of Leilukin's Hub to Neocities with it even before starting to rebuild my website with Eleventy.

I have been using Visual Studio Code to write the code for Leilukin's Hub, and saving a copy of all the files of my website on my own computer. The combination of creating a Git repository for Leilukin's Hub and using the deploy-to-neocities GitHub action saves the time and workload needed to log in to Neocities, navigate the files and folders and open a file to edit the code every time I want to make a change to my website.

A Week's Worth of Effort Well-Spent

I had spent a whole week in rebuilding Leilukin's Hub from scratch with Eleventy, and at last completing the process on 20 April 2024. Most of the time rebuilding this website was spent on setting up layout templates, rather than changing the format of my articles and blog posts from HTML to markdown. However, the effort and time spent was worth it, and Leilukin's Hub feels new again.

Welcome to the rebuilt Leilukin's Hub! 🥳

Changelog: 20 April 2024

2024-04-20T00:00:00Z

Finished overhauling this entire website with the static site generator Eleventy.

Changelog: 5 April 2024

2024-04-05T00:00:00Z

Add table of contents to my Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords mods.

Changelog: 6 March 2024

2024-03-06T00:00:00Z

New blog post: I Received a Lifetime Premium Membership on Nexus Mods for Free.

I Received a Lifetime Premium Membership on Nexus Mods for Free | Blog

2024-03-06T00:00:00Z

[Image description: A partial email message from Nexus Mods that reads:

Hey leilukin,

Congratulations! Many people are downloading your mods and your efforts have been recognised with a free Nexus Mods Premium reward.

To see and redeem your rewards, you can visit your rewards tab on the billing page.

Redeem now

End desctiption.]

[Image description: A notification on the Nexus Mods website that reads, "Your mods reached 30,000 UDLs! Enjoy Lifetime Premium membership on us." End description.]

[Image description: The Membership tab in the Nexus Mods account setting page, showing the current membershiup being "Mod Author Reward: Lifetime Premium", starting from 6th Mar 2024 with no end date. End description.]

Wow, I just got informed by Nexus Mods via email and website notification that I have received a lifetime Premium membership for free on Nexus Mods as a mod author reward, since all my mods that are hosted on Nexus Mods have reached 30,000 unique downloads in total!

It was actually only through receiving this reward that I learned about Nexus Mods' program to reward free Premium memberships to mod authors.

I never spent a single cent on Nexus Mods, and my mods are all passion projects, so I never expected to enjoy any extra benefits or privileges on Nexus Mods.

That said, I cannot complain about receiving a premium membership on a website I use regularly for free, even though the unlimited mod download speed is the only benefit I am really interested in. After all, I do download a lot of mods for various video games from Nexus Mods.

Changelog: 8 February 2024

2024-02-08T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Added Resources page.

Changelog: 7 February 2024

2024-02-07T00:00:00Z

Projects: Added My Characters section.

Changelog: 9 January 2024

2024-01-09T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Added a new section: My Contributions to the Cassette Beasts community.

Changelog: 20 November 2023

2023-11-20T00:00:00Z

New blog post: Finally Beat A Bug's Life The Video Game — 24 Years Later

Finally Beat A Bug's Life The Video Game — 24 Years Later | Blog

2023-11-20T00:00:00Z

A Bug's Life was one of my favourite films in my childhood, to the extent I had lost count of how many times I rewatched it even just as a child alone by playing the CD on my house's television over and over. I was such a huge fan of A Bug's Life that I had also played its tie-in game, specifically the 3D action platformer game, and it became one of my childhood favourite video games as well.

However, I had a regret relating to A Bug's Life the video game for years — I did not finish the game. I managed to reach Level 15, the final level of the game, but the reason I did not beat it was my CD-ROM of the game literally broke into pieces inside the CD-ROM drive, accompanied by a loud breaking sound, when I was playing Level 15, likely due to the CD-ROM being dislocated. It happened in 1999. Needless to say, the breaking of the CD-ROM of one of my childhood favourite video games broke my heart. My family and I had tried to look for a new copy of A Bug's Life video game, but with no success because at that time the stores in my local area no longer sold it.

Over the years growing up, I still harbour nostalgia for A Bug's Life. While my love for the film had been tainted by the fact that both Kevin Spacey, who voiced Hopper, and John Lasseter, the director, were accused of sexual misconduct, my wish of being able to finish the tie-in video game myself lingered from time to time. I had watched playthrough videos of A Bug's Life video game on YouTube to help to fill the void, but it was not the same as playing the game myself. The main obstacle that prevented my wish from being fulfilled was the fact that it was a very old game that its PC version is no longer officially sold, not even on online game stores such as Steam and GOG. In other words, A Bug's Life the video game had become an abandonware. As a result, I sought out My Abandonware, which does provide the game to download for free.

From My Abandonware, I downloaded and installed the Full-Rip with dgVoodoo by Destabilize version of A Bug's Life video game on my Windows 11. I was delighted when I successfully launched and played the old childhood favourite video game for the first time. Soon, I searched for a save file of the PC version of A Bug's Life video game that unlocked all levels, and found it on The Tech Game. Finally, at long last, on 20 November 2023, after 24 years, I successfully beat A Bug's Life video game by myself. I did not aim for 100% completion because my main goal was to defeat Hopper, the final boss, myself.

Given that the game was released in 1998, the graphics were obviously dated, and the camera and control were also awkward, but playing it again for the first time in decades brought back childhood memories of the game, and I still enjoy the game's soundtrack. This experience has also deepened my appreciation for internet archives, including ones that archive old video games. Thank you, My Abandonware, for allowing a childhood video game goal of mine got fulfilled decades later.

Changelog: 19 November 2023

2023-11-19T00:00:00Z

New blog post: I Can Finally Game on a Solid-State Drive

I Can Finally Game on a Solid-State Drive | Blog

2023-11-19T00:00:00Z

The laptop I am using for doing everything on desktop — including coding and managing this very website and blog — is the first gaming laptop I ever had. I bought this laptop in 2018, meaning I have used it for 5 years by the time of this writing.

In 2018, I was able to purchase a budget gaming laptop with a solid-state drive (SSD) as its system drive. However, the SSD only had a 258GB storage capacity, which is paltry by today's hard drive standards, especially if you are a gamer, since the installation size of mainstream video games has grown bigger over time (which is actually one of the reasons I rarely play new AAA games any more).

This means that even though I immediately experienced the night-and-day difference in how much the speed of booting my operating system compared to all the laptops I owned previously, I was unable to enjoy the benefit of gaming on an SSD, which is faster loading of games, because I still had to install video games on my hard disk drive to preserve the space of my SSD system drive... until now.

After using my gaming laptop for 5 years, my SSD started displaying signs of age with random shutdowns and blue screens of death, followed by a "No Bootable Device" error even after my laptop restarted. As the issue became more frequent, and none of the possible solutions I found online worked at all, I finally asked for professional help to replace my corrupted SSD system drive. I chose a 1TB SSD with Windows 11 installed as my new system drive.

As a result, on 16 November, my 5-year-old gaming laptop was reborn with a new SSD system drive. A new SSD with much larger storage capacity means I can finally experience gaming on an SSD, and the benefit that came with it. It truly felt like I had a new computer again, since I needed to reinstall all the apps I use, but it was a small price to pay, and I have always kept lists of apps I use in case I am in situations where I needed to restart my system like this.

Changelog: 9 November 2023

2023-11-09T00:00:00Z

Added extra header elements to the main site and the shrines to be dynamically displayed on certain days to celebrate special events. (Credit to KotOR Community Portal for the inspiration)

Changelog: 30 October 2023

2023-10-30T00:00:00Z

New blog post: Support for My Steam Review of A Summer's End — Hong Kong 1986.

Support for My Steam Review of A Summer's End — Hong Kong 1986 | Blog

2023-10-30T00:00:00Z

As part of my effort to support and promote A Summer's End — Hong Kong 1986, the sapphic visual novel and my absolute favourite piece of queer art ever, I left a glowing review on Steam on 17 August 2023, talking about how much A Summer's End means too me as a Cantonese-speaking Chinese lesbian who grew up with Hong Kong media. I love A Summer's End so much that I had created a shrine for it on my own website here.

Since then, as of the writing of this post on 30 October 2023, my review made to the top of the most helpful reviews in the past 90 days on the Steam store page of A Summer's End with 12 votes.

In addition, I have received multiple Steam awards, with Steam Points along with them, including:

Heartwarning, which awards 200 Steam Points, given by two people
Golden Unicorn, which awards 800 Steam Points, given by one person
Take My Points, which awards 1,600(!) Steam Points, given by one person

Recently, on 22 October 2023, the guestbook of my website here have also received a message from someone named Rob, who expressed appreciation for my Steam review:

Thanks so much for your steam review of a summer's end!! So glad you have this board, so I could thank you for the heart warming review. I want to get this game for a friend of mine who is new to speaking english, and the story definitely will resonate with her.

I am introducing her to visual novels to hopefully help aid in her learning and practice.

I am amazed by the amount of appreciation my Steam review of A Summer's End has been given. Thank you! A Summer's End truly deserves all the love and support it can get.

I cannot stress enough that A Summer's End is important because LGBTQ+ Hong Kong people and Cantonese speakers are criminally underrepresented in media. This is why we need to be vocal about our support for queer art made by non-white people, to signify to both the creators and every LGBTQ+ people that stories of queer non-white people deserve to be told.

Therefore, here is your reminder to check out A Summer's End — Hong Kong 1986 if you have not already, especially you are also an Asian sapphic woman!

Changelog: 18 October 2023

2023-10-18T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Added Developer Notes section to the Trivia page.

Changelog: 13 October 2023

2023-10-13T00:00:00Z

New blog post: My Cassette Beasts Pombomb Plushie Arrived!

My Cassette Beasts Pombomb Plushie Arrived! | Blog

2023-10-13T00:00:00Z

YAAAYYYYYYYY! I finally received my Pombomb plushie on 11 October 2023!

Cassette Beasts has become my favourite monster collecting game and one of my all-time favourite games since the first time I played it. In fact, I have created a Cassette Beasts shrine on my own website here. Among the monsters from Cassette Beasts, Pombomb is one of my favourites.

I love Cassette Beasts and Pombomb so much that I am willing to spend money on not only the official Pombomb plushie itself, but also the shipping fee to import it to my region. It took a month for this cutie to arrive at my home, but it is worth the wait!

The plushie is very well-made; it is firm decently sized.

Even better, when I shared my Pombomb plushie, Bytten Studio, the developer of Cassette Beasts retweeted me!

Look at the lil guy! Perfect! Perfection!! https://t.co/zgMDvOQjt3

— CASSETTE BEASTS 📼 OUT NOW ON PC & CONSOLES (@ByttenStudio) October 11, 2023

Changelog: 4 October 2023

2023-10-04T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Updated the Development History section of the Trivia page with info about the release of Update 1.5 and "Pier of the Unknown" DLC.

Changelog: 3 October 2023

2023-10-03T00:00:00Z

Changed this website's font to Noto Sans.
Cassette Beasts shrine: Added link to my record of all the bootleg mosnters I have encountered to the Game Log page.

Changelog: 28 September 2023

2023-09-28T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Removed the Developer Insight page since the official Cassette Beasts wiki not has a page for a list of interviews the Cassette Beasts staff participated in.

Changelog: 15 September 2023

2023-09-15T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Updated the Developer Insight page by adding an Event Showcase section.

Changelog: 13 September 2023

2023-09-13T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Updated the Trivia page's Development History section with new information about the "Pier of the Unknown" DLC.

Changelog: 11 September 2023

2023-09-11T00:00:00Z

New blog post: Happy 1st Anniversary to Leilukin's Hub.
Updated the About page.
Modified blog style.
Added the blog's new layout to the layout archive.

Happy 1st Anniversary to Leilukin's Hub | Blog

2023-09-11T00:00:00Z

11 September 2023 marks the first anniversary of Leilukin's Hub, my personal website, hosted on Neocities. I am proud to be able to succeed in not only building my own website, but also updating, improving and maintaining my website to achieve my vision for my own personal hub on the internet outside social media platforms.

I registered a Neocities account on 28 May 2022, while my own website, Leilukin's Hub, was officially launched on 11 September 2022. I set up this website because I wanted to have a personal web page outside social media platforms to gather various stuff and resources I had created or compiled on online spaces throughout the years. Furthermore, I settled for Neocities because I like the flexibility of customisation by coding my website with HTML, CSS and JavaScript. Initially, I considered and tried Carrd to create my web pages, but free accounts on Carrd can only add up to 100 elements on a web page, which is not enough for my purpose.

This site's changelog and layout archive document the evolution of Leilukin's Hub throughout the past year: from the humble beginning of a simple black background with white text and light brown titles, to the responsive, mobile-friendly, full-fledged personal website with its own site button, RSS feed, a blog and multiple shrines.

Coding my own website was also an excellent way to put my HTML and CSS knowledge and skills into good use. I already had basic knowledge of HTML and CSS from what I learned from my teenage years of customising my blog on Blogger.

Working on Leilukin's Hub had ignited my interest in coding, so I took courses to learn more about HTML, CSS, JavaScript and more about coding, and in turn, I put my new coding knowledge into good use by improving and adding more features to Leilukin's Hub, which was totally worth it. Therefore, I have also compiled resources for building websites here for those who need it.

You may feel intimidated by the idea of building your website because you do not know how to code, but good news! There are plenty of resources for you to learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript, including free courses. Neocities also has its own HTML course for you to get started. Happy coding!

Changelog: 10 September 2023

2023-09-10T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Hide the right sidebar.
A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986 shrine: Change the content of the right sidebar.
Cassette Beasts shrine: Change the content of the right sidebar.

Changelog: 7 September 2023

2023-09-07T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: The Articles page now includes other people's Cassette Beasts articles that I recommend.

Changelog: 6 September 2023

2023-09-06T00:00:00Z

Moved pages of my video game mods and playlists to Projects page.

Changelog: 4 September 2023

2023-09-04T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Updated the Development History section of the Trivia page.

Should You Use The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod in Your First Star Wars: KotOR 2 Playthrough? | Articles

2023-08-30T00:00:00Z

Regardless of how much you like Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords or not, there is no denying the fact that the game would be (even) better if Obsidian Entertainment was given more time to develop and polish the game to truly achieve their vision for the game, instead of being rushed to meet the release deadline which resulted in a lot of cut content.

The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM) is the most successful attempt to restore the cut content of KotOR 2, as it not only restores cut content that can help to flesh out the game and give some plot lines more closure, but also fixes many bugs in the vanilla game. TSLRCM easily became the most iconic mod for either KotOR game, to the extent that the mod even has its own Wikipedia page.

It is widely agreed that TSLRCM is essential for the best experience with KotOR 2. There are players only started to like KotOR 2 after they replayed the game with TSLRCM, so some have argued that even first-time players should use TSLRCM in their very first playthrough of KotOR 2. I, however, do not believe the answer to the question "Should you use TSLRCM in your first KotOR 2 playthrough" is clear-cut. As a huge KotOR 2 fan who has played the game both with and without TSLRCM, my opinion is that it is up to the player to decide if they want to use TSLRCM in their first KotOR 2 playthrough based on their priorities.

TSLRCM changes the playing experience of KotOR 2 for the better, but it is still a mod that fundamentally changes the player's experience with the game. The primary purpose of video game modifications is to change things in a game, usually in ways that diverge from the original design of the game. This is why I typically do not encourage brand-new players to use mods in their first playthrough of any video game, with the only exception being pure bug fix mods, such as the first KotOR game's KOTOR 1 Community Patch. Instead, I would advise players to play a game first without mods, so they can make their own decision on what kind of mods would they want to make their experience with the game better when they replay it, and in turn, they would appreciate the changes made by the mods they use and the work modders put into the mods better. This philosophy of mine applies to both KotOR games, even after I became a KotOR modder myself.

