...hey, it's still the 27th in a few islands out there in the Pacific, so I am totally not late! I did a few things to celebrate the 20th anniversary and the days leading up to it, and I thought I'd post them here as well! There are several new pictures in the fanart gallery, and there's also *gasp* a new fanfic! Said fic may still get a few tweaks here and there in a little while—I'm rushing to post it while it's still the 27th somewhere out there, so it hasn't gotten quite as much proofreading as it probably needs. Still, hopefully it makes for a nice anniversary read!

I should also point out a few housekeeping things: first of all, comments have been turned off for now. Not too many people were using them... aside from a ton of spammers, and I was getting a little tired of having to clean up behind them. I'm not quite sure when they'll be returning; we'll have to see.

Part of the reason I'm not sure when they'll be returning is because I'm getting closer to the completion of the latest site revamp, which will change a lot of backend structure and thus force me to use a different commenting solution anyway should I decide to bring them back. Since I'm so close to getting the new thing set up, I'm not planning on updating much until it's ready (I only bothered today since it is a holiday, after all). Another announcement will go up when the actual switch approaches.

I hope you enjoyed Pokémon Day in whatever ways you chose to celebrate it! I'll probably still be around and kicking as long as Pokémon has inspiration to share, so who knows? Perhaps I'll have a little something-something to do for the series' next major anniversary, too. :)

Been a while, hasn't it? Exactly one year, in fact. I can only apologize for the quiet around here—I didn't even do a resolution post in January (although to be fair, I actually didn't make any fandom-related resolutions anyway). A lot of my website-related time this past year, especially in the first few months, went toward a massive revamp of the Phoenixdex, and I just haven't been able to get any new stories or anything finished that could go up here instead. As always, I'm hoping I'll be able to change that around in the coming year. I cannot and will not promise that the site will update daily, weekly or even monthly—by now I should know better than to say that sort of thing, and anyway it's not like this is an up-to-the-minute news site like Serebii so what would I even do every day—but I can definitely say that I've got some plans in store for this old dog yet.

That brings me to the first of the birthday presents: I've finally gone and updated the To-Do List, getting rid of outdated projects (the last time I touched that page was before Gen VI was even announced, oh god) and adding new ones so the page is once again useful as a way to learn what's up next for AO. Most of what's on there at the moment consists of updates to existing pages and projects, but there are a few new tantalizing secret shinies waiting in the wings as well. (And yes, this time they are actually intended to be content for Altered Origin itself, not side things like the Turquoise RP forums.) You'll also notice that I'm going to be making some changes around here and moving the site to a new platform. For the most part that change shouldn't affect the way you use the site, apart from possibly making it slightly faster to browse—the majority of the changes are more for my/my server's benefit than anything else. Still, it'll probably come with some slightly changed layouts (including a Skiddo layout to complete my set of favorite Pokémon) that will hopefully be even better for reading than the current two are. There may also be some URL and structural changes, and a few older pieces of content may be shuffled around or removed, though I will try not to remove anything I think people might be using—I don't do much with ASB anymore, for example, but I know there are people who reference some of those pages and I don't want to take that content away if it's still useful. We'll just have to see what happens when I read through and move everything over, eh?

Another thing that's on the to-do list: an LP! A few months ago the demo of the highly anticipated fangame Pokémon Ethereal Gates was released, showcasing fifty brand-new Pokémon and the game's first two gyms. I did a blind Let's Play run of the demo over on my Tumblr, and now I'm cleaning it up a bit and moving it over here. It even has screenshots, unlike my last two muddled attempts at LPs! I've mentioned before that I'd like to do more Let's Plays for the site, and in fact I already know what the next one will be. The new Pokémon Uranium LP will likely begin sometime early next year; I had actually wanted to start it today, but one of the things I did resolve to do this year was make some meaningful progress on my towering video game backlog and I want to finish up a few more things before the month is out. We'll see what other games get LP'd in the future, and in the meantime I hope you enjoy my awkward little romp through Ethereal Gates —the new introduction and the first part are up today, just below this birthday update post, and I'll try to get the rest ready to go and queued up for the rest of the month. You'll be able to read the whole series by checking the Ethereal Gates blog tag. (EDIT: Let's Plays have been moved to their own section of the site. The Ethereal Gates LP now starts here.)

I've got a few new 721 mini drabbles to post as well, one that I wrote today and two that I actually wrote earlier in the year but apparently forgot about. Whoops! Well, they're here now, so enjoy Poochyena, Skorupi and Conkeldurr.

