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Okay, so. Some really really important things have happened to Crichton today. Let's get right to the chase:

This afternoon, John walks into the bar and gets a little better at the whole talking-to-the-bar-without-wreaking-havoc thing. He then finds Raph, tries to talk to him, gets interrupted by too many things happening at once, and ends up getting sidetracked into a conversation with Death. Snarky comments are made, and Crichton nearly asks the famous question but stops himself, to Death's gratitude. He makes a couple of suggestions and succeeds in getting thoroughly confused. The discussion turns to Crowley, who is jokingly suspected of being gay.

Somewhere in the middle of this John promises Angie he'll teach her Rock Paper Scissors, and is introduced to Penny, who is finally someone who can talk about things Crichton is familiar with (though Crichton-mun, embarrasingly isn't.)

It's later tonight, and John reenters the bar in search of Tonks. They undergo the Meg-inspired plan to use a Pensieve to get the wormhole information Crichton needs out of where it had been locked in his memory. They begin, and Crichton immediately enters those memories most connected to where the information was hidden. He revisits his time in the Aurora chair, among others.

Finally, Tonks pulls something out of Crichton's head -- something she's never seen before. Crichton starts hearing voices, but tries to ignore them, as he revisits when the information was implanted in the first place. Finally Crichton enters into his memory of the event by touching his nose to the Pensieve.

This turns out to be a very bad idea.

---

None of this was really planned ahead more than one or two comments at a time (thank you SO much, Tonks-mun, you are AWESOME!), and as a result I am unanticipatedly taking Crichton out of Milliways the next few days (don't worry, I have other characters to play in the meantime *grin*). I'll post some trapped-in-the-pensieve out-of-milliways posts in the meantime, but sooner or later Crichton's friends will have to send in a rescue party.

When that happens -- and this is relatively important -- does anybody want to volunteer to play Scorpius? I need somebody who's seen Farscape at least through the end of season 2 and is intimately familiar with Harvey the Neuroclone. Drop me a line if you're interested at kimpire@yahoo.com, or message me on AIM, screenname Kimpire.

Thanks much :)

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*high-fives* was fun! I like to live on the edge. :)

*sigh* If I wasn't already making my brain hurt playing two characters, I'd jump at the chance. But I think you're doing a great job playing Crichton. :)

Awww, thanks *blush*

You sure you don't want to? It'll only be a short-term character, unless you later decide to bring in the real Scorpius. I just need someone to play him during this trapped-in-the-Pensieve plot, and then we're done...

hmm, it's tempting. If you can't find anyone else, I'll give it a go.

Oh and DAMN, love the icon.

You're welcome to swipe, if you like. :) All my icons are shareable, I just prefer if people ask or let me know first.

Good luck. There is, however no way that I am going to get involved in another "trapped and needs rescuing" thread for about

*checks watch*

the next five years.

I am unanticipatedly taking Crichton out of Milliways the next few days (don't worry, I have other characters to play in the meantime *grin*). I'll post some trapped-in-the-pensieve out-of-milliways posts in the meantime, but sooner or later Crichton's friends will have to send in a rescue party.

It does make sense, in view of the Sandman canon. At the end of The Kindly Ones, there are a number of scenes in which various events come to an end, and women, in comforting gestures, take the hands of men. These scenes, which are taking place in the real world, are echoes of events in Morpheus' Dreaming.

You could say, I suppose, that such a thing is happening within the reality of Milliways, and is affecting only Milliways. John's being trapped in a Pensieve of his thoughts parallels Morpheus' being trapped within himself in the Dreaming. It would make sense for Morpheus' vanishing to affect Milliways--he is in charge of the Milliways' mini-Dreaming, after all.

(I trust that this has been cleared with Morpheus-mun, however? I mean, I know that setting up this plot took a month or so, and considering that our rescue of Morpheus isn't complete yet, I'm rather surprised to see a such a similar plot already in the works.)

