DE: Let me tell you a story

[bjornwilde]

gavin62truck  askes:
I'm looking for a few ideas on how to push my pups through canon -- so, how do YOU do it?

Do you prefer to write out OOMs or simply make references in EPs/threads? In OOMs, how much of your canon do you use -- do you elaborate using actual quotes/passages/scenes, or do you just summarize everything that's happened? Any other methods?

So how about it Milliways?

Comments

[ceitfianna]

It depends a lot on the pup and their canon for me. Some pups I purposefully bring in after canon so I don't have to worry about it.

Will's canon is mainly my interpretation of Robin Hood canon, which gives me a lot of space for OOMs, threaded OOMs with other characters and references.

Charles' canon is moving slowly but mainly what's being threaded are scenes that fill in canon as canon implied a lot of things. This is a case of having an amazing cast which allows for chances to do these moments that could have happened but weren't seen in canon. That's my favorite part of movie canons, those missing moments which add more depth.

Moist isn't up to canon and won't be for a while as I still haven't figured out how I'm doing his canon.

For Jane, I've done a mix of missing moments OOMs, fairly close to canon OOMs and just referencing things in EPs.

Tumnus was one of the first characters I properly took through canon, so that was more tightly hewed to canon than later ones.

Sameth at one point was mainly OOMs of going through canon but then life got in the way and I used the Allpocalypse to push him through the end. That was a great idea and gave me more space to poke around.

I brought William in after the end of his canon, which provides more space to play in the world. Also his canon takes place over a week and the other characters from the same canon are from after.

The Pirate King's canon is odd so I don't even try and be linear with him. I'm reminded that I'm overdue on canon stuff with Jane.

One reason I love bringing in characters who are actually in their canons to Bar is the chance to add in missing moments and flesh out and fix some canons. I'd much rather do moments around major canon moments than do canon scene by scene as that can get boring and tiring really quickly. Yet taking the time to say, well it seems like something should have happened before or after that scene, let's try threading that. Or writing an OOM that provides a different point of view on a canon scene.

[camwyn]

I have a preference for OOMs, preferably with as much canon quoting/scenage as possible, but occasionally if I get stuck I just go with references in Bar. Also if it would be funnier I just bring my pup in from canon and have them reference it, so the readers can fill in the blanks themselves.

[kd7sov]

Mostly I prefer to OOM stuff. Which is one reason during-canon!Felix has been stuck out of the bar for so long; this OOM is being a bit of a beast to write. But there are a couple of scenes that I particularly want to play with.

For the most part, I can just use straight canon dialogue and narrate the action, although Felix has some implied scenes and my characterization of some NPCs has gone a bit differently than what's technically in the canon.

[bcgphoenix]

I use a mix of references in EP/threads and writing out canon OOMs; the latter always contain actual quotes and scenes, with occasional glossing over or summarizing of the less important bits. It depends on just how much of an impact the canon events would have on a particular character.

Examples! I've been OOMing the crap out of Fringe lately, because the events of Olivia's arc from the end of S2 to the middle of S3 have an enormous impact on her. Just summarizing it or referencing it in an EP wouldn't have been enough to convey everything. On the other hand, while pushing her through "monster of the week" episodes that don't add a huge amount to either the show's mytharc or her own personal arc, I've just gone with referencing them in threads/EPs. She's a busy lady who gets a lot of cases in Fringe Division -- I don't want to write out every single one of them in painstaking detail.

[bjornwilde]

I tend to go with a mix of things when deciding what to write or share about my pups canon. Is it a moment sharing great characterization? Is it a great moment of character development? If either of those are yes, I really want to write a fully detailed OOM.

If it's just stuff that happens, then I'm fine with bringing the detail up in bar during a thread or mentioning it in an EP.

My time is another consideration, as is how inspired I am. I've had great ideas for lengthy OOMs (especially for Val), but not had the energy or time to write them out. If I am enamored of the idea then I will try and wait out the doldrums, but if too much time passes, I'll just make an EP and hope I can work in the ideas in thread.

