Hi-ho, Carrie the mod here! Since no one objected to the calendar freeze idea, it's officially happening. LET IT BE WRITTEN.

The waking-world calendar freeze is effective immediately, and occurring on the IG date of August 8th. Backdating anything on or before August 8th is allowed and encouraged (including any totally hypothetical arrival posts).

The dreaming freeze is a bit more nebulous. Because of the crossover, we will still be posting our dream party on December 29th, but since it's happening during a freeze, the party has to technically occur on the evening of August 8th/morning of August 9th. Backdated dreams are allowed and encouraged. And, in the interest of giving everyone ample opportunities to entertain themselves, we're also going to just say that the evening of August 8th and morning of August 9th has been stretched by the rift. Characters can dream as much as they want on this evening, because time is an illusion and look, over there! A BUNCH OF DRUNK MONKEYS!

The calendar freeze will end on January 5th, 2015, taking us to the IG date of August 9th, 2013. The holidays will be over, and we'll also have that first weekend in January to continue catching up on things. If necessary, we can push the freeze another week, but hopefully the current plan will suffice.

Greetings, Adventureketeers You Beautiful Tropical Fish My Adorable Apple Dumplings! Carrie, here, on behalf of the Modly Hivemind.

So, I'm sure you're all aware that there is a whole heck of a lot going on in the game right now. Many of us are currently backdating up a storm, which is great! But because there's so much happening, it's been suggested that we put the calendar on 'pause' for a little while. That will give everyone a chance to finish their threads and catch up with the In-Game date, rather than continually backdate ad infinitum.

In addition to that, we're thinking of changing the game's date ratio from 3:1 to 4:1 - that is, four IRL days for every one day IG. That seems a bit more in keeping with the general pace we've established as a group. Should forward-dating become necessary (the novelty!), we'll allow it, no fuss.

The current plan is to freeze the date during our next dream party, currently scheduled for this Saturday, July 5th (IG date: July 3rd). Those of us not playing catch-up will have a nice, expansive dream party to goof around in for a while, so that should keep things interesting. And perhaps we'll come up with a fun Event for the 4th to kick things off again.

Here's what we'd like from you:

- Thoughts on how long the pause should last (in real time). A week? Two weeks? Let us know how much time you think you'll need to get your ducks in a row.

- Opinions on the ratio change. Are you on board with the idea? Any concerns? The Modly Hivemind is listening!

Happy Friday! Or happy almost-Friday, if you're in North America like me. With the weekend coming up, it seems a good time to sit down and talk about a few things. This is Kathryn writing.

First order of business is the Speaking in Tongues event, which we'll be wrapping up this weekend. Krissy and I would like to remind players that participation is optional and you are welcome to post non-event threads that take place after February 5, particularly as we're going to have to backdate the closing event thread due to game time having moved on by now. You're also welcome to continue to backdate new event threads and/or tag into the existing Bethesda Terrace group post.

Next up is the question of dream party posts. Krissy suggested that we do an open party-style dream post (that is, open to everyone inside and outside the game, like the cuddle party) at the beginning of each month, and I agreed. Hopefully this will give the game a bit more predictability for any players who want to come test drive before applying, as well as give current players something to look forward to. If you have an idea for a dream party, we are always open to suggestions.

Thirdly, we had a request some weeks back to set up a time for players and mods to chat together and address any need for plotting or other issues that might be holding people back from posting and tagging. We kind of dropped the ball on that one, and for that we apologize. Because of technical issues many players have with AIM, Krissy has set up a browser-based chatroom here. It'll pester you to log in with Facebook or whatever, but you can tell it to just log you in as a guest. More troublesome is the issue of getting people together at the same time, particularly considering time differences. Krissy and I will log into the chat whenever we are at our computers now through the end of next week (and beyond, if requested), and have it set to beep at us if you say anything in there (be aware, though, that Krissy will be absent most of this weekend). We would also be happy to attempt to coordinate a specific time for chatting, and players are welcome to meet one another in there at any time. Discussions of plotting or any issues you're having with the game are also welcome in the comments of this post or, if it is a private matter, via private messages to the mod account.

Finally, we sort of have to address the elephant in the room -- that is, the fact that very few of our players are active right now. While there are no set activity requirements, we will soon be going around poking people who have gone quiet. This isn't about laying down the law; we would much rather see you become active again, regardless of how long it has been. If we pester you about your activity level, it is because we want to know what's preventing you from being active and how we can make it better. A game is only as strong as its players.

So please, let us know if there's anything you want to see happen, and please, take this opportunity to plot together. One thing I've seen done in other games is to make an ooc post where everyone can semi-formally write up what's happening with their characters and what they would like to have happen. If that would be helpful, we could do that as well; I just don't want to overwhelm people by cramming too many addenda onto this post.

ETA: the Flash plugin keeps crashing and/or just not loading the chatroom for me. I'm still going to make the effort to be in there as often as I can get it to work, but if you are able to use AIM, I am more reliably available on there.