ways_back_room | (no subject)

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Doing some thinking about Milliways this morning and thought I'd post my ideas about it. These are rules I've set up for myself -- not necessarily canon for Milliways, but I've found them useful.

1. Sirius is Bound to Milliways. This is because he's dead, although I don't know that all the dead in Milliways are bound. Sirius' boundaries are the far side of the lake to the north and east, the back end of staff quarters to the south, and the front door to the west. He cannot pass through any door that leads to the outside except the one that leads from the kitchen to the lake. The same should apply to any characters who are Bound.

2. This came up in Peter-mun's filk, and I think it's a good idea -- Sirius has referred to The Landlord a few times, and the filk says that rumour has it The Landlord may be "in the redemption business". The Landlord -- barring people like Door/Aziraphael/Kalos who can consciously arrive and leave through specific means -- brings people to Milliways and likewise sends them away. If faced with bloodthirsty Ethereals, the worst thing Sirius can do, being a puny mortal, is to threaten to bring down the Landlord.

3. There is a Code that Sirius follows and attempts as best he may to enforce for others. He is required to serve everyone who comes in the door, though he's not required to serve them what they want (he has to give Michael a drink, if he wants one, but he is not required to cook the various dead bodies Michael brings in. etc.) He is required to give credit to those without cash but, barring personal "on the house" favours, he is required to take payment. As he explained to Constantine, it's a Good Faith Gesture.

The Code for others is the no fighting, altering fate, or toying with mortals Code that we all know and love (subsections: Watch your mouth around the kids, Do Not Date-Rape Door). Violators can be locked up (Bartleby) refused some services (Michael) or merely tormented by Sirius (Peter and Tom). Sirius is in no way required to disapprove of, stop, or punish vigilante justice such as what happened to Joe.

Please don't give Sirius too hard a time about being unable to stop people fighting, as a) He can't be everywhere at once and b) if he did stop every fight it would be dull. He has the excuse of only-being-human on his side, but it wears thin after a while. He's not necessarily a pre-emptive policeman; he's more of a bailiff should someone break the rules. :D

As a personal request, can people put a brief physical description and the fandom they hail from at the bottom of their bios? It's convenient when you want to make sure, for example, that the person you're talking to isn't missing a left hand or some such, and it's nice to be able to tell where people hail from -- I feel easier about RPing with characters I've never heard of if I at least can identify the fandom.

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Awww, I got my own personal subsection! I feel so special...

I liked that. I also liked the part about not punishing vigilante justice.

About Rule #1...

Peter, for purposes of the game, is Bound, though not in quite the same way as Sirius. Peter can, for example, walk out the front door of Milliways--but the path outside the door only meanders around in a vague circle before leading back to the front door again.

My theory--for what it is worth, and it may be hopelessly wrong--is that Sirius, Regulus, Kassandra, etc. cannot go out the front door because that is the route back to the worlds of the living. Sirius, Regulus, and the other dead don't belong in the living worlds any longer; therefore, the front door is not an exit that they can use.

Peter is alive, and does belong back in the world of the living. Therefore, he can walk out the front door. He cannot leave yet because spiritually, he's going nowhere. Until he can change the path of his life permanently, he won't be able to find the path back to his world.

Nor are there any other easier exits. While Peter senses that he could go to Door's house and make his way to London Above, he knows that would be no solution, as he wouldn't belong in either London Above or London Below. He would have, at best, a half-life, and he would have lost his last chance.

I'm not certain if Tom Riddle is Bound or not. If so, he is Bound in a way slightly different from either the dead or Peter. Certainly we never see him go out the front door; Tom exits via portals Opened by Door or by the Portkey painting to and from Door's house in London Below. The implication would seem to be that Tom cannot go out the front door without entering a world in which his future is Lord Voldemort. Since Tom has abjured this future and is now trying to reform, mostly out of love for Door, it is logical that his only path in and out of Milliways is by means of Door's power or through Door's realm. The door that leads to Voldemort is barred to Tom; the only passage that leads to hope and to love exists because of Door and her world.

Of course, both Peter and Tom have found the one exit that will allow them to bypass the front door--change. And not a superficial change, but a fundamental alteration in one's mind and soul. The least visible exit--though perhaps the most important one--in this place of second chances.

That's my theory, anyway.

What do the rest of you think?

For my purposes, Rodya can also leave via the front door, although all he finds outside are closed store fronts and such. He's often been sleeping in the gutters there. I've got him going back and forth between the bar and from where I've taken him - part way into his term at the prison in Siberia - but he can't control when that happens. He'll go to sleep and wake up in one place or the other, and therefore thinks that Milliways is simply a very realistic dream, but he likes it better than Siberia, so he's okay with that. In Siberia, he's making an honest effort to change who he is, but his mentally ill brain can't handle the different realities, and now with the vague knowlege of all of this... other,, it may very well mean a full out break before he can get better, if he will.