Finally, I've also updated the fanart gallery with a few new images, mostly from last year. All but the Fletchling were also previously posted on Tumblr, so you may have seen those four before, but if not, enjoy!

Also, a friendly reminder that the aforementioned Tumblr, while hardly packed with daily content and mostly packed with fakemon art, is definitely updated more frequently than Altered Origin. In addition to said fakemon I do occasionally talk about other things I'm working on, and so for smaller updates and tidbits that aren't finished stories or what have you it's a much better place to keep up with my miscellaneous fandom nonsense in between the bigger things that show up here. Hm, maybe I should even set up an RSS feed on the new AO site so people can check it for new updates as well...

Happy eighth birthday, Altered Origin, and thanks again to those of you who still come around to check out the nonsense I like to toss up here. I hope you enjoy the stuff added today, and that you will enjoy what's coming in the future.

...which was only a few update posts ago. Eff.

Well, the good news is that I do have something new for Underwhelming Birthday Party Number Seven: the webcomic recommendation list I've been meaning to finish up for ages is now live. I definitely left off some that I want to rec but couldn't put into words for some reason; most of them are popular enough that I'm sure you've heard of them, but I'll add them (and any others) as soon as I can. I'm also going to post a ficbit or two shortly, so there's that.

I was hoping to be ready to start an LP soonish, but I want to make sure some other stuff is off my plate before I commit to that. Maybe in time for my birthday in January. Maybe. Erp.

Happy seventh birthday, Altered Origin, minimal though it is, and happy archive-bingeing to anyone who gets hooked on Rice Boy or Drive or whatever after reading the rec list. I'm sorry if you're up until 2 AM, but I should mention that I'm also not sorry at all.

...and there's really no excuse for it, considering that I had the 721 mini stories I'm updating with finished months ago. Sorry. :( We've got new drabbles for Koffing, Unown, Magcargo, Loudred, Cranidos, Rampardos, Shellos, Scraggy, Cofagrigus, Minccino, Pyroar, Furfrou, Meowstic, Slurpuff and Gourgeist.

There would probably have been more (and more frequent updates as a result), but most of my writing has been focused on that Best at Second-Best first draft I swore I'd get done. It's coming along nicely, at least. Nowhere near postable yet, but as that's not the idea at this stage I'm fine with that. I do have some smaller projects that are a little less messy and may see some ficbits posted soonish, though!

A happy birthday to me and a happy belated New Year to the rest of you! Sorry for the delay in the usual resolutions post; had some ironing out to do with respect to said resolutions, but they'll be available in the next post. Let's get a few other updates get out of the way first:

First of all, I've decided that I'm going to discontinue the 718 project, a.k.a. that one-shot-per-evolution-line project that most of you probably forgot was a thing. The fics themselves will remain up, of course, and I'll continue writing individual one-shots as time and inspiration permits (I do have a few ideas bouncing around currently that would've been for 718 and are still perfectly good on their own, for example), but there's a sense of obligation that comes with calling this a "project" and I'd rather not have it hanging over my head any longer. It's been neglected for long enough and my attention is better spent on other goals.

718 mini, on the other hand, I fully intend to keep up with. I should also point out that I'm going to change its name (again) to 721 mini to reflect the actual number of existing Pokémon as of Gen VI. That was my intent when I first announced the switch from 649 to 718, but at the time I thought I'd hold out a little longer just in case there were a significant number of people who remained blissfully unspoiled. I apologize if you were one of the few folks who hadn't yet heard that there are three hidden event Pokémon in X and Y and I've just ruined that for you. If you still don't know what those three Pokémon actually are, however, rest assured that I won't be writing about them yet and you can continue to hold out until the official reveal. Not that I could write fics for them seeing as we know so little worth writing about, but still. No further spoilers here!

(The Fanfiction page has been updated to reflect these changes. If I screwed up any links or anything, let me know.)

I'm trying to get that "write 100+ words every day" thing back up and running again, and so of course that means that the newly-christened 721 mini has a bunch of updates for you! (Well, maybe not "of course" given my track record, but I've been pretty good about it so far! Not every day of writing has gone toward this project, nor are all of them currently presentable, but there's still a fair bit here!) New drabbles are up for Rapidash, Grimer, Electrode, Cubone, Marowak, Togetic, Swinub, Shedinja, Bagon, Glameow, Purugly, Rotom, Swoobat, Maractus, Yamask, Escavalier, Alomomola, Accelgor, Braixen, Frogadier, Fletchling, Aegislash and Klefki. Whew!