@arwen_daeneri31 it seems you are just in time! I just popped up the last decorations for the Blossom Festival—my mum’s favorite time of year—and opened the doors of the Mansion. Perhaps you would like to come by and join the festivities?

@ms-death I would love to stop by join the festivities. 🙂

Posted by: @wren

Perhaps you might consider trying your hand at pysanky? Seems appropriate, and, besides...eggs are much cheaper than lamb. ? 

That is really cool! Unfortunately, I don't think I have the patience for that. These days, I barely dye my Easter eggs anything more interesting than half one color and half another. I'll just have to admire the work of much more skilled people on the internet.

Still haven't really decided one way or another what I'm going to do just yet. Though I probably should - Easter is coming up!

Posted by: @ryadian

working on the superhero universe my brother and I are developing.

Wow, that is impressive! How many years have you been working on this together?

We've been making up superheroes together since we were kids, but we started talking seriously about making a whole universe about... I think 15 years ago now? I don't remember when, exactly. Most of this time, it's been more talk than work, but we decided to really sit down and actually write a comic. We're almost done, but my brother has to finish the artwork (unfortunately, I can't draw worth beans; the most I can do is help him color, which I've already done 😛 ).

Posted by: @valiantarcher

But, at the same time - if it's fun and you want to get back in the habit of writing, it might not be a bad idea to play with it and have fun? (Unless it's distracting from what you actually want to write, that is.)

In this case, I think it would've been more work to start something new, since I didn't have any characters, or story, or anything... just a whim, really. Though sometimes, I'll just write self-indulgent fanfiction when I want to get my creative juices flowing again. It's much easier when I can borrow other people's characters and settings. 😉

Posted by: @valiantarcher

My work week went pretty well. My next project has indeed kicked off and it's been demanding already. Oh well.

Of course is it. Good luck with this project! 🙂

I'm glad to hear that they're all settling into their new home nicely, @jo. 🙂 I hope you get to see them for Easter! Here's hoping for an unusually warm April. It'll be interesting for you to celebrate Easter with the Christmas decorations still up. 😛 Do you have any grand plans?

That's great to hear that your dad already has the first dose! Does he have his second yet?

It's good to see you again, @arwen_daeneri31! 🙂 

@Jo, I'm glad to hear Bear is settling in. A rug by the front door sounds like a good favourite spot - as long as she's not in the way of the door or the people coming and going!

Hello, @Arwen_Daeneri31 ; it's good to see you again. I hope you're able to figure out what character(s) to bring to the Festival soon.

@Rya, I understand how starting the new story would take more brainpower and energy than working on an existing one, even if you were inspired for the new story and not the existing one. And good idea on using fanfiction to get creative juices flowing!
Any progress on Easter plans? It's coming up fast, for sure! Maybe you could make some special cupcakes or cookies or such, if all else fails?

New work project is chugging along. We have a deadline this week, but we really only got the majority of the answers we needed in the last week or two (nothing like having your time for working cut down to a third of what it should've been ). Ach, well - it'll probably be a busy week.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

as long as she's [Bear is] not in the way of the door or the people coming and going!

And as long as she doesn't escape as people come and go! But she shouldn't, because G & G have been extra-aware about this since she ran away (and was gone for six weeks in mid-winter!) over two years ago.

How was everyone's Easter weekend? Very special here, although we missed having the family over, of course, as we're in major lockdown now again (third time; third wave of Covid), but hurrah for video chats and loads of reflective and joyous singing throughout the weekend!  

Posted by: @valiantarcher

We have a deadline this week, but we really only got the majority of the answers we needed in the last week or two (nothing like having your time for working cut down to a third of what it should've been )

Yikes, that's intense, Valia! How is this work week faring?

Today's high is to be 20C / 68F, I think the warmest day thus far in 2021. The farmers are out like bees to blossoms and it's fun to see the fields turned over as they get ready for planting. I do love the sight of a freshly-plowed field. And the scent, mmm!

Leaving some cute Rice Krispies treats for the Square folk to (virtually) enjoy ...

Speaking of which, various momma Robins are checking out the nests around our house, which is always fun to watch. Eggs should be laid within soon! But first the house-hunting has to happen.

Ryadian wrote:

It'll be interesting for you to celebrate Easter with the Christmas decorations still up.

Indeed it was.

Rya wrote:

That's great to hear that your dad already has the first dose! Does he have his second yet?

