(no subject)

[the_shaper]

Hi. I'm Sweeney (agonistes). I've been around a while. After the move to Dreamwidth, Dream of the Endless was open on the cast list, and I apped Dream in the July cycle.

I'm making this post for two reasons: the first is that newer players may not be aware of the particular scope of the Endless in general, and this Endless in particular, within Milliways. The second reason is that Dream has a pretty significant prior history in the bar that still affects some currently active characters.

As for the first reason --

We've all read the FAQ for the game, but I want to draw your attention to this paragraph about the Endless. As this says, Dream is a character with a LOT of power in Milliways, and I intend to tread lightly. I'm not likely to tag out much with Dream unless specifically requested, and any big change to your character is going to happen after OOC discussion and agreement between both of us.

(I'm about to enter the second year of a two-year graduate program, and I thus need to maximize what time for pretendy funtime games I will have. I also want to prevent misunderstandings about what Dream is and what he does, whether IC or OOC, as drama is both unpleasant and a massive timesuck. That's why I'm underscoring that I will be erring on the side of caution when it comes to OOC communication -- good and frequent communication is in everybody's best interest.)

Dream will be able to recognize your character (and will often take on an appearance that your character would expect to see -- see Dream's profile for more about that), but Dream is not omniscient.

You do not need to run any in-game dream your character has, in or out of the bar, past me -- Dream is a function, not an autocrat, and people have normal dreams all the time. That's why Dream exists.

If you're not familiar with The Sandman, Wikipedia is a good place to start -- try the articles on the Endless and The Sandman.

And since we've come to the part about story, might as well talk about the second reason I'm making this post, which is established narrative.

I can think of several characters, and more players, who were around when Dream made appearances in the bar more frequently, so here is a quick rundown of things that are going to change, and what I would like from you.

As of Halloween 2007, the Milliways Dreaming ceased to exist. At the time, Morpheus was the aspect of Dream -- Dream has aspects, which Neil Gaiman describes in the last book of The Sandman as "points of view," but can also be thought of as personalities who occupy or inhabit the function of Dream of the Endless -- within Milliways, and Morpheus was dead. The Dreaming within Milliways was not synonymous with the Dreaming inhabited by Dream of the Endless -- they were two separate realms so that Morpheus could exist within Milliways, and so that Daniel (the aspect of Dream after Morpheus) could exist outside of Milliways. Therefore, the Dreaming at Milliways bore a resemblance to the outside-Milliways Dreaming -- but the Dreaming that retreated is not the Dreaming of The Sandman canon.

However -- because it would severely mess with the development of at least a few characters (and also because canonically it doesn't really make sense), the One Universe Over rule is a little… weird, with Dream of the Endless. (Mods have seen this post, for the record.) Basically, Morpheus in Milliways was dead; the Morpheus (and Daniel, and whoever) I'll be playing is very much alive. But, since back in the day Morpheus and Daniel were aware of the other's existence in game terms, in ways that affect characters that are still active, alive Morpheus (or One Universe Over Morpheus) is going to remember certain things about dead Morpheus's experiences. (There's wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey canonical justification I'm happy to get into if requested.) That said, if there are players who would prefer that old game history be elided over with the under-new-management Dream, I'm more than happy to handwave that.

What will happen, game-wise, is this: knowing at least something of dead Morpheus's adventures in Milliways, alive Morpheus reconnects the Dreaming to Milliways -- the same one from Sandman canon, no mini-Dreaming specifically for Milliways -- and Dream, in whatever aspect, shows up in the bar. Because the Dreaming is reconnected, plot things can happen as desired with dreams, dreamwalking, the Dreaming, etc. Everybody likes plot things! Just please for the love of pete contact me to let me know what you're up to, if it involves the Dreaming.

(And for those of us who still have our I SURVIVED NYARLATHOTEP t-shirts -- Nyarlathotep will not be returning to the bar as an active aspect of Dream of the Endless. What happened prior to the Allpocalypse will still remain part of game canon, and if your character needs or wants to bring that up, that's fine, but I will not be playing Nyarlathotep.)

What I need from y'all:

If you're a player whose character had prior history with Dream of the Endless, and if you want to carry over any aspect of their prior relationship with/to Morpheus, I would like a rundown of what that looked like. Links will make me love you forever, if you've got them. Please let me know below.

