It could just be a condition of travel outside of the world. Quarantine the place. Doesn't work for anyone who will react to that by inventing interdimensional transit, but...

No one except my father will do that.

So they have to special case his dad's template, but otherwise there is not necessarily any call to run the entire world through a sieve.

Maybe people who want to go off-dimension can petition.

And have to be vetted by a Maitimo or Maggie-or-Dad or oathed into being well-behaved tourists or just accompanied.

That works. And my alt can't leave.

If Maedhros thinks Evil Maitimo could pass the vetting they might need to snug the vetting.

Well, he's not currently doing anything evil, regrets evil things he did, and would happily swear anything. I can imagine vetting that'd be quite reasonable but would let him out.

If he happily swore some adequate something... still no?

(Addy isn't going anywhere but that is because Addy can copy magic and might be able to copy something from offworld that wrecked the delicate balance keeping her in line. And she can't swear oaths.)

The thing is that even if he swears his whole mind over to be exactly mine, something could give him free will - and I am not actually sure it'll take additional exertion on his part for his Findekano to come back to him - his Findekano would genuinely feel happier and more secure if I'd take him to bed, he'll happily agree that his Maitimo's evil but he also thinks his Maitimo's the only person to whom he is not interchangeable -

He's not interchangeable to Elspeth either!

That's good of you. If you have projects he's uniquely suited to that'd help a lot.

Unfortunately she is not dispositionally a projects person most of the time. Reasonableizing the Valar was a project but it is over now. They are all reasonable. Also she could not have meaningfully benefited from help with that.

Yeah. I've been giving him work on our projects, and it's all valuable and meaningful work that'll enhance galactic standards of living, but he's not uniquely suited to it and not going to be, and I think for a while I can obviate that by having him save more people here than he could back home - but he'd rather be back home, and he's made it quite clear how I'd change his preference to go home, and -

- I loathe my alt.

It wasn't actually obvious in context back in that world how warped Findekáno was because he was still making use of the maneuver-via-Maitimo skillset, just from a stronger bargaining position...

...he's uniquely or at least shortlistfully suited to being a native expert on Evil Arda without himself being evil? They will probably want that occasionally while they fumble with the problem. It does kind of put him in an awkward position w.r.t. Evil Maitimo but they can probably work around that.

"Yeah. I'll suggest that. Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"And thank you for getting him out. He did say that it made him absurdly happy, when Maitimo had to let him go, and that he'd felt so much safer ever since."

Oh that's good! She did think she was improving things but it was hard to know how much.

"Apparently my alt switched seamlessly into 'helplessly adoring and deeply regretful boyfriend' and considering what a mess he is this was the exact thing that could make him happiest."

Is he going to stay unhappy? Elspeth is not sure how aggressively she wishes to crusade against creepy unhealthy relationships if the alternatives make both parties unhappy.

"I...bet he will become less unhappy? He might find and latch onto one of us who's free, eventually, but maybe it'll be a non-abusive one!"

...Elspeth is not of course privy to all the details but is Evil Maitimo even, like, currently abusive, or rather would he be if his Findekáno were not in another universe.

"Not in any conventional sense. Taking advantage of low expectations, maybe. Findekáno told me glowingly that once as a test he told Maitimo he'd lost interest and Maitimo didn't rape him, even though, as Findekáno explained to me, he had no real reason not to."

...those are some low expectations all right. Maybe a nice long break and being around healthy relationship models will help. ...were there no healthy relationship models in Evil Arda? She can't actually think of any off the top of her head but she wasn't exactly attending potlucks and meeting random couples who weren't Aredhel And Her Rapist, Findekáno And His Rapist, and Elu And His Whatever The Fuck.