Yes! We are very glad. And he received his second (Moderna) dose this morning. Thus far, no reaction, aside from an expected somewhat sore-ish arm. Hopefully nothing else will develop, but he has Tylenol on hand, just in case.  

Edit a couple of hours later: And we just heard that the vaccines have opened up for my husband's age group, so hurrah!  

@Jo, also very true about Bear escaping! I knew G & G had been extra careful about watching her since then, but I was also hoping Bear had mellowed a bit and had had enough of running away after those six weeks. Do you think that's true?

Work is going okay - still pretty hectic. I got pulled into an online meeting with no notice today, which wasn't much fun, but I made it through and don't think I completely botched it. And I suppose it was just as well I got pulled in, because I found out something that has an impact on my design that I didn't know before and - due to communications levels - might not have found out otherwise for quite a while.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

I knew G & G had been extra careful about watching her since then, but I was also hoping Bear had mellowed a bit and had had enough of running away after those six weeks. Do you think that's true?

Good question! We think Bear has mellowed. A bit. But it wouldn't take much for her instinct to kick in: if there was a situation she didn't care for (noise, confusion, a scare), she would bolt again. Having said that, she has changed so much since her dramatic lost-and-found episode at the beginning of 2019. She has become much more personable, comfortable, fun, and trusting of Geoff and Gen. It's wonderful to see! The Aid 4 Paws ladies that helped us 24-7 during those six weeks were not sure how she would be after being caught: they have seen too many situations where a rescue dog's flight and fear instincts become even more pronounced. Thankfully not the case with sweet Bear.

Posted by: @valiantarcher

Work is going okay - still pretty hectic. I got pulled into an online meeting with no notice today, which wasn't much fun, but I made it through and don't think I completely botched it.

, especially as I know work continues to be intense now too.  

How is everyone? Doing quite well here. We just booked our second vaccine dose (early July), so, yay! And some of our family is coming here for an outdoors visit for Father's Day, with two of our kids staying all weekend. This is the first time for many, many months. I'm making some delicious meals, and have to get baking and cooking tomorrow, mmm. Celebrating my dad's 63 years of being a father and my husband, 36 years.  

Our gardens are all looking lush, fresh, growing, vibrant. This is the one thing that pulls me through summer ... gardening! I just hilled/mounded the potatoes last evening, so they're all set for the next stage. Temperatures at night here are 5 or 6 ° Celsius last night and tonight, so it's early morning walking weather again! And a week ago, I had the privilege of going just outside our village to a prime viewing point for watching the annular solar eclipse. Wow. Gorgeous in every way!  

@jo, it's good to hear that Bear has done very well in the two years since escaping! The possibility of her startling again makes sense too, as much as it would be wished otherwise.
 I hope you all are enjoying your Father's Day weekend celebration! And hurrah for the garden!

 I don't have a garden, but I do have one tomato plant in a pot. It's growing but has shown no sign of developing flowers. To be fair, it even still being alive is pretty impressive - I have no idea what I'm doing with it.

Hi everyone,

So, I just had a thought about the Ditto Town stories. What if we created a way to post Ditto Town related stories on AO3? Not the old stories (because there were way too many writers involved to track them all down and get permission for reposting anyway), but any new stories that we might want to write in that world. We could individually write stories which mostly focus on our own characters but in that shared world and with cameos and such from other people's (or communal) characters. And two or three authors could team up to write a group story if they wanted, but it wouldn't be a free-for-all like things eventually became here. 

I was just thinking that might be a fun way to casually poke around with Ditto Town stories in a more 'shared universe' way than in the 'communal story' kind of way that it was. That way, anyone interested in writing those kinds of stories could proceed with their own stuff without having to wait on other people to update. And if we do it on AO3, the Narniaweb mods wouldn't have to worry about trying to manage it.

Anyone interested?

Shawna, that's actually kind of what Apartment 51 is designed to be--short stories by individual authors, in or out of 'verse, so to speak. We just have so few people on that we aren't keeping it open. If you have more in-depth thoughts you're interested in chatting through, please PM me. If people are interested, I don't mind having the hosts open new threads, it's just a bit sad when things never get posted in.

Hey, Shawna! 🙂

I'll admit that I know very little about AO3, but I think I can see how this would work. I've had an idea kicking around in the back of my head for a complete revamp (no pun intended 😉 ) of Phoenix Archer's story, but I've never had a great place to put it or taken the time to really write it out. This sounds like a good place to do that much, at least. Is there a built-in feature to have everything in a sort of "shared universe", or is it more that we would just assume that anyone writing in a Ditto Story archive would be part of the same universe?