If you're a player whose character had prior history with Dream of the Endless but would rather this iteration of Dream simply ignore it, please let me know below.

If you'd rather not have your character or characters interact with Dream of the Endless, please also let me know below. I'm not out to ruin anybody's pretendy funtime games. I want your characters to remain playable and I want you to do what you want with your characters. It will not hurt my feelings at all if you'd rather not have your characters interact with Dream -- I just want to know that so I don't step on your toes by accident.

And if you have questions or concerns, please let me know below (or email at my mun journal at gmail, if you'd rather have a more private communication channel) -- again, clear communication in advance of play is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Comments

[silveraspen]

For your ease of tracking, etc. - we've discussed all the key details, especially with regard to Moiraine and all the background there, and it's all sorted, I think!

And I do very much look forward to seeing Dream in the bar (again). :)

[the_shaper]

I think it's all sorted, yes! :D Hurray!

[always_the_moon]

There's no official Millicanon between Dream and Princess Luna, for obvious reasons, but I kind of suspect their paths have crossed before...

[the_shaper]

Okay! MLP is not a canon I'm familiar with, so if you're wanting to establish something, I'll need a little bit more to go on.

[golden_lyre]

Soooo...just curious about how you feel about the possibility of this guy tagging into any Dream posts. Could be interesting, or could be breaky, and I figured I'd ask first rather than simply throwing him at you. :)

[the_shaper]

Ahahahahaha.

Hm. Counterquestion: does your Orpheus explicitly share the same backstory? As in -- is he really the son of Morpheus, Dream of the Endless, or is his father someone else, whether Morpheus or no? I'm fine either way, but it's definitely likely to influence my answer.

(Basically -- if your Orpheus is not the son of Dream of the Endless, I think it could be really interesting to have them talk. If he is the son of Dream... then we'd have to tread lightly, but I'm very tentatively up for it.)

[batyatoon]

Ahahahaha YES PLEASE :D :D :D

Morpheus was instrumental in Andrew's beginning to mature as a human being at Milliways. After that experience (which tbh was KINDA TRAUMATIC, THANKS, DREAM), the two became rather close, with a mutual fondness. Morpheus confirmed that Andrew is one of his, and Andrew very much appreciates the claim.

List of links available here! I think that was everything.

[the_shaper]

Excellent! :D We will talk about this a little bit offline, but thank you for the links, and I am excited!

[basic_powers]

Tyler may have..canonically run into a fragment of Morpheus. Actually, has had classes with is much closer to the truth.

We don't know why Shaper decided to look like a child-version of Mr. Gaiman.

[the_shaper]

...huh. Okay, I'll need to take a closer look at that (I'm not familiar with Tyler's canon at all), but that's definitely something I'm willing to work with if you'd like!

[a1enzo]

No idea if threading will or won't happen, but I must say that I have always thought Dream would translate very well into sprite form. He's got the hair for it.

[the_shaper]

Hair is a start!

[sky_child]

I've got a few questions about the Dreaming, since I didn't really use it/pay attention to its old iteration way back when.

Is the Dreaming a general assortment of people's dreams/imaginations, or would it reflect the dreams/imaginations of the people in Milliways--at least the part that's connected to Milliways? And can anything get out of the Dreaming?

I ask only because Link is currently having prophetic nightmares about, well. This.

[the_shaper]

The Dreaming is the realm of Dream -- for lack of a better analogy, his estate, kind of like Downton Abbey except with less Maggie Smith and more LSD. There are different parts of the estate that do different things and that are for different purposes, but it all belongs to Dream. While some of it does reflect thoughts and stories and dreams that individuals have had or have shared, generally it takes deliberate effort on the part of Dream of the Endless to bring anything into being in the Dreaming. When things have gotten out of the Dreaming, it's because Dream hasn't been paying attention for one reason or another.

Prophecy is generally the realm of Destiny, rather than Dream, so I'm not sure that using the Dreaming for canon plot would be the best idea in this particular case.

[mogget_cat]

(Dear lord... I still occasionally catch myself checking for white-text, and have a folder full of the awesome and disturbing poetry I was introduced to during the Nyarlathotep madness.)

