Drunkard's Walk Forums

While driving long distance the other day, I played a soundtrack to keep boredom from putting me to sleep at the wheel ... and suddenly realized this might well make a Gatesong.
Hey, with these lyrics, it's practically a themesong for the Walk!
"Journey to the Past" (from the animated movie Anastasia, in case anyone didn't recognize it)
Heart, don't fail me now!
Courage, don't desert me!
Don't turn back now that we're here
People always say
Life is full of choices
No one ever mentions fear!
Or how a road can seem so long
How the world can seem so vast
Courage see me through
Heart I'm trusting you
On this journey...to the past
Somewhere down this road
I know someone's waiting
Years of dreams just can't be wrong
Arms will open wide
I'll be safe and wanted
Finally home where I belong
Well, starting here, my life begins
Starting now, I'm learning fast
Courage see me through
Heart I'm trusting you
On this journey...to the past
Heart don't fail me now!
Courage don't desert me!
Home, Love, Family
There was once a time
I must have had them too
Home, Love, Family
I will never be complete
Until I find you...
One step at a time,
One hope, then another
Who knows where this road may go
Back to who I was
On to find my future,
Things my heart still needs to know
Yes, let this be a sign!
Let this road be mine!
Let it lead me to my past
Courage see me through
Heart I'm trusting you
To bring me home...
At last!
At last!
Courage see me through
Heart I'm trusting you
yea...
Anastasia came out in November '97, so Doug is unlikely to have heard this song in Warrior's World. The big question is whether he'd run across it in any of the worlds he visits -- even if they have it, will anything call this song to his attention?
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Those who believed the laws of physics made things "possible" or "impossible" were mistaken. Time travel violated one of those laws. Physics took its *revenge*.
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Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

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The big question is whether he'd run across it in any of the worlds he visits -- even if they have it, will anything call this song to his attention?

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Well, Doug does pick up a few songs in Fenspace... but that's probably his second-last stop before he gets home. Could he have picked up a copy in Mega-Tokyo or Tokyo-3, perhaps?
(Of course, there's always the possibility that Legion and Minerva might give Doug a copy of every song that they have a reasonable idea will give him some sort of ability, but that stop's pretty far along the Walk, too.)

-Rob Kelk
"Read Or Die: not so much a title as a way of life." - Justin Palmer, 6 June 2007
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012

Actually, the closing song from the same movie might do at least as well.
"At the Beginning"
We were strangers
Starting out on a journey
Never dreaming
What we'd have to go through
Now here we are
And I'm suddenly standing
At the beginning with you
No one told me
I was going to find you
Unexpected
What you did to my heart
When I lost hope
You were there to remind me
This is the start
Life is a road
And I want to keep going
Love is a river
I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road
Now and forever
Wonderful journey
I'll be there
When the world stops turning
I'll be there
When the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you
We were strangers
On a crazy adventure
Never dreaming
How our dreams would come true
Now here we stand
Unafraid of the future
At the beginning with you
Life is a road
And I want to keep going
Love is a river
I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road
Now and forever
Wonderful journey
I'll be there
When the world stops turning
I'll be there
When the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you
I knew there was somebody somewhere
Like me alone in the dark
Now I know my dream will live on
I've been waiting so long
Nothing's gonna tear us apart
Life is a road
And I want to keep going
Love is a river
I wanna keep flowing
Life is a road
Now and forever
Wonderful journey
I'll be there
When the world stops turning
I'll be there
When the storm is through
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you
Life is a road and I wanna keep going
Love is a river I wanna keep going on....
Starting out on a journey
Life is a road and I wanna going
Love is river I wanna keep flowing
In the end I wanna be standing
At the beginning with you.
"Not this again!" Minerva said. "Albus, it was You-Know-Who, not you, who marked Harry as his equal. There is no possible way that the prophecy could be talking about you!" - Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality, Chapter 84

Journey to the past sends Doug into the past of the current world he is in. How far depends upon available Mana, how much sleep Doug has had, and Dramatic neccessity.
mind you Doug goes back further with less sleep, as opposed to being fresh and fully alert.

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Journey to the past sends Doug into the past of the current world he is in.

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Ummm, that strikes me as ... improbable.
The entire thrust of the song is about finding one's way to home and loved ones. If Doug's power interprets it as a time-travel song -- a local-universe-only time-travel song -- despite discovering it at a time in his life when he's desperate to return to home and loved ones, there must be something odder than we thought going on in his mind.
On further reflection, I decided that Doug doesn't need to find this song in any of the Steps that get written up. Instead, it could be the song that brings him into a Step, after he picked it up in a universe where nothing happened worthy of a story (maybe an anecdote or two, though: "And don't get me started about how I blew up when I saw what Kaoru's grandfather had done to his back.").
So he wakes up in whatever universe, starts to get his bearings, and thinks something like, "Well, damn. Still not there. I'd really had high hopes that 'Journey to the Past' would bring me home, especially with the lines
'Arms will open wide,
I'll be safe and wanted,
Finally home where I belong.'
It'd sounded so damned promising."-----
Those who believed the laws of physics made things "possible" or "impossible" were mistaken. Time travel violated one of those laws. Physics took its *revenge*.
-----
Big Brother is watching you.  And damn, you are so bloody BORING.

Quote:

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Well, Doug does pick up a few songs in Fenspace... but that's probably his second-last stop before he gets home. Could he have picked up a copy in Mega-Tokyo or Tokyo-3, perhaps?

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Mm. In case it's not obvious, Doug picks up songs in every world that has recorded music technology, even if he has to kludge some way to get it into his helmet. I'm pretty much excusing any post-98 song on those grounds.

-- Bob
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I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life, and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So theeeeeere....

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Ummm, that strikes me as ... improbable.

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Agreed. Judging solely by the lyrics, this is a flat out "try to get closer to home" gatesong.

-- Bob
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I intend to be a freak for the rest of my life, and I shall baffle you with cabbages and rhinoceroses in the kitchen and incessant quotations from Now We Are Six through the mouthpiece of Lord Snooty's giant poisoned electric head. So theeeeeere....