Therefore, if you have never played KotOR 2 before, and you ask me if you should use TSLRCM in your first KotOR 2 playthrough, my answer is that it depends on what you want. You may use TSLRCM in your first KotOR 2 playthrough if you intend to play KotOR 2 only once, and you want to get the best experience with the game in the only time you will be playing the game, but otherwise I would encourage you to try KotOR 2 without TSLRCM first, in order to fully appreciate TSLRCM for what it accomplishes, for the changes it makes for the game and the praise it receives from players.

Another benefit from playing KotOR 2 without TSLRCM first is that you will have an easier time finding guides and walkthroughs of the game, because most of the KotOR 2 guides that you can easily find on the internet were written based on the vanilla version of the game, while TSLRCM-specific guides are more difficult to find by comparison.

Perhaps I am biased because I already loved KotOR 2 from the get go since my first playthrough of the game, even before I discovered TSLRCM's existence, and I am the type of autistic gamer who likes to replay games they like, but I do not believe that makes my opinion any less worthy to consider.

Changelog: 30 August 2023

2023-08-30T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Added new article: Should You Use The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod in Your First Star Wars: KotOR 2 Playthrough?.
Adjusted spacing between each item in the article index lists.
Make the date format consistent throughout the entire site by using the Day-Month-Year format.
Fixed broken links in the 2022 changelog archive due to the affected pages moved to other parts of the site.

Changelog: 29 August 2023

2023-08-29T00:00:00Z

Added link button for the site's RSS feed.
Fixed the overflow issue of header images.
Added custom style for the Site Map page.
Improved accessibility of the site's design by customising the CSS :focus selector.

Changelog: 28 August 2023

2023-08-28T00:00:00Z

A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986 shrine: Updated the main page with information about the spiritual sequel In the Ocean I Learned to Float.
Cassette Beasts shrine: Adjusted header image and added more images to the home page.
Leilukin Hub now has an RSS feed.

How Cassette Beasts is Much More than a Pokémon Clone | Articles

2023-08-26T00:00:00Z

Introduction

There is no denying that Pokémon is one of the largest entertainment franchises in the world and the most influential series in the monster collector genre of video games, and thus inspiring many games in the genre. Cassette Beasts, an indie monster collecting role-playing game developed by the England-based indie studio Bytten Studio, is not an exception, as it does share similarities to Pokémon.

However, calling Cassette Beasts a Pokémon clone is doing it a massive disservice, because Cassette Beasts executes many mechanics and aspects of Pokémon games in different, and sometimes arguably better ways.

Furthermore, there are things in Cassette Beasts that you would not find in Pokémon games, at least in the main series games, thanks to Bytten Studio's creativity and passion that a gigantic corporate-owned franchise like Pokémon can only dream of.

Features that Exist in Pokémon that are Done Differently in Cassette Beasts

By the time Cassette Beasts was released on 26 April 2023, the main video game series of Pokémon had reached its ninth generation with the release of Scarlet and Violet. Pokémon had existed for 27 years since the release of Red and Green versions in Japan in February 1996.

However, despite remaining one of the best-selling video game series in the world, Pokémon has got the reputation of repeating the same formula in their games over and over. Cassette Beasts, on the other hand, executes some features and mechanics that exist in the Pokémon game series with their own unique spin on them. Therefore, even the similarities between Cassette Beasts and Pokémon are not as straightforward as you may think.

Monster Capture Mechanic

One of the most notable differences between Pokémon and Cassette Beasts is their mechanics to capture monsters. In Pokémon, you catch the creatures by using Poké Balls, but in Cassette Beasts, you do not actually catch the monsters, but you record the essence of the monsters into a cassette tape.

A common criticism of the monster collector genre is the ethical question of essentially enslaving creatures by capturing and subjugating them into obeying you, as well as enganging in dog fighting by making the creatures fight each other, to the extent that even Pokémon tries to tackle it as the main theme of the story of Black and White, though whether the execution is effective or not is debatable. Cassette Beasts' method of recording monsters solves this moral dilemma of the genre from the get-go, because you are not actually catching the monsters in the traditional sense. In fact, Jay Baylis, artist and writer of Cassette Beasts had stated in a Shacknews interview that their idea of recording monsters is intended to avert the issue of basically enslaving creatures in the monster collecting genre.

Gameplay-wise, a notable improvement Cassette Beasts has over Pokémon when it comes to monster capture mechanics is that in Cassette Beasts, when you are recording a monster, the percentage of success rate is displayed on screen. Furthermore, a monster that is in the process of being recorded cannot be knocked out, so you can deal more damage to the monster to improve your odds of successfully recording the monster. In Pokémon, you have to be extra careful about not knocking out the Pokémon you want to catch, and when you try to catch one, you can only hope that the RNG is in your favour.

Battle System

The battle system in both Cassette Beasts and Pokémon involves fights between monsters. However, while in Pokémon you send out the monsters you captured to fight, in Cassette Beasts you transform into monsters to battle by using the cassette tapes you have used to record the monsters.

Furthermore, most of the battles in the main series Pokémon games take place in one-on-one formats, also known as single battles. In Cassette Beasts, you almost always battle alongside a partner, making two-on-two the format of most battles in the game, which in Pokémon is also known as double battles, which are underutilised in the main series Pokémon games. Two-on-two battles require more nuanced strategies than brute-forcing a single opponent in one-on-one battles.

The move system in battles is also different in Pokémon and Cassette Beasts. In Pokémon, every Pokémon is limited to having four move slots, meaning each can only use up to four moves in battle. In Cassette Beasts, battle moves come in the form of stickers on monster cassette tapes; the base number of sticker slots varies between monsters, with 4 being the minimum, and can be increased by upgrading the star level of the monster tapes, up to a maximum of 8 natural slots. Some stickers have the bonus of adding sticker slots.

Pokémon uses Power Points (PP) to restrict how many times each move can be, while Cassette Beasts uses Action Points (AP), which is generated for every turn during battle, even after you switch into a different monster tape. Different moves cost varying amounts of AP or none at all, with stronger moves require more AP to use, while some moves require no AP.

Type Match-Ups

Both Pokémon and Cassette Beasts have elemental types on every monster, and how these types interact with each other is a core element in their battle systems. However, how said interactions play out in Pokémon and Cassette Beasts are different.

In Pokémon, type advantage simply means dealing extra damage to your opponent, while type disadvantage simply means dealing less damage, and certain types are immune to damage from another type.

In Cassette Beasts, type match-ups are based on chemical reactions, so type advantage gives your opponent a debuff, while type disadvantage gives your opponent a buff, and certain types and temporary change the type of the opponent in battle. For example, Water-type moves reduce the melee and ranged attacks of Fire-type monsters; Fire-type moves giving a healing buff to Water-type monsters; Fire-type moves turn Plastic-type monsters into Poison-types. While type advantage means more damage in Cassette Beasts, it is not as drastic as in Pokémon.

Cassette Beasts actually provides an in-game type chart in the game itself. You can obtain the chart by opening the Ranger Guidebook, and the type chart can be accessed during your battles. In addition, when you are choosing your moves during battles, you can see the icons that hint on the effects of your moves against your opponent.

Level System

In both Pokémon and Cassette Beasts, gaining experience to level up is a core part of the games' progression. However, there are differences in their level systems.

In Pokémon, from Generation 1 to 5, only the Pokémon you send out in battle and optionally the Pokémon that holds the Exp. Share item will gain experience after winning a battle. This means that if you want to add a Pokémon you just caught to your party, you often have to grind for experience points for the newly-caught Pokémon to catch up with the levels of other members in your party. The games starting from Generation 6 solve the grinding issue by making Exp. Share becomes an optional item that will reward the experience points you earned to all non-fainted members in your party. Starting from Let's Go! Pikachu and Let's Go! Eevee, the effects Exp. Share are present from the start of the game.

In Cassette Beasts, levels are instead tied to your human and your companion characters, which means that in addition to base stats, the strength of the monsters you recorded are tied to your human character's level. This means that unlike Pokémon, after you record a low-level monster and add them to your party, you do not have to spend time in grinding the levels of your monsters just to make them catch up with the rest of your party.

Monster tapes have their own level system in the form of the star system. When you upgrade a monster's star level, they gain new stickers. When you upgrade a monster to 5 stars, the monster will gain an additional biography entry in the bestiary, and some monsters can be remastered (the Pokémon equivalent is evolution) into stronger forms.

Earning experience points means not only levelling up your human player and companion characters, but also upgrading the star levels of your monster tapes. Some monsters can be remastered when being upgraded to 5 stars. It is worth noting that experience points are shared between all your monster tapes as well, including ones that have been broken (or "fainted") in battle, unlike Pokémon where fainted Pokémon cannot gain any experience points at all.

Field Moves

Both Pokémon and Cassette Beasts have field moves — moves that are used outside of battles and often required to access new areas of the map and explore every nook and cranny.

From Generation 1 to 6 of the main series Pokémon games, field moves usually take the form of HMs, though some TMs also have uses outside battles. Both HMs and TMs are items to teach Pokémon moves, and these moves take up move slots. From Generation 7 onwards, Pokémon games remove HMs, and assign field moves to certain Pokémon that you can use outside battles, so you longer need to worry about wasting move slots of Pokémon in your party.

In Cassette Beats, it is your human character that learn these field moves by recording certain monsters. The game will provide hints to which monsters can give you these field moves through townsfolk gossips. Since it is your human character that uses these field moves, you do not need to worry about wasting any move slots in your monster cassette tapes.

Monsters with Alternate Colour Schemes

In both Pokémon and Cassette Beasts, there is a rare chance you may encounter monsters with different colour schemes than their regular counterparts. In Pokémon, they are referred to as Shiny Pokémon, while in Cassette Beasts, they are called bootlegs.

Shiny Pokémon do not provide additional benefits in gameplay, but bootlegs do, since bootlegs can be of any type, and have a higher chance of getting moves (or stickers) with additional effects and enhancements, referred to as sticker attributes.

Music

Both Pokémon and Cassette Beasts are notable for their soundtracks, and music is among the most praised (which is well-deserved, in my opinions) aspects in both, though Cassette Beasts does it differently in that it includes music with vocal lyrics: for the music of the main hub, Habourtown, the vocals play when you are indoor; for battle music, the vocals play when you and your partner fuse, which heightens the dynamic of the battles.

Story and Plot

The core plot of the main series Pokémon games, except for Legends: Arceus, is about a child going on a journey and become the best Pokémon Trainer in their region by claiming the Champion title. However, the main plot of Cassette Beasts is about the protagonist finding their way back home after bring transported to New Wirral, an island that exists in a different dimension from Earth and where humans from various dimensions are also transported and strended on.

The protagonists of Pokémon games become the new Champion of their region by defeating Gym Leaders or Trial Captains, then the Elite Four and the current standing Champion. In Cassette Beasts, the closest thing to an equivalent to Gym Leaders is the Ranger Captains, and one of the main quests involves defeating all the Captains across the map, but even then, you do not beat the Ranger Captains and become a Captain yourself for the glory of becoming the best monster battler, but to prove your ability to help the Rangers Guild to protect New Wirral and support the island's community.

Cassette Beasts has a more mature and adult story than Pokémon. As a franchise primarily targetted at children, the main human characters in Pokémon are children, so the stories of Pokémon games are mainly about children's fantasy adventures to be the best Pokémon Trainer. On the flip side, the main characters in Cassette Beasts, including your human companions, are adults, and the game is not afraid to discuss topics and issues relevant to adulthood, particularly through the stories of your companion characters. The story of Cassette Beasts is also unabashedly left-wing with anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist messages, which I frankly doubt will get explored with such authenticity in a corporate-owned mega franchise like Pokémon.

In addition, Cassette Beasts' story can get genuinely dark at times, most notably in the cosmic horror presented by the Archangels, the eldritch entities that you need to defeat in boss battles to gather clues about a way out of New Wirral and return home.

Major Story Spoilers for Cassette Beasts

Towards the end of the main quest, it is revealed that Archangels are egregores created from humanity's desires and ideas. Aleph, the main antagonist and final boss of the main story, is an Archangel that is an incarnation of conquest, and his goal is to leave New Wirral and cause chaos across reality.

While Pokémon has its own fair share of sinister villains, the threat the main villain of Cassette Beasts poses is even greater in scope than any Pokémon villain, maybe except for Rainbow Rocket Giovanni from Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, who shares the goal of ruling the multiverse.

Moreover, even though the player character and their party are able to defeat the main villain in the end, the game makes it clear that since Archangels are not flesh and blood and born from human ideas, as long as humans are interested in conquest Aleph will return at some point. This reflects our world in that defeating a tyrant does not magically solve everything, especially when the system that enables tyrants' rise to power still exists.

Features Cassette Beasts Has But Pokémon Lacks

Cassette Beasts is not satisfied with just doing Pokémon's core mechanics in different ways, but it also adds features that do not exist in the Pokémon games, at least in the main series games as of Scarlet and Violet.

In this section, I am adding a counter for the things Cassette Beasts has that Pokémon lacks, to further prove that Cassette Beasts is perfectly capable of standing on its own apart from Pokémon. If Bytten Studios only want to make a Pokémon clone, they did not need to do these additional things at all, but they did it anyway. If this is still not evidence of Bytten Studio's passion for their game to build its own identity, I do not know what is.

Even if one day the Pokémon games decide to add any of the below features, it would still not change the fact that Cassette Beasts had done them earlier.

Character Creator with Pronouns Options

Character customisation has existed in Pokémon games since X and Y, but to date, none of the games provide options to choose your character's pronouns. However, Cassette Beasts allows you to choose they/them pronouns in addition to he/him and she/her, and your pronouns options will be reflected in-game.

I use they/them pronouns myself, so pronouns options are a welcome addition.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 1

Fusions of Every Monster

The concept of monster fusions by combining the designs of two monsters together are popular in the Pokémon fandom, showing up in fan art and dedicated websites such as web developer Alex Onsager's Pokemon Fusion website. However, in the official Pokémon franchise, fusions are exclusive to very few Pokémon to create alternate forms, namely Kyurem, Necrozma and Calyrex, all Legendary Pokémon, and they can only fuse with a specific few Legendary Pokémon.

In Cassette Beasts, monster fusions are a defining feature both in gameplay and the lore. Any two of the 141 monsters in-game can fuse together, thus there are 19,881 fusion combination in total. The nature and origins of fusion is also explored in the game's story and lore.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 2

Companion and Relationship System with Human Characters

While the primary draw of the Pokémon franchise has always been the monster creatures, like other media in the mons genre, human characters do play a notable role in the Pokémon franchise from the beginning: in the main series games, you play as a human trainer of Pokémon, battling other human NPC trainers including your rivals, Gym Leaders/Trial Captains, Elite Four, Champions and villains. In some games, you also occasionally team up with other human NPC trainers in battles. However, the main series Pokémon games do not have any dedicated companion and relationship mechanic with human characters.

Conversely, human relationships are a major focus in Cassette Beasts both in story and game mechanics: you are accompanied by a companion character throughout your adventures in New Wirral, with 5 out of 6 of the potential partners being humans; each companion character has their own story and quest for you to explore; each have a relationship level that can be raised by gaining experience points with them, and higher relationship levels make you stronger when you fuse in battle.

Human characters in Pokémon interest me as much as the creatures themselves, because the Pokémon world is populated by both Pokémon and humans, thus I find the humans' relationships with the creatures and each other also an important element of the Pokémon world. Unfortunately, I often feel that human characters are an aspect of the Pokémon games that are underappreciated by the Western Pokémon fandom, who tend to focus more on the creatures themselves. Therefore, seeing a Pokémon-inspired game, especially one that is developed by a Western studio like Cassette Beasts, actually make the effort in fleshing out human characters and relationships was the biggest pleasant surprise for me when I started playing Cassette Beasts for the first time.