With all the comic pups I have, and have had, I also tend to get event fatigue (thank you Marvel) not to mention having to figure out timelines. When your pup shows up in multiple titles, decided what happened when is a challenge. Then there's times when writers have my pups do things I consider wildly out of character and coming up with reasons why they did what they did.

ETA: I also tend to reuse dialog, when I have it, and situations but thoughts and such I write myself. This is largely due to my seeming preference for supporting characters whom rarely get the whole spot light.

[genarti]

I tend to write out OOMs -- which may be part of the reason a lot of my characters are post-canon. If I don't think I'll have fun working them through those OOMs, I tend to pick them up after it's a moot point. I do write OOMs sometimes for post-canon events, but I'm less likely to, and I tend to feel more free to handwave all the offscreen events in between the fun bits.

Of course, I also tend to have long gaps in OOMs, because I'm distractable and inclined to procrastinate... Which is why if I do play a mid-canon character, I often try to make sure any canonmates don't feel tied to my schedule. Nothing makes RP stressful like feeling held back by other muns or obligated to whack out OOMs you don't have the time/energy/brain for.

Whether I write out long reworkings with actual passages from canon depends on a) how interested I am in that character's detailed POV of those events, and b) how interested I am in that plot-arc, and c) how easy it is to write, and d) how comprehensible the result is. (I'm writing for people who may not have seen canon, after all. People who know canon already know how all this goes down, whether or not they've thought as deeply about one particular character's perspective as I have; people who don't know canon need to find an OOM interesting, fun, and comprehensible no matter how many NPCs and how much canon jargon there is. A lot of times, I end up summarizing partly to cut down on the onscreen NPCs and irrelevantly confusing detail.) Also e) how compact or sprawling the canon is.

So Thor is getting a lot of detail, and a lot of dialogue-quoting, as I work him through the two or three busy days of his canon, because it's two or three busy days and because there's a lot going on in his head and his emotions as all this happens. Whereas with Clare, I skip over a lot of the regular slog of her wandering around hunting monsters, searching for monsters, being confused by humans, etc, and I just focus on the parts that have interesting (to me) stuff going on in her head. There's a lot of action in the parts I skip, sometimes, but it's not important to Clare. She just sees it as "another day, another sword fight." (And whenever I get to late canon when the cast has gotten huge, there will be a ton I skip because Clare isn't even there to see it go down.)

All of that said, if an OOM keeps feeling like pulling teeth to write, I'll eventually either give up and summarize it, or give up and skip the character forward with a mention or summary in the EP.

[cameoflage]

The thought of writing an OOM frightens me. I figure sooner or later I'll have to do it though. I like OOMs, insofar as I like reading other people's, but the thought of writing one is very daunting. Probably because I have zero fanfic background. The last time I wrote a fanfic was in grade five, when I wrote an interview with Count Olaf for a school project.

Generally what I do is drop a lot of references to canon events, at varying levels of sense-making-sans-context, while threading. I even do this with references to the RP world from whence they came when I'm playing my OCs, despite the fact that there's basically no chance that anyone I thread them with actually has any clue what I'm talking about. I figure it makes my threads more lively and interesting.

My default method of propelling a character through canon is basically writing EPs where they have obviously just come from a canon situation, and threading them as having experienced/being aware of whatever was between their last such EP and their most recent one. This is seeing a lot more use with Dr Thurlow in the sandboxes than with Aradia in the Bar, because I am trying to keep Thurlow roughly synchronized with my own progress through Fallen London, whereas Aradia is on hold.

[gavin62truck]

Probably because I have zero fanfic background.

This, for me too! I tend to think of all the OOMs I write as a form of fanfic. And since joining Milliways, I've never written so much fanfic in my entire life.

[sdelmonte]

In my ideal world, I still have the time and energy for OOMs. But of late, I tend to rely on EPs and hope I can avoid info dumps.

[silveraspen]

For me, it depends a good deal on who else has active characters from a canon around. I subscribe to the belief that no one should feel required to lockstep their characters through canon on the same timeframe, but I am not averse to matching up with others from the same canon if/when there's interest.

Depending on the canon, others' interest, and my/everyone's available time, I have used a variety of ways. In general, I'm fond of OOMs to cover major canonical points that I'm interested in highlighting, whether those OOMs are ficstyle, threaded, or a combination of both (e.g. BSG key OOMs with narrative stories in each comment). Lesser points/events I tend to handle by EP context or in-thread references.

