And here we go again, with the big post! First, thread summaries for ( February 2013. )

Which brings us to ( Last Activity Dates. )

The Open Threads List has been updated, so please check it out and let us know if it's accurate.

And finally, Jan is on hiatus, as you might have noticed from the activity checks. So if you have any threads with Bia, Hybris, Ninkasi, Persephone or Phobetor they are unfortunately on hold for the moment. If you are in a group thread with one of those characters, talk to the other players involved to see how best to handle the missing character(s). And please, keep Jan in your thoughts and wish her a speedy recovery while she is under the weather.

Let's keep this simple:

Thread summaries for ( January 2013 )

And the ( Activity Check )

And finally, the new list of open threads is up. (You can also find it on the main Deities Mod page, under the members heading.) I have tried to make it as accurate as I could, but since nobody e-mailed a list of their current threads, I had to guess on some of them. If I missed one, tell me and I'll add it. If there's a thread on there that's done, let me know and I'll take it off.

We will add new threads as they get posted, and every two weeks, we'll go through and pull out those that have ended. Hopefully, this will help us all keep track of what we've got to do a little bit better. In that vein, I considered adding a column on who owes the next reply, but I was unsure if that was really necessary. Do you guys want that added on there? Will it help you keep track of your threads better? Let me know.

That's it for this month!

This is the post promised for yesterday or the day before, and I apologize for taking longer than anticipated, but I'm having some health issues that are getting in my way of doing a lot of things right now. Sorry, folks!

So, between hurricanes, work drama, home drama, and various other happenings, we sort of decided to let things slide for November to give everybody a chance to catch their breath. Because we certainly needed to catch ours. But now we're back, baby! Which means.... dun dun DUN! Activity checks. Yep.

But first! There are a few things that are coming up that you need to know about

1. SEKRIT SANTA! We will be putting up the main post for Secret Santa on the stroke of midnight on the 20th. This is where you will put your gift threads. In the title section, put who the gift is TO, and who it is FROM. If you wish for the recipient to know who's giving it, put in the character name. If you don't, put in Anonymous. You may write the finding of the gift, the wrapping of the gift, the delivery of the gift, and/or all of the above. It's up to you! And recipients, you may respond or not as you wish! This is just about having fun.

2. GIFT EXCHANGE! Nae brought up the idea of a NON-Secret Santa gift exchange, just a place where your character can give something to those that they wish to give an extra little something to. This is not required! We know that this is the season of busybusybusy, and not everyone is going to have time to throw together another thread for this. So if you think your character should have received something but didn't, please keep in mind that writers might be busy buying actual physical gifts for family and friends. Be polite. No hurt feelings. This, too, is just for fun. This post will be put up a day or two after the Secret Santa post, to give that one a little bit of time to get rolling.

3. END OF THE MIXER! We gave you guys warning that we were moving on from the mixer, and we think it's past time to call it officially over. We're setting the end date for the mixer at January 5th. What that means is that IF YOU WANT to keep your characters going in that thread, to have them complete whatever is happening for them, you may do so if your writing partner agrees. That's something to be worked out with with the people with whom you are currently writing. However, we are not going to count it against you if you have your character move on and hand wave it as being finished. And we ARE going to be moving the plot along on the main board and leaving the mixer behind.

Before we completely walk away from it, however, we think that it would be nice if everybody took a moment to recognize the amount of work that went into putting the mixer/challenges together. Thank you, Jan, Nae and Kelly!

Now... on to thread summaries! (Which needed to be caught up on too.) So here you go!

( October & November 2012 )

Which brings us to the dreaded ( Activity Checks )


And FINALLY: Because of the holidays and various conflicting plans that always seem to happen this time of year, we're not doing a plot chat this month. However, there are critters in need of plot, so we invite anybody that needs plot to use the replies to this post to get in contact with your fellow players and fish for the plotz you wantz!

Whew! That's it. The whole shebang. *falls over*

It's late, I'm NyQuilled to the gills, and IJ has been fighting with me all day. So please excuse the lack of introduction. We're doing a double this month too. We'll start with the thread summaries for ( September 2012. )

And that brings us to the ( Last Activity Dates. )

Because we skipped over activity checks last month, combined with the fact that we were on vacation at the beginning of the month, we are posting a HUGE COMBO post of both August's thread summaries combined with the activity checks.