So happy to see we'll have a Dream again! Morpheus was pretty instrumental in getting the Mogget to go back to the Old Kingdom, keep his word, and do what he had to do to save the world, even though Mogget didn't want to. Dream gave him hope for his eventual freedom, which turned out to be what Mogget needed in order to see it through. They were never truly *close* friends after Yrael returned to the bar, but Yrael always had a lot of respect for Dream and held him in high regard. Distant friends, I would say.

[the_shaper]

You are not the only one who still checks for whitetext! :D

If you're cool with maintaining that backstory, then so am I!

[thekidfrombrooklyn]

This makes me so happy I squeaked.

I'm looking forward to a pup or two of mine meeting Morpheus.

[the_shaper]

Yay! :D

And omg, me too!

[mjolnir_retriever]

I can't think of anyone I have deeply important Dream-related backstory with, since Will's retired anyway!

River met him a few times -- I have them memories here, although I don't guarantee there weren't any threads. And Roland brought her into the Dreaming a couple of times, as I'm sure you recall! Anyway, River took comfort in the Dreaming (and, relatedly but separately, has sometimes taken comfort in dreams), but she and Dream had mutual friends plus general distant friendliness rather than being especially close themselves, IIRC. I don't see any reason to retcon any of this, but I'm happy to talk it over if you want to!

I think all of my others post-date having an active Dream in the bar. *too lazy to switch logins anyway*

[the_shaper]

Hm. I will browse through, re. River!

But I have a question for you, re. Thor. :D Thor appears in Sandman -- or a Thor, rather. My assumption is that it's a sort of different-versions-of-similar-characters thing, not least because of the Marvel-DC divide, but I will leave that up to you!

[minkhollow]

None of my current crop were around for the Dream days, but: :D
If you have questions/comments about any of 'em (Cata, Sam, Claudia, Apollo, Imp, Regulus, Red/Ruby), fire away!

[the_shaper]

If there's anything you want me to know about them, let me know!

[the_huntsman]

The only one I have (right now *cough*) is this fella here, who is most definitely post-Morpheus plotty things.

He'd likely be intrigued by Dream. And probably angry, considering he has recurring dreams of his dead wife and wakes up sobbing and reaching for her on a regular basis.

So yes. If you fancy an angry man with an axe asking why he's being tortured like that, let me know. *waggles eyebrows*

[the_shaper]

Okay! At some point in the nebulously near future, there will be an entrance post or two, and he's certainly welcome to tag in!

[varadia]

Raven and Dream had a history involving Nyarlathotep that I would like to keep, insofar as Nyarla shoved Raven's missing memories -- all of them -- down his throat. So Raven went sane and strange for a bit, and then decided to be crazy again, but he's a little more stable. I do not know how to have done that without the memory-shoving. Most of the links are in Raven's LJ memories, which I will find for you after work.

And aside from that, past interactions had Raven being like 'homg you so hilarious', much as he is with all the Endless.

(And a side-note, with Destiny-mun three turns removed from me, we'd established that Raven is not in the book, and I have kept that through all the ownership-swapping. That is a thing Dream might know.)

[the_shaper]

Yay, prior history! And I'm definitely cool with having Dream know that Raven isn't in the book if you are. :D

[kd7sov]

I am... pretty sure none of mine have interacted with Dream in the past, certainly not in their current iterations. Though it's possible the previous Felix and the previous Dream had a brief thread that I've forgotten about.

But. I'm thinking of doing a plot involving a vision quest, which would be kicked off by a dream-message from a dead girlfriend; would it be appropriate/feasible/a really good idea to have Dream involved in some aspect of that?

[the_shaper]

If that's something you'd like Dream to be involved in, it's definitely feasible! As for whether or not it's appropriate or a really good idea, I think you're in a better position to determine that than I am, as I'm not familiar with Felix's canon. Strange things happen in dreams whether or not Dream takes a personal hand, or a more active position, in how and when they come to pass. It could go either way.

It would certainly be reasonable or feasible for Felix to consult Dream in an in-bar thread about the dream; without knowing more about Felix's canon, that's about as much as I can definitely say about it.

[inlovewithwords]

I was not around for Dream being in before, so: yay, Dream! *all the squeefulness*

Um, as far as any of my characters go, I'd love interactions with Dream in general. I seem to recall that Dream has something of an affinity for/familiarity with people who make particularly powerful stories with their lives (Prez springs to mind), the kinds who make legends. I don't know if this would be relevant for a notably Arthurian-archetype-based character, if Dream would recognize that as a particular resonance of a kind of story or something.

