Just a quick little update to mention that I've changed things up a little bit. I've decided that it's not worth sequestering my "blog" updates off away from the front page, partially because the front page gets lonely what with the infrequent updates and partially because this is mostly a personal site and screw it I can ramble about terrible plotbunnies on the front page if I damn well want. Likewise any fanfics that actually get posted (and that's totally going to happen this year, yep) will show up here as well, because making an additional post to say "oh hey I made a post it has fic in it" is somewhat redundant. Longer posts will of course have their content hidden under cuts so you don't have to scroll past an entire chapter of fanfic or a long-winded tirade about interactive fiction just to see what the last content update I made was.

The menu has been updated to reflect this (read: "blog" link has been axed), and now there's a sidebar on post pages so you can filter down to just blog posts, just fanfic update posts or just site update posts (for those of you who do not, in fact, enjoy my rambling about terrible plotbunnies and would rather ignore it) and so on as needed.

Oh, and my email is fine now, in case you were wondering about that. Back to business as usual.

Happy new year, errybody, and here's hoping that the front page is a little less lonely throughout 2012!

IMPORTANT EDIT: I forgot to mention that the server change also means a slight change in the email servers I'm using. The address is the same phoenixsong at alteredorigin dot net, but I may not be able to receive any emails you send me for a few hours/days while everything changes over. If your email bounces back to you, wait a day or two and try again; if you need to contact me and it's really important, try to reach me at one of the sites/forums on the contact page. Sorry for the inconvenience.

If you're seeing this, that means the move to the new server was successfully completed at last. Welcome to the new place! Take a look around and see what's new:

• The biggest one: Insubstantiality (my fandom/fanwork blog) is now accessible on Altered Origin and can be found here. The old WordPress.com blog is still here if you need it (although you shouldn't, because all posts and comments have been moved here), but it will no longer be updated and it has a post with huge angry shouty letters telling you to come over here for new stuff anyway.
• Likewise, 649's stories and information have been moved over here as well. You can now keep up with all that, or at least what little there is to keep up with, over here in the fanfic section.
• The Phoenixdex has also been moved to the new server, though it's obviously still a separate site. I haven't yet figured out how I want to crosspost its updates over here, or otherwise stick an RSS feed somewhere, for those of you who want reminders to check in on it, so for now if you want to know what's new in the world of my fakemans then you'll have to *gasp* actually navigate over to the home page and see for yourself. Oh how grievously I have inconvenienced you.
• The domains/subdomains dementedchicken.net, phoenixdex.dementedchicken.net and 649.dementedchicken.net are all now officially dead and will point to boring landing pages (if anything at all) instead of redirecting you here. Seriously, stop using that domain. This one is prettier.
• New layout, obviously. It's pretty different from the previous layouts, but I wanted something a little simpler and cleaner for a change. Note that it's still a work in progress, and I'll be tweaking it for a little while to come. The other layout (which will be light-text-on-dark-background for those of you who prefer that, like me) will also be relatively clean and simple, but somewhere down the line I can make another of those "artwork" layouts or whatever you want to call them for those who miss their Morty or Sceptile.
• New affiliate, too! We All Live in a Pokémon World is one of the oldest fansites still up and kicking today, and it's full of a lot of interesting reads about Pokémon, its continued appeal and why it's a lot more awesome than people often give it credit for being. (Not like any of you nice people need to be told that twice, right?)
• Update comments are back; the new site does a better job keeping spam out without needing a silly captcha, and it's also a bit more prominent so people actually remember that the capability for commenting is there. Not that I expect people to have much to say about these updates aside from whatever goes on on the blog, but it's there if you wish to avail yourself of it!
• A few urls have changed here and there, namely the links to the individual zodiac pages (though the url for the zodiac landing page, the one all the little images actually link to, is the same), though aside from that I don't think there were a ton of people bookmarking or pointing to any of them. If you did, well... shouldn't be that hard to find again, right?
• Content-wise, I finally got around to moving my (unfinished) HeartGold blog over here, visible right behind this link. Stupid foreign-language shenanigans go?
• I also gave the sparklies page a bit of a revamp so it was a little better-organized and not so much a giant list of tables you had to scroll all around to see. Notably, I've decided I'm no longer being all that stingy with some of my sparklies, so just about everything is up for trade.

I do believe that's everything, then! Thanks for your patience while everything was shuffled around and whatnot. There may be a few hiccups here and there while I tweak or update a few things; if you spot any broken links or if anything else seems off, let me know about it (or use the comments, aherpderp). Enjoy the new site, and enjoy your holidays and the rest of the year if I don't drop in before then!

At long last I'm finally ready to move the domain over to the new server. I'd like to get the move started on Tuesday the 20th or a hair sooner. The domain name changes may take around 24 hours to propagate, though, so Altered Origin and the Phoenixdex may appear to be down until Wednesday or even Thursday depending on how long the changeover takes.

The new version of the site is just about ready to go; there may be a few pages (primarily the Platinum blog) that take a little longer to show up, but just about everything else you're already familiar with, including the moved Insubstantiality and 649, is already there. I only had time to finish one of the new layouts (and even then it's a little cobbled together, eh; it'll get a bit more polish in the days to come), but I hope I'll have time to finish up the other one before/shortly after Christmas.

The big announcement about the changes and what they mean will stay up there at the top until the move is complete.

Apologies in advance if this move takes a while, but it's a necessary evil and will hopefully benefit the site and make things easier for me down the road. There should be a few new little things (like a new affiliate and some other stuff) waiting on both sites at the other end of the tunnel, though!

It's my baby's fourth birthday today, and unfortunately due to final projects and other obligations I was unable to finish the move or get any substantial content ready in time. Sadface. Buuut one of those projects happens to be fandom-related, so in lieu of anything else to show you guys I guess you can see this instead. It's from the webcomic Lackadaisy (go read it plz) and has absolutely nothing to do with Pokémon, but as this is "technically not a Pokémon fansite" it still works out. It's an "interactive" voice-acted (all by me) version of one of the extra backstory comics, and it is very silly and not particularly fancy and didn't come out the way I thought it would but oh well! It's done for now. Got more projects to finish.

You can see the project here (requires Flash player). I'll probably make it accessible from the main navigation later when I can figure out what I want to do with it. (And maybe clean it up a little. And maybe make Rocky's voice sound more like it does in my head.)

Ideally the next update will be the announcement of the move and the potential downtime warning, followed by the server move, the new layouts and hopefully something more interesting than bad voice acting. Catch you all later.