ways_back_room | De: Truth? You can't handle the truth!

This is an interesting idea as I tend to play characters that have a lot of space for interpretation, which is where this seems to fall under. As its headcanon but headcanon that might not make sense to someone other than you.

I'd say a lot of Will falls under this definition, because my Will is a combination of many canons. Being a thief is something that comes up in a few different versions but his name isn't the same, his sweet tooth is a creation of mine while his temper tends to go through multiple takes.

With Charles, much of it comes into my interpretation of how he lives with his telepathy on a day-to-day level. Problems such as falling into someone else's dreams, how he hears thoughts as background, the ways he works to find his center. Some of them are implied through canon but not spelled out at least in the movie canon, my fics for him are the best examples of how I see him interacting with the world. Such as his choice to say that he doesn't say things he doesn't mean, which isn't the same as not lying but a key part of him. I'd also say that my interpretation of him as bisexual probably is out of canon though I think it fits.

A lot of Moist is out of canon as canon doesn't provide a great amount of detail for his life before his two books. Like with Charles, various things are implied and my interpretation of them is out of canon such as his personal history, how he works as a conman and his relationship style.

Sameth doesn't have as much out of canon as some of my others, most of it comes into again interpretation of what things mentioned in canon look like in action. The main one of these is how does his magic work as canon shows the end result but not how he gets there. Also his relationship with Nick and his parents, a lot is implied but how I and my canonmates have chosen to play it is out of canon.

Jane is probably the one of mine who is closest to canon as I haven't added a lot for her. Most of her out of canon stuff is interacting with Milliways.

Tumnus also doesn't have a lot though probably the big thing I did was deciding his memories and experiences of being a statue and what happened before that.

William is a mix as my choices come from canon, but I don't know how many of them would carry over to other people. A good example of this is my idea that he decided that he wanted to become a lawman after what happened to his father. This isn't a choice that everyone would make but it fits in my head.

Demeter's canon doesn't have a lot of stuff set in stone like Will's, so with her a lot of it is my choices in how to play her. My ideas of what she does during the Winter and specifics of her interaction with the modern world.

The Pirate King actually has almost no out of canon stuff, because he's such a strange almost one off character that I don't play him with the same depth I do the others.

I hope this all makes sense, its a different angle on characters and I'm not fully awake, so not sure how much sense I'm making.

I love what you've done with Sameth and his relationship with his parents. It's a lovely and logical extrapolation of what we're given in canon.

Thank you, it was one of the parts of canon that really made me want to play him because not enough was done.

Like that two-line, interrupted conversation between Orannis and Yrael and that unseen conversation between Yrael and Astarael made me want to play Mogget because not nearly enough was done?

Exactly, for me it was the stuff in his workshop with Ellimere, the meal in the Abhorsen's House and then the moment when he thought both his parents were gone. I think the last one actually had me saying aloud, that's it?

Yeaaaaaaah. The glimpses of the creation story for the Old Kingdom and the Charter had me all in a flail because there's not nearly enough. Apparently there were six other worlds that had the Charter, at one point? And the Old Kingdom is kind of an infringement on some other world that was already inhabited? NIX, YOU GOTTA GIVE US MORE TO GO ON.

Sneaking in with a note/question for you both, I guess: have you obtained the story "To Hold the Bridge," by Nix, and/or the "necromantic fragment?"

I have finally managed to get my hands on both, if you haven't and there's any interest. :)

(Yes, I am seeking to fill out all pieces of canon possible and especially the ones showing Charter training, why do you ask?)

I have not! Please send? :D:D:D:D:D?

"Fragment" in question is here, from the publisher's website: http://www.oldkingdom.com.au/gates.html

The story I will have to, er, 'translate' when I'm home with access to various computing devices - coming soon!