Pokémon has a spin-off game that focus more on human characters: Pokémon Masters EX, but the fact that it is a gacha game means it is a glorified gambling game that wants you to spend real-world money to gamble to collect the human trainers. However, that is not the case at all in Cassette Beasts, since it does not have any in-app purchases whatsovever. In fact, Cassette Beasts' companion and relationship systems prove that Pokémon can do more with their human characters without predatory monetisation tactics.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 3

Romance Options

Related to the above point about the companion system and relationship mechanic with human characters, the main series Pokémon games do not have any option for the player to pursue a romance with another character. The closest the main series games attempted a romance arc for the player character is Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire, where the protagonist and their neighbour rival are implied to become a couple in the post-game story by going on a date, as well as Black 2 and White 2, where the protagonist can pursue an optional subplot with a different-gender NPC who eventually develops a crush on the protagonist.

Cassette Beasts, on the other hand, as an addition to its companion system and relationship mechanic, provides players the option to pursue a romance with one of their human companions after raising their relationship level to 5, the highest without romance, with unambiguously romantic dialogue and scenes.

Even though I do not play monster collecting games for romances, nor am I asking for Pokémon to add romance options to their games because I am too old to be invested in romances involving fictional children, romance options are a nice addition to a game that is made with adult players in mind like Cassette Beasts.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 4

If the existence of the option to romance your human companion is not enough, in Cassette Beasts you can romance any of the human companions regardless of your player character's gender. In other words, all the human companions in Cassette Beasts are available as same-gender romance options, which is a blessing for LGBTQ+ players like me.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 5

Canon LGBTQ+ Characters and Representation

Pokémon is not known for explicitly canon LGBTQ+ representation. The franchise does not have a single confirmed canon same-gender couple. In the shipping side of the Pokémon fandom, particularly among LGBTQ+ fans, some same-gender pairings are popular, but it does not change the fact that there is no character in the Pokémon franchise who is officially confirmed to be attracted to the same-gender.

On the flip side, Cassette Beasts has canon LGBTQ+ characters. For characters who are attracted to the samge gender, the most notable ones are the human companions, who can be romanced by the player character regardless of gender, meaning they are canonically bisexual. Furthermore, the game also has a pair of NPCs who are revealed in-game to be a gay married couple.

Minor Quest Spoilers for Cassette Beasts

To be specific, this pair of NPCs in question are Leader Ianthe and Ranger Wilma, members of the Ranger Guild. After you defeat all 12 Ranger Captains, and you challenge Ianthe to a battle, Ianthe will reveal that she will fight alongside her wife, who is none other than Ranger Wilma, the woman in charge of the Ranger Guild store. Yes, Cassette Beasts has a canon married lesbian couple.

As for transgender and non-binary representation, Pokémon has a few ambiguously canon ones, namely Beauty Nova, a minor female NPC Trainer from X and Y who is heavily implied to be a trans woman, and Blanche from Pokémon GO, who is not referred to by gendered pronouns in the English version of the game and official social media accounts. Some other human characters are also commonly interpreted or headcanonned as trans by LGBTQ+ fans, but none of them are officially confirmed to be trans or non-binary.

In Cassette Beasts, not only that the player can chose to go by they/them pronouns via the character creator, but there is also a Ranger Captain named Skip who is canonically non-binary and uses they/them pronouns.

In addition to having canon LGBTQ+ characters, Cassette Beasts's voice cast also includes multiple openly LGBTQ+ voice actors, such as Allegra Clark, J. Michael Tatum, Kayleigh McKee, Liz Morey, Marin M. Miller and Risa Mei. In fact, both Captain Skip and their voice actor Marin M. Miller are non-binary and go by they/them pronouns.

Looking for LGBTQ+ representation in monster collecting games? Instead of waiting for corporate franchises like Pokémon to give you scraps, how about looking at indie titles that actually has canon LGBTQ+ characters like Cassette Beasts instead?

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 6

Voice Acting

Despite some attempts to tell more developed stories with more dialogue and cinematic cutscenes, as of Scarlet and Violet, none of the main series Pokémon games have any voice acting in their dialogue.

On the other hand, Cassette Beasts has voiced dialogue. Even though the amount of voiced dialogue in Cassette Beasts is limited, voice acting helps to bring the characters to life and add more character to the game.

It is more notable when you remember that being an indie game, Cassette Beasts could have completely avoid adding voice acting to save development budget, but the developers added it anyway.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 7

Oh, and there is more! Cassette Beasts actually has an impressive voice cast, especially for an indie game, featuring established, well-known voice actors including Yuri Lowenthal, Tara Platt, Allegra Clark, Aleks Le, Sean Chiplock, J. Michael Tatum, Jennifer Losi, Kayleigh McKee, Risa Mei, Marin M. Miller, Cindy Robinson, Edwyn Tiong, etc.

Bytten Studio and Raw Fury could have just hire unknowns to save budget, but nope, they achieved the remarkable feat of getting multiple famous voice actors for an indie game.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 8

Custom Game Modes

The Pokémon player base has various methods of changing up ways of playing the games for fun or for a self-imposed challenge, with the most popular including the Nuzlocke Challenge and randomizers. These modes of playing Pokémon games are never part of the official games.

Cassette Beasts include custom game modes that serve similar purposes as these fan-made game mods for Pokémon: permadeath mode, similar to Pokémon's Nuzlocke Challenge, and randomisation mode. These custom game modes can be unlocked by completing the main story or through the cheats.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 9

Level Scaling and Enemy AI Adjustment Options

A common criticism of the Pokémon games from long-time players is the lack of difficulty settings, and even the only pair of games that actually have it, Black 2 and White 2, require you to complete the main campaign to unlock. Moreover, the open-world design of Scarlet and Violet has been criticised for the lack of level scaling in opponents' Pokémon.

However, the settings menu of Cassette Beasts already includes sliders to adjust the game's difficulty through the level scaling and enemy AI options from the get go, and does not require you to perform extra steps to unlock, so you are free to make the game easier or more difficult as you wish.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 10

Built-In Mod Support

Pokémon modding and ROM hacks have existed in the Pokémon player community since the beginning of the series, but modding Pokémon games is never officially supported by Nintendo, Game Freak or The Pokémon Company.

Cassette Beasts, on the other hand, has built-in support for mods. In fact, the official Cassette Beasts wiki has modding guides, and the official Bytten Studio Discord server has a dedicated Cassette Beasts modding channel.

They Did Not Need To But They Did It Anyway counter: 11

Conclusion

While it is understandable to compare Cassette Beasts to Pokémon, Cassette Beasts has countless claims to forge its own identity apart from the pioneer of the monster collecting role-playing game genre, as explained throughout this essay. As someone who has played Pokémon games since the Red Version from Generation 1, but has become jaded with the state of the series since Sword and Shield from Generation 8 and is losing interest in playing their recent titles, Cassette Beasts provides a perfect indie alternative for something different.

Frequent releases and rushed development schedules have taken their toll on the quality of recent Pokémon titles, resulting in cutting corners like empty maps, removal of National PokéDex, etc., and in the case of Scarlet and Violet, glitches and performance issues. Furthermore, as a multi-billion dollar corporate-owned franchise, Pokémon is primarily targeted at children and meant to be able to be enjoyed by everyone, so despite a few attempts to do something new, maximising profit is still prioritised over innovation.

Art that tries to appeal to everyone, even if not bad, tends to be bland and reluctant to take creative risks. Cassette Beasts is another evidence that indie games can be much more creative than AAA games.

Therefore, if you think you have outgrown Pokémon and looking for a more sophisticated and mature monster collector game that actually treats the player like an adult, go play Cassette Beasts.

Changelog: 26 August 2023

2023-08-26T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine:
- Added a new page for developer insights.
- Added an Articles page and a new article: How Cassette Beasts is Much More than a Pokémon Clone

Changelog: 21 August 2023

2023-08-21T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Added a new page for my KotOR universes.

Changelog: 18 August 2023

2023-08-18T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Added links to Cassette Beasts's official website, wiki, and platforms to purchase the game to the home page.
New article: Designated Lesbian Syndrome in Fandom.

Designated Lesbian Syndrome in Fandom | Articles

2023-08-18T00:00:00Z

Over the years of interacting with and observing fandom, I have come to dislike fandom and shipping culture for many reasons. One major reason I want to talk about here is the "Designated Lesbian Syndrome" phenomenon.

I first encountered this term from this Tumblr post made by user desolationlesbian:

Designated Lesbian Syndrome (n.): When fans of a piece of media pick two female characters and pair them together as the token F/F ship and put them in everything, but do not bother to engage with their dynamic in any way more substantive than having them hold hands in the background. Everyone agrees it’s a good ship and it has nothing but their full support, yet this never materializes into real effort or content creation.

Most common with works that have little-to-no narratively important women, but in rare cases can even happen to major and complex characters who are then reduced to token background lesbians as everyone hones in on the boys.

The example I am most familiar with is the fandom of Grand Admiral Thrawn and the Chiss from Star Wars — specifically, some shippers of Thrawn/Eli Vanto, also known as Thranto, pair Ar'alani and Karyn Faro as their token "pair-the-spares" femslash ship. However, while Thranto shippers have create fan content about the Ar'alani/Karyn Faro ship, they do not do it with even a fraction of the interest and enthusiasm as they do Thranto. This is evident in the difference between the amount of fan works these two pairings have received on Archive On Our Own (AO3): as of this writing, the Thrawn | Mitth'raw'nuruodo/Eli Vanto tag contains 1,358 works, while the Ar'alani/Karyn Faro tag contains 34 works only. It is also worth noting that if you use the tag page's filter function, you will notice that out of these 34 Ar'alani/Faro works, 23 of them are also tagged with Thrawn/Eli Vanto, proving the significant overlap between Thranto and Ar'alani/Faro shippers.

Part of the Designated Lesbian Syndrome also involves shippers headcanonning the female characters who could be considered "threats" to their favourite ship that involved male characters as lesbians. It does not matter if the female characters are actually romantically involved with the male characters' in the source material or not. Thrawn never has a canon love interest in both Legends and the Disney continuities, but the fact that Ar'alani and Faro are close to Thrawn as his long-time friend and protégée respectively is enough to make them the go-to candidates for lesbian headcanons from shippers who ship Thrawn with anyone else. Lesbian Ar'alani and Faro headcanons are most common among Thrawn/Eli shippers, but I had seen at least one Thrawn/Governor Pryce (a pairing that I cannot stand at all) shipper literally headcanons Ar'alani as a lesbian so Pryce does not need to worry about Ar'alani fighting with Pryce over Thrawn.

Ar'alani and Karyn Faro are unfortunately perfect examples of the above post by desolationlesbian of major female characters who are reduced to token background lesbians by shippers. As a huge fan of both Ar'alani and Faro as characters, I find it immensely frustrating, to the extent that the Thrawn shipping fandom has utterly turned me off on both Thranto and Ar'alani/Faro ships.

As a lesbian myself, I loathe the Designated Lesbian Syndrome with a passion, because this phenomenon is literally tokenism, specifically tokenisation of lesbians. As a consequence, I have reached the point where when it comes to fandoms with big Male/Male (M/M) ships that are not canon, I only trust lesbian headcanons from fellow lesbians. Yes, this means I do not trust lesbian Ar'alani and Karyn Faro headcanons from people who are not lesbians.

I really hate that it comes to this because as a lesbian, in theory I am in favour of lesbian headcanons for female characters who are cishet-coded or who do not have a canon sexuality. Unfortunately, lesbian headcanons have been used as a progressive way to get female characters out of the way of Male/Male ships (and occasionally Male/Female ships as well, though this phenomenon is more common in fandoms of M/M ships), not because these shippers actually care about lesbians and the female characters.

These shippers rarely put as much energy in talking about or creating fan content for the female characters they headcanon as lesbians as they do the male characters from their ships. These shippers can pretend they care about lesbians all they want, but my lesbian ass can see through their performative bullshit, and recognise their lesbian headcanons are nothing more than tokenism.

Changelog: 15 August 2023

2023-08-15T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Added a Game Log page.

Changelog: 14 August 2023

2023-08-14T00:00:00Z

New article: My Disinterest in Shipping and Dislike of Shipping Culture.

My Disinterest in Shipping and Dislike of Shipping Culture | Articles

2023-08-14T00:00:00Z

(Note: The original version of this writing was posted on my Tumblr blog on 3 May 2021)

I feel that the older I get, the less interested I am in shipping in general, and the less I can understand grown adults in late 20s or older who build their personality around shipping and cannot engage with any fiction without shipping something (before I remade my Tumblr account in 2015, I used to follow a 30-something-year-old fandom blogger who was literally like this).

I have also come to actually dislike shipping culture, especially the mindset of engaging with media primarily through a shipping lens at the expense of the characterisation, non-romantic relationships, themes, and general content of a piece of media. Throughout my years of experience with various fandoms, I have witnessed so many incredible characters and non-romantic relationships get ignored or underappreciated by the fandom because they’re not part of a popular ship. On the other hand, there are also many amazing characters get mischaracterised to make a fanon ship work, or get reduced to a handful of tropes as shippers Flanderise them in their shipping fan works.

Do not even get me started on the shippers who will complain about not being able to enjoy a piece of media just because “there’s no couple to ship”. Ffor example, I’ve literally seen people on Tumblr make such complaints about the film Parasite, as if a profound piece of art that brutally critiques the class system does not matter if it does not provide any shipping material. It’s honestly very infuriating to see shippers like these are so willing to ignore art with meaningful story, characters and themes just because it lacks shipping fodder for them to project fanon onto.

Speaking of fanon, I really hate it when shippers, particularly shippers of popular non-canon pairings, expect anyone who is a fan of the same piece of media or any of the characters involved in the pairing to care about ships and treat the popular fanon ships as canon. These shippers also tend to act like their fanon and headcanons are universal, using languages like “the fandom has decided–” and “everyone has agreed that–”. And these shippers wonder why others who do not engage with that piece of media for shipping get sick and tired of shipping taking over discussions about said piece of media.

If you are so invested in shipping to the point that you are willing to disregard a piece of media just because you cannot find anything to ship, or you treat it as a personal attack when people talk about being sick and tired of shipping culture as well as how shipping dominates discussions about a piece of media, maybe you need to consider taking a step back from shipping and learning to take your shipping goggles off when you interact with a piece of media.

Changelog: 13 August 2023

2023-08-13T00:00:00Z

Streamlined JavaScript code for the website's components.
Added JavaScript scripts to generate article table of contents automatically.

Changelog: 10 August 2023

2023-08-10T00:00:00Z

Reformatted source and reference citations, such as the Trivia page on the A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986 shrine.
Updated the About page to add the site button and the link to the site's Neocities profile.
Cassette Beasts shrine: Added a Trivia

Changelog: 8 August 2023

2023-08-08T00:00:00Z

Cassette Beasts shrine: Added a Featured page.
Added new resource: Web Building Resources.

Changelog: 3 August 2023

2023-08-03T00:00:00Z

Launched new shrine: Cassette Beasts.

Changelog: 28 July 2023

2023-07-28T00:00:00Z

New blog post: My First Birthday After the Launch of Leilukin's Hub.
Added shrine launch date to the footer of each shrine.

My First Birthday After the Launch of Leilukin's Hub | Blog

2023-07-28T00:00:00Z

28 July is my birthday, and in 2023, it also marks my first birthday after the launch of this personal website. I have had a nice birthday this year.

I spent the moments counting down to my birthday by playing Cassette Beasts, which has become one of my all-time favourite video games, to the extent that I am planning to make a shrine for it on this site. I defeated Lamento Mori, who in the lore of Cassette Beasts is an Archangel, one of the eldritch entities in the game's settings, that specifically embodies humanity's fear of death. It is both amusing and poetic that I celebrated the countdown to my birthday by defeating a boss in a video game that represents death.

Since I have been playing and loving Cassette Beasts, and I want to support indie developers of indie games I love, I decided to purchase the Deluxe Edition on Steam, which includes the soundtrack, the art book and the Cosplay Pack as a birthday gift for myself. I received the base game as a Steam gift from a friend, and now I chose to use my money to support the developers myself as well. Not to mention, the music of Cassette Beasts is amazing. "Same Old Story", the battle theme of the Archangels, in particular, has become one of my all-time favourite battle themes in video games.

