We're not yet in the clear. As those of us with jobs anywhere remotely near to any customer-oriented sector will gladly tell you, the Christmas season goes well beyond Christmas. It is a soul-sucking, miserable affair of heavy traffic, crowds of crotchety people, and general injustice. It makes me not want to do anything except shoot virtual people from my couch. It does not make me want to be creative or write things very often.

That said, we're coming up on the end of it, and it's time to kick the RP in the pants again. It's been slogging. It needs to keep going. This is just the way our cycle works. Full activity, distraction, lull, then hardassery-driven recovery. I ain't even mad. It's just that time again.

Members who fell irrecoverably behind in the last thread or have fallen out of contact with the RP in general have been placed in the Inactive usergroup. This was done and will continue to be done with extreme prejudice and no sentiment. We don't do it because we don't like you. We do it because you haven't been around. Notify someone when you're ready to commit to full-speed posting again, and you'll be re-added. People will continue to be dropped into the inactive usergroup even if it means grinding our cast down to the barest, most meat-picked bone. This is just how these things go, I've learned, and what needs to be done to get things moving again sometimes. (Then, once things are moving, people miraculously get interested again, and want to get back in again. Weird how that works, isn't it?)



The next thread is going to involve more official characters, some of whom have already appeared, and others who haven't. To be blunt, we at least need a Shadow player. Omega would be acceptable as well, but not really necessary (and we'd rather not have him at all than have a dead-weight rendition that barely gets posted).

This comes with a caveat, though: If you sign up for Shadow and you don't post regularly (see: a couple times a day as needed when opportunities are there) or don't collaborate with those presently controlling the story's direction (John and me), you will be dropped like a bad habit. No offense, friends, but them's the breaks. It's an official character. They gotta do right.

Watch for the thread to start soon. Contact me privately about the Shadow thing.

And one last thing—remember this crucial, straightforward summary of our inactivity rules before even thinking about getting involved again:

"Post if you can, and tell us if you can't or won't post."

That means if you're involved in a thread but you haven't posted in a while, even if it seems like there's nothing for you to do, post a single sentence in the activity thread saying you're not going to do anything. John or I will otherwise assume you are inactive and remove your character and posting ability.

That's all. Happy new year, guys.