nb child returns, now in HD! seriously tho modded MELE looks like a whole other game. finally no more potato face

the fact that i called who the ascendant lord does about two quests into the high isle storyline and not because of clever foreshadowing but because the character was just that inoffensively ineffectual does not make this “twist” any better.

also seriously, can we find this shit out in ways that don’t involve Convenient Journals just lying around where we can find them?

obviously high isle’s/legacy of the bretons’ writing sucks in general, but i genuinely believe the story would be improved considerable by just cutting out arabelle. delete her whole character. it’s entirely telling and not showing, and i hate every second i have to listen to everyone and their mother extolling her virtues when she’s been constantly useless and downright incompetent while i do all the work.

and it’s not like it had to be like this! we’ve had plenty of supporting cast in the other storylines that still felt capable! despite the player technically doing everything!

so i finally got off my butt and started the firesong dlc mostly to get the tribute deck because i’ve been obsessed with that this last week and man dfghj

“the firesong attacked the wyrds to get a nature spirit!”

“i know, mate, i was there!”

I KNOW SO WHY IS THIS CONVERSATION WRITTEN SO WEIRDLY

A Queen and her Sword

to be honest, the biggest issue with eso’s writing, and one i really hope they finally address and get their heads out of their asses over, is how badly integrated the main character has become into the story ever since they switched to their chronological nightmare philosophy of “everything can happen at any time”.

compare how much more grounded the pc feels in the alliance stories and main story vs the xpacs, where it is becoming increasingly more egregious how you’re treated as just a random mercenary/adventurer/what have you because you might be doing stories out of (release) order... meanwhile you may have beaten molag bal in single combat, ruined the plans of the daedric triad and saved summerset and vvardenfell, stopped a dragon invasion as well as the gray host returned and beat back mehrunes dagon into oblivion twice. and that on top of everything you do in the alliance stories.

and then you get to high isle and... are once again Random Adventurer #1534, with lady arabelle saying you’re “on retainer” and pretending she hired you (???), like you aren’t an eye of the queen/the king’s arrow/emeric’s champion, and close friends with the alliance leaders, and very likely involving yourself with the situation for that reason.

this works if you are still Random Adventurer #1534 because in the utter confusion that is starting eso these days, you started with the peace talks instead of the alliance stories (despite anyone who does that being able to clearly tell that they played out of chronological order, no matter what zos says), but if you actually played the story in order? no amount of “hello my friend :)” or random side characters from side quests you may or may not have completely forgotten about will fix the vast sense of disconnect created by who you are supposed to be, and who you are treated as.

the alliance stories don’t do that. the alliance stories build up over each zone, creating an actual narrative, with your character at the center. the dc will even pull the main story into it with the repeated references to your soulless status. as a result, the alliance stories make for a much more cohesive and enjoyable story experience, despite the fact that i think the writing quality in some of the xpacs and dlc is vastly improved over the vanilla content. admittedly not high isle’s though, that one is a lost cause either way. at least ayrenn and emeric got fancy new looks???

the fact that at this point so many female npcs have the short imperial hairstyle and i still can’t give it to lanny is really just zos bullying me personally 😔

JARL WOOF I WOULD DIE FOR U

the funniest thing in a deeply sad way is that. the entire main conflict of the book is essentially the worst attempt to make a friend ever

jun wu: I'm so lonely :(

jun wu, after being both so triggered and so charmed by xie lian that he proceeds to ruin xl's entire life: we can be miserable together <3 it'll be great :)

and baby boy! i get it! who wouldn't be fucked up in your position. but this is... this is not how making friends works. this is the opposite of how making friends works. please stop screwing yourself over with bad life choices--

things that fuck me up about jun wu #3652467: the fact that mnq says that the wounds from jw repeatedly trying to cut off the curse marks were rotting

aside from the self harm that is cutting at his face in general, can you imagine how agonising it would be to have wounds on your face festering and rotting? and there's literally no reason for that. he's just... at a point where he's been in so much pain, he doesn't even bother dressing the cuts properly, because what's some more agony? what does it matter if he can't even process the pain properly any more?