But first, AN IMPORTANT PSA:

Players, you are all intelligent and witty and write so beautifully it makes your mods weep with joy. But there are a couple of you, and you know who you are, that seem to lose the shift key when you make titles. When you lose the shift key when you make titles, it creates extra work for your lazy mod who just wants to cut and paste the titles into the thread summaries but can't leave them uncapitalized because it would drive her bonkers, which is a relatively short trip. So for the sake of her sanity, Please Start Capitalizing Your Thread Titles, Thank You. (We end this PSA with the sound of a head hitting a desk repeatedly. Your action in keeping the lazy mod from going off the deep end cannot happen too soon.)

With that we present your thread summaries for ( August 2012. )

And now that you've seen all the fun stuff we've done recently, let's take a look at how recently with our ( Last Activity Dates. )

One final modly note: We know that sometimes things get in the way of prompt replies to threads, and that's perfectly understandable. But your actions affect your writing partner(s) as well, including their activity. If you are going to take a week or two or three before you'll be able to reply, please let them know. It's just courteous. Thank you.

No fanfare this month, we'll just throw 'em at you. Here are the ( Last Activity Dates. )

It's late, I'm tired, so I'm going to just throw these at you without preamble.

( Last Activity Dates. )

It's that time again, folks. Time to see where you've been and what you've been doing with your little critters. So without further ado, here are the ( Last Activity Dates. )

For those who are behind on activity, or on the bubble *eyes people suspiciously* there is a great way to get them some quick action: try the Kentucky Derby Thread that Dawn very conveniently put up.

Ooo, so we had our very first activity check since the reset! Holy crap, you people have been BUSY! And we LOVE how active you guys have been. It took a while to sort through all the threads, which was honestly a bit of a pain in the butt. KEEP DOING THAT, PEOPLES!

But for this month, to prove that we're being honest (and so you can double check our math), here are your ( last activity dates. )

So we’re doing a combination post this week. This is an activity check/deletion warning/plot post. We have been very lax in recent months for various reasons. It’s been a hard winter for many of our members, and we certainly understand that real life trumps pretendy fun times. However, our generosity can only extend so far before we have to say something, and we’ve reached that point with a few of the characters. So…

Those on this list had better either get some activity or contact us via e-mail to explain why they can’t within the next week, or they will be removed.

Ares
Eros
Hermes
Himeros
Lethe

Those on this list really need to get some plot going to avoid ending up on the list above.

Anansi
Anubis
Frigg
Pothos

Which brings us to the best part of this post… PLOTTING! We would especially like to see plot offered for those on those lists above, because we don’t want to let any of our favorite critters fall through the cracks. And if you’ve had previous plot that hasn’t manifested yet, for whatever reasons, now is a good time to poke or prod the person that was supposed to write with you. And any new plot would be awesome too!

Next week, we will be updating the icon wall, and we’re really hoping that we won’t have to take any of the faces off of it. Please help us realize that hope, and help your fellow players with plot.

We have done activity checks, and letters have gone out to the following characters:

cunningly, silver_above, bad_as, epru, allfather, oizys, peitho_dot_com, and katastrefo,

If your character is on that list and you didn’t get an e-mail, you should have, our bad.

Lisa, Ian, Nathalie, and Kat, you should all have mail as well for various things. (Lisa already knows she's got mail because she was replying before I was even done sending out the others!)

That is all.

We have done activity checks, and letters have gone out to the following characters:

cunningly, bad_as, epru, drink_to_forget, ladyvictory, oizys, katastrefo, and zephyrus

If your character is on that list and you didn’t get an e-mail, you should have, our bad.

And discordia_lane and cupidos? Consider this your wake up call to get some posting done before we do activity checks again because you were on the cusp this time.

Finally, a note about activity. We have noted that lately certain players have been showing up to post a reply or two, then disappearing for a month (or longer when we’ve been remiss about activity checks.) You know who you are, we don’t need to name names. We fully understand when life gets busy and things get in the way of you posting, we have those issues ourselves. But that sort of inconsistency in regular activity points to only posting in order to meet the once a month posting requirement. If it continues to happen, you will be getting an e-mail from us about that. It will be a very frowny e-mail.

So kidlets, here’s the dealio. We are changing the way we do activity checks. You are still required to have activity once a month for each of your critters, but rather than post a big long list of who posted where and when and what their last activity was, we’re going to try it this way instead:

We’re going to let you know if you should have gotten an e-mail from us regarding your character’s activity. If you didn’t get the e-mail, let us know. If you think we’re in error for sending you the e-mail, let us know and show us the log to prove us wrong.