We do have a collection of Clariel-related tweets that sound somewhat promising. (Though when don't they? *eyes Robin McKinley re:Albion*)

"Re-reading ABHORSEN, it's interesting how much I've forgotten even though I made it up, and the hooks I subconsciously placed for CLARIEL" (Sept 6, 2012)
"Public event 10:30am tomorrow (Sat) at Edinburgh book festival. Hope to see you there. Bell charm giveaway, sneak preview of CLARIEL etc" (Aug. 17, 2012)
"Leichhardt Library at 5pm today. Might read a sneak peak of CLARIEL, give away a bell charm, summon a dead spirit...or 2 out of those 3" (April 16, 2012)
"I just reali[z]ed that I am working on four novels at the same time. Admittedly two are very much on the back-burner...CLARIEL is the main one, definitely at the front of the furiously-burning stove" (Feb 13, 2012)
"No pub date for CLARIEL yet, because I'm still writing it. All being well, sometime in 2013" (Jan 18, 2012)

Ahaha. I don't know whether to hope furiously or flee in terror.

FWIW, I found a note in his FAQs that said he has an outline/solid notes for a second Old Kingdom book (not CLARIEL, I don't think, based on what I've heard of it). This second book would be set 3 years after the events of "Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case" and would not focus on Sabriel, but would feature many other returning characters....

*headdesk*

Oh my, that's unhelpful. I mean new book would be good but still. He's not a well organized author.

I have decided I am just not going to worry about it. After having Guy Gavriel Kay write and publish a book featuring Kim and Dave (and introducing Meg!) twenty years after the Fionavar Tapestry was 'safely' complete, I am resigned to the fact that no canon is ever, ever truly closed. :)

If he DOES do it, I'll enjoy reading it! If he doesn't, I'll live with that too.

That sounds like a very good plan. I mean I know Sam's going to end up AU already as he'll be with Kait.

One of the books on my current to read list is Nix's newest book, Confusion of Princes as there's a copy in my library.

Oh and do we want to at some point set up a Sam and Nick conversation set sometime after the Karaoke incident? And what your thoughts on canon progression, anything I can do to help?

Edited 2012-10-01 15:12 (UTC)

Yes, Kait's not exactly in canon, is she? ;) I do love crossovers; they're always interesting.

And yes to a conversation, definitely. Not sure how to set it up - OOM post-Sam's talk with Ava, or?

Canon progression: what I need most is time. I have too many commitments, and not enough hours in the day. If you have a Time-Turner stashed anywhere, that would be the most useful thing of all. :) If I can think of anything else, though, I will definitely scream for help!

I would love a time turner, need more hours in the day so I can find a place and move while still doing my job.

Yes, I'd say post-Ava would probably work best as trying to make it earlier would get confusing quickly. Do we want it to be a planned conversation or accidental?

Good question - let me think about that and see if I can come up with a way to shoehorn a couple of things together?

In the meantime I now have to run to my 9:30 meeting; back tonight!

That's a fascinating fragment, I love getting to see Death and how everything works from the other side.

Isn't it, though?

Also, I direct you to my reply to Saph immediately above this one, re: the theoretical second/next Old Kingdom book after CLARIEL.

(I can't even. I cannot stop laughing, either way.)

No, I haven't, last I heard about the first one was from Saph. Please send my way.

Though I did read some of Nix's other works, the Master Hereward stories, which are odd. Another world and all but odd, its Nix going pulpy.

"Fragment" in question is here, from the publisher's website: http://www.oldkingdom.com.au/gates.html

The story I will have to, er, 'translate' when I'm home with access to various computing devices - coming soon!

Not so much Mia but with the world Lunar itself, the menu would be out of canon. Lunar food is not the same thing as Earth food and, to make that clearer, I've made some arbitrary choices on the foods Earth has but Lunar doesn't. Coconuts, for example.

For Lucas, it's the idea that being able to communicate with animals is part of his PSI. But if I didn't have that explanation, then I'd have no idea how all of these presumably normal animals are having conversations with my guy.

Lohengrin's part in Princess Tutu is so small that a TON of stuff would be considered out of canon. Perhaps the biggest being the story he's going through now, which is essentially a reworking of the opera Lohengrin. Also, absolutely no evidence that he has any sort of thing for Tutu. That just came about when I started comparing Elsa and Tutu.