There's two I will be bringing in Real Soon Now who might have interesting-ness in dealing with him, but those'll keep.

[the_shaper]

I think that is likely to depend on the character in question, to be honest -- Prez Rickard is definitely a good example of that, though. As far as Arthurian archetypes, I'm inclined to say that it's context-dependent. In Sandman, Morpheus tends to respond to characters based on their own circumstances (for example, compare and contrast Thor upthread versus the Thor in Season of Mists) rather than their ubiquity in different iterations of legend.

Prez is a good example of that, too -- there's only one world (that we know of) where Boss Smiley runs the show, and while Prez himself hits a lot of archetypal elements that go into the mythology of the United States (the JFK stuff, the white-hat cowboy stuff, reappearing and disappearing like Elvis, etc.), Morpheus still responds to Prez based on Prez's own individual needs and circumstances. The way I interpret that story, it seems likely that Morpheus kept an eye on him (and thus found him interesting) for quite some time to get Death to intervene with Boss Smiley -- but keeping an eye on him was all, while Prez was living.

...I have no idea how much sense any of that makes. Hopefully some! I look forward to threading with you!

[the_lioness]

Since Alanna has been reset there is no need to carry over any history, but I am excited to thread with him/you. :)

[the_shaper]

Likewise! :D

[mnt_raph]

I would find links to these things, but they were all made before things were responsibly tagged...and I am lazy.

So like, ten bazillion years ago Raph was the rebound boyfriend of Death after Constantine just stopped showing up for a while. Dream...was not a fan of Raph. So much so that there was this one time Dream showed Raph what the world would be like if Death did not return to her post, and it was bad. Shaking Raph to the very core of his being, bad. Probably still has nightmares, bad.

There was a time, after a fight that Death and Raph had, where Raph went a week plus without sleep so as to avoid putting himself in Dream's domain. Bad things happened. Raph has given Dream a very wide berth.

The last time Death had any contact with Raph was when he was held captive at St. Mungo's following the War at Hogwarts. She's the reason people found him, and he was brought home.

Raph, who is not afraid of anything, is afraid of Dream.

[the_shaper]

Ahahahahaha. Okay! If you're up for keeping that, I am too.

[gavin62truck]

I haven't had any threads with Morpheus/Dream so I'm not entirely clear what effect he might have on someone like Tommy Gavin, who is prone to having vivid nightmares (death, fire, death, death, dead people, more fire, more death, etc.). It's very much a part of his canon, so my changing any aspect of that won't be likely. I guess I'm just asking in advance, what might be involved if he tags Dream/Dream tags him?

[the_shaper]

Assuming it's a first-contact scenario --

Dream will know Tommy's name, without being told, and will likely greet him by it. (He knows people's names, and what dreams they have, but not what they had for breakfast or what they're going to wear, etc.) If Tommy asks about his nightmares, Dream will likely do what he can to explain -- and if any of that explanation contradicts canon, I'm happy to change tags, for the record. The rest likely depends on how Tommy responds to Dream.

Morpheus, and Daniel too from what little we see of him, is very cognizant of protocol and hospitality, and very respectful of responsibility. He also likes people. How he responds to Tommy is thus dependent on how Tommy responds to him -- but Dream won't lie, and he won't be deliberately offensive (he generally isn't unless someone is rude to him first, and this also doesn't stop him from being unintentionally offensive due to not entirely sharing human social mores and values).

If Tommy displays disbelief that this guy with the crazy hair is what he says he is, then Dream is likely to come up with an unpleasant knowledge of what Tommy's been dreaming lately. If Tommy asks him for at least one nice dream, Dream is likely to oblige, but he's also just as likely to point out that for Tommy, those dreams serve a purpose, and making them stop altogether is likely to do more harm than good in the long run.

And I think anything after that is likely second-thread or third-thread stuff, and is likely better determined later. That's about everything I can think of for the moment -- if you'd like a little more information or clarification on anything, I'm happy to oblige!

[imagemist]

None of mine were around last there was a Dream, so no back story to worry about.

