[from here]

Maybe it was just her imagination, but this hall sure felt narrower than the ones she was used to moving through. Longer, too. The dark stretched out way ahead, continuing beyond the weak range of her flashlight, and seemed to go on forever. It was kind of spooky. Like something out of a scary story. You know, the type where some poor sap is walking along by themselves and walks into the wrong place at the wrong time? Boy, you had to be pretty stupid to be--

Oh, she passed by a door already. Okay, maybe she should be paying attention to where she was going. Harley remembered the place she was looking for was going to be on her left, and it wasn't the first or last door. She kept her flashlight locked on the wall, waiting for doors to magically pop in from the darkness as she walked. Here! This looked like it! She grabbed the handle and proceeded to walk straight into the door, bashing her nose pretty hard.

"Owwwww!" Harley rubbed her face, glaring daggers at the door like this was all its fault. What the heck just happened? ...Whose bright idea was it to put a lock on here?! She hadn't come across too many locked doors in this place. In fact, she couldn't remember it happening ever except for the front door. What, so the people here were actually wising up and decided to lock things down so people would stop snatching their stuff? Way to be late there, docs. Not that it was going to do much good either way.

She shined her light on the lock. Welp, nothing to pick the lock with. So she'd just have to do it the old fashioned way! She lifted up the iron poker and slammed it down on the lock hard. A few strong whacks and the thing eventually snapped. Heh. Piece of cake~!

I'll be off hiatus for the next dayshift. Everything should be fine now.

[from here]

Harley peeked around the corner of the stairwell, a little unsure about leaving the secure feeling of having a wall next to her just yet. She'd never been upstairs by herself before, and the only time she had been up here, she ended up with enough nightmare fodder to last her for a good long while. Last thing she needed tonight was some freaky cat-thing or giant monster spider biting her head off.

Figuring the coast was clear, she finally stepped into the hallway. She got to the center and stopped, suddenly confused. Harley spun around full circle, somewhat baffled. Wait. Where was she going again? Looking at a sloppy, hand-drawn map and actually walking the path were two very different things, it looked like. Ah! That's right! Down this hallway over here. There would be a bunch of doors down this one. She just had to hope she could remember which one was the one she was looking for.

[to here]

[from here]

In an amazing display of forethought, Harley scanned the stairwell with the flashlight before finally moving up. She was no dummy. The moment she wasn't paying attention was the moment she wound being something's midnight snack. Of course, nothing about her demeanor actually showed any signs of wariness. Each step was taken with a bounce as she made her way upstairs.

It had been a while since she'd moved around by herself, and she'd never done so while going upstairs. It was kind of... lonely. Uncomfortable. Sad. But at the same time, moving and acting on her own was a little exciting. It made her feel almost empowered, like she could do anything! Well, anything while still stuck in this place, but she knew what she meant.

[to here]

Tweaks and enhancements

• As a number of you reported, a service interruption impaired sending and receiving notifications for a couple of days. This was due to an avalanche of snowflake cookies. We've removed the free snowflake cookie and unclogged the pipeline. Timely notifications should resume shortly. Please note that there's a backlog in our queues, so you'll be getting earlier notifications first. For more details, check out this post at lj_maintenance.
• In anticipation of the new year, we've embarked on a self-improvement kick to boost our backend (pun semi-intended). This will allow us to offer you a holiday promotion in the next few weeks (yes, we're listening and working very hard to make it happen). We sincerely appreciate your continued patience and support.

Holiday vgifts are here!

We've added some fantastic new vgifts to help you spread holiday cheer. We also hope you'll honor AIDS Awareness Month by purchasing virtual red ribbons. Priced at $2.99, we'll donate 100 percent of gross proceeds to IAVI.org (the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) to support the development and global distribution of an affordable HIV vaccine.

Introducing: LJLimericks

We cordially here do invite you
To craft a fine limerick. Might you?
Each week, a new theme,
Then a poll, that's our dream
Winner posted on news to delight you!

In honor of all the brilliant writers on LiveJournal, we've created a brand new community: ljlimericks! Each week, we'll enter a handful of limericks into a poll (which we'll tuck snugly under an LJ-Cut). The winning poem will be published in the following newsletter. In addition, the author will receive a virtual blue ribbon! If you have the time, come drop us a rhyme. Please keep the "Nantucket" stuff on the downlow, since this is a youth-friendly community. Our first prompt is: Insomnia in winter.

Photos of the week

We're back with more incredible images from our global photography community. Congratulations to sempre_marseeya, who has been awarded a virtual blue ribbon as the winner of our second lj_photophile poll.

We hate to squelch your creativity, but, as a courtesy to other users, please post only one photo at a time and keep the main photo no larger than 350x350 (so images display properly via mobile and on friends pages). You can link to a larger image and/or post photos under a cut. Just so you know, we select photos for the poll blindly, based on user comments and staff feedback. Please continue to vote, comment, and, of course, enjoy. You can check out the week in pictures and view more awesome user content after the jump!

( Read more... )

Curtains

Thanks, again, for joining us. Stay warm and safe out there!

doorwindowwall
A stunning collection of images sure to delight anyone with a penchant for architectural elements, this talented community, largely from New York, is hoping to attract new members from around the world. Featuring an eclectic variety of photos depicting doors, windows, and walls, there's an interesting balance of interior and exterior shots, many from urban streets, some from ramshackle rural farmhouses. Wonderful!

[from here]

"What do you see?"

The question was nakedly interrogatory and the inspector made no attempt to suggest otherwise. Lunge knew what he saw: a fair-sized church looming over them, battered but otherwise intact and dark where it stood to block the moon's light, brickwork and stonework from its spire and the sizeable chunks taken from parts of its walls spread about like concrete confetti. The doors, surprisingly, were relatively intact.