Yrael:
1. has begun appearing in human-shape as he didn't in canon (it was suggested to him by the in-bar Kibeth, long ago)
2. has learned a number of instruments he doesn't know in canon (it makes sense because he and his kind are so closely tied to music)
3. loves exploring new worlds (which make sense because he'd been imprisoned for millenia and has inherited the innate curiosity of the shape he was imprisoned in)
4. has difficulty tasting sweet things (as cats do)
5. his voice can manipulate emotions and work magic (seriously, the voices of every single one of his kin can manipulate a specific life-related thing along those lines [sleeping, waking, movement, voice, thought, will, death, destruction], but Yrael's area of influence isn't defined in canon and emotion was pretty much the only thing left)

Sunshine:
1. is really good at not thinking about things she doesn't want to think about (this is pretty much an extension of her ability in canon to not follow facts to their meanings. Examples: A vampire-inflicted wound won't heal and she feels she's under attack and weakened by it, but she willfully doesn't go the extra step to let herself know that it's poisoned and slowly killing her. Her lover, Mel, has a whole hell of a lot more warding tattoos than is normal and doesn't talk about his past a lot, but she doesn't let herself wonder whether her boyfriend is secretly a sorcerer.)
2. doesn't like watermelon (early on in her visits to Milliways, I just threw this in. Everyone has something they don't like.)
3. is surprisingly good at chemistry (she mentions in canon that she hated learning things in high school that she'd never use - and baking is all about chemical reactions)
4. fears losing her day-job to her night-job, so to speak, and her day-self to her night-self (just a logical extension of the internal battle of sun-self, doe-self, tree-self and the dark-self from canon)

Zelgadiss:
1. would have an alcohol problem if he were currently human (it's not shown in the anime, but there are references in the light novels to him drinking himself into the gutter when he's in a particularly bad frame of mind - and with his heightened tolerance for alcohol, this would be a problem were he human.)
2. would likely eventually have been okay with the transformation if it hadn't also involved finding out that his transformation and all of his various, seemingly-heroic duties were part of Rezo's on-going and highly unethical research experimentation, inducing severe broken-pedestal-syndrome.

I never knew that the human transformation was so much of a Bar thing for Yrael. When I first read Abhorsen, I remember staring at the page when Yrael appears in his shape that's not cat or full on Bright Shiner and going, but that's not Yrael. I think the way you chose to do it makes a lot more sense.

There's that point bit in Sabriel where Terciel tells Sabriel that Mogget always appeared to him as a small albino child... then there's that scene in Abhorsen where he's like an albino old man/dwarf/something, while he's trying to catch up with Sameth and Lirael after having an unwilling conversation with Astarael...

But those never felt like him, to me, no matter how much I enjoyed making puns about Yrael being a white dwarf.

No, they really didn't. It felt like one of the parts of the story that Nix hadn't considered enough as he seems to do that. Luckily we have chances to fix what he doesn't give enough background to.

Anything whatsoever about Adrian Shephard other than "He's a Marine who was in the Hazardous Environment Combat Unit". I extrapolated his origins from reading the rather stilted few paragraphs that the OpFor instruction manual gave as being from his journal- I thought they sounded like the writing of someone who was intelligent but disliked school and writing, and then thought that it wouldn't be hard to see the character as having been from a historically poor area and having joined the Marines because it presented better employment prospects. His thing for nature and animals is lifted from my uncle Michael rather than from anything presented anywhere in canon, although there's an idle animation when he uses a particular living weapon that has him gently petting it to calm it down, so there's at least that much in the way of backing for him being okay with oogieboogies. But, yeah.

Gordon: His family. There's a photograph in his locker at the start of the game; it's of a baby. In the PS2 version of Half-Life the intro includes a scene of some Kleinerlike scientist saying Gordon is single and has no dependents, so I figured the baby probably belonged to a close relative, and spun out a niece and a brother and a set of parents from there. Also, Gordon's fondness for downhill mountain bike competition exists solely because I needed a reason for a theoretical physicist to have insanely good balance and ability to not fall off very narrow pathways, and not because of anything canonical.

Ellen: The chaplain thing is one of several possible Vault careers your character can test into at the start of the game and isn't necessarily canonical. However, it's based on the fact that the character's answers to the GOAT exam cause them to have a higher Barter score than anything else, so Ellen's talent for using the Bar to make money via water-for-guns and other trades is extrapolated from that. Her fondness for old comic books is non-canonical- all FO3 player characters get a Grognak the Barbarian comic book for their tenth birthday (it's a skill-raiser), but that's the only necessary canon interaction with comics for the PC. Her preference for bland food and dislike of sweets, particularly chocolate, is nothing to do with canon and purely extrapolation form her circumstances on my part.