Actually, I didn't have a clue this plot would lead where it went. This entire thread was rather spur-of-the-moment (the only thing that was planned was the black memory thread), so I was surprised when Tonks-mun suggested I enter the pensieve as much as anyone. Since I knew that the black-thread represents part of the neurochip that Scorpius installed in Crichton's head, the moment Tonks asked Crichton to enter the pensieve I decided what that had to mean in terms of how canon treated the actions the neurochip takes. I didn't even know what was going on in morpheus's thread, since I haven't been following it.

Uh, yeah. The in-the-pensieve thing was my fault (as in Meg, not Tonks :)) because I was exhausted and needed to go to bed, so we needed a good stopping place. I haven't been able to keep up with the Morpheus thread, either, these past few days, but I trust we'll be able to make it sufficiently different from that plot. Honestly, I don't even think it has to bear any relationship/reference to that thread whatsoever. It was not my intention to steal any thunder or plotlines from you all...I understand you're doing a brilliant job, and look forward to reading the whole shebang at some point. :)

No matter how I say this, I'm going to sound like a griping wench. That is not my intent at all, and I'm not attacking you. But, as it's probably unavoidable, I'm just going to cut right to the chase. There are two things that are very difficult for me to swallow regarding the situation, one IC and one OOC.

1) The IC concern first: In the Potterverse, it is canonically impossible to become trapped in a Pensieve, because you don't enter into the Pensieve corporeally. Your face touches the liquid to provide the access, but it is only the mind that enters the Pensieve. You simply feel the sensation that you're being pulled in physically. HP canon states that Pensieve users enter the memory repository incorporeally (http://www.hp-lexicon.org/magic/devices_n-r.html#Pensieve). The mind goes in, the body stays hunched over the Pensieve. When you're done reliving a memory, you either remove yourself, or the Pensieve spits your mind back out. Because your body remains outside the Pensieve, you can be forcibly removed from it mid-memory, by someone pulling your face away from the basin, as happened to Harry in OotP. Point is, it is not canonically possible to be trapped in a Pensieve, physically or mentally. It's a neat idea, but it just doesn't fly.

2) The OOC concern: You mentioned that you didn't know that a similar plot had been done, because you hadn't been following the threads. Not reading every thread is absolutely fine; Heaven knows that I don't. I just don't have time. But that's why we have summaries posted on the back room, so that people who don't have time to read all of the threads can still be up with what's going on. There have been several posts regarding the Morpheus thread prior to the past few days, and I know for a fact that at least three have gone up within the past few days, including a summary of the plot to date that explicitly stated what happened to Morpheus. Minor plots will overlap. Not all are summarised. But something of the magnitude of what we're both dealing with - there's not much excuse. For my part, the first thing I do when I have an idea for a major plotline is check the recent back room summaries to make sure that a similar one hasn't been done recently. If there hasn't been, or it was finished a while back, I run with it. If it's in progress, or has just been finished, I back off for a while and let the dust settle from the previous one. It's just common RP courtesy. I don't read every thread on the main community, although I try to do so. I do make sure that I'm on top of what's posted in the back room. And the Morpheus plot was. That's why I and the other involved muns were concerned.

If I sound like I'm being bitchy, well, I'll be honest, I'm feeling that way right now, and I know I'm not the only one involved in the Morpheus plot who is. We have all been working on our plot for some time. Those of us who've been involved the least amount have still been plotting and writing for a week - Morpheus, Peter, and Moiraine muns have been working on the storyline for even longer, weeks on the part of Morpheus-mun. We have put obscene amounts of effort into this. We've easily put in 6 hours per night, every night writing the rescue thread alone, not including the nights we've agreed to return the next night with bits pre-written. Many nights, we've worked even longer. We've sacrificed IRL social lives, sleep, and sanity for this. All of our characters are on hold, unable to participate in other threads until we finish the rescue. Peter and Moiraine will have been out of commission for a full week by the time we end tonight, Will and Liz nearly as long. We've taken doubly as long as we'd originally planned to spend working through the plot, because we got more and more into it. We've been sitting down each night to work on it, excited as anything to get moving, and breaking only very reluctantly because one of us was going to crash on their keyboard if we didn't. At this point, among the actual rescue post and the various threads of set-up (excluding all minor discussions), we've amassed over 300 comments' worth of material, most well over 100 words, if not several times that. We've literally written a collaborative novel. This plot is our baby.

