ways_back_room | DE: Maaaybe not

There are one or two I've wanted to play but I'm not as smart as they are and I didn't think I could do them justice, but in terms of logistics-of-Milliways, only Caleb from Buffy.

It just proved impossible to work out how he wouldn't continually be trying to get young women alone and stab them to death. Or how he might be able to do that and stay playable.

Ciaphas Cain, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM. Canon is Warhammer 40k, specifically the Sandy Mitchell novels about Cain. Because as awesome as the character is, the 40k setting is not one that lends itself well to blending with beings from every kind of possible reality. Also, Comissar Cain would need Jurgen with him, and Jurgen is not only such a psychic blank that major artifacts stop working in his presence, but he's the filthiest, smelliest solder in the Imperium of Man- an Imperium of trillions.

Constable Kazuki Fuse, of Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade. Canons change when their characters interact with the Bar, and Fuse's canon is such a magnificent mess that it could not be made any better by Milliways trying to change it without having to rewrite the entire world.

Edited 2015-06-25 13:04 (UTC)

Tara Chace from Queen and Country Just - nope, not gonna talk about work. Nope, not gonna pretend to be anything she isn't. Nope, not gonna volunteer for missions because why the fuck would she?

The weirdness of Milliways can just fuck the fuck off. The thing that makes Tara awesome is the way she reacts to canon. Take her out of canon, and she's not interested in anyone else's.

Joel, The Last of Us. It's not like it'd be impossible? But so much of the world is built around isolation, overall resource scarcity, and a "dog eat dog" mentality that it'd be difficult to reconcile it with a Bar at the end of the universe where there's unlimited resources and you can bring whatever friends you feel like with you to your world to kill shit. And Joel is a little too world-weary for my tastes.

Tyler Durden, Fight Club. He's more of a philosophical construct than an actual character. Besides, once you bring him in, what do you do? Gross people out with tales of turning human fat into soap? Beat people up?

John Cooper/Ben Sherman, Southland. Eh. That's all I have to say.

As some of you might recall, I played Sideshow Bob. To this day, I can channel his voice at the slightest provocation, and tell you exactly what he is thinking. But he is a stagnant figure, incapable of change or growth that endures, hostage to the endless mediocrity that is The Simpsons circa 2015 and to the rule that none on that show save perhaps Ned Flander could ever change.

So I dropped him and occasionally post him into the sandboxes or reply to something in his voice.

I was also tempted to play one of a few pre-Flashpoint Batman characters - Alfred, Jim Gordon, The Riddler during that all too short private eye phase. But that corner of the DCU seemed way too fraught.

George Bailey, aka the Mighty Dragon, from the Ex-Heroes series. A D-List, Superman clone who breathes fire, he was one of the many new meta-humans at the dawn of a super hero age in his world until the zombie apocalypse hit. Now he fights to protect the last refuge of humanity in LA. Lots of fun potential, great pathos and character development, zombie killing OOMs to tempt Milliways patrons with, but ultimately I realized having Milliways as a resource imbalances the canon; as being hopelessly surrounded and out numbered by the ex-humans, as well as extremely limited resources are a big part of the story. Rebuilding out of the disaster is central to the plot and having access to Milliways just seemed like having a cheat code.

Big Barda. I still think bar needs a Big Barda but I am unfamiliar enough with her canon, and the New Gods in general, that I let go of the idea.

Edited 2015-06-25 14:44 (UTC)

Much like

camwyn above, I've considered several Warhammer characters. Commissar-Colonel Ibram Gaunt of the Tanith First-and-Only (also known as "Gaunt's Ghosts") is fairly moderate sort of political officer. He doesn't believe in many of the traditional punishments meted out by commissars of the Imperium (shooting soldiers for cowardice, lashings, and other equally draconian and fascistic tactics). However, as she mentions above, the Imperium of Man is not one for accepting diversity. Gaunt has allied with alien races against greater enemies, but they are still enemies. He wouldn't take the accepting atmosphere in Milliways very well.

Similarly, the main characters of the Trollslayer series, Gotrek Gurnisson and Felix Jaeger, would probably do equally poorly. Felix himself would likely be okay, but Gotrek is a psychotic dwarf engaged in a form of ritual suicide that requires that he keep trying to get himself killed by going against bigger and bigger opponents. And he keeps failing in that endeavor and surviving. He's violent, he's a drunk, and he's crazier than a pitbull stuck in a spin dryer. Add the artifact of the gods he calls a battleaxe, and he's a recipe for pure mayhem. And Felix, being a sworn dwarf-friend and Gotrek's partner would be dragged along for the ride. So, no, no Warhammer Slayers today.

Edited 2015-06-25 16:37 (UTC)

Three possible pups I just can't play. There are others I've tried in sandboxes or what have you, but I just can't make these ones go in Milliways.

1) Marc C. Duquesne, Ph.D. Arena-verse. Marc is the product of what happens when you let people build a space station and populate it with fictional characters in virtual worlds.
Short answer, if enough of them are super-geniuses, they take over from inside, arrange a crossover and then it all goes to hell.
And that was two generations ago. (Marc's aging... slowly. Let's say slowly, yes.)
So fifty years ago he saw basically everyone who was ever popular in entertainment killed as a space station made of lies and illusion blew up and he's been living in a post scarcity interplanetary society ever since.
Coming to the Bar would be hella awkward. Not the least of which is that Marc knows more about your setting than I do. All of them.
(Dead friends, dead friends everywhere.)
Also, FTL for his setting is weird and might cause door issues. There are precursor races possibly (probably?) involved.