So that's why Gordon likes downhill racing. I wondered about that.

New canon keeps on pounding this into the ground. Amascut's name is not cursed. There is something else preventing her from gaining followers in great numbers, but there are enough people who know her name to give her enough power to cause trouble. But what is preventing her gaining new followers? It can't be her lack of care for the lives of her followers, since she has followers despite that and there are gods who care even less and they have many more followers than her. There is something else, and I know her former followers cursed her with it, but I don't know what.

It an odd reversal of the usual trope that letting people know your name gives them power over you. I had to do something with it, and the curse lent a nice excuse to why she hadn't allied herself with the vampires or something. Its hard to ally yourself with someone whose mere psychic presence will knock you out of sky dead.

My Ben is much more comfortable with himself than typical depictions in the comics. After nearly four decades, it just makes sense for this. His temper is also much shorter in comics than I present. Cooking is something Ben has always been shown doing but his refined foody-ness is completely my own. He's also been shown singing a lot but I don't think it's ever spelled out that he has a good voice like he does in my head.

Thalia is another who's more of a hot head than I present. Her acrophobia is also never tied to her feelings with her father, that's my own thing.

Jessida Drew in comics doesn't have the memory issues I have in head canon. On page, she is pretty much over her past and has no lingering ill affects, aside from Viper showing up trying to convince her that she's her mother. I disagree with this as that much brainwashing is bound to leave scars. And it's not that she doesn't remember things, she just knows she can't trust those memories. I also can't see Jess with Hawkeye. Sorry.

In the movie Hank is awkward and shy but I doubt he was as sheltered as I've made him but given the time period and his advanced education, I think it makes sense. I also seem to disagree with other fans in regards to his continuing to love Raven post canon if Tumblr and other sources are any indication.

I haven't gotten very far with Palamedes but canon is pretty vague with him and to be honest, he is pretty two dimensional. He is shown as basically a kick ass fighter and tactician but not much else. In my head though and given he grew up in the cradle of civilization, I've decided he is very well educated and cultured.

Edited 2012-10-01 22:18 (UTC)

Heh heh Rabastan. What isn't out of canon with him? But then, canon didn't give me anything of real substance to work with, so there you go. So my Rabastan could be just as likely as any other [and I've played other Rabastans too]. I just tweeked what we do know to suit [IE the used to be a Death Eater thing].

Rad falls under the same lack of sufficient source material as Rabastan, but I think I've managed well under the circumstances. Anything that doesn't have to do with his role as scientist is pretty much out of canon [and some of the science stuff can at times be out of canon].

Strength and Wheel can't really be deemed out of canon seeing as they're anthropomorphic personifications of the tarot, unless you count that.

Matrix's various skills that turned out to be real world useful have their origins from his time spent as a Game sprite. You have two others depending on you as much as you do on them, so while we don't see him doing mundane stuff like cooking or tending to injuries while in the Games, we can be reasonably certain he did all that in off-screen moments. He's far more resourceful than canon would lead us to believe.

Everything about the Green Man except for him being a prophet, which has never come up in the game much, and him being a a nature god. Even the prophet thing is a theory--some people who study Green Man heads think that's what the leaves escaping their mouths means. It's based around this Celtic cult of the head that I'm a bit fuzzy on the details about, but prophecy was a big part of it.

Steve Rogers can sing purely because Chris Evans has a rather pleasant singing voice. He likes music because it's me playing him :). Though to be fair, the radio was such a big part of people's lives in his time, it'd be more difficult to explain why he didn't like music. (Radio programs, too, which I also enjoy.) For instance, my grandparents, who were of the same generation, would often sing snatches of standards and little folk tunes in the course of their day.

As for him liking men, I think there's enough evidence in the movie to justify him not being exclusively heterosexual. (If you get down to it, a good argument could be made for him being ace, but I'm not going to go there.)