We've researched. Ye gods and little fishes, we've researched. We've done our homework. There are more references and use of symbolism in one stage of that rescue thread than you can shake a fist at. I can't speak for the others as far as time commitment, but I know that for myself, I spent a full two hours researching Polish mythology for the setup of one stage of the rescue, just to make sure I wasn't mixing up information. That's not even counting the time I spent double-checking other info I included, or including the information needed for subsequent posts in the same mini-arc. I know the others have done their fair share of research as well, although I don't know precise time logs. And the posts keep getting more elaborate, more detailed, more polished. We've actually increased our effort as we've gone along. We're combining six different canons in this thread, and we've busted our butts and broken our backs to make sure that every canonical detail we used was as accurate as we could possibly make it. I'm sure that we've made mistakes here and there, or slipped up slightly, but there won't be many, and they won't be major. This is our collaborative brainchild, and we're all totally devoted to seeing it through as correctly as we can. I believe that every single one of us has commented at one point or another that the thread contains some of our best work. We are inordinately proud of our storyline. You can't place that much of yourself into it and not be.

We're hoping to complete the rescue mission tonight. Even when it's over, it won't be over. We're still going to have massive amounts of aftermath to deal with. Our characters are going to be severely debilitated, shellshocked basket cases at least temporarily, and will in all likelihood suffer long-term or permanent effects. There is no way they can come out of something with this magnitude unfazed. All of the characters have grown and developed substantially in the time they've been in this plot, perhaps moreso than they've developed in their entire prior time at Milliways. It's been that intense. This is a huge, huge, huge plot point for all of characters, and a huge, huge, huge risk for all of the muns. We could very well be destroying other existing plot points by having our characters isolated for so long, if not utterly breaking our own characters with the actual events of the Dreaming.

We're putting ourselves and our characters out there completely, and working out tails off to do it. We're also damn proud of what we're doing, if I haven't mentioned it already. To see another, virtually identical, plot thread come up before our own is even finished (and after we've been pimping it madly), and with major canonical fallacies to boot, burns. It really burns.

Peter-mun actually was onto something, I think, regarding the explanation of how to connect the two through the Endless ripple effect - not only would it allow each to get its proper due, but it would actually increase the impact of both, because they'd combine into a really nifty meta-plot. I know she'd presumed that to already be the case when she made her comment, but even thought that wasn't so, it's still not a bad idea. But like I said, I'm not attacking you, however it might have seemed. I'm not trying to tell you how to run your plot. It's your plot, your decisions, period. I'm only trying to explain where at least I, if not the rest of the Team Morpheus camp, currently falls regarding the matter. Frankly, it was like a punch to the gut last night when we saw this summary. It's disappointing, it burns, and we'll probably get over it (or at least I will). But for right now, we're stunned and upset, and since it won't be going away quite yet, you might as well know. For what it's worth, regardless of what happens, I do sincerely wish you much luck with your own thread. Sweeping plotlines are exhausting.

Jess, I am so, so, sorry to have stepped on everyone's toes. Please don't be angry with Crichton-mun, the blame is entirely (although please believe inadvertently) mine. I was the one who made the call regarding whether one's body is in the pensieve or simply one's mind; Crichton even asked me, and I made a wrong guess. I apologize. It was late. I was tired, and having an intense conversation in another thread.

I honestly don't think this takes away from your plot, but I'm not the one who matters, here. You and the other plotters of the Morpheus thread are. Please just tell me what you want us to do to fix this, and accept my sincerest apologies. This was not done intentionally. I feel badly for not being up on your threads enough to realize there could be issues.