I had my birthday celebration with my family and received birthday wishes from friends.

Happy Birthday to me!

Changelog: 27 July 2023

2023-07-27T00:00:00Z

For my mods page, adjusted the background width of the individual mods.
Rearranged my Links page.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine:
- Updated the main page.
- Moved links to KotOR fan listings to the sidebar.
- Added articles I recommend to the articles page.

Changelog: 26 July 2023

2023-07-26T00:00:00Z

Leilukin's Hub now has a site button for you to link to!
Restructured the navigation bar.
Rearranged CSS and JavaScript file directories.
Renamed custom CSS properties.

Changelog: 25 July 2023

2023-07-25T00:00:00Z

Leilukin's Hub now has a guestbook!
A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986 shrine: Replaced some of the images on the shrine's pages, including the header image.
Moved the link to the site map from the navigation bar to the footer.

On Me Taking Over the Management and Development of DarthTyren's PartySwap Mod | Articles

2023-07-12T00:00:00Z

Starting from 11 July 2023, I, Leilukin, have officially taken over the management and development of DarthTyren's PartySwap mod for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: The Sith Lords.

PartySwap is a mod that allows you to recruit both Handmaiden and Disciple as party members in a single playthrough regardless of the player character's gender. Since its release on May 21, 2015, PartySwap has been one of the most popular KotOR 2 mods, for very good reasons: it is an excellent mod from concept and execution on both story and technical standpoints. Even though PartySwap was not the first mod that allows a female player character to recruit Handmaiden as a party member, it was the first that actually makes both Handmaiden and Disciple join your party in the same playthrough, regardless of the player character's gender. It is a further testament to PartySwap's quality that it has been included in the KotOR Community Portal's mod builds, which are known for high-standards for mod quality, and described by the mod builds as a legendary mod.

Developing and maintaining a highly regarded mod like PartySwap is no small task, as it requires both time and skill. At the end of the day, video game modding is a hobby, and generally modders create mods out of passion for and interest in the source material, and not for profit. Interests can change, especially when it is caused by real-life factors. Therefore, it is understandable that on 2 May 2023, nearly 8 years after the initial release of PartySwap, DarthTyren announced his intention of stepping away from KotOR modding and transferring the management of PartySwap in the mod's thread on the Deadly Stream forums:

CONFESSION TIME: I've kinda taken a break from KotOR modding and Star Wars in general, as I have far greater pursuits to occupy myself with. I've been doing a lot of writing and playing other games that before I never would have given thought to, not to mention taking my faith far more seriously. Logically, that means certain things would have to fall to the side to make room, and Star Wars ended up being one of those things I lost interest in, something I never thought possible.

This puts the future of the mod in a bit of a pickle: I can't spend much time working on keeping it updated, because that would require sinking hours of productivity into playtesting that I can't commit to anymore. I apologize for my silence and my absence, but only now have I actually gained the courage to say as much. So, though it pains me greatly, and I'll probably regret it in the short-term, after much careful contemplation on the matter, I have to believe this is what's best:

PartySwap is up for adoption.

If you would be interested in taking over future development, send me a DM explaining why you're the right person for the role and what your plans for the mod would be going forward. Why such a fuss? It sounds lame, but this mod is the biggest contribution I've made to the world to date. I don't want to just hand it over and suddenly have it botched and butchered beyond recognition like Disney's Star Wars - so yes, there's a bit of pride here. I feel like I'm handing over my child.

Until next time.

After seeing DarthTyren's announcement, I contacted him via Deadly Stream's private message system to volunteer myself to take over future development of PartySwap, since I believed I am qualified for the task for a couple of reasons: I have used PartySwap in my own playthroughs, and as a KotOR modder with a fair amount of experience myself (I had started making mods for the KotOR games since 2016), I am very familiar with how the PartySwap works technical-wise, which is why I was able to make a compatibility patch for PartySwap and Extended Enclave. I am still involved in KotOR modding, and regularly participating in the KotOR Subreddit Discord server to provide support for KotOR modding.

In 11 July 2023, DarthTyren announced his decision to hand over the development and management of PartySwap to me:

Everyone give a nice, warm welcome to the new manager of PartySwap: @Leilukin!

I'm aware how long I took with this announcement. I sat on this decision for months, but with Leilukin's current activity level in the community and as a modder, as well as her familiarity with the mod and how it works and her vision for the future, there really was no one else this mod could be passed off to.

I want to thank everyone who supported me and PartySwap over the last several years, and even as I step away from modding and Star Wars entirely, I hope you'll join me in wishing Leilukin the best.

For the last time...

Darth Tyren has spoken!

It is a huge honour to be trusted with the task of managing one of the most popular mods for the KotOR games by the mod's author himself. I totally understand that Tyren did not make this decision lightly, and I fully intend to use my new role as the new manager of PartySwap responsibly.

In order to make future management of the mod file hosted on Deadly Stream smoother, Snigaroo, one of the administrators of Deadly Stream, has also transferred PartySwap's file ownership on the website to me upon DarthTyren's request. As a result, from now on, when you visit PartySwap's download page on Deadly Stream, you will see me as the file owner.

My plan for the future of PartySwap would be maintaining the mod and keeping the mod as bug-free as possible, and ensuring compatibility with the KotOR subreddit's mod builds. I might also add compatibility patches for other mods if such a need arises. Therefore, if you encounter any bug or issue with PartySwap, I am the person to report to.

I would like to thank DarthTyren for his effort in making and maintaining PartySwap throughout the years, and his trust in my capability in managing his mod.

Changelog: 12 July 2023

2023-07-12T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Added new article: On Me Taking Over the Management and Development of DarthTyren's PartySwap Mod.
Added PartySwap to my Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords mod page, since I have taken over the management and development of the mod.

Keep Juhani a Lesbian and Keep Juhani's Romance Exclusive to Female Characters | Articles

2023-06-28T00:00:00Z

For those who do not know, Juhani is a character introduced in the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR), which was developed by BioWare. She is best known not only for being a lesbian and a romance option for female player characters, but also the very first confirmed gay character in both the Star Wars franchise and BioWare games.

Defending and protecting Juhani's status as a lesbian is a stance I will make no compromise on. It is my firm belief that Juhani should remain a lesbian and her romance should remain exclusive to female characters. I strongly and utterly oppose any attempt to make Juhani a romance option for male characters under any circumstances. In other words, I am completely against the idea of making Juhani straight or bisexual.

As a modder of the KotOR video game series, I also need to state that I will never make Juhani a romance option for male characters under any circumstances in any of my mods. I also do not support any mod that makes Juhani a romance option for male characters, including providing technical support or granting permission to make patches that try to make straight or bisexual Juhani mods compatible with my mods.

Some would ask me: why do you support and even make mods that make heterosexual characters gay, but against making gay characters heterosexual?

The answer is simple: Because I both want more LGBTQ+ representation and I believe the identities of officially confirmed LGBTQ+ characters should be respected and not be changed.

Unlike every other romance options in both KotOR games, Juhani is a canon gay character, which means she is officially confirmed to be attracted to the same gender exclusively, and she has always been intended to be a lesbian, a woman who is exclusively attracted to women. In fact, the first KotOR game has gone out of its way to ensure ONLY female player characters can romance Juhani.

As a lesbian myself, I utterly and firmly oppose the idea of making canon lesbian characters like Juhani being able to be romanced by men (or canon gay male — as in, men who are exclusively attracted to men — characters romanceable by women), because it is very disrespectful for gay representation, especially consider the fact that Juhani is literally the ONLY confirmed LGBTQ+ character in either KotOR game (minor female NPCs Belaya, Luxa and the Twin Suns are implied to be attracted to women, but their sexualities are never confirmed). Making canon lesbian characters like Juhani a romance option by men is also reminiscent of the real-life homophobic attitude that gay people's sexualities can be changed, which leads to “conversion therapy”.

Lesbians specifically are often discriminated and prejudiced against due to both homophobia and misogyny. In fact, there is a word for describing the various forms of prejudice and negativity towards lesbians specifically: lesbophobia. We lesbians are often demonised as "not giving men a chance" for being women with an exclusive attraction to women and a lack of attraction to men. Yes, I do believe making confirmed lesbian characters like Juhani straight or bisexual is a form of lesbophobia. Juhani is a fictional character, but lesbians exist in the real world, and how you treat a fictional charcter with an identity that is marginalised in real life often reflects your attitude towards people with said marginalised identity in the real world.

Making Juhani a romance option for male characters cannot be compared to making heterosexual romance options like Bastila Shan and Carth Onasi gay or bisexual, because cisgender heterosexual people already get countless representations in media, including Star Wars and KotOR, because cishet people are considered the default and the norm. Keep in mind that LGBTQ+ people already have to see countless pieces of mainstream media filled with cisgender heterosexual characters without a single LGBTQ+ character even existing. Making heterosexual romance options like Bastila and Carth available for same-gender romance options is out of desire for more LGBTQ+ representation, while making Juhani a romance option for male characters, including making Juhani bisexual, is erasing her lesbian identity and disrespecting lesbian representation.

All my same-gender romance mods are about adding more same-gender romance options, and not inherently about removing every gender restriction in romances without any thought or consideration. Ultimately, My reasons and motives for opposing changing Juhani's lesbian orientation, and at the same time supporting making heterosexual romance options like Bastila and Carth gay or bisexual, are all about wanting more LGBTQ+ representation and respecting canon LGBTQ+ representation. Protecting Juhani's status as a canon lesbian character is not inherently about adhering to canon, but about respecting representation of marginalised groups like LGBTQ+ people.

Keeping canon gay chracters exclusive to same-gender romances, including keeping Juhani's romance exclusive to female chracters only, is a stance I am not going to change my mind on, so I would appreciate anyone not debating me on this.

Changelog: 28 June 2023

2023-06-28T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Added new article: Keep Juhani a Lesbian and Keep Juhani's Romance Exclusive to Female Characters.

Changelog: 27 June 2023

2023-06-27T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine:
- Added new article: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for My Same-Gender Romance Mods for Star Wars: Knight of the Old Republic Series.
- Make the sidebar table of contents of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: Redeeming Bastila Guide sticky.
- Fixed broken links on the navigation bar.
- Modified footer content.
- Removed unnecessary code in CSS.
- Removed the background image of the shrines that was accidentally done through importing the main CSS.

Changelog: 26 June 2023

2023-06-26T00:00:00Z

Replaced incorrect uses of semantic HTML tags throughout the entire website, such as replacing <em> that were used for media titles with <cite>, <strong> that were used for styling with custom CSS class.

Changelog: 23 June 2023

2023-06-23T00:00:00Z

The HTML, CSS and JavaScript of entire website has been rewritten to improve the site's layout! See the June 2023 Layout Rewrite for more information!

June 2023 Leilukin's Hub Layout Rewrite | Blog

2023-06-23T00:00:00Z

Happy Pride Month! It is always Pride on this literally queer-coded (as in, literally coded by a queer person) website, so Leilukin's Hub decided to celebrate Pride Month with a major update — rewriting the entire website's layout!

This new layout remains the same colour scheme as the previous one, which went live in January this year. The most noticeable change you would see in this new layout is the sticky navigation bar, a feature that previously only existed in my shrines. However, under the hood the HTML, CSS and JavaScript all have been rewritten from the ground up to optimise the site's layout.

Highlights of the June 2023 layout rewrite of Leilukin's Hub:

A new navigation bar throughout the entire website, instead of putting links to this site's pages on the sidebar. The design of this navigation bar is inspired by the dropdown menu bar at the end of this article: 6 Best Practices for Building Responsive Dropdown Menus.
Rewrite the HTML elements to improve the website's layout.
Use a mobile-first workflow to rewrite the CSS of this website to make the website more responsive to various screen sizes (mobile, tablet and desktop).
Streamline the CSS of the main parts of the site into one CSS file. The only pages that also have their own CSS due to unique elements with custom classes exclusive to the pages are my mod pages. The shrines still have their own CSS files, however.
Use Andy Bell's modern CSS reset for the CSS of the entire website.
The header, navigation bar and footer have their own scripts to dynamically render the content of these elements with JavaScript's innerHTML property.
Add a "Back to top" link to the footer to quickly scroll back to the top of the page you are viewing

Rewriting the layout of this entire website has taken me many hours on this site redesign. Nevertheless, I am very pleased with how it turns out. Enjoy!

Changelog: 15 June 2023

2023-06-15T00:00:00Z

Removed unnecessary CSS files.
Refactored the index page's HTML and CSS.

Changelog: 11 June 2023

2023-06-11T00:00:00Z

Widened the website content layout.
Changed the header image of my Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine.

Changelog: 9 May 2023

2023-05-09T00:00:00Z

New blog post: Onboard the Dracula Daily Hype Train.

Onboard the Dracula Daily Hype Train | Blog

2023-05-09T00:00:00Z

Dracula Daily, the free subscription newsletter that sends Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula to subscribers via email, became an internet sensation, especially on Tumblr. Some of my Tumblr mutuals were also on the hype train, though I missed it.

Fortunately, Dracula Daily returns in 2023, so I decided to sign up to subscribe to the newsletter and join the hype. This year, Re: Dracula, the audio drama podcast adaptation of Dracula, also debuts. Like Dracula Daily, Re: Dracula releases new entries in as close to real time as it happens, meaning you can now enjoy Dracula Daily in audio form as well, with excellent voice acting and sound design to enhance the experience.

Confession: This is actually my first time reading Dracula, so I am looking forward to this serialised way of reading the novel!

Changelog: 5 May 2023

2023-05-05T00:00:00Z

Modify the web application manifest of this site to make this site look more like a mobile app when added to a mobile device's home screen.

Changelog: 27 March 2023

2023-03-27T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Leilukin's Juhani's Outfit Reskin Pack, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 23 March 2023

2023-03-23T00:00:00Z

Switch the content of the left and right sidebars. Navigation links are now on the left sidebar, while the table of contents on the right sidebar.
Proper indentation of the HTML codes.

Changelog: 22 March 2023

2023-03-22T00:00:00Z

Added the dates of publication of articles.

Changelog: 20 March 2023

2023-03-20T00:00:00Z

Tweaked the format of the dates of publication and update of articles.

Changelog: 19 March 2023

2023-03-19T00:00:00Z

Added a new masterlist on my Resources page: Anti-Harry Potter and Anti-J. K. Rowling Masterlist
Changed the color of subheadings.

Anti-Harry Potter and Anti-J. K. Rowling Masterlist | Articles

2023-03-19T00:00:00Z

This site is Harry Potter free. Lookin [sic] for it? Leave.

(Credit to Tumblr user comradesaucegay for this Harry Potter-free website banner)

Like many millennials, I grew up with the Harry Potter series and was a major fan of the series. I had read the original 7 books and watched their film adaptations. The series was a passion of mine during my early- to mid-teen years. While the Harry Potter novels were far from the first books I read, they were the first fantasy novels I read, and the series’ concept of a magical world set in a contemporary setting fascinated teenage me.

However, even during my Harry Potter fixation years, there were things from the series that bothered me, from the idea of house elves being a slave race that naturally love being slaves, to Snape’s unconvincing “redemption” arc. As I got older and became more aware of social issues, I started to notice more problems with the series. In addition, reading more books has also made me realise that even on a technical writing level, the Harry Potter series was mediocre at best. As a result, I had stopped becoming a Harry Potter fan even before J. K. Rowling’s transphobia got mainstream attention.

Unfortunately, many adults with nostalgia goggles still refuse to let go of Harry Potter, and they believe Harry Potter can be separated or “reclaimed” by J. K. Rowling, despite how much Rowling’s worldview and prejudice are inextricably linked to her writing.

Therefore, I am compiling this masterlist by curating various materials that are critical of the Harry Potter series and J. K. Rowling. Items are ordered in chronological order. This is far from a comprehensive list of all the pieces that criticise Harry Potter and Rowling; this list is my curated list of ones that I have read, watched or listened to, and I personally endorse.