My other characters, I think I need to play them more before I can figure out what's off-canon for them. Heh.

I'm lucky in that the writers of "Rescue Me" have provided so many tiny details about Tommy's life and personality that I don't really have to make stuff up. The only thing that may be out of canon is that I make him a lot nicer than he is on the show, though I would thank Milliways for instilling in him the don't be such a dick mantra.

Since Carol's canon spans multiple decades and dozens of writers, it has a habit of contradicting itself without my intervention. The biggest thing I can think of for her is her age. Because of the way comics timelines work, it's pretty much impossible to figure out how old she's meant to be in current canon. I've decided she's in her mid-late 30s, even though certain elements of her background make that implausible. (There's reasoning behind that, for the curious.) Otherwise, I think I try to play up her sense of humor more than some of her writers have. She sometimes comes across very SRS BSNS, and although Carol is incredibly competent, she's not a robot.

Mary is difficult since she's not very far into canon yet, so I can't think of any significant way I've diverged from canon. I've extrapolated that she likes to read, based on the fact that she comes across as obviously well read (she's been known to insult people by referencing Ovid) and the fact that she has exactly zero responsibilities in life and must fill her time some way when she's not making social calls. And she's generally less mean in Milliways than she is in canon, but this has a lot to do with who she's mean to (Edith, Matthew) and who she wears a polite mask in front of (almost anyone who isn't family).

Edited 2012-10-01 22:27 (UTC)

Out of canon?

Well, shit, for Voodoo, it'd be easier to list what is in canon. Namely:

- his physical appearance and operational history (at least in the '01-'02 period) is the same
- he has a Southie accent
- he has a tomahawk

Everything else? I extrapolated, either from the behavior of active-duty and retired military guys I know or from his behavior in canon.

I'm made up very little for John. He's actually fleshed out well enough that anything I *do* make up for him would have very little effect on him as a character.

As for Mako, I'll have to check with Bolinmun to make sure we're on the same page precanon-wise before I start making headcanons.

Ahahaha.

For Jack? A hell of a lot, as 24 wasn't exactly big on backstory. Most of Jack's reaction post-S6 is extrapolated or made up from what I can assume is going on with him in that time frame, considering canon skips 3 years at that point. There's also the fact that we maybe get about 45 minutes total footage over eight seasons of Jack when things are normal, so there's a lot I've had to kind of make up about how he relates to people, what his interests are, etc.

For example, he has a BA in English Lit and the couple times we see his apartment there are books around, so from there I can guess that he enjoys reading. As to what, exactly? That's totally made up (Tolkien nerd!).

I tend to stick to canon with all of my pups; the only major deviations for me involve inventing stuff for Dixie, because she only appears six times in canon.

Pretty much everything about Thor's ability to be diplomatic when his temper and other personal feelings aren't getting in the way is... well, I think it's an extrapolation of canon, but it's not something we see much of. We don't actually see much of anything about Asgardian society, nor what it usually means to be a prince there, nor how anybody spends an average day. I am millicanoning all over the place for that!

90% of Regan's personality, and all her interests and tastes and hobbies. She only has one scene in canon, and it's not all that long.

River is a born gunslinger. :D? No, there's a lot I've made up for River, but I'm having trouble sorting through all the examples... Oh, her food preferences are all totally Millicanon. That's a small thing, but it comes up a lot at Milliways.

Trowa's language skills. (Heck, the entire linguistic set-up of GW is basically group Millicanon; canon tells us next to nothing.) Many of his current habits and hobbies -- reading, monitoring the news, creating internet sock puppets. All of his likes and dislikes that aren't related to war and friends, really. Not that he expresses them much.

Clare: You know, I don't think I've come up with all that much for her, characterization-wise. It's more worldbuilding I've had to do on the fly.

Clem loves soap operas and celebrity gossip. Canon briefly touches on that but it feels like a very 'her' thing.

Dixie loves french chocolate - specifically French chocolate.

Pinkie tries to spend a half hour a day, every day, with each of the mane six ponies (which was semi-Jossed by Too Many Pinkie Pies).

Juliet is a fierce Scrabble player. Like, scary-fierce.

De: Truth? You can't handle the truth!

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