Joe... Joe's dead. The end.

I'd set him to the boundaries that Sirius was following, simply because that was another character I knew of to be "dead" (there are oh so many sources here that I simply don't know yet). Billy is here, as well, and Joe may or may not at some point have to figure out how to make up for all the shit he did to Billy in their last lives, but I haven't yet decided if I'm going to try that and, if so, what path to take.

I love your ideas on why Peter can't go anywhere.

Sam -- love the deeper insight into Sirius/the Landlord/the Code, etc.

That's my theory, anyway. What do the rest of you think?

You know, I'm beginning to find myself looking for Peter's theories, because they're so thought-provoking. Hmm.

Anyway, in answer to the larger thread, for the information of anyone's who's curious, here are my thoughts with respect to how I'm playing my two characters and their presence in Milliways: Jack's the easy one, mostly. He's got an odd map, and that compass of his that doesn't point north, and the combination of the two has led him here. He's free to come and go as he pleases, and always returns/is drawn back to the Pearl. He comes back to Milliways because he finds it interesting and exciting, and somewhere different. What else he may or may not be looking for has not been revealed as yet.

Moiraine is a little more complex. Canon-wise, she vanished in battle by falling through a magical door. Most people (in the books) believe she's dead, but there are definite hints that she is in fact trapped elsewhere. For purposes here, I'm playing her as though she's been trapped in a place called the Tower of Ghenjei, accessible through Tel'aran'rhiod, the World of Dreams (which is in fact reasonably analogous to Gaiman's Dreaming).

She's not precisely Bound in the way that Sirius, Regulus, etc. are, but neither can she leave, because for her all the other doors (front door, etc.) open back to the Tower of Ghenjei, which she has been trying desperately to escape from and does not want to return to. She wants to go home, to get back to what she sees as her duty, and is frustrated by her inability to do so. (She's about to turn to believing that she has to be here for a reason, but she's not sure what that reason is. The influence of ta'veren, perhaps, drawing her to something that she has to deal with that could/can affect her world and the Last Battle there, so she's going to be looking for that thing.)

*tosses in two-cents'-worth, wanders off*

The ta'veren of the tavern, eh?

(sorry. That joke was THERE to be made.)

I like that idea :) That's sort of what I was going for.

Kassandra has left once or twice, I believe; she vanished when Crowley traumatised her and returned, if I recall correctly, through the front door. I think she goes somewhere other than Topside, though :)

Possibly, when Kassandra is traumatised, her madness causes her to flee from reality into a realm of nightmares. (If Milliways is an intersection point of all worlds, it must, logically, intersect with a world of nightmares at some point.) Kassandra can be hurt by the nightmares because her mind perceives them as real. I think that Anthy and Ophelia are in similar situations, though not as severe.

...she's left once, and only found that a) there's nothing out there, for her, but a black sort of voidy thing (can we tell I worked at 5AM? I am so specific and coherent) and b) it's a bitch, a real bitch, to get back in when you're not supposed to go out. She broke a couple of fingers. She ain't doing it again.

When Crowley traumatised her, she went all Tam Lin in his arms, then ended up on top of the bar; I don't think she actually left the bar, I mean, all of her was there someplace. Ask Pallas Athene... :o)

I have ten minutes to check in this afternoon and I am using them to say I love this. No, Tom has never been out the front door - the only doors open to him now are the ones that Door makes for him.

Petermun, you are awesome.

Now, off to read the Door thread after worrying about her all night.

The theory about Tom's paths is Crowley-mun's. I'm losing track of who I've and compared ideas with.

It's pretty much the same for Dizzy - or at least for now. I suspect that if Arioch wanted to take over & go outside, he might be able to go anywhere he pleased, with the exception of his own realm, and Dizzy could probably go anywhere with the exception of "home." Dizzy's dead in her world, so she can't go there, and Arioch's "essence" has been absorbed/consumed through the merging process, so he can't (quite yet) go back "home.

Loving the theories, guys, so for my own:
Pestilence sort of wanders in and out of his own accord (that refers to my mind as much as the bar). Right now, he's busy with that whole Nigeria thing, and prolly a few other projects. (Really, though: That mindset scares me. SARS hit when

buggreallethis was thriving, and I actually had split reactions to news about it.)
Jane... made a wrong turn on her jogging route, the first time, and I think she's occasionally turning it into a correct turn, if she wants to draw or needs time out of Lawndale. (She's there now, and will be in Boston when I head off for school.) She'd stay in one of the rooms or ask about a room at Door's place, but doesn't know how time passes in Lawndale when she's not there (her guess, as well as mine, is 'as normal') and if she left her brother in charger of the house too long, it may not be the Lane residence once she gets back. Trent would forget to send in the necessary payments, if he even got the mail.

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