Articles

Harry Potter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by Alina Utrata (28 October 2016)
Addressing The Claims In JK Rowling’s Justification For Transphobia by Katy Montgomerie (16 June 2020)
The Antisemitism of ‘Harry Potter’ Returns in ‘Hogwarts Legacy’ by Jack Doyle (8 February 2023)
Hogwarts Legacy wants to make everyone happy, but Harry Potter gets in the way by Gita Jackson (17 February 2023)
Is J.K. Rowling transphobic? Let’s let her speak for herself. by Aja Romano (3 March 2023)

Videos

Harry Potter is GARBAGE, and Here's Why by satenmadpun (25 August 2020)
We need to talk about Dudley Dursley- Harry Potter and Fatphobia by Ok2BeFat (30 May 2021)
Harry Potter by Shaun (4 March 2023)
JK Rowling's New Friends by Shaun (14 October 2022)
The Consumerist Dystopia of Harry Potter by verilybitchie (21 January 2023)
Explaining JK Rowling’s Transphobia by Jessie Gender (27 January 2023)
Hogwarts Legacy and the Politics of Potter by Wisecrack (11 February 2023)
Hogwarts: A Legacy Of Hate (The Jimquisition) by James Stephanie Sterling (13 February 2023)
The ALLEGED Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling (What The Megan Phelps Podcast Won't Tell You) by Caelan Conrad (18 March 2023)
Maybe The Wizard Game Just Wasn't Very Good (The Jimquisition) by James Stephanie Sterling (20 November 2023)
J.K. Rowling & Holocaust Denial by Caelan Conrad (16 March 2024)

Podcasts

The Shrieking Shack — A book reading podcast hosted by Xeecee and Liz. Originally a Harry Potter reread podcast made by and for lapsed fans that goes through every chapter of the Harry Potter books and their film adaptations and analyses the writing and politics of the series and J. K. Rowling.

Changelog: 2 March 2023

2023-03-02T00:00:00Z

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Updated the Guides page to add a section for lists of cheats for the KotOR games.

Changelog: 18 February 2023

2023-02-18T00:00:00Z

Added Site Map.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic shrine: Added guides:

Changelog: 17 February 2023

2023-02-17T00:00:00Z

A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986 shrine:
- Added a Trivia page.
- Added information and link to A Summer's End's' official soundtrack on the Playlists page.
Added a new shrine: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Changelog: 16 February 2023

2023-02-16T00:00:00Z

Added a Shrines page, with the first e-shrine on this website being A Summer’s End — Hong Kong 1986.

Changelog: 10 February 2023

2023-02-10T00:00:00Z

Updated the banner image of my Alternate Revan Romances REDUX mod on the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords mod page.
Added a Webrings section on the home page.

Changelog: 7 February 2023

2023-02-07T00:00:00Z

Updated the Resources page to add a my Missing K1 Party Member Ports for TSL modder's resource.

Changelog: 31 January 2023

2023-01-31T00:00:00Z

Updated the Links page as I have officially joined the Queer Coded webring.

Changelog: 30 January 2023

2023-01-30T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Juhani Item Pack for TSL, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.

Changelog: 28 January 2023

2023-01-28T00:00:00Z

Added a Links page.
Move the link to changelog to the sidebar.
Due to these new changes to the navigation links on the sidebar, I wrote a JavaScript file to dynamically generate the contents on the right sidebar and the footer across multiple pages on this site.
Adjust the line spacing and the spacing between the listed items on the changelog page.
Made adjustments to the relative paths in the HTML files, to ensure this site's favicons will show up on the title bar by default.
Fixed the issue of the page style not applied to the Not Found page.
Updated the About page.
Update the Page Not Found page.

Leilukin's Hub Now has a Blog! | Blog

2023-01-28T00:00:00Z

I finally built a blog on my own website!

After launching this site in September 2022, I had been considering setting up a blog here, as I want a blog that is hosted on my own site, but it was not until I discovered Zonelets, a HTML blogging engine created with Neocities in mind, and it was exactly what I was looking for to build a blog on my own Neocities site: it is simple enough for beginners to use, yet also open for more customisation and flexibility for users who have enough knowledge about HTML, CSS and JavaScript.

My site does have an articles section, but what makes this blog different from the articles is that the articles are meant to be timeless, sort of like my public statements for certain topics, while posts from this blog are more like journals or reactions to a timely subject.

Welcome to my blog! Hope you enjoy your stay on this blog and my website!

UPDATE on 16 April 2024: After discovering the static site generator Eleventy, I decided to rebuild my entire website, including this blog, with Eleventy. Therefore, I no longer use Zonelets, and now this blog is powered by Eleventy.

Changelog: 26 January 2023

2023-01-26T00:00:00Z

The entire website has been redesigned! See the 2023 New Year Redesign of Leilukin's Hub for more information!

2023 New Year Redesign of Leilukin's Hub | Blog

2023-01-26T00:00:00Z

In light of a new year, the Leilukin's Hub website has received a new design on 26 January 2023!

I have wanted to rewrite and redesign this site after learning HTML and CSS more and getting better at writing those languages. With Visual Studio Code and the Live Server extension installed, I have also finally found a good workflow for me to write and test HTML and CSS.

Looking at other Neocities websites have also given me more ideas in enhancing my own website. Special thanks to sadgrl.online, whose various web building resources, including the Layout Builder, have helped tremendously in redesigning this site.

With this 2023 new year redesign of this website, the index page, which is for when you visit the link leilukin.neocities.org, you will be presented with a very simple page, but when you click the "Enter" button to enter, you will be brought to my website's home page, and can start properly browsing my website, and enjoying the new design!

Highlights of the 2023 New Year redesign of Leilukin's Hub:

Uses purple colour schemes primarily, as purple is one of my favourite colours.
Each page category has their own CSS file, allowing me to give certain pages unique elements. However, the site still has a main CSS file to be imported into CSS files of other pages, saving me time to edit the CSS files one by one just to tweak a certain part of the main layout design.
Background image added.
Sidebars added, with the contents being sticky, so you can still see them while scrolling through.
The navigation links are now on the right sidebar. Previously, the navigation links of my website are in a row placed at the header section.
The table of contents of some of my pages is now placed on the left sidebar.
The website changelog page adds archives for the layout designs of this site and old changelog.
My video game mod pages have added a filter function, so you can use buttons to view a specific category of mods.

After spending many hours on this site redesign, I am very pleased with how it turns out. Hope you enjoy it!

Changelog: 25 January 2023

2023-01-25T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, TSL Twi'lek Male NPC Diversity, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.
Corrected the mod description of KotOR 1 Twi'lek Male NPC Diversity on my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 29 December 2022

2022-12-29T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, KotOR 1 Twi'lek Male NPC Diversity, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 19 December 2022

2022-12-19T00:00:00Z

Added new resource, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic save files, to my resources page: KotOR 2 Light Side Female Saves with The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod and PartySwap.

Changelog: 16 December 2022

2022-12-16T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mods, Exile's Trial Overlay Removal and Visas Visible Jedi Robes, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.

Changelog: 11 December 2022

2022-12-11T00:00:00Z

For my mod page for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, No Flirting with Davik's Slaves has been updated and renamed to PC Dialogue with Davik's Slaves Change.

Changelog: 8 December 2022

2022-12-08T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, No Flirting with Davik's Slaves, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 27 November 2022

2022-11-27T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Prologue Item Recovery, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.

Changelog: 24 November 2022

2022-11-24T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Bastila and Carth Romance Removal, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 22 November 2022

2022-11-22T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, No Jealousy Lock in Handmaiden Dialogue, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.

Changelog: 16 November 2022

2022-11-16T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Lonna Vash Mod for TSLRCM, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.

Changelog: 12 November 2022

2022-11-12T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Dahnis Unique Look, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.

Changelog: 9 November 2022

2022-11-09T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, TSL Workbench Lightsaber Creation, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords page.
Rearrange the mod catogeries on my mod page for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords.

Changelog: 23 October 2022

2022-10-23T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Trask Ulgo Without Tutorials, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 22 October 2022

2022-10-22T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, KotOR 1 Twi'lek Female NPC Diversity, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

Changelog: 17 October 2022

2022-10-17T00:00:00Z

Added new resource, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic save files, to my resources page: Light Side Female Saves with KOTOR 1 Community Patch and All Romances.

Changelog: 16 October 2022

2022-10-16T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, KotOR 1 No Gendered Dialogue from Male NPCs, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.

How to Access Juhani's Conversaion about Canderous without Restoration Mods | Articles

2022-10-11T00:00:00Z

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9_SPW-x_a-I

If you follow the modding scene of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, you might be aware of a conversation with Juhani where the player asks her why she is hostile towards Canderous. It is a commonly assumed that it is cut content, because the condition to trigger said conversation is unknown by the KotOR community, and there are mods that aim to restore said conversation.

After thorough investigation into the game files, I finally discovered that it is actually possible to access Juhani's conversation about Canderous without any restoration mod. However, the issue is that in the vanilla game, the condition to make said conversation available is very specific, thus making it extremely easy to miss. Therefore, what restoration mods do to this specific Juhani conversation is making it easier to access.

Here are the conditions to make Juhani's conversation about Canderous without restoration mods:

Firstly, you need to have both Canderous and Juhani in your party when talking to certain NPCs on Dantooine. Canderous will make comments when you talk to those NPCs, then Juhani will interject and show hostility towards Canderous. Specifically, these interjections happen when you:

Talk to Gar at the courtyard outside the Jedi Enclave and ask him about the problems with kath hounds and Mandalorians
Accuse Handon Guld of murdering Calder Nettic for cheating on his wife, during the "Murdered Settler" side quest
Tell Nurik Sandral you are investigating Shen Matale's disappearance, during the "Sandral-Matele Feud" side quest

You need to hear Juhani's interjections to Canderous' comments on at least two of the above occasions.

Secondly, you need to progress Juhani's conversations to the point where she reveals that her family fled to Taris because the Mandalorians attacked the Cathar homeworld and slaughtered many Cathar people. It is after this conversation where you get the dialogue option to ask Juhani why she is hostile towards Canderous.

As evidence, I have recorded and compile the above video myself showing Juhani's interactions with Canderous and Juhani's conversation about Canderous.

Changelog: 11 October 2022

2022-10-11T00:00:00Z

Added my latest mod, Juhani Dialogue Restoration, to my mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic page.
Added new article about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic: How to Access Juhani's Conversaion about Canderous without Restoration Mods

Changelog: 6 October 2022

2022-10-06T00:00:00Z

Added the Open Graph protocol on each page.

Changelog: 5 October 2022

2022-10-05T00:00:00Z

Added navigation links bar under the websit banner on each page.
Added new article about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords: Where is the Mother of the Handmaiden’s Sisters?.
Added resource: List of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Mods that Allow Female Exiles to Recruit the Handmaiden as a Party Member

Changelog: 4 October 2022

2022-10-04T00:00:00Z

Added download links to Love Between Brianna and the Exile - The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod Version and Remote Tells Influence Patch for The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod on my KotOR 2 mods page.

Changelog: 3 October 2022

2022-10-03T00:00:00Z

Added banner images for each of my KotOR 1 mods and KotOR 2 mods.

Changelog: 1 October 2022

2022-10-01T00:00:00Z

Added article: Why I Personally Do Not Subscribe to the “Arren Kae is Kreia” Theory.

Changelog: 30 September 2022

2022-09-30T00:00:00Z

Adjusted the codes for the Articles and Featured pages.

Changelog: 25 September 2022

2022-09-25T00:00:00Z

Added a button to my Buy Me a Coffee page on the home page and About page.
The top banner on each page is now linked to the home page.

Changelog: 20 September 2022

2022-09-20T00:00:00Z

Website banner created and placed on the top each page.
Rearrange the buttons on the main page.
Created indivisual sub-pages for the pieces shared on the Featured page.
Added information about the playlists on the Playlists page.
Added a page for same-gender romance mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic series.
Added table of contents for some pages.

Changelog: 16 September 2022

2022-09-16T00:00:00Z

Adjusted the font size, line and paragraph spacing of the website to make it easier to read and more responsive.
Redesigned the buttons on the website.

Changelog: 12 September 2022

2022-09-12T00:00:00Z

Created a page for The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod + M4-78 Enhancement Project Modules, Warp Codes & Music Overview.
Modified the HTML and CSS codes of the entire website to make the website more accessible.

Changelog: 11 September 2022

2022-09-11T00:00:00Z

Website launch.

Floating in a Sky Full of Pride: LGBTQ+ Booklet Artist Interview from MISI:Bawang | Articles

2022-09-11T00:00:00Z

(This article is also available on my art blog on Tumblr)

Floating in a Sky Full of Pride, the LGBTQ+ booklet of MISI:Bawang, a Malaysian digital booklet project, has been released on Valentine’s Day 2022. Since my submitted art piece, Life of a Bee with Pride, has been selected to be included in the booklet, I had received the honour of being interviewed by MISI:Bawang to share my personal experience with my LGBTQ+ identity, favourite queer art/media, and a ✨ special message to the Malaysian LGBTQ+ community. 🏳‍🌈

MISI:Bawang has shared their interview with me and other Malaysian LGBTQ+ artists and authors who submitted their work to the booklet on Twitter and Instagram. Here are the Twitter thread and Instagram post that include my interview.

Text version of my interview below:

“What was your experience discovering your LGBTQ+ identity?”

The first clear signs of my attraction to women I was aware of started from my secondary school days. However, due to lack of knowledge and awareness of same-gender attraction and identities, I brushed it off as a teenage phase.

However, that changed as I started becoming active on Tumblr since I was 19. At first, I joined Tumblr to connect with people who share my interest in Star Wars and BioWare games. This led me to get to know LGBTQ+ from different parts of the world, which is especially helped by the fact that BioWare games are known for LGBTQ+ representation, therefore LGBTQ+ people are visible in BioWare player communities. This started my journey of questioning my sexuality and gender.

As I continue to stay on Tumblr, my engagement with LGBTQ+ people on Tumblr had gone beyond shared interest in entertainment media. Through Tumblr, I discovered many LGBTQ+ resources that helped me figure out my identity. As a result, at the age of 22, I eventually realised that I am a non-binary lesbian.

A Summer’s End - Hong Kong 1986 is the LGBTQ+ art that gives me comfort, inspiration and strength the most. It is an indie visual novel developed by the Asian Canadian studio Oracle and Bone. The story is about a lesbian romance that takes place in Hong Kong in the year of 1986.

A Summer’s End is the LGBTQ+ art I relate to most because it strongly resonates with my identity as a Cantonese-speaking Chinese lesbian who has grown up with Hong Kong media. I relate to both the protagonists, Michelle and Sam, as their characters represent different parts of my life as a Chinese lesbian. I also relate to the story’s theme of hoping for the future of our homeland despite the political uncertainties.

“Do you have a message to LGBTQ+ community living in Malaysia?”

First and foremost, you are not alone. LGBTQ+ Malaysians have a community that continues to survive despite the hardship we have to face due to society’s bigotry and misunderstanding of LGBTQ+ people and identities.

I hope the LGBTQ+ community in Malaysia will continue to grow and thrive, and more LGBTQ+ Malaysians who are still questioning and feeling lonely could be reached out. Let us work towards a future where we could live freely.

The modders who spent 15 years fixing Knights of the Old Republic 2 @ Ars Technica | Articles

2022-09-11T00:00:00Z

On 6 December 2019, to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2, Ars Technica has published an article about the modding community of KotOR 2. I was interviewed by the author of this article, Austin Taylor, for my same-gender romance mods for KotOR 2.

Romance? Yes, Please

Unlike the first KOTOR, there are no same-gender romance options in Obsidian’s sequel. Leilukin, a modder on the Nexus Forums, has focused much of her modding work since 2016 on fixing that oversight.

“As much as I love KOTOR2, I have always been frustrated by the fact that the romance content with the companions and certain NPCs… are all heterosexual,” she said.

