EDIT: Still not 2 AM! But it might as well be, because the only possible explanation for the sudden disappearance of the Sceptile layout is that I am exhausted out of my mind and therefore hallucinating!

...or it could be that I made a new layout and got a styleswitcher, but that's nowhere near as interesting as hallucinations!

Anyway, yes! New layout, based on that picture of Lugia and Jolteon I drew and mentioned back in April (and not February as my memory continues to insist)! The structure of the pages is... well, exactly the same, but I figured it was high time for a lighter color scheme and this was the quickest way to get something semi-cool-looking. I do intend to drum up some new layouts that actually have new layouts before the end of the year, but those'll have to wait a bit.

If you miss Sceptile, though, he's still around! A new section has been added to the menu; just click the "Leaf Storm" link under Styleswitcher and everything will go back to the same soothing, sexy dark green you've come to know and love. I've wanted to bring the styleswitcher back for a while now, but the CMS is finicky when it comes to that sort of thing and I couldn't find a working solution until today. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it around!

While making the Storm at Sea layout I also took a minute to tweak bits of Leaf Storm. Namely, the subpages of sections like Fanfiction and Misc. Writing should not be so horribly spaced out in the menu there. That had been on my nerves for a while but I was too lazy to fix it until now. All better. Oh, and I reduced the number of news items shown per page to 5. No reason for the front page to be that damn long.

If you experience any problems with either layout or with the styleswitcher, contact me and give me a heads-up. I'll do what I can to sort it out.

Is it 2 AM yet? No? Oh, well, I'll post anyway.

Brief update to announce that dcNET is now affiliated with FireChao.com! Don't let the name fool you–this neat little (but quickly growing) site's content is primarily Pokémon-based. Of particular interest are their sections on the popular adoptable site GPX+; I'm not a huge fan of that sort of thing myself, but for those of you who are their GPX+ EggDex and other comprehensive resources should be a real boon. They also have forums, an oekaki, interesting guides... give them a visit!

Since that "setting deadlines" thing worked so well for the ref scale (what a concept!), I think I'll just go ahead and set myself another one for fixing that bloody awful ASB for Beginners page: October 4th. That's when my next school quarter starts, and I'd like to get some crap actually done around here before I get bogged down again. Hold me to it, please! (I'd like to get a few more things ready by the 4th, but I am a pathetic panda and probably shouldn't try to do too much at once. Baby steps, Phoenix, baby steps.)

EDIT: Decided to go ahead and finish one of those renders. dcNET gets its first taste of the fifth generation with a new Wargle render, whoohoo! Pretty bird. And seeing as Wargle is currently my favorite fifth-gen Pokémon, you might be seeing a bit more of it around here sometime soon...

As promised, I uploaded some of the sketches I made for that meme-thing (specifically Mightyena, Giratina, Torchic and Rampardos). I'm debating whether or not I want to upload the rest, because they're really, really bad and stupid and don't need to be displayed on their own. On the other hand, though, Morty *is* awesome and those note-playing secret base mats need more love... hmm. I'll sleep on it.

Sorry for the update drought there. School started and managed to do terrible things to me even though I only have class two days a week this quarter. At least there're only a few weeks left, bah.

Anyway. Yesterday I filled out an art meme about favorite things in Pokémon games, and I uploaded it to the fanart gallery. It's there, and you can view it, but... well, something seems to have gone horribly wrong with the gallery software. It's displaying all of the thumbnails vertically, and the lightbox script seems to have borked out completely (so you can't see the description that goes with the new image, for example). I didn't do anything to fiddle with them recently, so I have no idea what happened. The gallery and a few other things around here are due for some maintenance/updating, however, so hopefully that will fix it. I'll probably upload at least a few of the images used to fill in the meme after said fixing. (Assuming I can fix it. Because, you know, I don't know what's going on.)

I should also have two or three new free renders sometime soon. Hopefully. More substantial updates should come with the break in a little while.

EDIT: Yup, a quick update fixed everything. Business as usual on the gallery front. Sorry if it was borked for a while before I noticed.

A small update, but a spiffy one. (And one that comes only a day after the last... has that ever happened before? Two days, maybe, but... whoa.)

Infrequent updates aside, let's get down to business. There's another picture in the requests/gifts section of the gallery, a Blaziken drawn as a prize for the contest I held on dA at the end of last year. dcNET also has its first sibling site–a position I'd never really considered but am more than happy to accept–in Studio-Revolution.net. SR.net is a small site but is full of unbridled, unadulterated awesome. This comes primarily in the form of the fanfic Anima Ex Machina, which you should probably check out, but Jax is an all-around great writer and awesome person and everything else up there reflects that as well. Go on, what are you waiting for?

Oh, and don't forget Hiram Farm! :)

I can meet them! No, really, I can! Sometimes!

I said I'd get the written version of the ref scale up on the site before my break ends this Tuesday. Lo and behold, I did! If you've been using my calculator then you should read it over–it'll give you a better understanding of why the calc works the way it does and what's going on, which will come in handy when explaining things to the head ref, making calls about tricky moves, and figuring out how to come up with your own rubric should you so desire. Go, go, click, click! (Maybe next I can fix that horrible ASB for beginners page. Ugh.)

Fear not, non-ASB-nerds: I bring something for you, too! There are three new renders up on the free goodies page (Pikachu, Marill and a new-and-improved Lucario), all of which are of vastly superior quality when compared to the old stuff up there. God only knows why I haven't axed said old stuff, but I guess maybe I'm laboring under the impression that someone out there prefers crappy attempts at cel shading to halfway decent art. Must be somebody like that somewhere, right? Right?

The Pepsi Refresh project is still going on, by the way, and Hiram Farm could still use your help! See the previous update for more info on how you can give them a hand.

Speaking of reminders, remember that I will be taking DexGenesis offline completely at the end of next week. If there's something you want to recover, I suggest you do so now before it's all lost to the sands of time. Don't say I didn't warn you.