Again, I'm sorry.

Like I told Crichton-mun, there's really not much that could be done, and we certainly don't want to kill someone else's story arc, since we know full well how exhilarating it is to get into one. We were simply hit very hard last night when we saw the similarities. We basically had three ways to view it: that someone was trying to build on our existing plot (which would have been okay but that no one had asked yet), that someone had outright copycatted our own plot (which sucked unbelievably to even consider), or that another person had come up with such a plot on their own, but not bothered to check to see if it was already being done. Believe me, we were wishing fervently for the first option, as Peter-mun's comment shows.

When Crichton-mun's reply to Peter-mun, and it became clear that it was actually the third option, I'll be honest, we griped. It wasn't even that it came at the same time as our own (although that was stunning enough on its own), it was that it came right on the eve of our completion of the plot. Anyone who would have checked could have seen that we were nearly done. Even waiting until the minute after we finished would have been infinitely preferable, just to ensure that there was no overlap. I think the general feeling was that we'd had this awesome idea and had done so much to implement it, that it would have been nice for it to remain unique through its conclusion. I think it's a little more sensitive for me, because comparable timing issues occurred between the Morpheus plot and the Liz 1811 plot. The overlap had seemed all right at the time, and I'd gone along with it, but it did end up making a big distraction. And let's face it, when you've spent weeks planning and building up towards a planned ending that's got you really excited, having that happen is incredibly frustrating. After all of that effort, you want to go out with a bang. The plot overlap just kind of took the wind out of our sails. It was kind of a sense of "so close, but so far."

I had just wanted to bring it out to the forefront to try to forestall backstage bitching, and to get the situation out into the open. Other people in the cast read these things. If nothing else, it might make people more aware about communicating among their fellow cast members. This isn't the first time it's ever happened in this game. It just happened to be the one that hit closest to home and served as the impetus to actually speak up.

So, truly, all will be well. Just trying to clear the air, so our concerns are out in the open, there's no need for sniping behind backs, and we can all get back to having fun. :)

*hugs to you* I understand the tired feeling all too well, and I know mistakes happen. I've made my fair share. Like I said, not targeting, just speaking up. If your plot had been any more directly parallel to ours, and you were starting in earnest tonight, it could have been hairy for both plotlines. We don't want to detract from your plot any more than you want to detract from ours. *grins*

I still feel really badly about this. But thanks for speaking up...I certainly don't want any hard feelings, either! This whole Milliways thing is an unbelievable amount of fun for me, and I certainly don't want to detract from anyone else's enjoyment, either, especially not when you guys have put so much time and effort into this particular plot. I hate that I took the wind out of your sails, dear, I really do. *hugs*
Nothing (aside from a couple Crichton out-of-milliways posts) will be done with this for a few days, probably not until early next week, which I hope provides a bit of a buffer between yours and ours.

Gah. I feel all queasy, now. I consider all of you my friends, or at least partners in crime *g*, and would never do anything like this on purpose.

No hard feelings, at least on my part. Shit happens. *shrugs* All you can do is take preventative measure after the fact to try to keep from repeating. That's all I was hoping to do.

Don't worry about our sails. They're refilling nicely. We've developed some dynamite ideas for our ending, and it's going to be a blast, regardless.

The buffer is excellent, and is all we can ask for. Really, I'd say that it's more than we can ask for, since it's your plot to determine at will. So on behalf of the other muns, I thank you guys for whatever we can do to help each other out.

*offers even more hugs and Pepto-Bismol* No need for queasiness, dear. Seriously. What we would say has already been tossed out into the open, and venting is cathartic. We'll be just fine. ;)

Oh sweetie, *pets and comforts*

It will all turn out fine in the end.