Some of these fixes are relatively simple. In vanilla KOTOR2, for instance, only male characters can recruit The Handmaiden upon leaving Telos, while female characters are the only ones who can recruit The Disciple during the main quest on Dantooine. By default, Leiluken’s mod simply flips that gender check, so only male characters can recruit the Disciple and only females can recruit The Handmaiden.

But Leiluken’s mod goes further than that. The most challenging part, she said, was finding every reference to the Exile’s gender throughout the game spoken by gender-specific party members, then “add[ing] extra dialogue that replaces the pronouns and splic[ing] voiceover files myself.”

To recruit both The Handmaiden and The Disciple at the same time, players can install the PartySwap mod by DarthTyren. That mod was initially lacking the same-gender romance dialogue from Leiluken’s mod. But Leiluken has since added a compatibility installation option, letting the two mods now work together and fully opening up the same-gender romance options of your dreams.

Read the full article on Ars Technica here: The modders who spent 15 years fixing Knights of the Old Republic 2

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) for My Star Wars: KotOR Same-Gender Romance Mods | Articles

2021-09-25T00:00:00Z

(Note: This FAQ article was originally published on Nexus Mods. I decided to host this article on my own website instead for better management and formatting)

This article compiles the frequently asked questions I have received for my same-gender romance mods for Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KotOR) series.

PLEASE READ THIS ARTICLE BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT MY ROMANCE MODS!

My same-gender romance mods for KotOR 1 include:

Carth Onasi and Male PC Romance

My same-gender romance mods for KotOR 2 include:

I have also compiled a list of all the same-gender romance mods various modders had created throughout the history of KotOR modding.

Technical Questions

I am having problems with your mod / I cannot get your mod to work / Your mod does not work for me.

Please make sure you have downloaded and installed the latest version of my mods, and read the Read Me files of my mods to make sure you have followed ALL the information and instructions in my Read Me files before asking questions for technical support.

When you are asking for technical support, please provide details for the issues you encountered: when and how did your problem start happening and what mods you have installed. Simply saying "mod doesn't work" DOES NOT help the mod author to figure out the cause of your issue. When I ask you for more details, please answer my questions honestly, so I can identify how to solve your problems. Telling me ALL the mods you use will help me greatly in figuring out if your issue was caused by mod conflict or not.

If you play KotOR 2 on Steam, make sure there are no leftover Steam Workshop folders in your Steam directory, because Steam Workshop mods will likely conflict with my mods, and even unsubscribing Steam Workshop mods does not always remove all Workshop mod files completely. To check for any leftover Steam Workshop files, go to the Steam Workshop folder in your Steam directory (/\Steam\SteamApps\Workshop\), and delete all the sub-folders in the Steam Workshop folder if they are present.

When I installed your mod, I got the error message: "[ERROR] Unhandled exception: Access violation at address [a bunch of numbers]. Write of address [a bunch of numbers] (0)".

Try to right-click your KotOR 2 folder or subfolders, go to Properties and uncheck the "Read-only", then try to install my mod again to see if it works.

When installing your KotOR 2 mod, I got "Destination file "Modules\[____].mod" does not exist at the specified location! Skipping section... [Error]" and other similar errors, even though I had installed the installer (.exe) version of The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod.

First, go to the folder where your KotOR 2 game is installed, and go to the Modules folder, then check if the .mod files mentioned in the error messages are in your Modules folder.

For example, for Handmaiden and Female Exile – Disciple and Male Exile Romance mod, you need to check if these .mod files are in your Modules folder:

003EBO.mod
006EBO.mod
262TEL.mod
301NAR.mod
303NAR.mod
402DXN.mod
602DAN.mod
610DAN.mod
650DAN.mod
907MAL.mod
908MAL.mod
909MAL.mod
950COR.mod

If you cannot find those .mod files in your Modules folder, your issue might be caused by your computer registering two different installation locations for KotOR 2. I suggest you check out this guide on how to make sure your computer recognize the version of KotOR 2 game where you want to install KotOR 2 mods on. While the guide focuses on Steam version of KotOR 2, you could edit the registry to make your computer properly recognise the installation location of your KotOR 2 game.

Here are the default installation locations of KotOR 2 depending on the game version:

Steam (32-bit Windows): C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\Knights of the Old Republic II
Steam (64-bit Windows): C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Knights of the Old Republic II
Retail CD (32-bit Windows): C:\Program Files\LucasArts\SWKotOR2\
Retail CD (64-bit Windows): • C:\Program Files (x86)\LucasArts\SWKotOR2\
Steam (32-bit Windows): C:\GOG Games\Star Wars - KotOR2

If you do not know if you have Windows 64-bit or 32-bit, refer this article to find out.

Will you upload your mods to Steam Workshop?

NO. I do not use Steam Workshop, and frankly, I hate the Steam Workshop for how terrible it is for modding KotOR 2 and how much mod compatibility issues it causes. I suggest you read this post on why using Steam Workshop is NOT recommend for modding KotOR 2. Therefore, I DO NOT want any of my mods to be added to the Steam Workshop.

STOP ASKING FOR ANY OF MY MODS TO BE ADDED THE STEAM WORKHOP. MY ASNWER WILL ALWAYS BE A FIRM NO, FULL STOP. NO EXCEPTIONS.

I am having problems a KotOR 2 mod of yours, and I am using the Steam Workshop. Can you help me?

See my answer to the previous question. I am not responsible for any bugs caused by you using any mods from the Steam Workshop. The only suggestion I will give you for compatibility issues between my mods and the Steam Workshop is to get rid of all your Steam Workshop mods entirely, and make sure there are no leftover Steam Workshop folders in your Steam directory. In order to do this, go to the Steam Workshop folder in your Steam directory (/\Steam\SteamApps\Workshop\), and delete all the sub-folders in the Steam Workshop folder.

Does this mod work with [insert a different mod here]?

Please read the “Mod Compatibility” section of my mod description and Read Me files before asking. If there is a mod you want to use that was not mentioned in my mod description and Read Me files, you can still ask me. Just make sure you tell me the actual name of the mod and ideally, provide a link to the mod you want to ask about, so I can check the mod out myself to confirm if it is compatible with my mod. Do not expect me to know the existence of every single KotOR mod out there.

Are your romance mods compatible with KotOR Community Portal's mod builds?

Yes, all my mods are compatible with KotOR Community Portal's mod builds.

That said, some of my mods require you to install at a very specific point of the mod builds:

Handmaiden and Female Exile - Disciple and Male Exile Romance should be installed immediately after PartySwap and before Extended Enclave. If you also want to install Extended Enclave, you should use the compatibility patch included in my Handmaiden/Disciple romance mod, instead of the standalone patch I made for the mod build. If you plan on using the Kreia's Fall In-Game Cutscene mod as well, you need to install the compatibility patch included in my mod.
Atton Rand and Male Exile Romance needs to be installed after Kreia's Fall In-Game Cutscene. You also need to install the compatibility patches for Kreia's Fall In-Game Cutscene.
Visas Marr and Female Exile Romance needs to be installed after PartySwap.

Can I use your mods with non-English localizations of the KOtOR games and The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM)?

No. I play and mod the KotOR game in English exclusively. Some of my mods in particular will cause your game to crash if you are playing a non-English localization of the KotOR games and TSLRCM, because those mods add custom dialogues that do not exist in the vanilla game in order to prevent characters from referring to the player character as the wrong gender. The only solution to crashes caused by you playing on a non-English localization is to play the KotOR games and TSLRCM in English.

If you are interested in making a non-English translation or localization of my mods yourself, you may contact me to ask for my permission to do so. However, since I am not familiar with any of the non-English languages officially supported by the KotOR games, I am unable to provide support for any issues players may have with using your non-English translation or localization of my mod.

For your KotOR 2 mods that require The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM) to work, will you make an alternate version that does not require TSLRCM?

No, I will not make a no-TSLRCM version of my mods that require TSLRCM to function. TSLRCM is widely agreed by players, including KotOR modders, to be an essential mod for the best experience with KotOR 2. Making a non-TSLRCM version of content mod like this would require me to spend extra time to replay KotOR 2 without TSLRCM, and therefore subjecting myself to a lesser experience with the game, which I consider a massive waste of my time. In general, if you see any KotOR 2 mod that requires TSLRCM to work (not just my mods), do not expect to see a non-TSLRCM version.

If you are having issues with using TSLRCM, I suggest you report the bugs you encountered and ask for help for solving your issues on the TSLRCM forum on Deadly Stream.

How to install your mods on the Xbox/Android/iOS/Nintendo Switch/any other non-PC version of KotOR or KotOR 2?

Sorry, I cannot help directly with modding the KotOR games on any console or mobile devices, because I only own the PC version of the KotOR games. I make no promises that I will port my KotOR mods for those platforms specifically either.

Some of my mods require TSLPatcher to install to make the mod work properly, especially if you also want to use other mods in addition to my mods and for KotOR 2, The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod. Simply copying and pasting files from my mod to your game's directory does NOT guarantee my mod will work as intended, and you may encounter bugs that could possibly game-breaking.

For Android and iOS users, I suggest referring to the KotOR Community Portal's modding guide, specifically their general instructions in their mobile mod builds. See this page for KotOR 1 and this page for KotOR 2.

For Nintendo Switch users, in order to mod the KotOR game on Switch, first you need to hack your Switch or install a modchip in your Switch, then use the KotOR Switch Modding Framework and KotOR II Switch Modding Framework to install mods. According to JacqylFrost, the creator of these frameworks, both TSLRCM and my Handmaiden same-geneder romance mod work with the KotOR 2 version of the framework. I suggest you ask JacqylFrost directly if you need help with modding the KotOR games on Switch.

For Steam Deck users, you may refer to JacqylFrost's Steam Deck modding guide on the KotOR subreddit.

Mod Content Questions

Will you add kissing scenes to your romance mods?

No. The goal of my same-gender romance mods is not necessary to add new content, but to allow players to experience the pre-existing romance content in the KotOR series without the heterosexual gender restrictions. Kissing scenes are beyond the scope of my mods, and I do not necessary have the skills required (such as modelling, animations, etc.) to create them either, especially given how limited the animations in these old games are.

For Carth Onasi and Male PC Romance mod for KotOR 1, if you want your male PC to kiss Carth, you may install cjt0202's Carth Romance Fix mod, then install the compatibility patch provided in my mod.

Will you make a romance mod for Canderous/Bao-Dur/Mira/any other character with no romance content in the vanilla game?

No. Due to the fact that these characters were never intended to be romance options for the player character, creating romance content for these characters require extra work and effort, namely writing new dialogue, scripting and animating new scenes, and ideally, finding voice actors or using voice synthesithers for these new content, because some people (myself included) find it immersion-breaking to see party member suddenly become silent in certain lines despite being voiced in every other dialogue. This goes beyond my modding capabilities, and I do not have enough time and desire to put this large amount of work in video game mods for the foreseeable future.

Why do you make everyone gay?

I am a lesbian who would like to see more representation of LGBTQ+ people and relationships in media, including Star Wars, and I am not the only one who feels this way. I made these same-gender romance mods for fellow LGBTQ+ players who want more gay content in KotOR as well. I find KotOR 2's complete lack of same-gender romance options especially disaappointing, since the first KotOR at least has Juhani as a canon lesbian romance option, so I made these mods to fill the void. In fact, after releasing my same-gender romance mods, many other LGBTQ+ players have expressed gratitute for the existence of these mods, and consider these mods a huge improvement to their KotOR experience.

Cisgender heterosexual people already get countless representations in media, including Star Wars, bcause cishet people are considered the default and the norm. If the idea that everyone in your favorite piece of media could be gay makes you uncomfortable, perhaps you meed to examine why you feel that way. Keep in mind that LGBTQ+ people already have to see countless pieces of mainstream media filled with cisgender heterosexual characters without a single LGBTQ+ character even existing.

Frankly, opposing the concept of same-gender romance mods for video games for any reason is homophobic. As a gay person, this is a stance I will not change my mind on. Any comment or message that tries to argue with me otherwise will be ignored or deleted without response.

Character X being gay does not fit his/her character.

That is just your opinion, and an opinion I will never agree with. Like it or not, there will always be someone who would like to see gay content for any of the characters affected by my same-gender romance mods.

Mod Specific Questions

Alternate Revan Romances REDUX

Will you make Juhani a romance option for male Revan too in Alternate Revan Romances REDUX?

No. I will never make Juhani a romance option for male characters under any circumstances. I also do not support any mods that make Juhani a romance option for male characters.

It is my firm belief that Juhani should remain a lesbian and her romance should remain exclusive to female characters because she is an officially confirmed lesbian character. Read this article about my stance on protecting Juhani's status as a lesbian, and why.

The AI-generated voice for Juhani in the Juhani cameo add-on is robotic.

I know an AI cannot beat a human voice actor when it comes to delivering emotions, but getting a voice actor doing a Juhani impression instead of an AI for those new lines is much easier said than done. I do not have the money to hire voice actors, and whether I can find a voice actor who is able to do a Juhani impression is another big question, especially given how unique Juhani's voice is. An AI voice synthiser is genuinely the best option for me with the very limited resources I have as one person and fan of the game who makes mods for free. Unless someone is willing to volunteer to voice Juhani for a mod, likely for free, I can never make any promise that there will be an actual voice actor for Juhani's dialogue in this mod.

Handmaiden and Female Exile - Disciple and Male Exile Romances

I am using your Handmaiden romance mod while playing as a female player character, but Handmaiden does not join my party after I leave the Telos Academy!

If Handmaiden does not join your female Exile's party when you are using my Handmaiden romance mod, the possible causes for this happening include:

You did not install my mod correctly. Either you get errors when installing the “Default Installation” option, or you did not install DarthTyren's PartySwap mod first before installing the “PartySwap Compatible” option of my mod.
You have a holorec.dlg file in the Override folder, either from a mod you are using or a mod you previously used. If there is a holorec.dlg in your Override folder, delete it.
You may have some leftover Steam Workshop folders in your Steam directory that overrides the portion where Handmaiden is supposed to join your party. To solve this, go to the Steam Workshop folder in your Steam directory (/\Steam\SteamApps\Workshop\), and delete all the sub-folders in the Steam Workshop folder.
Similar to the above, you may have some leftover files from a mod you used in your previous playthrough in your KotOR 2 game directory that interferes the portion where Handmaiden is supposed to join your party. The best way to solve this is to uninstall your game, delete your KotOR 2 game folder entirely, and then re-install the game and the mods you want to use.

For your Handmaiden/Disciple romance mod, can you make it so you always recruit Handmaiden or Disciple only regardless of the Exile's gender?

No, and I see no point in making such mod when DarthTyren's PartySwap mod already exists to allow you to recruit both Handmaiden and Disciple in a single playthrough regardless of the Exile's gender. Additionally, my mod's primary goal is enabling same-gender romfnce options, so neither male Exile/Handmaiden nor female Exile/Disciple romance is a priority of my mod.

Therefore, if you want Handmaiden or Disciple in your party regardless of your Exile's gender, my recommendation is to install PartySwap. If you also want same-gender romance with Handmaiden or Disciple, install the PartySwap compatible installation option of my mod after PartySwap. Even if you prefer Handmaiden to Disciple, or vice versa, I will still recommend you to use PartySwap instead so you can get the most out of the party members in a single playthrough.

I am using your Handmaiden romance mod, but I cannot spar with the Handmaiden when she joins my party!

This is not a problem with my mod. The FAQ of The Sith Lords Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM)'s mod page and Read Me file already addressed this:

Due to a bug, sparring with Handmaiden while in outer space (directly after leaving the Telos Academy) made the fight unwinnable. So for TSLRCM you will have to travel to another planet, exit and re-enter for the option to appear, giving a glitch-free sparring. It's not gone, no worries!