2)Taylor Hebert Worm I can't rewrite the canon the way that Milliways demands, and I can't set it after the story. Everything is too carefully balanced and I can't bear to read the whole thing from start to finish.
Also canon is super long and I'm trying to get out of the fandom.
...That would probably go better if I actually abandoned the fanfics I have in progress officially instead of just on a defacto basis. Ah well.

3) Anyone living from the 163X-verse. If they get to go home, history changes, again, and it changes so much. If they can get their hands on things from higher tech setting then it gets even worse.
Nope, nope, nope. Not opening that can of worms.
Taking them out and never putting them back is just as bad on a meta level.
Dead people are a maybe but I don't know who I'd take. And I don't know enough about the period. So.
EDIT: There's a geologist who stays in the 20th century in the prolog. He could be played. I don't know what you'd do with him, but he could be played.

Now, ones that I just can't manage myself but should be perfectly doable?
Kyon Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya needs a Haruhi or equivalent source of chaos. Dude really wants to be a straight man. Without that, nothing.

Dr. Jerry Lukacs Pyramid-verse Knows way more myths than me. Way, way more. Can't manage him where there are mythical characters active, sorry. Not even with wikis open in every other tab.

Actually, lets be honest, there are lots of pups that would know things about other pups that I don't, and wouldn't know where to start looking. Ugh. Hard science focused education - sometimes you are surprisingly awkward to deal with.

Edited (Realizations and poor gramar) 2015-06-25 18:55 (UTC)

Mary Russell from The Beekeeper's Apprentice and sundry sequels. Cranky incisively intelligent young woman from the 1910s and 20s, and Sherlock Holmes's apprentice! But she's formidably well-informed in areas I am not and have no desire to research in sufficient depth, and more to the point they're areas like philosophy and theology that would absolutely come up constantly if she were flung into Milliways.

Spock would totally work at Milliways; I just would need to watch all the episodes (and movies) of Star Trek TOS instead of a random scattering. More to the point, though, every time I've considered it I've decided I had too many characters and too many of them were already deadpan stoics with extra-deadpan snark.

I'd kind of love to play a Raksura, and add to the Really Truly Nonhuman contingent of the bar. But the canon has a large cast and really detailed worldbuilding, and I'd have to read the whole series several more times to really feel I had my head wrapped around it all.

I feel like there's at least one other that I ended up rejecting for the resource reasons others have mentioned: some canons just have scarce resources or limited options as a fundamental part of the world or plot, and access to Milliways even occasionally would unbalance the plot or the character arc too much. But I can't remember which character(s) and canon(s) I was considering.

I'd kind of love to play a Raksura,

How have I never seen this series before?!?! This looks amazing, thank you. = ]

Ooooh. Enjoy! It's one of those series that I'd been hearing sort of quietly recced in the background for years before I got around to reading it. I really enjoyed it. There are also a few novellas set in the same world that I haven't read yet.

Looks like the trilogy is on Audible, as well as two collections of short stories. = ]

I'm six or so months from retiring Kirk and NOW you tell me you wanted to play Spock?

Ha, sorry! No, if I'd ever really seriously considered it, I would've talked to you (and now Ro) for sure. But I always bounced off feeling like he'd be redundant with the rest of my roster and like I wouldn't play him enough to do justice to the character, not to mention the canon catch-up issue. Maybe we can sandbox a thread sometime, though, if you like?

A sandbox thread after I retire Kirk and want to play him younger could be fun.

Sounds like a (vague, tentative) plan! :)

So. Say someone was an old, old mways mun who hasn't played in ages and say said mun might be interested in coming back. Is there a chat still going that mun might be able to join?

There is! It's currently at crackinthewall.

Thank you! Oh, and to stay on topic, BBC Moriarty. He'd work for plot specific purposes, but not as a regular everyday character.

And let me add a hopeful welcome back! =)

We have a Moriarty, played by Write.

Write would probably be the exception, so awesome!

I once thought about bringing in a pre-violation Ariana Dumbledore, but dropped the idea when I realized that doing an end run around her part in canon would be just too much of a B-rated fairytale, at least the way I'd initially imagined it.

Very occasionally imagined playing Geordi LaForge, but that'd just be too close to home in some ways. Waaaaay far distant in most others, mind. :)

It's less "wouldn't work with Milliways" and more "isn't one fictionalized historical figure from a relatively obscure canon enough, do you read or watch anything else."

The Stanley Parable Narrator. (I made him a journal! Which I have never used.) He just wouldn't have much to DO in the Bar, because almost by definition it's a place our pups come to for downtime and put their canons on hold. I don't actually have any idea what the Narrator would do on a day off, aside from making revisions to his story. I think the Stanley Parable and things pertaining to it are what he does to entertain himself. I've seen other Narrators at other DWRP communities, but they were much plottier places.

That, and he's a disembodied voice who has no reason to be able to manipulate the Bar's environment like he does with the set of his own game, so the main indication that he's even there would be the sarcastic comments from nowhere. Also the fourth-wall-breaking would be a pain in the ass. These wouldn't be insurmountable on their own, just tricky, but they make the problem worse.

Someone suggested doing the Narrator as a plot rather than a regular patron, which seems perfectly workable except for the part where the idea of running a plot makes me panic a bit just thinking about it.

(I was toying with the idea of apping Jack Skellington, but then Char apped him and did a way better job of it than I would. Especially with the filking.)

DE: Maaaybe not

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