And I feel really dumb that I didn't realize who you were on Twitter until just now. :-P

I'm still in the process of asking him questions about Quinn and my most recent ones that I haven't heard back from him on yet are "Why did Baras single out Quinn to 'save'? Why did he stick him on Balmorra...and what was he doing there all that time?". I get the feeling that there was more going on than Quinn just cooling his heels for 10 years. I also think there was quite a bit more interaction between Quinn and Baras during the SW story than what we are shown. We don't know what was said or done by Baras to ensure Quinn stayed loyal. He might have had something over him. There might have been way more to the whole Balmorra thing than just saving him then leaving him there for the next 10 years. You also have to keep in mind that the story had to be written for every possibility from romancing him to treating him like dirt. Neil did give me the impression that the conversation was very different back during beta when you had the option to kill him and it made more sense than what they had to change it last-minute to. So I think a bit of head-canon is required in order to fill in the background blanks for each individual character to justify why it happened. I'm kind of weird, I guess, in that all this is really giving me a needed kick in the pants to keep writing my fanfic even though my head-canon didn't line up with his story in some ways. I'm having fun doing the mental gymnastics to try to reconcile and integrate both into my story. I'm glad that I hadn't started writing the betrayal yet...even though I'd already had how it was going to go down with my head-canon in my mind...because now I'm thinking of so many more possibilities of how to handle it knowing what I do now.

Yup! I brought up my theory that perhaps it could have been Ravage....since he was over the Sphere of Diplomacy and Expansion, as well as an ally of Baras' and he said that had pretty good potential as well.

This is pretty close to how I wrote my fanfic so far. Where Baras notices the warrior's fascination with Quinn (and Quinn's admiration of her) and decides to use that. Baras is quite obviously used to using the people that someone cares about against them. So, having the warrior fall for Quinn, then being able to use that against her by having Quinn be the one to stick the dagger in (innuendo not implied...maybe) when the time comes, would be the ultimate way to break her spirit in his eyes. (Similar to the way Draahg really butters her up with praise before trying to kill her) And I interpreted Quinn's reluctance to get involved with her as a mix of military training, plus the knowledge that if he got too involved with her, his usefulness to Baras would be at an end since he wouldn't be able to be objective about her or betray her when needed (not to mention, Baras would be able to use that against him, if need be). And that worked to Baras' advantage because it strung her along enough to fascinate her even more.The more he pushed her away, the more she wanted him.

He wrote PeeBee's story on ME:A and was a "Senior writer" on ME3. That's as much as I could find as far as video games. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2104232/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1 EDIT: Here's his actual resume on LinkedIn which goes into more detail: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/neil-pollner-82447a5

And I know a few people were curious about the "Who was FimmRess' master on the Dark Council?" question, so here's his answer to that.

I was the same way. Every time I played, he ended up dying until I looked at the conversation on TORCommunity and I saw the options where you could let him live and try to turn him. So, I ended up doing that on Hyperia. I would have loved to have had him as a companion.

Yeah, I asked the question because I'm planning on a branch-off story following him and what his thoughts/experiences are after his encounter with my warrior. I also planned on having him join her at some point in the future (probably after the vanilla story is done). My preliminary thought was that he ended up in Korriban eventually and started training as a SIth. When Hyperia arrives to face Baras, she encounters him and takes him on as her second apprentice after she defeats Baras. Hyperia tends to skirt the line between dark and light herself since she was a Jedi initiate before being "rescued" by the SIth during the fall of the Jedi Temple.

Okay....my last question to Neil wasn't about Quinn, but Zylixx (the Jedi on Jaesa's ship that you can try to turn to the Dark) because well...I liked him! (I think he would've made a good flirt option to actually "seduce" to the dark side.) But, anyway....I asked what might have happened to him afterwards if the warrior tried to turn him and he gave some interesting insight into his outlook on the Force as well as answering the question:

Yeah, I had figured that what he said was the case. I decided to try a different path for my story, but I haven't gotten to the betrayal yet in it, so now I'm pondering how things might change knowing what I do now. I was at kind of a crossroads where I was debating between continuing on with my head-canon or veering it more towards what I thought canon might be (and actually turned out to be).So yeah....it's given me lots to think on. And no, he hasn't mentioned it yet. I fired off a couple of non-Quinn questions to him this morning (but mentioned the thread again), but haven't heard back yet.