Why I Personally Do Not Subscribe to the “Arren Kae is Kreia” Theory | Articles

2021-01-27T00:00:00Z

(Note: This article was originally published on Tumblr)

If you are a fan of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, you might have heard of the theory that Arren Kae, mother of Brianna the Handmaiden, and Kreia are the same person. If you have not heard of the theory, a compilation of the in-game evidence used to support the theory can be found on the Let’s Play Archive. The theory has become so popular that many fans of the game take it for granted, which can make it easy to forget that the theory was never officially confirmed.

I think the “Arren Kae is Kreia” theory is well-thought-out, and I agree that there are multiple in-game evidence that can support the theory. However, personally I do not subscribe to the theory, nor incorporate it into my headcanons for Knights of the Old Republic 2. I have eventually decided that in my KotOR 2 headcanons, I keep Arren and Kreia as two different people. Why?

Firstly, I want Brianna to have more positive women role models, especially given her troubled relationships with her sisters and Atris. Arren was the reason Brianna wants to be a Jedi, and the Kreia we see in the game is definitely not a good role model for someone who wants to be a Jedi. Kreia might have been a better person when she was a Jedi, but we never know for sure. Not to mention Kreia doesn’t treat Brianna any better than the other party members. Brianna deserves better.

Secondly, I like the theory suggested by an anonymous message I received on Tumblr that Arren Kae was to Kreia what the Exile was to Atris. The KotOR 2 game itself already builds up parallels between Kreia and Atris: both were fallen Jedi who personally felt betrayed by the Jedi in some ways, and many of the things in KotOR 2 happen because of their plans, schemes and manipulation. Therefore, I love the idea that if Arren and Kreia were two different people, they had similar dynamics to the Exile and Atris, in that Arren and Kreia were very good friends in the past, with Kreia potentionally having romantic feelings for Arren, but Arren's departure and exile from the Jedi Order became a catalyst for Kreia's disillusionment with the Jedi Order, and it only got worse from there.

Ultimately, since the "Arren Kae is Kreia" theory is never officially confirmed, I am free to choose to not subscribe to the theory, regardless of how popular the theory is in the fandom, and come up with my own theory about Arren Kae instead.

In conclusion, Keeping Arren Kae and Kreia as two different people in my KotOR headcanons allows Arren to be a positive influence in Brianna’s life that Brianna needs. Also, there are many interesting ideas and possibilities about Arren and Kreia’s dynamics that could be explored.

Where is the Mother of the Handmaiden's Sisters? | Articles

2020-02-19T00:00:00Z

(Note: This article was originally published on Tumblr)

In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, from the first conversation you could have with Brianna, also known as The Last Handmaiden, in the secret Jedi academy on Telos, to the moment where you train Brianna to become a Jedi Guardian if she joins your party, the game has consistently shown that Brianna's family plays a major part of her story and character arc due to her identity as an illegitimate child of the Echani general Yusanis and Jedi Knight Arren Kae. I have always enjoyed Brianna's arc, so even when I am playing a female Jedi Exile, I always use mods that allow Brianna to join a female Exile's party.

As I have thought more about Brianna's family drama, one day I have come to realise that there is a mystery about Brianna's family that I find it unfortunate that we know next to nothing about: the mother of Brianna's sisters.

I find it curious that we never get to learn anything about the mother of Brianna's sisters at all, aside from the fact that she was not Arren Kae. Given what we know about Brianna's family and the drama surrounding it, the realization that the game never explores the mother of Brianna's sisters has made me want to ask a lot of questions about her:

Where is she? Is she still alive? How is her relationship with Yusanis and her own biological daughters? How much did she know about Yusanis' affair with Arren? Did she know Arren? Did she actually know Brianna? If so, how did she feel about Brianna?

In the conversation where Brianna confirms she had a different mother than her sisters, she says she never saw her mother's face, so we can assume that Arren was not part of Brianna's life when Brianna grew up. In the same conversation, the extent Brianna talks about her father, like the reason her father went to fight in the Mandalorian Wars was to join her mother and how he had changed after returning from the war, suggests that Brianna knows her father well enough, so I guess she have lived with her father, though this makes me wonder: was the mother of Brianna's sisters part of Brianna's life when she grew up?

I also wonder, when exactly did Brianna's sisters know about their father's affair with Arren? Did Yusanis tell them himself or did they find out in another way? Did Brianna and her sisters know each other before learning about their father's affair?

I guess it makes sense that we know more about Arren Kae than we did the mother of Brianna's sisters, since she was the mother of one of the party members, while the Handmaiden Sisters are NPCs who are not even given any names. Arren is also mentioned by Mical the Disciple as one of Revan's masters, and Revan is an important character in both Knights of the Old Republic games. If you subscribe to the theory that Arren Kae and Kreia are the same person (I have my own reasons not to, however), Arren's importance increases even more.

However, I would still like to know at least a little more about the mother of Brianna's sisters, since Brianna's complicated relationship with her sisters also affects Brianna's character and story arc.

Sandral-Matale Feud Ending Guide | Guides

2018-09-22T00:00:00Z

[This guide is also available on Google Docs]

Introduction

This guide is requested by Deadly Stream user Sith Holocron.

In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, there is a side quest on Dantooine named "Sandral-Matale Feud", which you receive after you have dealt with Juhani at the grove and met the Jedi Council.

This quest line revolves around a family feud between the Sandrals and the Matales, mainly between their patriarchs, Nurik Sandral and Ahlan Matale. As you progress the quest line, you will discover that Nurik's daughter, Rahasia and Ahlan's son, Shen are romantically involved. The quest line will lead to a heated confrontation between Nurik and Ahlan, and there are multiple ways to resolve the quest line.

This guide will provide details on the different ways to resolve the Sandral-Matele feud, and how to achieve those endings.

Sandral-Matale Feud Resolution Walkthrough

After you rescue Shen and meet Rahasia outside the Sandral estate, you will be confronted by Ahlan Matale and Nurik Sandral, Shen and Rahasia's fathers respectively.

After Ahlan yells at Nurik, "I don't want to hear any of your excuses! Now I will get revenge for your transgressions!" Your following dialogue choices will determine the outcome of the "Sandral-Matale Feud" quest. I recommend saving the game before rescuing Shen and meeting Rahasia outside the Sandral estate, so you can reload the save if you do not get the ending you want.

The "Sandral-Matale Feud" quest could be resolved in four different ways:

1. Convincing Ahlan and Nurik to sort out their differences and allow their children to stay together as a couple.

If you want to do a Light Side playthrough, this would be the best outcome. However, you need to pass a Hard difficulty Persuasion check to get this ending. If you want to learn more about the Persuade mechanic in KotOR, you can check out this page. Since you will likely be at level 10 when you do this quest, you need at least 10 points in your Persuade skill to have a decent chance to pass the check.

As for the dialogue choices, after Ahlan rants about him getting revenge, you need to choose "You two just need to calm down."

When Nurik calls Ahlan "Matale dog";, choose either "Both of you need to calm down." or "You should try to sort this out together."

Now you will be given [Persuade] options. When presented the option, choose "[Persuade] Shen is capable of making decisions on his own." After you pass a Hard difficulty Persuasion check, choose another Persuade option "[Persuade] Children grow up and leave eventually." when you are given the opportunity. If you have successfully passed the previous Persuade check, you should have no problem passing this check.

Once you have succeeded in these [Persuade] options, congratulations! You manage to set the feud between the Sandrals and the Matales peacefully. Your dialogue choices immediately following this do not matter. You will be rewarded with Light Side points.

2. Shen and Rahasia run off together, while the feud between their fathers remains.

To get this second Light Side ending, after Ahlan rants about him getting revenge:

Choose "You two just need to calm down." When Nurik calls Ahlan "Matale dog", choose "Why don't you try listening to your children?"
Alternately, choose "Don't make me intervene in this.". When Ahlan says, "This will be resolved very shortly", your dialogue choice here does not matter. Later, when Rahasia tells her father she wants to with Shen forever, choose "You two should stay together no matter what."

Shen and Rahasia will run off together, and you will find them in the Jedi Enclave, while Ahlan and Nurik will remain angry at each other. You will be rewarded with Light Side points.

You would also get this outcome if you fail the Persuade check when you choose the [Persuade] option.

3. Breaking up Shen and Rahasia.

To get this ending, after Ahlan rants about him getting revenge:

Choose "Don't make me intervene in this." When Ahlan says, "This will be resolved very shortly." your dialogue choice here does not matter. Later, when Rahasia tells her father she wants to with Shen forever, choose either "I don't know if you can trust Rahasia, Shen." or "You may want to reconsider this." When Nurik yells "Get away from my daughter Matale!", choose "Turn away, Shen." Your dialogue choices following this do not matter.
Alternately, if you want to get Dark Side points from this outcome, choose "Why don't you just shoot each other and get it over with." When Ahlan says he wants Nurik "dead and rotting in the ground", choose "If you fight, you'll all be killed." and then choose "[Lie] Rahasia doesn't love you anyway." You need to pass a Medium difficulty Persuasion check for this [Lie] option to succeed.

Shen breaks up with Rahasia, and the two return to their own fathers.

4. Making the Sandrals and the Matales kill each other, result in the death of the fathers and the children.

To get this Dark Side ending, after Ahlan rants about him getting revenge, choose "Why don't you just shoot each other and get it over with." When Ahlan says he wants Nurik "dead and rotting in the ground", choose "The only way either of you will end this is with blood." When Ahlan yells about how can Shen disrespects his (Ahlan's) wishes, choose "[Lie] You know, Nurik, Ahlan actually did kill Casus." Interestingly, you do not need any Persuade skills to make this [Lie] option succeed.

After Nurik kills Shen, choose either "Are you going to let that one pass?" or "Wipe them all out." for more Dark Side points. After the fathers and their children are dead, you will fight the fathers' droids.

Redeeming Bastila Guide | Guides

2018-09-16T00:00:00Z

[This guide is also available on Google Docs]

Introduction

In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, towards the end of the game you will be provided the opportunity to determine which ending you will get, and there will be consequences of your choice there.

Specifically, on the Rakatan temple summit at the Unknown World, you will meet Basila, who at that point has fallen to the dark side. After some dialogue and you fought Bastila, Bastila will suggest you to reclaim the title of the Dark Lord of the Sith and rule the galaxy. If you choose to agree with Bastila's suggestion, you will get the dark side ending, with a lot of dark side points. However, if you choose to reject Bastila's suggestion, you will get the light side ending, with a lot of light side points.

If you choose the light side ending, you will face the fallen Bastila again in the Star Forge. Depending on your dialogue choices, you will either successfully convince Bastila to return to the light side, or you kill her if you fail to do so.

This guide will provide in-depth details on how the mechanics of redeeming Bastila on the Star Forge works, and which dialogue options will give you a better chance in successfully redeeming Bastila.

For this guide, I have used KotOR Tool, DLGEditor and DeNCS to investigate the relevant dialogue file and scripts.

The Mechanics of Redeeming Bastila

The game uses a point system to determine if you will succeed in redeeming Bastila based on the amount of points you earn throughout the conversations when you face Bastila on the Star Forge. Some dialogue options will earn you points to increase your chance in redeeming Bastila.

In general, to successfully convince Bastila to return to the light side, you need to choose dialogue options that say you believe that Bastila still has the light side in her, that she can be saved, tell her about the dangers of the dark side or remind her about the Jedi's teaching, and choose these options as much as possible.

In the final part of Bastila's dialogue, when Bastila says she is beyond saving, do not agree with her because it will make you kill her.

There will be [Persuade] options in the final part of Bastila's dialogue. While it is possible to save Bastila without choosing the [Persuade] options as long as you choose the right dialogue options, if you invest skill points in Persuade and pass the Persuade check, it would also be easier to save Bastila. If you want to learn more about the Persuade mechanic in KotOR, you can check out this page.

An active romance with Bastila will make it easier to save Bastila. Although in vanilla KotOR, only a male player character can romance Bastila, this mechanic also works for a female PC who romances Bastila with mods like JC's Romance Enhancement: Biromantic Bastila. That said, it is possible to redeem Bastila even if you do not romance her.

Dialogue Walkthrough

There are 4 phases in your conversation with Bastila in the Star Forge, as each phase will end with you and Bastila fight, and Bastila will initiate new dialogue each time you defeat her. There are dialogue options in each phase that will increase your points in your chance to save Bastila.

Below is a full walkthrough of the dialogue options that will maximize your points to successfully redeem Bastila.

Phase 1

Once you find Bastila in the Star Forge, Bastila will start the conversation by saying, "Revan - I knew you'd come for me." When you are provided with dialogue options:

Choose the "I'll never give up on you, Bastila. I know you can still be saved." option to gain 2 points.

Regardless of your dialogue choice here, you and Bastila will fight.

Phase 2

After you defeat Bastila for the first time, Bastila will initiate conversation again by saying, "I see now why Malak followed you...". After Bastila says, "You were a fool to give it all up and follow the light side.":

Choose either "I am as strong in the light as I ever was following the dark side." or "You've been consumed by the dark side, Bastila. Can't you see it's destroying you?" to gain 1 point.

If you choose either of the above options, Bastila will argue. When she says "Eventually there will be no limit to what I can accomplish with the Force!":

Choose "You will accomplish death and destruction with the dark side, nothing else." to gain 1 point. If you choose this option or "Malak will never let you become that powerful. He will kill you first." (Note: this option does not give you any points), Bastila will argue again, choose "You're dooming yourself to an endless cycle of death and betrayal." to gain 1 point.

You and Bastila will fight again.

Phase 3

After you defeat Bastila for the second time, Bastila will say, "You are growing weary, I can sense it!" After she says "... Soon this will all be over!":

Choose "Your emotions get the better of you, Bastila. Remember the Jedi code." to gain 1 point.
Alternately, choose "Then strike me down, Bastila. I won't defend myself." to gain 2 points. Any of the dialogue options following this will gain another 2 points. Specifically:
- "Remember what you once were, Bastila. A Jedi would never strike down a defenseless opponent."
- "You are not evil, Bastila. You will not strike down a defenseless opponent."
- If you romance Bastila, you have an additional option: "We meant something to each other, once. I don't believe you will strike me down."

You and Bastila will fight again.

Phase 4

After you defeat Bastila for the last time, and Bastila questions, "Why can't I defeat you?":

Choose "Now you see the dark side is not stronger than the light." to gain 1 point.

Later when Bastila says "End my life quickly. There is no other way.", choose "I could never kill you, Bastila." if you romance her, or "There's no need for me to kill you, Bastila." if you do not.

After Bastila says "You cannot let me live", choose "You can reject the dark side, Bastila. Return to the light." to gain 2 points.

When Bastila says, "I can no longer find peace in the Force":

Choose the [Persuade] option. The [Persuade] options are different depending on if you romance Bastila or not.
- If romanced, choose "[Persuade] Use our bond, then. Take your strength from me." Succeeding in this persuasion option requires an Easy Persuade check. If you pass the check, you will gain 2 points. Later, choose "[Persuade] I love you, Bastila. I can't abandon you, ever." Again, succeeding in this persuasion option requires an Easy Persuade check. If you pass the check, you will gain 5 points.
- If not romanced, choose "[Persuade] Turn to the Jedi code, Bastila. It can help you." This requires a Medium Persuade check. If you pass the check, you will gain 2 points. Later, choose "[Persuade] Look into your heart, Bastila, and you will find the light." Again, succeeding in this persuasion option requires a Medium Persuade check. If you pass the check, you will gain 3 points.
Alternately, if you are worried that you may fail the [Persuade] check, you can choose "I was redeemed, Bastila. You can be, too." to add 1 point. When Bastila responses with "I was supposed to protect you from the dark side", choose "You can't protect someone from the dark side. Each individual must choose their own path." to add 1 point, or if you romance her, choose "You did more than protect me, Bastila." to gain 1 point. Note that these dialogue options were also available after you choose the [Persuade] options, so if you want to gain the maximum amount of points, you may choose all these options.

If you want to redeem Bastila, eventually you need to choose "Help us defeat the Sith, Bastila. This will atone for what you have done." and then "I trust you enough to leave myself open to your attack, Bastila.".