No. That wasn't important. What was important was how Laurier perceived it.

He glanced sideways at the man, frowning just a little as he analysed his expression. A little bored, a little exasperated, lacking any evidence to suggest that he was lying at all. And there was no reason to doubt the sincerity in his face, either, because Laurier was far from the expert of self-control that L had been. Not even frank discussion of his mother's death had rattled him in the arts and craft's room, yet he had seen all to clearly the look on Laurier's face at his earlier theory on his past. Besides, he added silently, I can't help but wonder if he had rather hoped we would find something after all, as much as he denies this place's existence.

I'm pretty sure Spock's about to run inside, but since a 5 person thread = doom, I thought we should probably figure out what's going to happen next.

My thoughts are that Spock's going to be interested in getting Kirk to a patient room so he can do a mind meld without any chances of getting interrupted. Since McCoy is already around to supervise, he's probably not going to want extra people watching. Would people be cool with Spock telling Chekov to keep watch outside and learn whatever he can about Hayes?

Also, Hyjal brought up the possibility of splitting the thread into two for the move over to the patient hall in order to make it go faster, but I wanted to get everyone's opinions on that before we came to a decision.

Thanks!

People in the Entry Room! I think there are two groups in there now? Do we want to merge the threads, or do a time-skip, or...? Or considering there's like, two days left to NS, I can have Mele stare at the ceiling and not engage anyone. Thoughts?

Just a reminder that you've still got a little more than 24 hours to sign up for the Holiday Gift Exchange! If you haven't already, make sure you fill out your information on this post before midnight on Dec. 10! (we'll be a little lenient with the exact hours, don't worry. ^^; ) Info on your secret giftee will be sent out the following day, Dec 11, so check the email address you gave us for that information. Thanks everyone for participating! :)
~Mika

So! It's a month until applications open again (say what?!), so we will now be opening extra character letters for a week. That means that if you are applying for your 5th/6th/nth character, you need to write up a letter and email it to us in a week's time. Follow the guidelines for letter writing as set out over here (bottom of the post).

Also, we'd like to ask people to do what they can to advertise and get the word out about applications opening! We'd like a bigger app count than last cycle, so please do what you can. We'd appreciate it. ♥

No seriously, you guys. It's time for the most embarrassing thing you've ever put your characters through (or not - some of you guys are horrible). It's time for...

Landel's: the Musical

I know what you're thinking - FoC isn't strictly for damned players. This is simply the setting, as I don't think this is really something I could have done in damned_cafe. Any character, whether they've ever been in Landel's or not, is invited to participate. The structure of the building is the same. If you're unfamiliar with it, you can refer to damned_maps. And if your character should happen to wander into the courtyard, they'll see the ever-so-familiar glitter-spewing cod fountain set up in the center.

Here's the deal:

- You can have your character fit in with the setting, or be as confused as they normally would be. Either way, they will be forced to break into song and/or dance at the slightest provocation. Not all of their lines have to be sung, but they will be unable to resist the urge for more than a few paragraphs. So we can pick them out, any lines of song should be done in italics.

- The music can be any style, from classical opera to something far more modern and/or rock heavy.

- THIS DOES NOT ALL HAVE TO TAKE PLACE IN THE SAME TIME PERIOD OR IN THE SAME SCENE. In fact, players are encouraged to play out special past events like the zombie invasion (even with characters that didn't participate in them) or regular nightly events that they may not ever get to do, such as M-U or Special Counseling. If you're unfamiliar with any of this, just set them up in the courtyard (it's a mental hospital) and take it from there.

- Please label your thread with the room/location your character is in, as well as the event it takes place during (if applicable). This can take place anywhere in the Landel's setting, including Doyleton. "Events" to be labeled are past plots or M-U/SC possibilities.

- Your character's clothing, whether the typical Landel's uniform or otherwise, has been slightly altered to fit a stage performance. If they're in the regular uniform, the smiley face is now outlined in sequins. Otherwise, the changes are up to you. (And optional, if you'd rather not change anything.)

- Have fun.

- Don't be lame.

ETA: Your characters don't necessarily have to be talented. >D

ETAx2: Songs may or may not be original.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM this account or laverinth. Enjoy!

Just a reminder that you must vote in the doctor polls if you want to have therapy this next cycle!! The polls will close around Friday sometime.

Becky!

Bella-mun and I are just wondering if you're still up for threading this nightshift (since I stalk you and Em looks busy still, shut up it's totally IC for me to do that). If not, it's totes okay with us if we postpone it to dayshift or... whenever!

- Hannah (Edward-mun)

**FINAL EDIT Thu Dec 10 02:15:47 UTC 2009**

So there is the final update... Over the past day we have processed around 11 million jobs out of the 12 million that were in queue at that time. Please bear in mind that over this past day, more jobs for notifications are also created. So while the queue has been dropping, we are still not fully caught up at this point, due to backlog and new jobs. We have roughly 3 million jobs still pending that involve the notification system in some manner. We had hoped we could have fully cleared the queue in a day, but unfortunately we can't clear it too quickly, since we need the rest of the site to operate normally. From our current perspective on the amount of jobs that are left in queue, and how many it has processed thus far, we believe it will take around another 8 - 12 hours to process everything.

And finally some answers to some questions:

( Read More and Get Some Answers... )

freeskiers
While some of us long to escape the cold, dark stretch of winter for hot tropical beaches, for others, there's nothing quite like whoooooshing down those shimmering sugar alps. If you're fond of freestyle skiing, get ready to slide down the slippery slopes in good company. This passionate, international community shares travel/gear tips, anecdotes, photos, and videos for those who can't get enough of the sweet stuff.