(Yes, I am, in fact, still alive. I have been so disorganized this year, and it's been absolutely flying by. At least it's fall now!!)

Posted by: @valiantarcher

I don't have a garden, but I do have one tomato plant in a pot.

How did that tomato plant turn out, Valia?

I am most certainly glad you are still alive, @Rya!   And yes, hurrah for Autumn!  

There is so much going on, I can't begin to expound but I hope everyone is staying safe in these times and caring and looking out for people around them.

Our usually crisp Autumn has been too warm so far. Sometimes by now, the leaves are nearly at their peak, and with our Canadian Thanksgiving this weekend, we were hoping for a bit more colour ... and cooler temperatures, but alas. The peak will be very late this year: the trees have begun turning, but only just. A long ways to go yet. An unusual falltime thus far.

We have a lovely home (Airbnb) in an out-of-the-way corner a few hours east of Toronto, right on Lake Ontario booked for early November with all our kids. We went their last year too and loved it! And, nope, we still have not celebrated Christmas with the family because of Covid restrictions, but have decided to combine Christmas 2020 with Christmas 2021. I just hope the large turkey in our deep freeze has lasted okay.   But it is packaged very well and snugly. And so this is the first time in my entire adult life that the Christmas decorations have been up the entire year. I am certainly not taking them down now to only put them up again in just over a month.  

@wren Well, I think part of the problem (for me, anyway) is having it as a forum thread on here. Things are so slow here ... I mean, I forget to check Narniaweb for sometimes months at a time, whereas I go on AO3 nearly every day. The potential eyes on the story here is relatively quite tiny--and it doesn't really make sense as a place to post those kind of stories when they don't actually have anything to do with Narnia. Sure, those of us who've been here a long time might remember the connection, but that was... a very long time ago now. Also, not to mean anything against the mods here at all, but the fact that it's moderated and has rules kind of kills a lot of potential creativity with regard to writing individual stories. (Another problem we authors don't face on AO3.) Like, I know a lot of stuff's been grandfathered in with regard to using existing characters or fantasy races (like Stargazer's use of Gargoyles), but the way I read that, it would be very difficult for me, for example, to create new vampire characters without violating that rule precisely because I deliberately base them all off of an existing character (and I even have an in-universe explanation why). So, yeah, just the fact that rules and moderators exist on here (which is great and necessary for a discussion forum) just really doesn't make it a desirable place to post fiction for me. Even if we only had a few people go to AO3 and start posting Ditto Town based stories, I think it would have the potential to be more lively and interesting than here. (Again, no offense to Narniaweb; I just don't think it makes sense as a place to post this sort of original fiction anymore.) 

@rya Hi, Ryadian! Always good to see you around. I'm thinking we could use 'Ditto Town' in the fandom field (maybe along with 'Original Work'), and I could create a collection that we could also add the stories into. We could create multiple collections if we end up with slightly different variations of the Ditto Town universe (which would be totally fine, IMO). There's also the feature to 'follow' each other if we want to know when someone posts a new story or chapter (though, unfortunately, the follow feature doesn't let you specify fandom, so you get notifications for everything the author posts, regardless of fandom). It's also possible to have multiple authors on the same story. So, for example, if you and I wanted to write a shared story where we write alternating chapters (which sounds like it could be fun), we could do that. (I haven't actually tried doing it myself yet, but it looks like it's pretty easy.) I just updated my email in my profile, so if you wanted to email me to discuss more, we could do that. I could also post that one short VF story I wrote a while back on AO3 to set up the category so that you could have a sort of template to post yours, if you want.

Posted by @jo

How did that tomato plant turn out, Valia?

Welll, it's technically still alive, but did not produce any fruit. The same can be said for my sweet potato plants, alas. However, the main reason both are still alive is that they were temporarily left under care of another family member but I still haven't reclaimed them. That said, I have actually kept a few sweet potato vines and my houseplant alive. (...I would love to have a green thumb, but have not acquired it as of yet.)

Hope everyone is having a happy New Year so far!

Alas, indeed, Valia. Ah well, this season's brand new. May there be fruit this time 'round. I did not have a green thumb at all (nor any interest) when I was younger, but that has changed over the years, and now I don't know what I'd do without gardening.  

The Town Square is so quiet these days. Gone are the days when it was hopping-busy back on the old forum. Such great memories! Glad we have those.  

Hope everyone enjoys the summer season. Autumn will be upon us soon enough (for which I, personally, am cheering, lol).