I've also been known to wander blithely through GIANT plots including crossover canons and a good deal of organization-- specific past examples involve Captain Jack Sparrow (POTC 1.5, 2, and 3: plot tags for each exist in the bar) and the Firefly/Dark Tower Academyplot.

[newredshoes]

I'm having some back and forth about this with Hotspur, actually. The version of the Henriad I'm going off of is The Hollow Crown, and though he appears in the text of Richard II (which I'm going to take him through early next year, I think), he was cut from THC. This actually changes a lot about how he relates to Henry IV and Prince Hal in Henry IV Part 1; in R2, he doesn't recognize Henry Bolingbroke because he's never met him, and he's sent on errands to fetch Hal from a tavern and let him know his father's won a big victory. But to have him so unfamiliar with a family like the Dukes of Lancaster just doesn't make sense to me!

So... that's not entirely answering the prompt. But I think, at least with R2, there will be a mixture of OOMs and threads (depending on what sort of NPCs or pups, hi gang, there will be available), and they're probably going to deviate from canon more than not.

[minkhollow]

Claudia's had a range of all three.

Back when she had canonmates, we wrote out as much as possible, but that eventually got unnecessarily cat-herdy, and she's currently the only one with a canon presence. Since then, I've referenced events when I'm too lazy to write them up, written out things that are important (the Saga of Todd, for one, and one of the things I'm keeping from "Buried" when I get around to sorting out the HG Wells Conundrum) and gone ahead with that hodgepodge. It works and it's a lot less stressful.

She's also had a lot of gap-filling OOMery - see also the glop of backstry OOMs before Leesha and I even hit a canon play-through - and the sum total of "Where and When" was a missing scene influenced by previous Conversations With Dead People.

(I also write up her Milliweird case reports because it's an entertaining perspective. I need to do one on Slendyplot, doubly so since she's worried about keeping him a meme on her side of the door.)

[mnt_raph]

This only really affects two of my roster, that'd being Bumi and Aang, as the others aren't really canon beholden to much of anyone at this point.

I'm taking all of my canon cues from the other LoK muns, which is honestly how I prefer to game. I'm a reactionary player, and so having someone else give me guidelines makes things so much easier for me.

So if you're wondering why Bumi keeps introducing himself to most people as Chong, that's why. Because I'm trying my hardest to play him without mucking up the canon timeline for the people who wouldn't know him yet.

I'll be moving him through canon using a mixture of OOMs with people who might know him already back home, but mostly I imagine it'll be with references in EPs.

Aang is a whole different animal. I would love to say that there'd be OOMs, but I honestly don't see that happening unless I can find a new cast of AtLA players. So his progression through canon will be him jumping from Spirit World endpoint to Spirit World end point in EP's and tags.

Like...at the moment? He's in the bar from the Spirit world the end of Book One: Water.

[adiva_calandia]

It varies! The thorniest question for me is always which scenes from canon to do if I do OOMs, and that comes down to: 1. Does this scene change the character's arc/personality/story drastically? and 2. Would the character's time at Milliways change how this scene goes down? Because if not, I may as well just encourage people to buy/consume the original canon, yeah?

I gotta say, though, the best thing ever is convincing other people to play a character from the canon so you can thread out stuff. Just for the OOMs! Really! It's totally not a ploy to get people to app characters AT ALL.

... On which note, anyone out there read Patricia C. Wrede's Mairelon the Magician? >.>

(Over in the sandboxes, when I played through The Dark Knight with Bryce and friends, I also used a couple YouTube clips of the chase scene with the Joker because I didn't feel like dealing with writing out the logistics of that thing, and that portion of the scene wasn't significantly changed.)

[minkhollow]

I've read it! But nowhere near recently enough to help you with that.
But that's a huge part of why I haven't apped Rebecca yet. It just wouldn't be as much fun without Jack.