We are also including a warning list for those that are getting rather close to that limit, one that will definitely be getting an e-mail on the next round if they don’t post right quick.

For this month, we have sent out e-mails for ladyvictory and peitho_dot_com.

And bathesinblood, you already know you need activity soon because you’re getting close and are looking for it, so we’ll skip giving you a swift kick in the pants.

We want to remind people, yet again, if you have a RL issue and you need to take some time off, you NEED TO LET US KNOW. We are not mind readers. Nor are we babysitters. We are not going to trawl through your personal journal to find out what’s going on with you. It is your responsibility to let us know if there’s a problem that will keep you from making activity. We are reasonable, and we feel we’re pretty generous, as long as you keep us in the loop and let us know what’s going on.

On that note, we also want to remind people that if you’re taking a hiatus, we’d consider it a courtesy if you would e-mail us as well. Preferably first, so it doesn’t feel quite so much like a public Dear John letter. We have MUCH love for da Fae for doing exactly that, and she will be squished and fondled upon her return.

And finally, because we’ve had several comings and goings in recent weeks, you ought to be updating your friends list. To aid you in that, you can use the wicked awesome Friends List Button. It is friends-locked, and you will have to log in with each of your characters to update their individual lists, but it’s the fastest way to update your characters’ friends lists.

We do have one person on a temporary hiatus, and Jan is taking a month to consider whether or not she wants to keep Bia. The rest of you all made the activity check. Yay! Some of you may want to take a gander at those dates, though, cuz a couple just squeaked by.

( Last Activity Dates. )

Before we get into our activity checks, I just want to point to this post and remind people yet again that if you’re going to be particularly slow on responses to let us know, let your writing partners know. Summer gets busy. Real life can happen. But it’s no fun wondering if your thread is done or if your writing partner fell off the face of the earth somehow.

That said, here are ( June’s activity dates. )

I’m pooped after having guests all weekend, so blah, blah, blah, insert something witty here, and then there’s the last activity dates. ( Cue dramatic music. )

Yup. It’s that time again. We did pretty good overall, but some of you need to get your rears in gear or you might not make it for the next month. Take a look at that nifty little date next to your character’s name, and if it’s waaaaaaaaay back at the beginning of last month? Might be time to think about getting yourself a little plot. Just a thought. ;-)

( Here’s the numbers. )

Oh noes! Activity checks!

Oh yes. And it was a little disappointing, I have to be honest. There was no activity check last month because, bluntly, I was lazy. It was all Ball threads and I didn’t feel like wading through all of that. This month, it’s about half and half.

Now I know, some people got a little lost in the shuffle during the Ball, and that is regrettable. But it’s time to… uh… to… to get back on the ball! (Shush, I’m on pain killers, it was the best I could do.) So all that said, ( away we go. )

And one final note. Our Ares player, Liz, has had to let him go due to some real life craziness. It’s really a pity, we very much enjoyed having her here, she was a fantastic new player that we hope will become a fantastic returning player when life settles down for her. And Linda has decided to drop both Aphrodite and Lethe given her heavy school schedule this semester. That is more than understandable, and we regret that she had to make the choice. We will miss them both, and their characters, and wish them the best. Please be sure to use the friends button to update your flist accordingly.

We warned ya! We told you it was coming! We were glad that we made the choice to suspend the activity checks over the holidays. It seems a lot of us had a lot of extra stuff that required our attention, mods included! But, it’s time to get back to the nitty gritty and you people have been grittying right along. Unsurprisingly, the Winter Ball has generated a lot of activity and going through the activity dates reflected that. We are really, really pleased with how well things are going, and really, really please with how many characters have been thrown into the mix. You people RAWK!

We do want to take just a second though, to remind people that if you are going to be away, for whatever reason, it’s a very good idea to let us know. We are always reachable via the deities e-mail, we are frequently online, and this comm is always available if other means have failed. It just lets us know where you’re at so we don’t wonder why you’ve suddenly dropped off the face of the earth, because that makes us worry. You’re not just our players, you’re people we’ve come to know and care for. It’s also just a little common courtesy for the people you play with, so they know where you’re at and why you’re not replying either. This game runs on the creativity of its players, and that requires a good working relationship. Just keep us in the loop, people. That’s all.

And now that the PSA is done for the day, we can get on with the ( last activity dates. )

I’m too tired to be witty or supportive, so this month, you just get plain old ( last activity dates. )