Yeah, it's kind of similar with the whole Theron betrayal in that...

Oh, don't worry....I've already let him know that there's an army of Quinn fans hanging on his every word over here!

Yes...sorry....the whole spoiler thing is a direct quote from him. Let me edit to clarify.

Very good point! (And if you don't mind the spoiler, thankfully, that is not the case!) I know, once I read his response, I started worrying because my head-canon of my story doesn't line up with it....but I knew that was definitely a possibility. Thankfully, it's not the extreme opposite....and I can still kind of reconcile myself with it even though it doesn't mesh with what I've already written. Now I'm starting to try to figure out how to blend the two, since I have yet to write the betrayal. I understand....I admit that this is all giving me a sense of anticipation/dread to see how much of it I might have gotten right or wrong in my own "fill in the blanks". I may or may not alter things in my own story, depending on his answers. Or, at some point, I might start a new one, based more on the new information....just to see how it plays out. It just depends on how much his vision diverges from mine.

Yes.....because I don't think either of us wanted to try to type everything out in Twitter's 140-character limit. I know I would've gone insane. And...here we go. Had to leave out a little at the beginning at his request, but gave me the impression that the whole betrayal scenario/conversation that was changed had made more sense with the "kill" option that got taken out.... (Everything in the spoiler tag is C&P straight from his message to me, so it's straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.)

I had a really hard time sleeping last night because I was anticipating his answer plus trying to think of more questions. The first thing I did this morning was run to Twitter to find his response in my DMs. Now I've got really mixed feelings over it, but still incredibly excited that he took the time to write out a very detailed answer (I was prepared for the possibility of just getting a few sentences just to appease the crazy fangirl)....and looking forward to more! It sucks being in different time zones because I keep checking Twitter, but I know he's probably sleeping now.

Okay guys....I got a response. It's long...and probably not what we were hoping for (certainly not my head-canon anyway). I'm waiting to get his permission to post it here. (I know...the anticipation is palpable!) If nothing else, I'll summarize the gist of it. And I'm totally feeling you, Lammia...especially considering how much work you put into your own Quinn-clan. I'm going to put what he says behind spoiler tags so you (and anyone else who doesn't want to know) don't have to see it if you don't want to. I'm kind of the opposite when I write my stories in that I want to stay as faithful as I can to the original writer's vision while adding my own touches to fill things out a bit and tailor them to my character. So while this first bit really blows what I've already written out of the water, I'm still enjoying having the insight of Quinn's creator so I can learn all I can about the character himself. I'm also planning on asking him some non-Quinn related questions about the SW story as well. Just because they were things that popped up while I was writing....like who is FimmRess' "master on the Dark Council"? Was there ever plans to do more with Draagh between first meeting and his betrayal? And how much fun was it to write DS Jaesa as the Sithy-est Sith Who Ever Sith-ed?

And so it begins... https://snag.gy/WN9h5C.jpg

Yeah, my main question is going to be "Was it a true betrayal for a romanced SW or was he coerced/forced somehow?". But holy crap...I had a million questions back when I first posted that because I was neck-deep in writing my fanfic. now I'm like "Oh crap...what was I going to ask again?!"

OMG....I'm DYING ever here! https://snag.gy/1WtYvq.jpg Tagged Neil Pollner (the writer of the SW story) on Twitter awhile back, just absently musing that I'd love to pick his brain about the SW story and some of the things that didn't get included....and he replied back! Oh gods...what do I ask?!? *Major flailing ensues*

Yeah, I have been running through KotFE with my Hyperia clone lately. Went to pick him up on his Alliance Alert and EVERY.SINGLE.conversation option you have with him, he takes the same jab at Quinn. Since they give no option to force-choke the crap out of him, I just turned around and left him to his miserable desk job.

I ended up with a couple of sets of the Midnight Racer armor and it is apparently so fugly, you can't give it away on the GTN, so I slapped it on Pierce just to free up inventory space and as punishment for all his jabs against Quinn.

It's my birthday too! No worries though...plenty of other games to play and things to do to occupy the time.

If anyone's still reading this...chapter 33 is now up!

I would honestly pay good money for a "Director's Cut" of KotFE/ET that included everything that got cut from the original. Heck, it wouldn't even have to be playable...just include the cutscenes (since they tell at least 75% of the story in those expansions anyway).