Okay. I think people are overreacting here a bit. I'll deal with the
IC Pensieve issue here first, then I'll post to ways_back_room explaining exactly what's happening to Crichton and why (I sincerely believe that this plot does not and should not interfere at all with what's going on with Morpheus. The only similarity between the two plots is the phrase "rescue mission". What's happening to Crichton has to do with the interference between the neurochip in his head and the magic of the Pensieve, and I'll explain that in a bit.)

I did look back at the books for what was going on in the Pensieve. There's nothing in the actual text of the books that I can find that even hints towards corporeal vs. noncorporeal entrance into the Pensieve, which is why I asked Tonks-mun. Unless someone can point out to me something I've missed, I'm afraid anyone who tries to firmly establish it as noncorporeal is basing it on as much conjecture as those who say otherwise.

I really didn't want to give away the whole thing about what's going on with Crichton, but for the purpose of clearing this up I'll post it to ways_back_room in a bit.

There's no need to give away your plot. Really. It's not going to do any good, and it's only going to cause bad blood. Like I said, I didn't post that to jump on you. I really don't feel like any of us are overreacting. I merely told you what my personal issues with the situation were, and tried to give you some background as to why I feel that way, and why I know the other involved muns feel that way. I gave you that background so you'd know I wasn't just jumping on you. You don't put as much effort into something as we've done, and not have it affect you or become important to you. This thread has just become all of our pet projects, and we're very defensive of it. As I also said, we'll get over it. We'd just wanted to express our feelings regarding the matter, and I happened to be the one to speak up first. We were surprised, we were dismayed, and we were flat-out floored. The plot is already in progress. There's nothing that can be done about it. I may not even have commented if you hadn't mentioned that you had absolutely no awareness of the ongoing Morpheus plot. That was what blew my mind. Even that's too late to fix. All I could do was mention my own practice of checking the back room, in hopes it would help in future. Maybe it did, maybe it made things worse. I don't know. But I meant nothing bad by it, and I figured it was worth a try.

I didn't post that to put pressure on you, or guilt-trip you. I actually posted that to prevent bad blood. Backstage griping just aggravates matters, and doesn't settle anything. By telling you what our reaction had been, you at least would know, and would have it in mind in future, so that perhaps a comparable situation would not happen again. That was my object. It's not healthy to bottle things up, particularly when the matter was as sensitive to the involved people as this was. Furthermore, I also have a selfish motivation. I really didn't care to have to hear people bitching about this in the Dream thread chat room tonight. We're wrapping our main plot arc tonight, and I'd like to be able to enjoy all of it, and not feel bitter and resentful because something could have been said, but wasn't.

I mean it. Don't post your plot arc. You know how we were affected, we've had our feelings made known, we can begin to relax now. If you say your version of the plot will end differently, I am more than happy to take your word for it. There's no need to prove it.

As for the incorporeal bit, check Goblet of Fire chapter 30, when Harry gets into Dumbledore's Pensieve. I do recall "hints" given in that, although not the precise quotes. Also, the "Snape's Worst Memory" chapter of Order of the Phoenix has comparable indications. I don't have the books before me, so again, I can't give you exact quotes. There is also the fact that the HP Lexicon lists Pensieves as working incorporeally, and as JK Rowling herself uses the Lexicon as a reference to her own works while writing, I'd say their word is pretty accurate. They are extremely up-to-date, and very thorough. They also do not publish mere conjecture, unless there is academic proof to back it, and even under those circumstances, the conjecture is labeled as such. There is no labeled conjecture in the Pensieve entry of the Lexicon. It is as it is.

Saw this after I posted the plot. I'll leave it up, though, because it doesn't contain any of my future plans (I don't have any future plans), but that it only describes the background to what's happening to Crichton.

As for the incoporeal bit, I did. So far as I can tell, there's no indications either way in either book 4 or 5. Until Rowling actually makes a declaration one way or the other I'm not going to make assumptions, but as I pointed out in the plot background summary, it doesn't really matter, since we can just stash Crichton's consciousness-less (say that five times fast) body wherever we're stashing the Pensieve and deal with it that way.

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