"i can fix him" well i just want to hold him and give him little kisses and support him in living his best life it's not the same

olivier: sees giblets at that meeting at the redoubt camp olivier, ignoring everyone else: who’s a good boy! you are! yes, you are!! :D

finally catching up on eso’s story now that i can play again and the ravenwatch inquiry is so funny

gwendis: no!! i must secretly investigate my mentor!!! how could he keep these things from me!!! shalanwe: you know we can just go ask him, right. gwendis: nO!!! shalanwe: 🤨

@eso: can you please up the character limit per server already :( i would even pay you for slots!

the funniest thing is the council strong arming you with “no no, your strength with the force will totally catch malak’s eye and make him hunt you down. yes even though you’re untrained. he will definitely wanna kill you. because you’re that strong in the force. no other reason. not like we’re obviously keeping a big secret from you haha”

I mean... fair I guess? I think he’s a decent NPC, but obviously that’s not objective (and plenty of people like NPCs and their writing that I don’t. See: the entire royal family of Zakuul :D except kind of Vitiate because while he’s awful, at least he’s kind of fun as a villain, and I never thought he was more sueish than, say, Palpatine)

But yeah, the the main thing is: any canon version would have sucked, which is why i doubt they’ll try this again (and idk why? some people seem to worry the PC won’t be customizable in the remake? I guess it’s possible but as I said, that would make the remake devs supremely stupid for making that choice) and don’t really understand why the Revan Gender Wars seem to still be ongoing.

my two hot takes of the day: canon Revan isn’t actually a bad NPC and any canonized version of Revan would still suck

1. is the novel terrible and its only redeemable feature the fact that despite best efforts, Karpyshyn somehow wrote gay Revanderous fic? absolutely, yes. but despite the terrible setup handed to them, the SWTOR writers actually managed to do some interesting stuff with the character, from the identity issues to his complete breakdown on the foundry if you play light side, to the entirety of imp side SoR (which, for some reason, has the vastly superior scenes for him??). if you ignore the whole canonized PC thing he’s not worse than other major NPCs? i dare say he’s actually done better than some of the big players in KOTFE.

2. do you really think that if they’d canonized f!Revan, the writing would have been that different? do you really think the novel wouldn’t still try to go for the blandest cishet experience, possibly this time with weird shit regarding Revan popping out babies (or Bastila getting a new side character bf i guess, depending on whether they wanted Shan descendants or Revan descendants. hell, if they really wanted to piss people off… Bastila/Carth lmao)? honestly. unless you played the most basic supposedly cishet light side f!Revan, i highly doubt the canon/novel version would have been all that closer to what you actually played. would f!Revan have been neat in itself? sure. but considering that having a canonized version of your customizable PC that josses all your bazillion neat headcanons is always going to suck, i wouldn’t actually want mine to be closer to the canon version.

in conclusion: unless the remake devs are completely out of touch, of course they’re gonna do a customizable PC. anything else would alienate nearly the entire existing fanbase, including the dudebros, since a pure (SWTOR) canon game would mean they don’t have a DS path any more. and beyond that… does anyone really want a repeat of the canon fiasco? do you really think you’d be all that much happier with whatever character they’d write for it this time?

my two hot takes of the day: canon Revan isn’t actually a bad NPC and any canonized version of Revan would still suck

1. is the novel terrible and its only redeemable feature the fact that despite best efforts, Karpyshyn somehow wrote gay Revanderous fic? absolutely, yes. but despite the terrible setup handed to them, the SWTOR writers actually managed to do some interesting stuff with the character, from the identity issues to his complete breakdown on the foundry if you play light side, to the entirety of imp side SoR (which, for some reason, has the vastly superior scenes for him??). if you ignore the whole canonized PC thing he’s not worse than other major NPCs? i dare say he’s actually done better than some of the big players in KOTFE.

2. do you really think that if they’d canonized f!Revan, the writing would have been that different? do you really think the novel wouldn’t still try to go for the blandest cishet experience, possibly this time with weird shit regarding Revan popping out babies (or Bastila getting a new side character bf i guess, depending on whether they wanted Shan descendants or Revan descendants. hell, if they really wanted to piss people off... Bastila/Carth lmao)? honestly. unless you played the most basic supposedly cishet light side f!Revan, i highly doubt the canon/novel version would have been all that closer to what you actually played. would f!Revan have been neat in itself? sure. but considering that having a canonized version of your customizable PC that josses all your bazillion neat headcanons is always going to suck, i wouldn’t actually want mine to be closer to the canon version.

in conclusion: unless the remake devs are completely out of touch, of course they’re gonna do a customizable PC. anything else would alienate nearly the entire existing fanbase, including the dudebros, since a pure (SWTOR) canon game would mean they don’t have a DS path any more. and beyond that... does anyone really want a repeat of the canon fiasco? do you really think you’d be all that much happier with whatever character they’d write for it this time?