If you have gained at least 10 points in total, Bastila will respond with "You are brave... and some would say foolish. But you are also right. The dark side has not wholly consumed me. I cannot raise my blade against you." If Bastila says this to you, congratulations! You have saved her!

From this point, regardless of your dialogue option, Bastila will stay behind and use her Battle Meditation to help the Republic, while you go to face Darth Malak alone.

Evidence of Juhani being a Lesbian from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic's Game Files | Articles

2017-07-15T00:00:00Z

(Note: This article was originally published on Tumblr)

The fact that Juhani from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is a canon lesbian character is a fairly common knowledge among LGBTQ+ fans of Star Wars. However, occasionally I still see people who do not know that the first KotOR game has the very first confirmed gay character in any Star Wars media, including the old Star Wars Expanded Universe; there are some other people who actually believe that Juhani is bisexual.

Therefore, as a lesbian and someone who has made mods for the Knights of the Old Republic games and written a detailed Juhani romance guide, I would like to present hard evidence from the game files to point out that Juhani is in fact a lesbian, a woman who is exclusively attracted to women.

The most crucial evidence comes from k_hjuh_dialog.dlg, Juhani’s main dialogue file which contains all the conversations covered in my Juhani Romance Guide. If you use the KotOR Tool to browse the game files, k_hjuh_dialog.dlg is under KotOR I > BIFs > templates.bif > Dialog. I recommend using DLGEditor to view the .dlg files from KotOR games.

Here is a screenshot of my DLGEditor with the most relevant part of the k_hjuh_dialog.dlg file:

(Click to view the image in its original size)

The highlighted dialogue shown in the screenshot (”I feel I must apologize for the way I acted towards you before, in the grove. It was wrong of me.”) is the beginning of your first personal conversation with Juhani after Juhani joins your party. Here is a video of the conversation in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzqfXoOvGrw

As shown in the screenshot above, once you begin this conversation, the script k_hjuh_p17 will fire, and this is the source of the script in question:

void main()
{
    int iGender = GetGender(GetPCSpeaker());
    if (iGender == GENDER_FEMALE)
    {
        SetGlobalBoolean("T_JUHANIROM", TRUE);
    }
}

(In KotOR Tool, you can see the source script k_hjuh_p17.nss under KotOR I > BIFs > scripts.bif > Script, Source)

As you may have guessed from the above script, k_hjuh_p17 sets the Global Boolean T_JUHANIROM to TRUE if, and ONLY IF, the player character is female. The T_JUHANIROM global is used by the game to check if Juhani’s romance is active or not. In other words, the game activates Juhani’s romance ONLY IF your player character is female, as soon as you start Juhani’s personal conversation after she joins your party. If your player character is male, Juhani’s romance will NOT be activated.

Here is the hard evidence from KotOR's game files that Juhani is a lesbian, a woman who is exclusively attracted to women. Juhani is NOT straight. Juhani is NOT bisexual.

The game used to have a bug that allowed male player characters to access Juhani’s romance, which is probably why some thought that Juhani is bisexual. However, the bug had been fixed in later patches. By fixing the bug, the game has made sure that ONLY a female player character can romance Juhani.

Even though the word “lesbian” or “gay” is never used in any of the KotOR games, it does not change the fact that Juhani is a woman character who can only be romanced by a woman player character, which means Juhani is gay, a lesbian.

In conclusion, Juhani is a canon lesbian character and has always been intended to be such.

I would also like to emphasise that I DO NOT support any mods that make Juhani a romance option for male characters under any circumstances, because such mods would be erasing the identity of the very first confirmed lesbian character in any Star Wars media. Not to mention, Juhani is the ONLY confirmed LGBTQ+ character in the entire KotOR series (Belaya from KotOR 1 and Luxa from KotOR 2 are heavily implied to be gay or bisexual, but their sexuality is never confirmed). Please respect LGBTQ+ representation and the identities of canon LGBTQ+ characters.

Juhani Romance Guide | Guides

2016-03-05T00:00:00Z

[This guide is also available on Google Docs]

Introduction

Since I could not find a solid and detailed guide for Juhani's romance anywhere, and many players (I used to be one of them as well) have troubles with triggering Juhani's final romance conversation, I have decided to write a guide myself. Even though there is very little content for Juhani's romance, if you want to experience the very first canon same-gender romance option in BioWare games first hand, this guide is for you.

For this guide, I have done a lot of research and investigation to find out the conditions required to trigger Juhani's conversations, including tons of web searching, using KotOR Tool to browse and examine the game files related to Juhani's conversations, as well as using KotOR SaveGame Editor (KSE) to compare my save files.

NOTE: Even if you use KotOR 1 Restoration (K1R) mod, the conditions to progress Juhani's romance remains the same as vanilla KotOR 1. However, I recommend using KOTOR 1 Community Patch (K1CP) instead of K1R due to the fact K1CP fixes more bugs than K1R does, including bugs related to Juhani.

Important Notes

First and foremost, since Juhani was written to be a lesbian, your player character must be female if you want to romance Juhani. The game activates Juhani's romance ONLY IF your player character is female.

As long as your player character is female, even if you romance Carth, Bastila (if you use mods that allow the female player character to romance Bastila, such as the Biromantic Bastila mod) or even both, you can still romance Juhani.

In order to advance your progress with Juhani's conversations, it is highly recommended to talk to Juhani and go through all her available conversations every time you level up. The progression with Juhani's conversations is tied in with the ability to level up, not just being at a certain level. Some Juhani's conversations will only be triggered after you gain 1 level after a previous conversation (see the Walkthrough section below for details). Given the limited level cap in KotOR 1 (the maximum level is 20), if you do not talk to Juhani often before you reach the level cap, it is very likely you will miss out on the chance to get her later conversations, including her final romance conversation.

You also need to complete Juhani's personal quest, "Threat From Xor", to make her final romance conversation available.

You need to be nice to Juhani during your conversations with her, because mean dialogue choices will set the global boolean T_JUHANIROM to 0, ending the romance, and apparently it is impossible to restart the romance afterwards.

Before you start a new KotOR playthrough, I highly recommend you to download and install the KOTOR 1 Community Patch, because the mod fixes many bugs with KotOR, including bugs that may block you from progressing Juhani's quest and conversations.

(WARNING: this guide contains spoilers for both Juhani's personal story and KotOR's main plot)

Walkthrough

There are two paths in Juhani's conversations: History and Personal. The History path explores Juhani's past and will lead to Juhani's personal quest "Threat from Xor", while the Personal path explores Juhani's relationship with the player character and will lead to Juhani's love confession if her romance is active.

You can check your progress with Juhani's conversations by using the KotOR SaveGame Editor (KSE). Once you launch KSE, and it successfully loads your KotOR save files, expand a save file, and look for Globals > Numerics, G_JUHANIH_STATE refers to the History path, while G_JUHANIP_STATE refers to the Personal path. The walkthrough below contains details on how to trigger all the conversations required to make the final romance conversation available, the global values in KSE, and links to YouTube videos for these conversations.

In addition, you can check if Juhani's romance is still active by using KSE: look for Globals > Booleans, and make sure T_JUHANIROM is set to 1.

History Conversation Path

History #1: This conversation is available once Juhani joins your party, which happens after you collect your first Star Map on Dantooine, and you're tasked by the Jedi Council to search for the Star Forge. You can ask Juhani how did she become a Jedi. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIH_STATE will be set to 1.

https://youtu.be/cmY7dQJH93Y

History #2: Available when you gain 1 level after History #1. Juhani talks about meeting the Jedi back in her homeworld. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIH_STATE will be set to 2.

https://youtu.be/4itTaqLKQPQ

History #3: Available when you gain 1 level after History #2. Juhani reveals that she was from Taris, and she expresses anger over the destruction of Taris. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIH_STATE will be set to 3.

https://youtu.be/Foj1nmouoIU

BUG WARNING: There is a bug that may block you from progressing Juhani's Personal Conversation path after you complete History #3, and thus preventing you from triggering Juhani's final romance conversation. See the "Personal Conversation Path" section below for more details about this bug. This bug is fixed by the KOTOR 1 Community Patch, which is a major reason I highly recommend this mod.

If you are unable to install mods for some reason, I would suggest that once you complete History #3, stop leveling up your character. Once you get your second Star Map (the Dantooine Star Map counts as the first Star Map), complete Personal #3 AND Personal #4 at once. After all that is done, you can now level up to trigger History #4.

History #4: Available when you gain 1 level after History #3. Juhani apologizes for her outburst over Taris' destruction, and recalls her life on Taris. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIH_STATE will be set to 4.

https://youtu.be/x8Q5bXWXwKU

History #5: Available when you gain 1 level after History #4. Juhani talks about how her parents and her ended up on Taris. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIH_STATE will be set to 5.

https://youtu.be/ZFzIbtScsus

History #6: Available when you gain 1 level after History #5. Juhani talks about her being sold into slavery after her parents died. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIH_STATE will be set to 6. This conversation will also make Juhani's personal quest, "Threat From Xor" available.

https://youtu.be/2GJW_mBVADs

"Threat From Xor" quest: This quest will be available after you have completed History #6, where Juhani talks about her being sold into slavery. Have Juhani in your party and walk around the spaceport on Tatooine, Kashyyyk, Manaan or Korriban. A character named Xor will approach Juhani and reveal that he was the slaver who attempted to buy Juhani on Taris before the latter was freed by the Jedi. Xor leaves, but he threatens to come back later.

The second encounter with Xor happens when you come back just outside the Ebon Hawk by using the Rapid Transit system. Xor will ambush you and Juhani. Once you defeat Xor, you can either let him die or encourage Juhani to kill him.

After you have dealt with Xor, if you have completed Personal #6 (detailed below), the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 10.

https://youtu.be/Px1JTr7vf9Q

BUG WARNING: There is an infamous bug with the Xor quest that once you trigger the quest, even after completing it, you will not be able to encounter any other messengers for your other party members' personal quests, and for Mika Dorin's premium shop on Korriban. The fix for this bug is included in the KOTOR 1 Community Patch and the KotOR 1 Restoration (K1R) mod.

Personal Conversation Path

Personal #1: Available once Juhani joins your party. She apologizes again for attacking you back on Dantooine. Once you begin this conversation, if — and ONLY IF — your player character is female, the global boolean T_JUHANIROM will be set to 1, which means Juhani's romance will become active. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 1.

https://youtu.be/jzqfXoOvGrw

Personal #2: Available after completing Personal #1. Juhani talks about Quatra and her fall to the dark side. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 2.

https://youtu.be/minhfrQhCQI

Personal #3: Available after completing Personal #2 and getting 2 Star Maps (including the Dantooine one). Juhani expresses gratitude to you for accepting her throughout your journey. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 3.

https://youtu.be/y_rM2l83HDo

Personal #4: Available once you complete History #3 and Personal #3. Juhani describes the life of being an alien on Taris is like hell. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 4.

https://youtu.be/BOq0fehoYkg

BUG WARNING: Personal #4 is by far the trickiest to trigger of all Juhani's conversations. There is a bug that once you complete History #3, if you level up even just once, History #4 will override Personal #4, making Personal #4 unavailable, and you will be unable to get the later conversations in the Personal Conversation path (except Personal #7 below), including the final romance conversation. In fact, I found that missing out Personal #4 was the reason I was unable to get Juhani's final romance conversation in my old playthrough. This bug is fixed by the KOTOR 1 Community Patch, which is a major reason I highly recommend this mod.

If you are unable to install mods for some reason, I would suggest that once you complete History #3, stop leveling up your character. Once you get your second Star Map (the Dantooine Star Map counts as the first Star Map), complete Personal #3, then immediately talk to Juhani again to check if Personal #4 is available. After you successfully trigger Personal #4 and complete the conversation, you can now level up your character to proceed to History #4 and beyond.

Personal #5: Available when you gain 1 level after Personal #4. Juhani asks about your past. After this conversation, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 6.

https://youtu.be/6tFlMgigkc0

Personal #6: Available after completing Personal #5 and getting 3 Star Maps (including the Dantooine one). Juhani comments on your alignment (light side, dark side or neutral). After this conversation, if you have completed the "Threat From Xor" quest, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 10; if you have not, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE will be set to 7.

https://youtu.be/O2t9qSNGzgQ

Personal #7: Available after completing the Leviathan level. Juhani comments on the reveal that the player character is Revan. This conversation is not required to trigger Juhani's final romance conversation, but I include it here because not only it is classified as part of the Personal conversation path by the game files, but also it is a very important element in Juhani and Revan's relationship.

https://youtu.be/vklWpPBF7mA

Personal #8: The final conversation, which is also Juhani's love confession, in order to make this final romance conversation available, you must meet ALL the following conditions:

You have completed Personal #6 and the "Threat From Xor" quest. If you use KotOR SaveGame Editor to check your progress, the global value of G_JUHANIP_STATE must be 10.
During the confrontation with Bastila at the Rakatan temple summit on the Unknown World, you must reject Bastila's suggestion to reclaim the title of Dark Lord of the Sith and rule the galaxy, which gives you the light side ending of the game. If you choose to agree with Bastila's suggestion, you will be forced to kill Juhani (and Jolee), which ends the romance, and you will get the dark side ending of the game.

Provided the above conditions have been met, the final romance conversation occurs after Bastila leaves the Rakatan temple summit. When you talk to Juhani, she will confess her feelings to you. If you have installed Kexikus' Juhani Romance Enhancement mod (see the Mod Recommendation section below for details), the conversation will be triggered automatically when you are leaving the temple summit, so you do not need to initiate the conversation yourself.

YouTube video for vanilla version:

https://youtu.be/WOcXeIqpBiQ

YouTube video for Juhani Romance Enhancement mod version:

https://youtu.be/oFQDmmRUx4E

Mod Recommendations

These mods are not required to complete Juhani's romance, but they add or enhance Juhani's content.

Juhani Romance Enhancement by Kexikus: Improves the final romance conversation with Juhani, including triggering the conversation automatically when you are about to leave the temple summit, instead of having to talk to Juhani yourself to initiate the conversation, provided you have met the conditions to make this conversation available (detailed in the Walkthrough section above), as well as adding a kiss between Juhani and the female player character.
KOTOR 1 Community Patch: Even though this bug fix mod is not specifically about Juhani, it fixes many bugs and issues related to Juhani's content, including:

Juhani wouldn't spawn in the post-Leviathan scene on the Ebon Hawk
If doing certain Juhani's conversations in the wrong order, it was possible to block any further progress in Juhani's Personal Conversation path, and prevent you from accessing Juhani's final romance conversation
No other messengers could appear once the "Threat From Xor" quest is started
The second Xor encounter was impossible to start if you first meet him and his goons without Juhani in your party
The second Xor encounter is unavailable on Tatooine
Xor is a Twi'lek, despite him being a human in the Xbox version of KotOR, and him openly making anti-alien comments (NOTE: This fix was originally done by my Human Xor Restoration mod. I have given permission to include my mod in this Community Patch)
Asking Juhani about the planet you were currently on was impossible due to a faulty global setting

Juhani Dialogue Restoration by Leilukin: My mod. Restores Juhani's conversations with the player that are unused or easy to miss in vanilla KotOR, including:

Asking Juhani about the planet you are on
Asking Juhani about why she is hostile towards Canderous
Juhani talking about the evils on Korriban

Human Xor Unique Look by Leilukin: My mod. Changes Xor's species from a Twi'lek to a human to fit his anti-alien nature and dialogue, with a unique appearance different from other human NPCs. This mod is listed on this guide because Xor is tied to Juhani's personal quest.
Party on the Leviathan! by Fair Strides: Restores Juhani's conversation, including romance conversation with a female player character, on the Leviathan, by spawning the rest of the Ebon Hawk crew on the Leviathan after you are rescued.

NOTE: I DO NOT support any mods that make Juhani a romance option for male characters under any circumstances. Read this article on why I firmly believe Juhani's romance should remain exclusive to female characters. In addition, I DO NOT support any mods that make Juhani look like a human.