[aberration]

It sort of depends on the character - basically, my brain has 'arc' characters and 'for fun' characters. With the 'arc' ones, OOMs and playing them through canon is part of what attracts me to the character in the first place. With Elle, for instance, I put a lot of work into planning out how she'd go through canon - and then, how I was going to twist her off in to AU. The OOMs became necessary when I went off into AU (well, sometimes they were for fun, but I did feel like I had to establish what was happening to a greater degree than mentioning it in an EP or the like), but even before that, OOMs helped me keep track of where she was and what she was doing, and because she wasn't the lead character, helped me portray canon events from her perspective.

I'm having a similar time with Asami at the moment, especially as she doesn't appear in canon until the fourth episode, but also as she's not the lead character, I think it helps for me in writing her to establish canon from her perspective, and keep track of where she is and what her mental state is. (For me, at least, sometimes I need to actually play/write something out in order to firmly get grasp on the character's response to/feelings on it.) As for Manny, he is the lead character, but I... still want to do OOMs with him, especially as his canon is made up of four days across four years. (Though I could also, you know, actually play him.)

As for how much canon - I try to pick what I think are important points to get what I need to across. Sometimes this is easy because the character only pops up every so often, but sometimes I just go with what I think will communicate the most but won't require me to elaborate on everything that happens. I also like to include info in EPs, but as followups to what I've written in OOMs. I like to be able to link back (sometimes literally) to link back among comments/EPs/OOMs etc so that they form a nice narrative arc. At least in my head.

(I also personally like reading canon OOMs, even if I know the canon, because it helps me as a player in having a reference for how the character/mun viewed the canon events.)

Marceline and Leslie I don't plan to write a lot of OOMs for. Leslie's canon is never too... dramatic, exactly, and I think of her as more of a play-for-fun character, so I'm not feeling as much need to chart her canon progress out so meticulously. (Also, she's the lead character, which may be why I don't feel much need to build on the show itself.) As for Marceline, there's one thing I'm thinking I will OOM whenever I get to it, but other than that, I'd prefer to treat her canon as a little fluid rather than getting bogged down too much in details, so if she's been doing things in Ooo, I can just drop it in to narrative/conversation.

[bjornwilde]

Seconding the 'arc' vs "for fun' characters, except I've been surprised by 'fun' characters wanting their own arcs!

[misslucyjane]

It depends: on my quantities of time and energy, on canonmates' availability and willingness, and quite often on how breaky said event is. Like if it's something major that will having lasting repercussions, I'd rather OOM it either in thread or in a fic-style entry. If it's just something funny or interesting, I'm fine with referring to it in an EP or in a thread.

(For example, Steve. Getting the serum, rescuing Bucky: OOMs. Doing the USO tour and shooting some propaganda films: mentioned in EPs and in threads.)

[psyched_you_out]

If I do an EP that's directly canon related, I'll generally give as much info necessary in the actual post. Otherwise I tend to either play out OOMs in general if there are other canonmates around, or write a general summary if they aren't.

I try to generally summarize canon from the character's perspective in OOMs when I do them, rather than a straight-up recap, because there are other places on the web for those.

[arrin]

Normally, OOMs are the bane of my existence, but I've found over the years that I enjoy writing them more if I have canonmates to bounce ideas and snippets off of, not to mention all out helping me along if I get stuck.

Other that that, referencing things in EPs work too, if you have a mass of canon to work through, but no real ideas on how to work them into an OOM. I took Thirteen through two years of her canon with a handwave, and the help of the Allpocolypse, not only for the sheer amount of it that there was to work through alone, but because there was a bunch of it I was gong to ignore anyway. So, voila, she hadn't been in Bar for two years, and I've ended her canon (and the canon has ended itself in the meantime).

I hope that helps?

[inlovewithwords]

Mostly I have found doing OOMs of scenes in directly in canon uninteresting/unhelpful. (TV shows can sometimes be an exception, where it is possible to explore thoughts and motivations not spelled out in dialogue.) Doing OOMs--threaded or not--of scenes not shown in canon, though... mmmm, yum.

For Lois I've just had references to when she's coming in from for any given post, or in the thread if she is bringing someone up to speed. I need to update her.