It might be really interesting to work a bit with elven dreaming, as Tolkien envisioned it, and the Dreaming and how that would influence their relationship with Dream. Of the Valar, the one who comes closest to Dream is Irmo, called Lorien, who alongside Mandos is the Valar of Spirits. His domains are vision and dreams and his lands are the most beautiful. All those who dwell in Valinor may drink from his fountain and find rest. Elves may of course go to Valinor but perhaps they also walk down paths there when they dream open-eyed, gazing into the night sky?

[the_shaper]

Hm -- it's been many, many years since I've read any of the parts of Tolkien that deal directly with the Valar and Valinor. I'm not feeling my best today, so if I'm reading your comment in a way that isn't what you actually said, apologies in advance, but -- you're asking if waking dreams can happen in Valinor?

I'm fine with that, and I think there's even canonical justification for it in The Sandman (thinking of the end of "Ramadan," if you're familiar, and if not, Wikipedia's summary is pretty good).

[ceitfianna]

None of mine interacted with Dream beforehand and of my current ones, I could see Charles presenting some complications. I have that a part of his mutation is that if he doesn't have proper shields up at night, he ends up in other people's dreams. I'm not certain of the best way to play this with Dream but would be curious to do something with it as dreams are the part of his ability that scares Charles the most. He has a decent understanding of how minds work but the strangeness of dreams leaves him feeling quite vulnerable. I'm quite comfortable with Dream knowing about this but again I don't know how best to make it work. I'm flexible and would love to see what might make the most sense for both of the canons.

Of my other pups, Demeter might be an issue. I'd have to reread Sandman to see about the interactions with Greek Gods, but other universe over is probably the simplest solution for her. I think that's everything.

Its wonderful to have Dream in again and I look forward to reading and threading.

[the_shaper]

If Charles ends up in dreams, then he ends up in dreams -- Dream doesn't need to be directly involved to make that work. That said, if you'd like him to be involved, that's fine -- just let me know how and we'll work something out.

I don't think Demeter is directly addressed in The Sandman, and as I recall, none of the gods show up directly -- Calliope isn't quite like a god, and when we see Terminus (Roman, but close) mentioned in "August," it's clear that Morpheus has a healthy respect for Terminus. If you'd rather do one universe over, I'm fine with that.

[cameoflage]

I play Aradia from Homestuck, who spends a lot of time at her canon point hopping from dream bubble to dream bubble. (Also most Homestuck characters who're dead in their canon will enter the Bar from a dream bubble, as well as some who aren't.) There's no need to involve Dream in this, since it's governed by unrelated principles that canon's given plenty of information about, but I thought you'd like to know about them. After all, they're part of Dream's sphere of influence.

In Homestuck, dream bubbles are a sort of combination afterlife and dreamland, cobbled together from people's memories. People with dead dream selves go there when they sleep, and dead people live there all the time. They're rather more physical than most canons' dream worlds or afterlives, too, it's just that they're in the Furthest Ring, which is very far away from most other locations. And you can't leave your dream bubble if you're dead or dreaming. (Unless you're Sollux Captor, apparently.) Waking people can walk right in, and then walk right out again. The dead people in a dream bubble can affect living visitors, and apparently these ghosts can themselves be killed if they're attacked there.

They were created by the Horrorterrors of the Furthest Ring, who seem to be a fairly amiable bunch despite being Lovecraftian-style cosmic horrors with tentacles everywhere. Before the dream bubbles existed, people who fell asleep when their dream selves had died were basically shoved into the Horrorterrors' living room, which was a terrifying nightmarish experience. Feferi Peixes, who's used to eldritch monsters and thinks they're no big deal, asked the Horrorterrors to make something more hospitable and they obliged her. (Somebody from the pre-scratch troll session probably made a similar arrangement.)

This "dream self" stuff refers to one of Homestuck's peculiarities: every Sburb player (most of the main characters, certainly all the ones in the Bar) has a copy of themself living on the planet Prospit or Derse, and if their dream self is awake, their consciousness switches over to that body when they fall asleep. (If their dream self hasn't woken up yet, they have ordinary dreams that come from inside their head/the regular Dreaming.)

That's all the relevant stuff I can think of! If you have more questions, ask, or check the MSPA wiki's page about dream bubbles!

[the_shaper]

Okay -- that seems pretty clear. Thank you so much for the info!

[forgottenmotley]

Hey-ho... talk about late noticing things.

So, I'm not sure how Dream interacted with any of the Tarot cards previously, but I think the Fool would have fun with him. At least poking him.

He likes poking things.