For Tavi, I have thus far avoided bringing him into the Bar during one of the canon crises. There is an OOM I want to do--swear I will do it this december, okay--before I just start skipping him forward a little more. Alera has two-year time jumps between each book until four-to-five, though, so there are some really great scenes to fill in. I'll probably go back and fill in some I haven't done yet. I have a lot of fun with those. There is one exception to this rule: I am rewriting--or rethreading, if I've got anyone around--the book four assault on the Grey Tower. It is a terrible escort mission, and Tavi would know better. I am Fixing it.

[ask_the_right_questions]

I am doing lots of pre-canon ooms for Jack, and for Max (when I get round to writing his). It's stuff that's referenced in canon, but never spelled out. Like, we know where and when a certain mission took place, and the long term result, but no more. Or, we just get a single reference to an evidently major trap system that Max and Jack go through.
I look forward to much self-threading in their future...

Erik, I've been doing his thought processes reactions to canon, as best I can, while also trying to fill in small gaps (like cases where we cut to a scene in media res), and doing my best not to just go over things word for word.

Alfred hasn't had many ooms yet. He's currently seated in a nice gap in canon, so in theory, I could do what I like. Although, I'll probably be bouncing off canon mate(s?) for threaded ooms at their point in canon as well.

And Bean. Who is sort of annoying, because his canon is written from his PoV, (Well, the later books are). And those first few scenes are so so so so so crucial to later stuff... Once I've actually done these first few, I'll be happy to skate over some stuff.

TL;DR: I love, love, love bouncing off canon mates, and book canons can be annoying, if you can't work out which bits to skate over more loosely.

[alexiscartwheel]

For Mary it's been a mix so far. Some things I've referenced in EPs or threads, some I've done in OOMs. Of the OOMs I've done, most have been either reactions to canon scenes or happened in between bits of canon. (Downton Abbey has a habit of jumping forward several months at a commercial break, which is irritating when you're trying to tease out consistent character development. The one scene I did straight out of canon with dialog was probably the hardest to write.

For Carol, I haven't really addressed where she is precisely in canon. I've referred vaguely in EPs to her doing some avenging, but nothing specific.

[bbq_platypus]

I tend to favor OOM's to get my pups through canon, though Jim's has kinda stalled at the moment (to put it lightly). There are some limits and exceptions, though.

Borgel, for instance, comes in post-canon, so this isn't an issue.

Leela's been getting something of a mix - I posted an OOM for her joining the Doctor in the TARDIS and may do a couple of others, but I'm not going to be doing an OOM for every single story she was in. I've referenced The Robots of Death and The Talons of Weng-Chiang in-bar.

With Kane, the only thing I've posted doesn't explicitly appear in canon, but it's something I imagine must have happened. (As well as the whole Overworld OOM thingy).

Oddly enough, I've been using EPs as opposed to OOMs to refer to Atrus's canon. I hadn't thought about it, but I suppose that's because most of the action in the Myst games occurs from the Stranger's perspective (which is to say, the PC's perspective).

[hey35andholding]

Well, some of my OOMs involve my characters visiting other worlds, at what point no canon at all is involved. I love expanding on stuff in prose!

I prefer doing alternate canon or embellishing missing scenes to acting out everything from canon word for word.

[afullmargin]

I'll echo a lot of above and also say that the fandom makes a big difference too.

Like Penny's canon I'm moving along mostly through interaction with other characters in Milliways; like her entrance came after a major season 1 moment where I only gave minimal information (from her perspective) what happened and then all of it sort of came tumbling out in the threads. She's easiest for me to do with more of a "this just happened" touch.

Gus & Henry, for me, are a combination of "missing scenes" (particularly Henry) and after the fact OOM and In-Bar stuff. Like with the recent developments with Tao of Gus, Henry had a major OOM thread with Karen that directly related to his actions in the episode and made clear what happened from his POV (and hers). Gus had an after-the-fact OOM that details what happened to him and an EP.

With Michael as the main showrunner I have a lot of canon to deal with. Some of it leaks into his EPs, but the major stuff I think I'm going to keep doing as a detailed OOM like I did with the last major episode. I didn't do so much a summary as a blow by blow of the scenes with some significant dialogue from the show that also had some moments altered to be compliant with Millicanon.